DHM-620 Social Media and Social Change
This course gives an investigation of the role of social networking technologies in creating communities in digital and physical spaces. Students will examine how social networking and peer collaboration technologies have engendered participation in campaigns and movements for social change in the digital information age. Students will thoroughly explore the concept of "social change" itself by identifying the values embedded in dominant cultural narratives of progress and decline. Students will then turn their attention to the ways individuals and groups implement social media technologies to support or forestall social, political, and cultural changes. There will be particular focus on the social media tools that communities use to disseminate and preserve valuable cultural information and knowledge when freedoms of expression are limited by external controls. Students will analyze and apply concepts of network theory to create a project that traces the presence and function of social media in relation to a particular community campaign or movement.