“Skillful Digital Activism: Designing Strategies for Transformative Social Change” This presentation explores the conceptual frameworks and practical strategies employed in social change campaigns that have utilized digital media as a crucial component of their organizing tool kit. Moving beyond the hazards of superficial social media engagement, or the justly maligned “clicktivism,” to transformative and long term impact, I examine a range of case studies that have worked to develop a “horizontal,” rather than top down, rich media ecology, which networks diverse groups, fosters community, and promotes real change. Whether using virtual reality, interactive documentaries, or DIY tools, projects such as Half the Sky, Lunch Love Community, Food Inc, Triangle Fire Archive, Through the Lens Darkly/Digital Diaspora, VozMob, and #BlackLivesMatter are all pioneering digital tools and strategies in the struggle for social justice. While their philosophies and strategies might be different each campaign mark a shift from a broadcast to a participant focused model where advocacy and engagement are connected. This work was presented at Dublin City University on November 10, 2015 and also an earlier version of this was at the Performance, Protest, and Politics Conference at University College Cork in August 2015. These presentations with part of my Fulbright Research award for 2015-2016. Helen DeMichiel and Patricia Zimmerman, “Documentary as Open Space,” in Brian Winston’s The Documentary Film Book (Palgrave McMillan, 2013) Sasha Constanza-Chock, Out of the Shadows and Into the Streets: Transmedia Organizing and the Immigrant Rights Movement (MIT Press, 2014) Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green, Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in Networked Culture (NYU Press, 2013) Deborah Willis (ed.), Picturing Us: African American Identity in Photography (The New Press, 1996).

1. Skillful Digital Activism:
Cultivating Media Ecologies for
Transformative Social Change
Vicki
Callahan
USC,
Division
of
Media
Arts
+
Prac;ce
vcallahan@cinema.usc.edu

2. “
Skillful
Digital
Ac;vism”
is
Not
Utopian
Binocular
Menagerie,
Leslie
Thornton,
May
2014

3. Nor Dystopian
National Security Agency (NSA) Data Storage Facility,
Bluffdale, Utah

4. The Dangers of “Clicktivism” and “Slacktivism”
• Micha White “Clicktivism is
Ruining Left Activism” Guardian,
August 12, 2010.
• Malcolm Gladwell, “Small
Change: Why the Revolution
Will Not be Tweeted” New
Yorker October 4, 2010.
• Josh Kron and J. David
Goodman, “Online, a Distant
Conflict Soars to Topic No. 1”
New York Times, March 8,
2012.

5. “Skillful” Digital Activism
Key elements for skillful activism:
1) Robust media ecology
Mixed media environment, connective and is
generative
2) Employ Social Media – tools for connecting,
sharing, and changing (Twitter, Instagram,
Facebook, Youtube, Vimeo, Google toolbox,
websites (Blogger, Tumblr). Not commercial
generally.
3) Transmedia – cross-platform strategy and can
include print, live performance, audio, video,
online (may or may not include social media but
often does)
4) Co-creators: the people formally known as
“the audience,” although authorship boundaries
vary
Mir
Hossein
Mousavi
speaks
to
elec;on
protestors
in
Tehran,
June
2009

6. “By Any Media Necessary”*
• Objectives + Goals
1. Awareness
2. Dialogue
3. Archive/Preserve
4. Participatory Culture/
Community
5. Organize
Objectives are related but
often distinct from Outcomes:
what does change look like?
• Methods + Strategies
1. Broadcast
2. Interactive
3. Immersive
4. Speculative Fiction
5. Distributed Authorship,
Co-creation, Collaboration
6. Transmedia
• From Sasha Costanza-Chock’s , Out of the Shadows and Into the Streets:
Transmedia Organizing and the Immigrant Rights Movement (MIT Press, 2014)

7. Awareness: Broadcast/Transmedia
Food, Inc. Participant Media + Take Part
hOp://www.takepart.com/foodinc
Food
Inc,
Robert
Kenner,
2008

8.
Participant Media/Take Part

9. Awareness: Transmedia
Global Women’s Rights/”Movement”
Half the Sky, Maro Chermayeff
(from book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn)
http://www.halftheskymovement.org/

10. Objectives: Awareness, Behavior/Policy Change
• Awareness both in
US and Globally
• Education and
behavioral
changes on issues
of violence,
reproductive
rights, trafficking,
economic/personal
empowerment
• “nurture” policy
changes
Edna
Adan,
ac;vist,
strategies
for
educa;on
on
issue
of
female
genital
mu;la;on

11. Media Ecology
• Book
• Website with rich media for
both US and global context.
Media from local communities/
NGO as well as “celebrities,”
policy makers, activists in West
• Documentary Film (VOD, PBS)
• Facebook game and mobile
games targeted to issues and
local communities.
• Global Engagement initiatives
with NGO educational videos
(free download) and education
guides

12. Outcomes
• $5 million raised for
organizations partnering
with Half the Sky
• 1.1 million participants in
Facebook game
• 30+ NGO partners
• 1500 screenings on
campus and communities
with discussion groups
• US and Global
Educational workshops

