SOCIAL MOVEMENTS/DIGITAL REVOLUTIONS

The #Occupy Movement has captured the global imagination much like the events that laid its foundations, the Arab Spring and the Wisconsin Wave. To figure out where this movement came from - i.e. its digital and real-world roots - as well as its potential to remake our world, we are hosting a mega-panel with 4 #OccupyBoston organizers, Robin Jacks, Brian Kwoba, Nadeem Mazen, and Marisa Egerstrom.

A debate has been raging about which came first- the media or the movement. Pundits and Professors have been pondering what role social media has played in movements from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street. At Press Pass TV though, we've always recognized that our media is only as powerful as the actions it provokes. This session will explore the way we've used media online and in community spaces to bring people together for transformational social change.

Presenter: Joanna Marinova & Cara Lisa Powers

Bios coming soon

Location: Wolfard 201

This workshop looks at successful national advocacy organizations and considers four areas of work:

Messaging tactics
Issues of generational shifts
Membership: Cultivating leaders
Membership: Technology utilization

Its recommendations are:

As Occupy Wall Street spread to camps across the country, a network of researchers and mediamakers has developed a shared space for co-research into OWS media tools and practices. This workshop shares early insights from the co-research process, pools knowledge, observations, and practice from multiple camp sites, and presents media and ICT tools and practices - from f2f to p2p - from inside this widespread experiment in direct democracy.

Presenter: Sasha Costanza-Chock

The current economic reality is that most third world social movement can’t afford the latest technology. Often times discarded computers have a useful life in the right hands. The problem is getting the technology into those hands.

Come hear how several local organizations try to address this problem.

Presenter: Roland Fomundam and Charlie Welch

Charlie Welch organizes TecsChange, a Boston-based non-profit organization founded in the 1990s that refurbishes the “newest of the old computers” and get them into the hands of organizers in the third world

Social media and a host of online collaborative tools are making it possible for grassroots groups to self-organize and act in ways that askew centralized, top-down decision-making. How are you using these tools? What are others doing with them? What is working and what isn't? Join in a discussion with others about the potentials and pitfalls of using technology to collaborate, coordinate, and organize.

Presenter: Felicia Sullivan