Course Admin
Don’t forget to schedule your mid-semester check-in. Per the grading scheme, this check in is one of the requirements that needs to be met for A, B, and C grades. These meetings will be short, and we’ll use the time to talk about your literature review topic, as well as your progress in the course in general. Use this link to see availability and schedule a time. Choose a time between 10/15 and 10/29. Once you make an appointment, I’ll email you a Zoom link.
DB Roundup
While the discussion boards cannot truly replace the in-class discussion, this week’s board has come the closest so far. I was heartened to read posts and replies by folks really engaging with the readings, and with each other! It is OK (necessary, even) to disagree, and to voice that disagreement.
Mohammad notes that in terms of social justice issue, social media can help bring “more awareness of the situation and bringing it up to the surface” and Daniel brings this up as well, citing some specifics of the ways social media can amplify a message with “the ability to convey the B.L.M message from different events, NBA took part, NFL, and other famous people sacrificed something in order to support the B.L.M to emphasis the message and seeking for society change.”
Noguosadia offers a critique of social media activism, and the ways the constraints of the platforms impact the message. He says “the worst thing online activism can do is over simplify complex issues (policing, taxation, foreign policy etc…) and then give an overly simple solution,” and how online movements “can often skip dialogues and conversations rather than spark them.”
Several folks brought up other social media movements beyond BLM, with Jhanzaib making connections between the USA and international movements. “The [Me Too] movement was so strong in the US that other countries had their version of the movement. In Japan, their version of the movement is called “With You,” and one reason it may not have been noticed in the US is because their main social media platform is called Line; something rarely used in the US.”
Weekly Readings & Assignment
This week’s readings take us away from social media and into the academy. The goal of this week is to introduce the economic model of academic (scholarly) publishing, why journals are behind paywalls–library or otherwise–and the importance of citation in building a discipline’s cannon, and how something as innocuous seeming as citation can have a huge impact on scholar’s careers. As always, find the readings on the course schedule, and the DB prompt on the forum.