13. Awareness: Immersive/Virtual Reality
Project Syria, 2104 and Hunger in LA, 2012, Nonny de la Peña

15. Dialogue: Transmedia
“The Open Space Documentary”
Lunch, Love, Community, Helen De Michiel (2010- present)
http://www.lunchlovecommunity.org

16. Objectives
• Awareness of
Berkeley School
food program
• Food Justice issues,
especially with
regard to schools
and children
• Community dialogue
through “media
socials”
• Policy InterventionLUNCH
LOVE
COMMUNITY,
Helen
De
Michiel

17. Media Ecology
• Website
• Short films on site and
YouTube
• “Media Socials”
• De Michiel writings and
presentations on project
and renovations and re-
imagining of
documentary form

18. Outcomes
• Community dialogue
• Grassroots organizing on
food issues
• Re-institution of funding for
school program after city
cut off funds (due to ballot
initiative)
• “Open Space” as
participatory media model,
dialogue, engagement,
rather than “advocacy”
• 12 episode film on dvd for
non-theatrical, educational
market

19. Dialogue: Black Masculinity
Question Bridge (2012-present), Chris Johnson, Hank Willis Thomas,
Bayett Ross Smith, Kamal Sinclair http://questionbridge.com/#

20. Objectives
• Dialogue
• Change perceptions
both within and
outside African
American community
• Show diversity of
experience,
“represent and
redefine black male
identity in US.”
• Archive stories

21. Media Ecology
• Video installation
(museums, festivals,
institutions)
• Online video
• Mobile app (goal of
200K participants,
“living archive of
black male voices”)
• Facebook
• Blueprint
Roundtables
• High School
curriculum

22. Outcomes
• Ongoing project
• How to gauge
awareness and
perceptual shifts?
• Creating alternative
media space

23. Archives: Preserve + Co-creation
Triangle Fire Open Archive (and now Open Museum)
http://rememberthetrianglefire.org/open-archive/

24. Connecting the Past and the Present, the
Personal and the Political
hOp://rememberthetrianglefire.org/open-­‐archive/sash-­‐for-­‐neZe-­‐liebowitz/

25. Archives: Preserve + Co-Creation, Audio
StoryCorps,
http://storycorps.org

26. Proximity of Personal and Political

27. Archive: Preserve + Reclaim Representation
Through a Lens Darkly and Digital Diaspora Roadshow,
Thomas Allen Harris, 2014 http://1world1family.me

28. Objective: Visibility, Perceptual Shifts, +
Community Expression
• Two part strategy:
1. Documentary Film
(Through a Lens…):
Stereotypes/
Received images
and African
American artists’
intervention in
representations of
community
2. Archive and Public
Events: Digital
Diaspora Roadshow
(community outreach)
Through a Lens Darkly
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/through-a-lens-darkly/

29. Media Ecology
• Live events
• Website
• Flickr + Instagram
• Facebook
• Documentary film
(screened on PBS, live
events, and available on
video on demand)
• Lesson Plans on African
American History and
Identity
• Archive both public and
private

30. Digital Diaspora Roadshow
Outcomes:
• Change
the
received
images,
create
new
public
narra;ves
about
the
African
American
experience
•
Create
archive
of
history
previously
not
valued;
provide
opportunity
for
community
to
connect
their
stories,
deepen
community
bonds
• Develop
media
literacy
skills
in
community
as
both
creators
and
as
informed
viewers

31. Participatory Culture: Transmedia/Co-creation
“Mapping
Memories”
hOp://www.mappingmemories.ca

32. My Two Families, Leontine Uwababyeyi

33. Participatory Culture: Speculative Fiction/
Alternate Reality Game
World Without Oil, Ken Eklund and Jane McGonigal, 2007:
http://worldwithoutoil.org/metaabout.htm

34. Organizing: Transmedia, Social Media
Bree Newsome
removing
Confederate Flag
from South Carolina
State Capitol, June 2015
“The Lord is my light and
my salvation, whom shall
I fear?”
Alicia Garza, founder
of #BlackLivesMatter
2015

35. Organizing: “Transmedia Organizing”*
*
Sasha
Costanza-­‐Chock,
Out
of
the
Shadows….
“A
Day
without
an
Immigrant,”
Los
Angeles,
2006

36.
Manual Rodriguez, “silence will never be an option…”

37. Critical Making: The Drift to Praxis
hOps://witness.org/resources/

38. Participatory Culture: “Internet of Things”
(Networked Culture and Smart Objects) ARG
Sherlock
Holmes
and
the
Internet
of
Things,
hOp://sherlockholmes.io
Lance
Weiler,
Nick
Fortugno,
Jorgen
van
der
Sloot

39. Objectives
• Consider
human/
tech
interac;ons,
human
at
center,
not
passive
• Redefine,
reimagine
storytelling
possibili;es
• Media/Tech
Literacy
• Build
Networks
and
Community
with
Art
and
Technology

40. How Story Spread
• MOOC with over 200
participants on Novoed
• Open Global
Collaborative Game
• Organized on Hackpad
• Live events, Beta tests at
Lincoln Center (NYFF) and
at Power to the Pixel (LFF)
• Pilot stage for ongoing
project in 2016,
prototypes developed