Academia | writing notes

Teaching New Media & Activism this term

So the term has already started and teaching is on! Since I am fortunate enough to teach topics that excite me I am always energized by the beginning of term. This is good since it masks my stress at getting everything together in time before the first day of class. The latter is more of a goal than a reality but for the most part it seems to go pretty well.

This term I am teaching New Media Society and my activism course, Communication and Social Mobilization, the links are to the syllabi. Check them out and feel free to send me feedback as I am always trying to update my courses in almost every way.

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Mathias Klang

Democracy & Protest

This semester I’m teaching one of my favorite courses on social movements! Teaching is always a tricky thing but it gets easier when what you say in the classroom can be connected with the world around the students. So teaching people about activism and social movements in the current political climate is going to be awesome!

Last weekend was the Women’s March which gathered huge amounts of people all over the world – even in Antartica! The main event was, naturally, in Washington but the sister marches were well attended. While the big marches are spectacular and easy enough to join I am always impressed by the smaller marches. You are very visible in a small march. Think about the town of Onley (Virginia) it has a population of 516 and still 50 people marched! Thats impressive!

Here are some pictures from the Philadelphia march

Donated signs for the oral history project

When introverts march…

March Like a Girl

Tweet Women as Equals

One of the goals of my course is to teach how a group of people with similar ideas form into a more permanent body and become a social movement. The Women’s March is an excellent example of how emotions like anger and concern can become a protest – and there is an ongoing discussion about what happens next. Will this become a movement?

Like I said – teaching is so much more interesting with relevant examples all around us.

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Mathias Klang

On Academic Productivity

How are some people so very productive in academia? I guess most of us will have a pet theory or too. This post from orgtheory.net has a nice list of productive behavior. Lists like this are worth saving an revisiting so thats a good a reason as any to post it here:

Team work: Almost every star I’ve asked works in large groups. If you look at the CV’s, they have tons of co-authors.
Division of Labor: A lot of them have told me that they are very good at assigning tasks. One of them told me he *never* does fund raising. He works with another prof who in a medical school who has access to funds.
Shamelessness: Most academics sulk over rejections. These folks don’t. Soon as a paper gets rejected, they send it out ASAP.
Recognizing diminishing marginal returns: A paper will improve between first and second drafts. These folks understand that obsession over the 2oth and 21st version is pointless.
Attitude: Sounds corny, but every single one of these folks has an amazing forward looking attitude. They love what they do and they see the future as bright.
Minimizing junk work: Some probably shirk teaching or admin work, but what I have observed is that they are ruthlessly efficient. They reuse course materials, borrow syllabi, and use teaching to deepen their knowledge of a topic.
Recognizing the randomness of reviews: Most people complain about the randomness of reviewers. The star publishers draw the logical conclusion. If you can get random negatives, you get random positives.So just keep submitting until it you randomly pull positive reviews.

Bottom line: Sure, some people are geniuses, but a lot of productive people simply very good at time management and they don’t let the little things get to them.

The part about junk work is the part I take most issue with. I get that shirking teaching and admin free’s up more time for writing but it also does create a bad sense of faculty and collaboration. It also means that other faculty have to take up the slack. I don’t mean that admin should become or take over your life but that’s a far distance from shirking.

Posted on January 6, 2017 by Mathias Klang

How does a white supremacist get invited?

Texas A&M university allowed a white supremacist to hold a meeting “a packed room of about 400 people at the Texas A&M University Memorial Student Center.” His views are racist, with misogyny and fat shaming thrown in for good measure. Now I understand that some campus grounds are public spaces and therefore universities cannot prevent people from speaking – but really this person gets to use the facilities, the room? The Chronicle of Higher Education reports

The university’s president, Michael K. Young, said last week that while he found Mr. Spencer’s views “abhorrent,” and that no one from the university had invited him, A&M had to allow him to speak because of the university’s commitment to free speech.

Mr. Spencer was invited to speak at A&M by Preston Wiginton, a white supremacist who briefly attended the university a decade ago.

How is this even possible? Would Texas A&M allow anybody to use their facilities just for this flimsy connection? So if I wanted to use the room to sell snake oil all I need to do is to get invited by anyone “who briefly attended the university a decade ago”?

The university president did organize a competing event “to show the university’s opposition to such divisive rhetoric” and he also said that the white supremacist message had “no place in civilized dialogue and conversation.” and that “It’s beneath contempt.”

But the question remains – how can an invitation like this stand? At what point doesn’t the university just stop the event that hasn’t been organized and officially sanctioned?

Posted on December 7, 2016 by Mathias Klang

Aldous Huxley on Technodictators

I like this – but I don’t believe that technology is neutral since it is created, embedded, and used in a setting.

“All technology is in itself morally neutral. These are just powers which can either be used well or ill, it’s the same thing with atomic energy. We can either use it to blow ourselves up, or we can use it as a substitute for the coal and the oil which are running out.” -Aldous Huxley

Posted on October 31, 2016 by Mathias Klang

A decade of Web 2.0

I am a big fan of the online journal First Monday so its always a thrill when I have an article published with them. This time it’s even more fun since it’s a special issue A decade of Web 2.0 — Reflections, critical perspectives, and beyond

In 2008, First Monday published a special issue entitled “Critical perspectives on Web 2.0” — bringing together a diverse group of scholars to “expose, explore and explain the ideological meanings and the social, political, and ethical implications of Web 2.0” This special issue examines many concerns that have evolved over time with the greater use and abuse of the Web and its incredible integration into global society.

