Media for Social Change

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This is the syllabus for Multimedia for Social Change

Contents

[edit] Course Description

This course is for students who want to use participatory multimedia as a tool for real social change. From the birth of Indymedia during the Battle of Seattle, to the growth of MoveOn as a significant player in Presidential politics, to the visibility of Twitter in the Iranian election crisis, to LA-based community media projects like Mobile Voices, the appropriation of new media tools and skills by community based organizations and social movements is a key aspect of our rapidly changing times.

In this innovative service-learning course and workshop, students will work with community based organizations in Los Angeles to help develop participatory media projects for social change. Course instructors will help participants find a community partner, either individually or in teams. Participants will work with the community partner to develop and implement a plan for a participatory media project, and will meet in a weekly seminar to share, reflect upon, and workshop their project together with other students.

A set of core texts provides theoretical grounding and knowledge of case studies in participatory media for social change. The course opens with an overview of the history of media and social change, from activist efforts to political campaigns to games for change; it then moves on to study current work in Los Angeles.

There will also be a multimedia laboratory component of the course, based on participant skills and interests and the needs of the projects. Tools and skills may include: content capture with audio, video, and mobile devices; multimedia search, annotation, and archiving; dynamic web ('Web 2.0') tools for distribution and community networking; Free Software; participatory project design; collaborative editing processes, etc. The workshop will make use of the production facilities and Mac-based computer labs at USC's Institute for Multimedia Literacy.

Overall, this course offers students a chance to think through a project in-depth, working from a body of research and a palette of media tools to produce projects appropriate to specific audiences, messages or arguments, and situations. It also gives students a chance to connect their work with 'on the ground' realities.


[edit] Course Instructors

The class will be taught by Sasha Costanza-Chock. Contact me: costanza AT usc.edu, or by phone: 607 351 5559.

Sorry

[edit] Time & Location

We meet on Thursdays, from 3-6pm (for students taking 4 credits; the first hour is optional for those taking 2 credits), at the Institute for Multimedia Literacy (http://iml.usc.edu). Map to IML: http://tinyurl.com/l4gcqs

[edit] Class Format

  • On the first day, we will do a course overview and introductions, as well as collective revision of the syllabus to refine and plan our themes, texts, and lab sessions.
  • Each week, students are expected to spend time outside of class (1-2 hours for those taking a 2 credit course, 2-3 hours for those taking 4 credits) working with their community based partner to develop their media project.
  • We will have occasional guest speakers.
  • Depending on student interest, we will schedule hands-on multimedia labs.
  • On the last day (or potentially the last two sessions, depending on number of student projects) we will have student presentations.

Most sessions will work like this:

  • review student-selected materials relevant to the day's theme (using zotero) (15mins)
  • discuss assigned texts (30 min)
  • 10 min break
  • workshop student-CBO projects (1hr)
  • hands on labs (1hr)

All readings must be completed prior to class on the day assigned. All reflections, tags and annotations must be online prior to the beginning of each class session.

[edit] Expectations

Seminar participants are expected to:

  • Develop a working relationship with the community partner
  • Work on the shared project, on-site with the community partner, at least once a week
  • Written reflection on the progress of the project, at least once a week
  • Attend all scheduled seminars and labs
  • Participate actively in online collaborative course tools.

[edit] Grading

Grades will be assigned as follows:

  • Weekly reflection: 20%
  • Project Proposal and multimedia presentation: 10%
  • Midterm review by course instructors: 10%
  • Midterm review by community partner: 10%
  • Final Peer Review of colleagues’ projects: 10%
  • Final Project Review by course instructors: 20%
  • Final Project Review by community partner: 20%

[edit] Tools

[edit] Laptops

Students should bring their laptops to seminar meetings. If you do not have a laptop, you can use one of the lab laptops.

[edit] zotero

We will be using a zotero group to create a shared repository of materials relevant to the course. Everyone is expected to install zotero and participate in this process.

[edit] Wiki

This wiki will be the main online organizing tool for course materials, including course notes. The wiki is at http://iml.usc.edu/community/index.php?title=Media_for_Social_Change

[edit] Blog

We'll use a class blog to post weekly reflections about our projects, the readings, and links relevant to each week's theme. The blog is at http://mm4sc.wordpress.com. To login click here: http://mm4sc.wordpress.com/wp-login.php.

[edit] Backchannel (TBD)

During the seminar portion of the class, depending on student interest, everyone will have the opportunity to participate in a public chat room that is projected in the room. The backchannel may be used for asking questions, generating additional discussion, posting links and images, offering comments or critiques, Google-jockeying or simply notetaking. Each student is responsible for acting as notetaker during one session, and synthesizing and adding the notes for that session to the wiki.


