Activist Media: A historical overview (MCOM 3150/DMST 3900)
T TH 2:00-3:50 pm Mass Communications Building 119
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Professor Adrienne Russell adrienne.russell@du.edu
Office hours: Sturm Hall 216 Tues 1-2 or by appointment
In studying 1960s-era Students for a Democratic Society, Todd Gitlin demonstrated how the group’s attempts to attract media attention ended with its giving over the movement message to reporters and editors. Today’s alternative cultures use internet and mobile technologies to access and circulate mainstream information, but also to rapidly exchange information that exists outside mainstream media channels.
Activist movements today with access to digital tools and networks are no longer dependent on newspapers and broadcast networks to represent them, to disseminate their messages. On the contrary, these wired cultures are developing sophisticated public relations strategies. We are, however, just beginning to see how the proliferation of alternative networks of communication, and the content, practices, and identities they facilitate, interact with traditional political and business organizations, as well as with traditional media products and practices. This course focuses on media activism over the past half-century tied to various social movements. We’ll examine the similarities and differences among media strategies with an emphasis on contemporary protest movements and their use of new and old media.
Book
The Alternative Media Handbook by Kate Coyer, Tony Dowmunt, Alan Fountain
This is not in the bookstore. Please buy it somewhere else right away so you have it by the 3rd week of class.
Assignments/Exam
Blog You will receive an invitation via email to join our blog group. Please follow the directions in the email. This is not an extended discussion format as much as it is a graffiti wall and an ongoing exercise in collaborative linking. At least 4 times over the course of the quarter you should contribute to our blog a link and a short review (1 paragraph) of a site, article, example of activist media, art project, news story, or other resource relevant to the reading assignments. Please also post on the blog highlights and links related to your presentation (see below).
Exam
There will be a midterm essay exam.
Presentation
In order to integrate diverse material into the course, each student will be asked to present in class an example of media activism (an ad, a website, a video clip, an article, a video game, organization etc.) and present it, explaining how it exemplifies, problematizes, or in some way helps illuminate an issue or idea that we are discussing in the course. The assignment is intentionally not strictly defined. Here are a few guidelines to consider as you plan your presentation: 1) you must show something in class; 2) be prepared to talk to the class about how your media product is related to a particular topic, issue, or theory; 3) consider preparing some questions for the class to encourage involvement in the analysis of your media product; 4) be prepared to speak for at least 10 minutes and not longer than 20 minutes; 5) be absolutely sure to present on the day on which you signed up to present; 6) come talk to me or send me an email if you need help coming up with or refining an idea.
Evaluation
Attendance/Participation 20 percent
Presentation and Blogging 20 percent
Midterm 30 percent
Final project and prospectus 30 percent
Final Project
For your final project, please choose an activist media organization or an individual artist or media producers of interest. Your assignment is to explore and document the work they do in a paper, article, podcast, or video. The material you include will vary depending on where you want to take the assignment. But here are some guidelines:
1)You need to conduct an interview or interviews with the activist media producers; 2)You might also want to interview fans, supporters, community members related to the media you are focusing on;3)You need to contextualize the work in the broader context of theories of media power and resistance that we are studying in class; 4)Extra credit is given to work that is particularly theoretically rigorous or work that can be of some promotional or other use by the group or person you are focusing on; 5)You may work in pairs or small groups if you feel you can accomplish what you want to more effectively that way.
A project prospectus is due April 15. The project is due the last day of class. The last week of class each student or group of students will present their final project to the class.
Additional Assignments for Graduate Credit
Blog Facilitation
Graduate students taking the course will be asked to act as blog facilities. This means that, in addition to regular course blog assignments, graduate students are required to regularly read blog entries, to comment and add relevant links, and to pose questions in order to keep the blog conversation active and flowing.
Research Presentation
Graduate students will have slightly different requirement for the final projects, to be specified on a case-by-case basis.