The list of articles is really cool

Preface: A decade of Web 2.0 – Reflections, critical perspectives, and beyond by Michael Zimmer and Anna Lauren Hoffmann
Web 2.0 user knowledge and the limits of individual and collective power by Nicholas Proferes
Many (to platform) to many: Web 2.0 application infrastructures by Jack Jamieson
Constructing and enforcing “authentic” identity online: Facebook, real names, and non-normative identities by Oliver L. Haimson and Anna Lauren Hoffmann
Rethinking social change: The promises of Web 2.0 for the marginalized by David Nemer
The domestication of online activism by Mathias Klang & Nora Madison
The rise of speculative devices: Hooking up with the bots of Ashley Madison by Ben Light
Read only: The persistence of lurking in Web 2.0 by Scott Kushner
DIY videos on YouTube: Identity and possibility in the age of algorithms by Christine T. Wolf
Share wars: Sharing, theft, and the everyday production of Web 2.0 on DeviantArt by Dan Perkel
The blogosphere and its problems: Web 2.0 undermining civic Webspaces by Alexander Halavais

Our article on the Domestication of Online Activism has been a long time in the writing process so I am very happy that it’s finally out!

Posted on June 13, 2016 by Mathias Klang

What grading looks like

Posted on May 18, 2016 by Mathias Klang

Using Memes in Course Evals

Today is the last lecture for this semester so, as tradition dictates, this is when I try to sum up the courses, ask for advice on what to change and try to motivate the students to fill in the course evals.

As part of this motivation I rely heavily on meme’s to get this message across. So these are the actual slides I use when discussing the course evaluation with my students. Beginning with the easily forgotten question:

Then its time to go through the material used in the courses. I have a tendency to include a LOT of material aside from the textbooks. I want to see this as providing a wide array of material but I am very wary to listen for the ways in which the amount may just be overwhelming.

Naturally the gradable parts of the course are of great interest to all involved. I am definitely getting rid of attendance since it really just serves no real purpose. Then I need to think of more interesting classroom exercises and alternative grading events. Interpretive dance anyone?

This is followed by a plea for the filling in of course evals. In Sweden course evals never were a big part of my life but here they are such a routinized and integrated part of the system that they need to get done. But they also need to be useful.

One of the problems is that most students are taking several courses and are therefore facing several evals for their courses. Lets face it – nobody wants to fill in evals.

Which brings us up to what motivates people to fill in evals. Its usually emotional…

This is where I try to remind the students what their role in the course was and what they hoped to get out of it.

I also point out there is a reason for asking the questions – I want to develop the courses I enjoy teaching in order to make them better.

But to be able to do this I need to understand what is wrong.

So they are providing me with a valuable resource from which I can develop…

But there are more issues with course evals that we all need to be aware of…
For one thing they are biased in favor of male professors… It also helps to be relatively attractive…

Which is strange because I am good at my job for other reasons but I am judged on things that have nothing to do with my ability to do my job

Oh there is always more…

My employer loves numbers. This is how they think they can see if they (we) are doing a good job and succeeding.

So this is where the students come in… We want them to give their opinions about the course. But do they know what a good course is? Do I? Does anyone? Why did the students take the course? Why did I give the course? Why did the university offer the course?

From my perspective its not really the numbers that are important. I want/need the free text opinions of my students as this may offer me insights into what I can do. But offering insights requires detail. Saying you loved it doesn’t really help.

Nor does saying you hated it…

Also some complaints need to be spelled out. No teacher gets fired for giving too much work. Was it good/bad/pointless and in what ways.

Griping has its place but nobody really cares…

Its all about perspective.

But this is also the last day of class and I am sorry to see them all go. I am looking forward to the upcoming break and to the reading and writing I want to get done.

I am less happy about the fact that the long winter has not exactly been kind to me…

Posted on May 10, 2016 by Mathias Klang

New Hate Speech & Propaganda Course

Next semester I shall be teaching a course that I find very fascinating and I hope will be very exciting. It’s going to be on Hate Speech & Propaganda (syllabus) and will cover a bunch of interesting areas.

The history of propaganda is fascinating and I would like to have expanded this area to include more but cuts had to be made somewhere. For this section I took inspiration from Jessica Nitschke‘s course “Power, Image, and Propaganda in the Ancient World“ and Philip Taylor’s book Munitions of the Mind.

There will be a section on the role of superhero’s in propaganda. Not only the ways in which caped crusaders have been used in war but also the ways in which they are used in peacetime to convey ideological messages. For this I recommend Marc DiPaolo‘s book War, Politics and Superheroes: Ethics and Propaganda in Comics and Film. Naturally there will be a section on the role of wider culture in propaganda and the focus of this may vary depending on what is popular in the media at the time of the course.

Additionally the course will address the rise of marketing and its connections to propaganda. I wanted to show the fantastic Bernay’s documentary The Century of the Self but at over 4 hours this may have been a stretch for the students. Following this I want to look more closely at the marketing of unhealthy products and lifestyles. In this cigarettes are a given but so is the (minimally) less well know issues of tobacco and sugar. For this section I will be relying heavily on the excellent The Cigarette Century by Allan Brandt.

This will be followed by a look at language and propaganda (naturally Orwell’s essay Politics and the English Language will be included) which should hopefully lead the course seamlessly into a discussion on free speech and then look into the areas of hate speech. There is a lot to chose from but the focus this time will be on the Danish Cartoons, Charlie Hebdo & Anti-Immigration. Followed by a look at holocaust denial, homophobia (and related topics) and the limits of hate speech.

The main book will be Jason Stanley‘s How Propaganda Works and I will be adding material to provide other perspectives and to cover hate speech. The syllabus is available and if you do have any comments feel free to contact me or comment.

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Mathias Klang