[edit] Class Projects

[edit] Weekly Reflection

Students will be expected to reflect on the progress of their project each week. Reflections may be written or recorded in a medium of the student's choosing, and may be posted anywhere online as long as links are added to the course wiki. Please post reflections or links to them on our blog at http://mm4sc.wordpress.com. To login click here: http://mm4sc.wordpress.com/wp-login.php.

[edit] Project Proposal With Multimedia Presentation

Each student or collaborative group will present their project proposal to the class with a formal, 20-minute media-rich demonstration one third of the way through the semester. Students will be coached on effective media presentation formats, and should take seriously the idea that multimedia literacy includes the ability to explain and demonstrate a project idea to a group with clarity and sophistication. Students will also submit the project plan in written format.

[edit] Midterm review by course instructors

Halfway through the semester course instructors will review student engagement with the class and the participatory process.

[edit] Midterm review by community partner

Halfway through the semester the community partners will review student engagement with their multimedia project.

[edit] Final Project

This is a project-based class. Each student will collaborate on one multimedia final project, which will include moving from the proposal phase to the completed project. All projects will be gauged by a set of criteria and parameters that include (a) attention to a project’s conceptual core, (b) the quality of research and choice of research methodology, (c) the relationship between form and content, and (d) the project’s creative realization. Course instructors, the community partners, and other students will all have input into the review and grading of the final project.

[edit] Peer Review

All students in the course are expected to respond to each others' work, primarily through in-class discussions and with two formal sets of comments responding to the initial project proposals and the final presentations; these formal comments will be written in class following the presentations.

[edit] Policies

[edit] Fair Use and Citation Guidelines

We assert that all course work is covered under Fair Use, since it’s educational in nature. All projects must include academically-appropriate citations in the form of a Works Cited section which covers all sources, in order to receive a passing grade. The Works Cited is either included within the project or as a separate document, as appropriate to your assignment. The style we use is APA 5th edition and you may refer to these guidelines: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

[edit] Academic Honesty

USC seeks to maintain an optimal learning environment. General principles of academic honesty include the concept of respect for the intellectual property of others, the expectation that individual work will be submitted unless otherwise allowed by an instructor, and the obligations both to protect one’s own academic work from misuse by others as well as to avoid using another’s work as one’s own. All students are expected to understand and abide by these principles. Scampus, the Student Guidebook, contains the Student Conduct Code in Section 11.00, while the recommended sanctions are located in Appendix A: http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/SCAMPUS/gov/. Students will be referred to the Office of Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards for further review, should there be any suspicion of academic dishonesty. The Review process can be found at: http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/SJACS/.

[edit] Statement for Students with Disabilities

Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me (or to TA) as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open 8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.

[edit] Syllabus

[edit] August 27: Introduction

[edit] Introduction and Collaborative Course Map

Today only, class begins at 4pm for all students.

  • 30 min: Introductions & course overview
  • 45 min: mapping exercise: What does each of us bring to the class; what do we want to take away from it?
  • 10 min break
  • 30 min: Hands-on lab: introduction to course tools: wiki, zotero, reflections, (backchannel?)


[edit] September 3: Histories of media activism & meeting with potential project partners

Today we'll discuss various strands of media activism and how they relate to different models of social change. What do we mean by social change? What is a 'theory of social change?' What's the difference between community service and community organizing? What do 'social justice,' 'environmental justice,' and 'economic justice' mean? How about 'media democracy' and 'media justice?'

Following our discussion, we'll meet staff from Community Based Organizations (CBOs) in Los Angeles, who will talk about their work and organizing model and brainstorm potential multimedia projects for students to work on. The organizations include:

  • Koreatown Immigrant Workers' Alliance (KIWA)
  • Institute of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA)
  • Southern California Library
  • Los Angeles Community Action Network (LACAN)
  • Frente Indigena de Organizaciones Binacionales (FIOB)
  • YouthRadio

[edit] lab

  • Zotero
  • Wiki
  • Where to post reflections
  • IML Access registration

[edit] resources

Read:

Browse:

Suggested reading:

[edit] reflections

Please spend 20-30min writing / creating your reflections on this week's session, post it and post the link here.

Add links to reflections here.


[edit] September 10: Access

We'll examine the literature on the Digital Divide, Participation Gap, and other ways of framing access inequality to information and communication technologies, with an emphasis on Los Angeles.

[edit] resources

[edit] lab

Web Design Lab #1

[edit] reflections

Post your reflections on the blog at http://mm4sc.wordpress.com. If you prefer to post someplace else, please add a link to your reflection here!

