Activist Media

Today’s alternative cultures use internet and mobile technologies to access and circulate mainstream information, but also to exchange rapidly 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 and to disseminate their message. 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 with an emphasis on contemporary protest movements and their use of new and old media tools and strategies. This course satisfies a cultures requirement for emergent digital practices majors and minors.