January 25, 2017

Art21: The Role of Online Archives in Contemporary Art and Activism

From Art21: The Role of Online Archives in Contemporary Art and Activism. “The strategic practices of creating and maintaining an archive—the collecting, organizing, storing, and presenting of documents—are appealing to artists as methods to make sense of today’s constant bombardment of information and images. Whereas trained archivists typically led the production of archives, increasing numbers of artists are assuming this responsibility, particularly within the context of social-documentary photography.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
January 23, 2017

Digital Archive Already Started for Last Weekend Protests

A digital archive has already been started for the protests which took place last Saturday. From the “About Us” page: “The Trump Protest Archive is an entirely self funded digital archiving project, collecting items of material culture from protest events relating to the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump. The Trump Protest Archive was founded by Eric Nolan Gonzaba (left), a PhD candidate in American history at George Mason University.”

New Resources 0
January 20, 2017

The Guardian: Civil rights groups urge Facebook to fix ‘racially biased’ moderation system

The Guardian: Civil rights groups urge Facebook to fix ‘racially biased’ moderation system. “Facebook allows white supremacists to spread violent threats while censoring Black Lives Matter posts and activists of color, according to civil rights groups that called on the technology company to fix its ‘racially biased’ moderation system.”

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January 10, 2017

New Europe: Why study social media in conflict-ridden societies

New Europe: Why study social media in conflict-ridden societies. “…why is it important to study social media in the context of conflict-ridden societies? Social media and networks are transforming the global media landscape by redistributing the power of information and communication among all involved actors, political actors, journalists and citizens. Social media influence political participation and civic engagement in the contemporary complex geopolitical terrain and in this way they (re)shape politics and political discourse. At the same time, political campaigns are based increasingly on social media such as Twitter and Facebook. As a result, all actors strive for online attention and social mediated visibility.”

Research & Opinion 0
January 3, 2017

Professor Deen Freelon: Beyond the Hashtags Twitter data

From Professor Deen Freelon: Beyond the Hashtags Twitter data. “In Appendix A of the public report ‘Beyond the Hashtags: #Ferguson, #Blacklivesmatter, and the Online Struggle for Offline Justice,’ my coauthors and I promised to release our Twitter data publicly in 2017. The time has come to make good on that promise. Unfortunately, Twitter’s Terms of Service restricts users from publishing any Twitter data except tweet IDs. However, these IDs can be programmatically “hydrated,” which recreates the original dataset minus any tweets that have been deleted or removed from public view since the dataset was generated. This blog post contains all the original tweet IDs separated by day along with sample code for hydrating them.”

Tweaks & Updates 0
December 29, 2016

Database of Stalled or Arrested Resource Projects in Canada

Now available: a database of stalled or arrested resource projects in Canada. “Resistance to infrastructure projects — whether they be pipelines, hydro dams, mines or wind turbines — has become commonplace in Canada. But it’s costing us. As part of a four-month investigation, the Financial Post identified as many as 35 projects, worth $129 billion, that have been stalled or cancelled due to opposition from environmental, aboriginal and/or community groups. To better understand the impact, we sent reporters to communities affected by activist opposition, and talked to experts on both sides of the debate about the origins, costs and necessity of activism.”

New Resources 0
November 18, 2016

Washington Post: Police are spending millions of dollars to monitor the social media of protesters and suspects

Washington Post: Police are spending millions of dollars to monitor the social media of protesters and suspects. “Hundreds of local police departments across the United States have collectively spent about $4.75 million on software tools that can monitor the locations of activists at protests or social media hashtags used by suspects, according to new research. The research, by the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit organization focusing on criminal justice issues, aims to take a comprehensive look at the fast-growing phenomenon of social media-monitoring by law enforcement. Using public records, the Brennan Center tracked spending by 151 local law enforcement agencies that have contracted with start-ups that siphon data from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other sites, largely out of the public eye.”

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November 17, 2016

Phys.org: Social media activism is driving corporate agendas

Phys.org: Social media activism is driving corporate agendas. “Close to half the world’s population lives in countries without press freedom, where governments restrict civil activism and individuals have less capacity to exercise their public voice. The rise of digital media allows social activists to address this challenge, providing new mechanisms to influence public policy. There is also evidence that social media activists are influencing corporate agendas.”