  • Adam Perez[1]
  • Katie Camarda [2]
  • Amanda Ashley [3]
  • Meghan Stettler [4]
  • Claire Villard [5]


[edit] September 17: Grassroots, Alternative, and Community Media

Until very recently, it seemed that most media that most people consumed most of the time was mass, vertical, or one-to-many communication. Products of a handful of people working in the information and entertainment industry were distributed or broadcast via print, radio, or television out to millions. Lately the explosion of social media has made it obvious to all that there's a vast, rich area of media that is produced by everyday people and distributed via the net. People are calling this social media, citizen journalism, grassroots or alternative media, and many-to-many, horizontal, or participatory communication. There's no question that more of this kind of media is being made than ever before, but we shouldn't let this fact blind us to the long history of 'the people's media.' This week we'll look at theory and examples both old and new.

[edit] resources

suggested reading

watch

Grassroots videos

[edit] lab

Presentation Tools: VuVox, Prezi, etc.

[edit] reflections

Please post reflections to our blog at http://mm4sc.wordpress.com. To login click here: http://mm4sc.wordpress.com/wp-login.php.

Claire Villard: http://prezi.com/b_5nf3-8gjsm/edit/#50 Adam Perez: [6] Katie Camarda [7] Meghan Stettler {http://prezi.com/p-3dnu7w9ur5/edit/#36}

[edit] September 24: Multimedia Literacies

Our discussion today focuses on the question "What are multimedia literacies, and why do they matter?"

IMPORTANT: Class participants should decide on the community partner they will be working with by this date.

  • During the first hour of class we'll discuss the week's topic, based on the readings.
  • During the second hour, we'll go around the room and report back on our first meetings with community partners. This is a good chance to get a round of input from everyone on each project.
  • During the third hour, we'll have time to work on the project presentation that is due in two weeks (October 8th). The first step will be to have a solid project description and a reasonable work plan for how you'll accomplish the project, but starting to think about the presentation now will help identify the various media resources you'll need to gather.

[edit] resources

read

While this entire white paper is excellent, please feel free to read only the first 24 pages, which outline the new skills needed for active participation as a citizen in a networked world, as well as the key challenges facing educators.

suggested reading

browse

[edit] lab

(Web Design Lab #2 / project presentation lab)

[edit] reflections

[8]Amanda's reflection [9]Katie

Check this out...The Story of Stuff: [10]

[edit] October 1: Video Workshop

This week we'll take most of the class time to do a workshop in the basics of how to shoot and edit video, using IML cameras and Final Cut Pro. We'll interview each other about our projects.

[edit] resources

read

browse

watch

suggested reading

[edit] reflections

[11]Katie

  • Note: we are using IML drives 12 and 14, 3rd partitions, to store footage and video projects.

[edit] October 8: PRESENT PROJECT WORKPLANS

This week each student or team will present a media-rich project plan they've developed with the community partner. You can use prezi or vuvox for your presentation if you like, or powerpoint/impress/ another presentation tool.

  • Each project presentation should be about 15 minutes long, plus 15 minutes for discussion.
  • Your presentation should include media elements from the community partner.
  • include some overview of the community partner's existing use of multimedia
  • discuss the audience that your project is supposed to reach, and how you will reach it
  • describe the project you've agreed upon
  • walk us through the workplan. How are you going to complete the project, step by step?
  • talk about potential challenges or barriers
  • feel free to ask for feedback or suggestions from the class on specific aspects of your project plan

Here are some more questions to help guide your project plan: Project Plan

[edit] reflections & lab

  • This week we will use the lab time to write a reflection that includes: thoughts and comments on each of the class projects; thoughts about your own project and/or revisions based on the peer review & discussion. Post your reflections on the blog at http://mm4sc.wordpress.com.

[edit] October 15: Youth Media

Mass media tend to assume that young people are 'digital natives' who automatically possess new media literacies and production skills. There is some truth to this idea, but the reality is far more complicated. This week we'll discuss research and writing on Digital Youth, as well as examine several projects and organizations that focus on youth media production. Case studies of Youth Media will include video, radio, and web projects.

[edit] resources

read:

watch:

browse:

Link to G20 protest maps:

[edit] lab

  • Project lab: work on partnership project. (Optional: intro to final cut pro OR audio editing with Audacity)

[edit] reflections

Post your reflections on the blog at http://mm4sc.wordpress.com. If you prefer to post someplace else, please add a link to your reflection here!

[edit] October 22: Subcultures

This week we'll discuss the dance of invention and appropriation that flows back and forth between subcultures and the globalized cultural industries. What are the possible intersections of subcultural styles with multimedia service, advocacy, or activist projects?

[edit] resources

read

with a grain of salt

browse

recommended reading

[edit] lab

  • Project lab (optional: Video Remix / Critical Commons)

[edit] reflections

Post reflections to http://mm4sc.wordpress.com or add links to your reflections here!

