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Participatory Politics and the Civic Imagination Spring 2018 Mondays 2:00-4:50Pm ASC 240

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Participatory Politics and the Civic Imagination Spring 2018 Mondays 2:00-4:50Pm ASC 240 TENTATIVE – WORK IN PROGRESS COMM 576: Participatory Politics and the Civic Imagination Spring 2018 Mondays 2:00-4:50pm ASC 240 Contact Information: Henry Jenkins Office: ASC 101C Office hours by appointment. Please contact Jocelyn Kelvin (Professor Jenkins’ assistant) at [email protected]. Please send all inquires regarding office hour appointments to Jocelyn Kelvin and questions regarding the course to Professor Jenkins at [email protected]. Course Description: Civic Media: “Any use of any technology for the purposes of increasing civic engagement and public participation, enabling the exchange of meaningful information, fostering social connectivity, constructing critical perspectives, insuring transparency and accountability, or strengthening citizen agency.” (Jenkins) Participatory Politics: “Interactive, peer-based acts through which individuals and groups seek to exert both voice and influence on issues of public concern. Importantly, these acts are not guided by deference to elites or formal institutions. Examples of participatory political acts include starting a new political group online, writing and disseminating a blog post about a political issue, forwarding a funny political video to one’s social network, or participating in a poetry slam.” (Joe Kahne and Cathy Cohen) Civic Imagination: The capacity to imagine social change, including the ability to envision a better world, the process of change which might achieve it, the shared interests of an imagined/imagining community, one’s own civic agency, the perspectives of others, and for the most oppressed, opportunities for freedom and equality that have not yet been experienced. What can approaches rooted in cultural and media studies contribute to our understanding of political practices and organizations? How might a closer consideration of democratic citizenship contribute to our understanding of core concepts, such as the relationship between publics and audiences, the nature of participation, the power of storytelling, or the implications of remix practices? Over the past few years, political movements, such as Occupy Wall Street, The Tea Party, the DREAM activists, Kony 2012, #blacklivesmatter, the women’s march, and the Arab Spring movements, to cite a few examples, have explored new strategies that rely heavily on networked communication to mobilize their base and increase public awareness. At the same time, new work in political science and communication studies seeks to understand the ways these movements have tapped into the expanded communication capacities of everyday people and the ways that cultural participation might spill over into engagement with civic and political issues. In this class, we will be looking at how scholars have responded to these new movements and the ways that their work is reframing our understanding of the nature of democracy. Often, we think about democracy as grounded in a rationalist discourse and shaped by structures of information, but democracy also has strong cultural roots and is shaped by what Raymond Williams would call “a structure of feeling.” We may ask in the first instance what citizens need to know in order to make wise decisions and, in the second, what it feels like to be an empowered citizen capable of making a difference and sharing common interests with others. Across the trajectory of the course, we will explore a range of other institutions and practices that have similarly contributed to the public awareness, civic engagement, and social connectivity required for a functioning democracy. Course Requirements Contributions to Class Forum on Blackboard (10 Percent) Students will contribute questions and comments to the class forum on Blackboard. Attendance and Participation in Class Discussion (10 Percent) Short Paper 1 (20 Percent) Students will develop a five-page report on a civic or activist organization they feel is making innovative use of civic media. Short Paper 2 (20 Percent) Students will develop a five-page report which traces the political impact of a particular story (from popular culture, folklore, history, religion, etc.) as it becomes a resource or battleground for the civic imagination. Final Paper (40 percent) Students will develop a final project that applies the broad ideas of the course. Students should discuss their project with the instructor early in the semester so we can set an appropriate scale for this project. Students will be ready to give a 10-15 minute presentation on their project in the final weeks of the class. Required Books: ● Eric Gordon and Paul Mihailidis (eds.) Civic Media: Technology/Design/Practice (Cambridge: MIT Press). ● Henry