Digital activism. New media, datafication and social movements.

Blended learning

The aim of the course is to discuss the role of digital activism in contemporary public life, civil society and politics. The course will discuss the basic premises of the sociology of social movements, as well as digital sociology within the context of the use of digital media in protest movements, civic initiatives and - in general - in social resistance activities. The classes will introduce topics of technologically mediated communication in social movements, social media activism, hactivism and engaged citizen journalism, as well as recent phenomena of contetious politics, e.g. data activism and analytic activism. The course will draw on recent foreign research literature in digital social movement studies, as well as traditional and canonical readings in the field.

The following issues and research problems will be discussed during the classes: 1. sociological theories of social movements (collective behavior, resource mobilization, political process model, new social movements, relational approaches); 2. concepts of digital media (new media, alternative media, medialization of protest); 3. social mobilization by the use of digital communication technologies; 4. practices and modes of action of hacktivists; 5. engaged citizen journalism; 6. social movements in communication and internet networks, movements with a network structure; 7. logics of conective action, network models of organization; 8. social action in hybrid online/offline space; 9. activism in social media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and other platforms; 10. activism in hybrid media - ways of using the multiplicity of communication channels; 11. citizen marketing, i.e. promoting values in digital space; 12. digital space as a common good and a basis for everyday action and mobilization for protest; 13. infrastructure as a resource for power actors; 14. protests in defence of free access to digital content; 15. analytic activism as the use of digital platforms and dataification technologies; 16. advocacy in digital media; 17. reactive and proactive data activism; 18. online surveillance of social movements and forms of resistance; 19. algorithmization of socio-political life; 20. digital modes of knowledge production in social movements; 21. bottom-up forms of datafication in environmental and climate movements.

Compulsory literature:

19.02. Introduction

5.03. Lievrouw, L. (2012) Media alternatywne i zaangażowanie społeczne. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, s. 189-220.

19.03. Lievrouw, L. (2012) Media alternatywne i zaangażowanie społeczne. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, s. 125-151.

26.03. Castells, M. (2013) Sieci oburzenia i nadziei. Ruchy społeczne w erze Internetu. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, s. 169-176 oraz 209-228.

9.04. Group 1, Facebook: Tsatsou, P. (2018) ‘Social Media and Informal Organisation of Citizen Activism: Lessons From the Use of Facebook in the Sunflower Movement’, Social Media and Society, 4(1), s. 1–12. Group 2, Twitter: Hopke, J. E. (2015) ‘Hashtagging Politics: Transnational Anti-Fracking Movement Twitter Practices’, Social Media and Society, 1(2), s. 1–12. Group 3, Instagram: Molder, A. L. et al. (2021) ‘Framing the Global Youth Climate Movement: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Greta Thunberg’s Moral, Hopeful, and Motivational Framing on Instagram’, International Journal of Press/Politics. Group 4, TikTok: Hautea, S. et al. (2021) ‘Showing They Care (Or Don’t): Affective Publics and Ambivalent Climate Activism on TikTok’, Social Media and Society, 7(2), s. 1–14.

23.04. Brylewska, O., Chałubiński, P. and Stępniowska, K. (2014) ‘ACTA – Źródła protestu’, in Jurczyszyn, Ł. et al. (eds) Obywatele ACTA. Gdańsk: Europejskie Centrum Solidarności, s. 14–39.

14.05. Karpf, D. (2016) Analytic Activism. Digital Listening and the New Political Strategy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, s. 59-92.

28.05. Renzi, A. and Langlois, G. (2015) ‘Data Activism’, in Langlois, G., Redden, J., and Elmer, G. (eds) Compromised Data. From Social Media to Big Data. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, s. 202–225.

11.06. Gutierrez, M. (2018) Data Activism and Social Change. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, s. 49-96.

26.06. Group presentations

Additional literature:

• Bennett, W. L. and Segerberg, A. (2013) The Logic of Connective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Dencik, L., Hintz, A. and Cable, J. (2016) ‘Towards data justice? The ambiguity of anti-surveillance resistance in political activism’, Big Data and Society, 3(2), s. 1-12.

• Earl, J. and Kimport, K. (2011) Digitally Enabled Social Change. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

• Jemielniak, D. and Przegalińska, A. (2020) Społeczeństwo współpracy. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar.

• Jurczyszyn, Ł. et al. (eds) (2014) Obywatele ACTA. Gdańsk: Europejskie Centrum Solidarności.

• Karpf, D. (2016) Analytic Activism. Digital Listening and the New Political Strategy. Oxford: Oxford University Press

• Melgaco, L. and Monaghan, J. (eds) (2018) Protests in the Information Age. Social Movements, Digital Practices and Surveillance. London and New York: Routledge.

• Milan, S. (2015) ‘When Algorithms Shape Collective Action: Social Media and the Dynamics of Cloud Protesting’, Social Media and Society, 1(2), s. 1-10.

• Nunes, R. (2014) Organisation of the Organisationless: The Question of Organisation After Networks. Berlin: PML Books.

• Penney, J. (2017) The Citizen Marketer. Promoting Opinion in the Social Media Age. New York: Oxford University Press.

• Sun, Y. and Huang, V. G. (2021) ‘Embedded data activism: the institutionalization of a grassroots environmental data initiative in China’, Chinese Journal of Communication. Routledge, s. 1-23.

• Treré, E. (2019) Hybrid Media Activism: Ecologies, Imaginaries, Algorithms. London: Routledge.

• Tufekci, Z. (2017) Twitter and Tear Gas. The Power and Fragility of Networked Protests. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.

• Wróblewski, M. and Goszczyński, W. (2020) ‘Konflikty wokół monitoringu jakości powietrza w Polsce. Infrastruktury, standardy i dane’, Studia Socjologiczne, 239(4), s. 155-182.

• Zaród, M. (2017) ‘Hakerzy i kolektywy hakerskie w Polsce. Od operacjonalizacji do laboratoriów i stref wymiany’, Studia Socjologiczne, 1(224), s. 225–252.

K_W01 Is aware of ongoing theoretical and methodological disputes conducted in modern sociology; is reflective and critical of various positions

K_W02 Has in-depth knowledge about social structures and selected social institutions as well as their interrelations

K_W03 Has in-depth knowledge about the types of social ties and mechanisms supporting collective governance

K_W04 Is aware of the importance of a reflective and critical approach to the results of social research, analyses and research procedures

K_W05 Has in-depth knowledge about major international and domestic sociological research pertaining to selected areas of social reality or sub-domains of sociology

K_W06 Has in-depth knowledge of norms and rules governing social structures and institutions

K_W07 Has in-depth knowledge about the functioning and management of various types of organizations

K_W08 Is reflective and critical in interpreting the processes occurring in Polish as well as global society and their consequences for social attitudes and institutions

K_U01 Can critically select information and materials for academic work, using various sources in Polish and a foreign language as well as modern technologies

K_U02 Can independently form and verify judgments about the causes of selected social phenomena

K_U03 Can use theoretical categories and research methods in the description and analysis of social and cultural changes in modern societies, as well as their consequences

K_U04 Can relate an academic text to the problems of social life and its empirical studies

K_U05 Can prepare a presentation of a selected problem or study in Polish and in a foreign language