[edit] October 29: Extended project check-in

About a month into the project, and with about a month to go, we'll spend this entire session discussing the community partnerships in more depth. Workshopping the projects, challenges and obstacles, sharing insights and questions. lab will be time for hands-on project work.

[edit] reflections

Post your reflections on the blog at http://mm4sc.wordpress.com. If you prefer to post someplace else, please add a link to your reflection here!

[edit] November 5: Histories of (Public) Multimedia Art

(Sasha may be at ASA conference. Holly Willis will do this session)

We'll look at histories of (public) multimedia art and explore strategies that multimedia artists have used to engage publics in critique and action.

[edit] resources

read

  • Deutsche, R. (1992). Art and Public Space: Questions of Democracy. Social Text, No. 33 (1992), pp. 34-53. Duke University Press. Link: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466433

browse

[13]

[edit] lab

  • Project lab (optional: Sophie)

[edit] reflections

Post your reflections on the blog at http://mm4sc.wordpress.com. If you prefer to post someplace else, please add a link to your reflection here!

[edit] November 12: Entertainment Education

We'll look at evidence from the now worldwide practice of TV and radio drama for social change, quite popular among health initiatives in developing countries, as well as the critique of this approach and 'participatory development communication.' Also, we'll think about how this area is changing because of the web and mobile phones.

[edit] resources

read

browse

  • Kami, the HIV positive muppet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eXlNn-C8BY http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901020930-353521,00.html

[edit] lab

lab time for working on final presentations.

[edit] reflections

Post your reflections on the blog at http://mm4sc.wordpress.com. If you prefer to post someplace else, please add a link to your reflection here!

[edit] November 19: Games for change

(Guest presentation by susanna ruiz of Take Action Games.) In this session we'll discuss games for change. Simulation, narrative, gameplay, strategies for linking games to action, genres, single and multiplayer, and much more.

[edit] resources

additional

  • For an interesting related topic (machinima) see The French Democracy, and additional screenings from DIY machinima program curated by Paul Marino

[edit] lab

  • Work on partnership project. (Optional: explore various games that have a social change goal, and look at some simple game creation tools).

[edit] reflections

Post your reflections on the blog at http://mm4sc.wordpress.com. If you prefer to post someplace else, please add a link to your reflection here!

[edit] November 26: No class, Thanksgiving

[edit] Th. December 3rd (Final class): Final Project Presentations

Presentations of all projects, and peer review. (Or based on student interest we can move this to exam week to allow more time for project work.)

[edit] reflections

Reflection this week is the peer review of projects. Post your reflections on the blog at http://mm4sc.wordpress.com. If you prefer to post someplace else, please add a link to your reflection here!


[edit] December 4th: Classes End

[edit] Study Days: Sa-Tu, December 5-8

[edit] Exams: W-W, December 9-16 (6 days)

Final Presentations during exam week, or during the final class meeting


[edit] Themes to schedule

On the first day of class we did a participatory interest map of thematic areas, tools and skills to integrate into our class meetings during the semester. The results were:

[edit] Themes

  • Grassroots and community media +7
  • Histories (media activism, performaing arts, marketing for change, case studies) +6
  • Youth media +5
  • Access (class rage gender age participation access and literacy gaps) +4
  • Multimedia literacies +4
  • Games for change +4
  • Subcultures +4
  • Edutainment +4
  • Participatory media +2
  • Mobile +2
  • Copyfight +2
  • Social Change Models +1
  • Marketing +1
  • SNS +1
  • Maps & GIS +0
  • Feminism +0

[edit] Tools & Skills

  • Web design (dreamweaver, basic web design, basic graphic design, adobe suites) +9
  • Sophie +6
  • Video/film +4
  • Presentation +3
  • Collaboration tools (project management, redmine, remote and collaborative tools) +2
  • Mobile +2
  • Games +1
  • Viral +1
  • audio +0
  • research +0
  • business +0



[edit] Resource Pool

Here's a space for an ongoing list of resources useful to the class in general: Resource Pool


[edit] MediaWiki FAQ

[edit] NFP Agencies

Backspace: http://www.backspace.com/

California Emergency Technology Fund: http://cetfund.org/

Community Partners (LA): http://communitypartners.org/

Consider the Collective: http://www.commarts.com/columns/consider-collective.html

Eggplant: http://eggplant.coop/

Design Action: http://designaction.org/

Free Range Studios: http://www.freerangestudios.com/

Healthy City: http://healthycity.org/

Idealist: http://www.idealist.org/

Take Back the Tech: http://www.takebackthetech.net/take-action

The 62: http://the62.org/

Zero Divide: http://zerodivide.org/

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