Research & Opinion 0
November 17, 2016

Foreign Policy: How Social Media Helps Dictators

Foreign Policy: How Social Media Helps Dictators. “…what is sometimes known as ‘liberation technology’ is not, in fact, making pro-democracy movements more effective. It’s true that we’ve seen more episodes of mass mobilization since the rise of digital communications than we did before. But we should note that the stunning rise of nonviolent resistance came long before the Internet. The technique has enjoyed widespread use since Gandhi popularized the method in the 1930s and 1940s. And in fact, nonviolent resistance has actually become less successful compared to earlier, pre-internet times. Whereas nearly 70 percent of civil resistance campaigns succeeded during the 1990s, only 30 percent have succeeded since 2010. Why might this be?”

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November 16, 2016

TechCrunch: Hustle is the grassroots personalized mass-texting tool we need

From TechCrunch: Hustle is the grassroots personalized mass-texting tool we need . “Hustle is a text-distribution tool that allows organizers to quickly start individual, personalized conversations with huge numbers of supporters. It’s like mail merge for instant messaging. You write automatically customized scripts, upload phone numbers and assign staffers to text swaths of them one at a time in rapid succession. Supporters may reply directly to a real person who can convince them to act. And organizers can track their campaign’s progress.”

New Resources 0
November 8, 2016

First Monday: The winners take it all: A comparative study of Twitter campaigns under pressure

From First Monday: The winners take it all: A comparative study of Twitter campaigns under pressure. “This paper presents a comparative study on two Twitter campaigns that came under pressure when recipients started to engage in the campaigns in unexpected ways. Despite two organizations employing different engagement strategies with users, both campaigns played out in somewhat similar ways. Users with an abundance of retweets tend to be male, holding privileged positions in society, with large networks of followers.” What’s the opposite of a trigger warning – a trigger reassurance? I wish to give a trigger reassurance that these campaigns concern politics in Norway and not the US.

Research & Opinion 0
November 4, 2016

Turkey Blocking Some Social Media?

Looks like Turkey is blocking some social media. “Internet users in Turkey were Friday experiencing severe difficulties accessing social media after the country was plunged into new turbulence by the detention of its main pro-Kurdish leaders, correspondents and a watchdog said. The messaging service WhatsApp was not working while users were also reporting severe problems accessing Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other sites, AFP correspondents and Internet users said.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
November 1, 2016

Kent State Shootings to Get New Digital Archive

The Kent State Shootings will get a new digital archive. “Kent State Shootings: Actions and Reactions, co-directed by Cara Gilgenbach, head of Special Collections and Archives, and Virginia Dressler, digital projects librarian, aims to digitally scan original materials from a variety of collections that are part of University Libraries’ May 4 archive to present a range of reactions to the events surrounding May 4, 1970, which left four students dead and nine students wounded by Ohio Army National Guard troops. Included in the project are faculty collections containing correspondence received from students whose coursework was cut short by the shootings; Kent State administrative records and community reactions, such as those represented in the papers of LeRoy Satrom, mayor of the city of Kent in May 1970; reactions from college students across the country and around the world; and artistic responses to this pivotal moment in United States’ history.”

New Resources 0
October 31, 2016

Bloomberg: How Despots Use Twitter to Hunt Dissidents

Bloomberg: How Despots Use Twitter to Hunt Dissidents. “There’s nothing illegal about selling Twitter data, but it’s uncomfortable for a company that promotes itself as a medium for free speech and protest. Twitter issues regular transparency reports and has gone to court to fight censorship. Dorsey himself marched with Black Lives Matter activists in 2014, regularly tweeting messages of support and appearing at a conference this June wearing a #staywoke T-shirt. But amid Dorsey’s activism, one data user, Chicago monitoring company Geofeedia, was hired by California police departments after pitching its ability to identify civil rights protesters, according to an American Civil Liberties Union report released in September. Twitter, which touts a policy that prohibits third parties from making content available ‘to investigate, track or surveil Twitter’s users or their content,’ cut ties with Geofeedia in October.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0

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