This course covers the most effective technology-based civic organizing tactics, from the use of Facebook and Twitter to crowd-sourced data collection via mobile phones and creative uses of YouTube for disseminating vital content. It includes case studies of technology-based civic organizing, such as during the 2011 Egyptian uprising. The course also covers the safety risks these technologies present and ways to mitigate those risks.
Other topics covered in the course include: reviewing the historical development of civic organizing tactics before and after the advent of modern communications technology, the strategies (and technologies) used by governments to repress civic movements, specific case studies that demonstrate how movements used a specific technology or tactic, helping civic activists outline overall strategies to use digital technology tools, creative tactics in using multiple digital tools simultaneously, evaluating aspects of the surrounding environment, and communication micro-strategies (such as multimedia strategy, decentralized publishing strategy, crowd-sourced data collection, etc).