Jenkins, Sangita Shresthova, Liana Gamber-Thompson, Neta Kligler-Vilenchik, and Arely Zimmerman, By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism (New York: New York University Press, 2016). (Available for free download at http://connectedyouth.nyupress.org/details/9781479899982/) ● Marilyn DeLaure and Moritz Fink (ed.) Culture Jamming: Activism and the Art of Cultural Resistance (New York: New York University Press, 2017). All other readings can be found on Blackboard. USC Statement on Academic Integrity: USC seeks to maintain an optimal learning environment. General principles of academic honesty include the concept of respect for the intellectual property of others, the expectation that individual work will be submitted unless otherwise allowed by an instructor, and the obligations both to protect one’s own academic work from misuse by others as well as to avoid using another’s work as one’s own. All students are expected to understand and abide by these principles. SCampus, the Student Guidebook, contains the Student Conduct Code in Section 11.00, while the recommended sanctions are located at http://scampus.usc.edu/university-governance. Students will be referred to the Office of Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards for further review, should there be any suspicion of academic dishonesty. The review process can be found at http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/SJACS. USC School of Journalism Policy on Academic Integrity The following is the USC Annenberg School of Journalism’s policy on academic integrity and repeated in the syllabus for every course in the school: “Since its founding, the USC School of Journalism has maintained a commitment to the highest standards of ethical conduct and academic excellence. Any student found plagiarizing, fabricating, cheating on examinations, and/or purchasing papers or other assignments faces sanctions ranging from an ‘F’ on the assignment to dismissal from the School of Journalism.” All academic integrity violations will be reported to the office of Student Judicial Affairs & Community Standards (SJACS), as per university policy, as well as journalism school administrators.” In addition, it is assumed that the work you submit for this course is work you have produced entirely by yourself, and has not been previously produced by you for submission in another course or Learning Lab, without approval of the instructor. Academic Accommodations/Statement for Students with Disabilities: Any students requesting academic accommodations based on a disability are required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP when adequate documentation is filed. Please be sure the letter is delivered to the professor as early in the semester as possible. DSP is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m.–5 p.m. The office is located in the Student Union room 301 and their phone number is (213) 740-0776. Emergency Preparedness/Course Continuity in a Crisis: In case of a declared emergency if travel to campus is not feasible, USC executive leadership will announce an electronic way for instructors to teach students in their residence halls or homes using a combination of Blackboard, teleconferencing, and other technologies. Laptop Policy : Effective fall 2014, all undergraduate and graduate Annenberg majors and minors will be required to have a PC or Apple laptop that can be used in Annenberg classes. Please refer to the Annenberg Virtual Commons for more information. To connect to USC’s Secure Wireless network, please visit USC’s Information Technology Services website. Stress Management: Students are under a lot of pressure. If you start to feel overwhelmed, it is important that you reach out for help. A good place to start is the USC Student Counseling Services office at 213- 740-7711. The service is confidential, and there is no charge. DAY 1: Monday, January 8 Introduction ● Michael Schudson, Excerpt from The Good Citizen: A History of American Civic Life (Boston: Free Press, 2011). ● Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The First White President,” The Atlantic, October 2017. ● Naomi Klein, Excerpt from No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need (New York: Haymarket, 2017). ● Fred Turner, “The Big Picture: Trump on Twitter,” Public Books, October 16 2017. Screen: A Face in the Crowd (Elia Kazan, 1957) NO CLASS – MLK JR. DAY – Monday, January 15 DAY 2: Monday, January 22 Participatory Politics (Guest Teacher: Sangita Shresthova) ● Joseph Kahne, Ellen Middaugh and Danielle Allen, “Youth, New Media, and Participatory Politics,” in Danielle Allen, From Voice to Influence: Understanding Citizenship in the Digital Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015). ● Elisabeth Soep, “Youth Agency in Public Spheres: Emerging Tactics, Literacies, and Risks,” in Eric Gordon and Paul Mihailidis
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