Social Media for Social Change

About

Social Media for Social Change is a design research project that will investigate how networked technologies and social media may be used to create hybrid public spaces — bridging the physical and the virtual — where civil discourse and meaningful democratic participation are facilitated, organized, and nurtured at a grass-roots level. If communities (and, by proxy, public spaces for civil discourse) are formed around shared values that engender mutual respect and a sense of common cause, then our work must explore how social media and networked technologies can bridge the divide between disparate, multiple, often competing, perspectives in the public sphere.

We propose creating situations in which the implicit limitations and failures of mediated communication are magnified and then purged, thereby providing opportunities for critical awareness and self-reflection capable of transforming the participants’ understanding and practice of civil discourse. Through an iterative process of isolating and emphasizing such communicative limitations, we hope to discover productive configurations of social media and networked technologies in the public sphere. For example, two kiosks in remote public spaces are networked with a two-way video feed without audio and instant messaging software. Pairs of participants are solicited to debate issues of importance specific to their local context via these kiosks using only short-form text and whatever visual language they invent for capture on video. Other audio/video/text configurations using these networked kiosks will also be explored in order to discover gradations of effectiveness. Such issues and sites explored in Philadelphia might include: the epidemic of handgun violence discussed between residents in Center City and North Philadelphia, or perspectives on the proposed casinos on the Delaware waterfront discussed between residents of Fishtown (those closest to the proposed site and those farthest from it), South Philadelphia, and Chinatown.

The design research process will encompass the following:

• Research on historical and contemporary notions of public space and models of democratic participation in civil society.
• Research on the recent history of social media and networked technologies with a focus on how they extend, augment, and supplant physical public spaces and how they affect democratic participation.
• Design and implement structured situations using social media and networked technologies in public spaces to test their effectiveness in promoting civil discourse and democratic participation.

Project Rationale

The connectivity and interactivity engendered by social media and networked technologies are often cited as the catalyst for a quantifiable increase in sociability and community among individuals, and, as a matter of proximity, suggest an expansion of ideas, information, resources, and public discourse that may be synonymous with democratic practices. In particular, the early days of the Web were replete with utopian claims about the liberating and revolutionary power of the medium to bolster new forms of participation in public life, even if the nature of that participation on the surface was radically different from previous models of community. With the increasingly widespread use of mobile phones and handheld computing devices along with the eruption of social networking heralded by second generation Web platforms (so-called Web 2.0), it would seem as if we users of this technology are communicating with each other more than at any other time in human history. Yet, what are we talking about? The medium is only one part of the holistic message; the content of our exchanges and the purposes to which we employ these exchanges matters greatly when performed in the public domain.

Another complicated narrative concerning the loss of genuinely public spaces in civic life intersects this technological one and reminds us that the fate of democratic spaces is no longer just a matter of physical space but also involves the virtual spaces that we create and inhabit via social media and networked technologies. The level of discourse and debate required by civil societies has depended on and flourished in open, accessible, and guaranteed public spaces where the populace can assemble to share and discuss information and ideas. At their best, these town squares and city plazas welcome the full range of citizenry to commune with each other; rich and poor, blue-collar and white-collar, young and old, right and left share a civic space where difference and diversity are inherently of value. Conversely, our virtual spaces tend to coalesce more around people of like minds, the tendency being for individuals to seek out comfortable communities based on shared affinities. The future of civil society will be in part determined by how conventional, physical communities are augmented, re-imagined, and redesigned in the creation of an open, accessible, and guaranteed digital public spaces; and it will be essential to build into this digital terrain a framework that accepts and encourages civil debate, disagreement, and divergent perspectives.

Beyond the specific situations explored and addressed by this project, the results will suggest more generalized models which could be modified and implemented in other contexts and situations. There is great potential to harness the powerful spirit and tools that promote this digital participation and place them further in the service of building civic-minded, socially conscious participation that can effect social change in the world at the local level. To discover effective solutions for these social and technical design problems promises benefits for the University of the Arts community, the future work of the Action Mill, and beyond. It is anticipated that this initial research lab will lay the foundation for a second phase lab in order to produce a more fully realized device, application, or platform for deployment in building hybrid public spaces.

Project Background

The Philadelphia Applied Research Project at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia provides funding that develops new media applications; builds bridges with professional communities; provides practical experience in entrepreneurship and legal issues related to creation and invention; and encourages faculty and students to apply their expertise to problems outside the classroom and The University. The project outlined herein is a collaboration between the Action Mill and faculty and students from College of Media and Communication.

Professor Jeremy Beaudry (Multimedia) is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, educator, and activist from Philadelphia. With a background in both art and architecture, Jeremy works across these disciplines to understand and engage the role of personal, collective, and institutional memory in shaping our experience of physical and virtual spaces. Through online projects, site-based curatorial and creative work, and activism around issues of land use and urban development, he engages a variety of audiences from diverse fields in and out of the academy.

UArts undergraduate student participants are Ona Krass (Multimedia), Hunter Augeri (Multimedia), and Alie Thomer (Industrial Design).

Founded in 2004 by Jethro Heiko (Philadelphia) and Nick Jehlen (Boston), the Action Mill is a consulting team that provides organizational and strategic support for groups that are interested in learning to use direct action campaigns more effectively. Combining experience in community organizing, art, and design, the Action Mill assists organizations in exploring creative approaches to direct action. Through training, materials and direct support, the Action Mill encourages groups to incorporate their message directly into their actions, and to move their actions into common spaces where they are more likely to engage with other communities rather than echoing their message within their own circles. As part of their work, the Action Mill creates and runs its own independent campaigns that provide environments for experimenting with new ways of using technology for organizing.