Data & Social Justice

Dan Phiffer, danphiffer@bennington.edu
Bennington College, Fall 2018
Course Number: DA 2135.01, 4 credits
Time: Monday/Wednesday 6:30-8:20pm
Office Hours: Wednesday 5:30-6:30pm

Course Description

Digital technologies have fundamentally shifted how social justice movements operate. “Organizing without organizations” and “laptop activism” are no longer novel or fringe activities. The social media tools we rely on to gather in public can also be antagonistic toward individual participants. This course explores the digital tools and data archives that inform modern political engagement. We will discuss existing precedents, prototype new software tools, and study our own social media archives to identify risks and possibilities.

Objectives

This class is a about digital organizing and looking at how activism, politics, and society are being reformed by technology. You will learn how to make websites, how to work with data, how to organize a political campaign, and how to think about problems related to our technological society. Along the way we will consider how digital art practices inform these topics.

Expectations and Requirements

• Class attendance and punctuality
• Participation during class discussions and presentations
• Weekly assignments + accompanying blog posts
• Midterm and final project + online documentation

This class is an inclusive and harassment-free space for everyone, with no tolerations of discrimination based on gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or appearance. Please feel free to let me know privately if you have an academic accommodation.

All students are allowed a maximum of two absences. It is worth stressing that because the class covers so much new material, it is very much to your advantage to not miss any classes, if possible.

Evaluation

Final evaluation will be based on the completion of all assignments, blog posts, class participation, quality of work, and attendance.

For homework assignments, it is more important that you put forth effort and attempts to understand and experiment with the material than it is for you to create a 100% successful project (particularly for first-time coders). Everyone gets one free pass for turning in an assignment late, but only one.

For the midterm and final projects, I am more interested in what you choose to do than in what you can do. We will elaborate on these distinctions in class.

Format

The course will cover a number of different themes that intersect with issues of technology, data, political engagement, and social justice. The first half of the course is concerned with the world wide web, and the second half of the course focuses on working with data and mapping.

There is a consistent pattern to the course schedule: first we discuss readings and assignments, then we'll do a technical tutorial, followed by a video or case study. I will screen-record the technical sections of class so that you can refer to them outside of class.

Though we will meet in a lab that has computers, some of you will need to bring your laptop with you to class, as we have more students enrolled than we do workstations.

I can be reached via email at all times, but I am very slow to respond to emails sent over the weekend. If you are in need of a prompt response, please email during the week. I reserve 24 hours to respond, but typically will reply much sooner.

Materials

All readings are either available from public websites or (if not) will be shared with students digitally. Please bring a USB thumb drive with you to each class. I will provide thumb drives for purchase for those of you who need one.

Acknowledgments

This syllabus borrows from other syllabi and has benefited from the generous suggestions of friends and comrades.

• Mimi Onuoha's A Philosophy of Data
• Daniel Shiffman's Open Source Studio
• Morehshin Allahyari's and The Radical Outside
• Thanks to Jessamyn West, Roberto Greco, and Michal Migurski for their suggestions.

Week 1: when are we?

Wednesday 2018-09-05

• Introductions
• Tutorial: command line

Readings

• We’re heading into dark times by Sarah Kendzior
• Black Quantum Futurism by Rasheedah Phillips

Assignment: Follow Sarah Kendzior's advice: write about the present condition. Write on paper, in long hand, but wait until after you’ve watched the Rasheedah Phillips video. Due in class on Monday.

Week 2: what is data?

Monday 2018-09-10

• Discussion
• Tutorial: ssh + scp (take 1)
• Introduction to WordPress (take 1)

Wednesday 2018-09-12

• Tutorial: ssh + scp (take 2)
• Introduction to WordPress (take 2)
• Case study: ACLU Voter

Readings

• Capta and Data by Bethany Anderson
• How We Became Machine Readable by Mimi Onuoha

Assignment: Write about a specific issue you would like to politically engage with, that you feel would benefit from your activism. What is an approach you could use to enact that change? Aim for 500 words.

Week 3: what is software?

Monday 2018-09-17

• Discussion
• Tutorial: HTML + CSS

Wednesday 2018-09-19

• Workshop
• Guest speaker: Ellie Irons

Readings

• Worms, Butterflies and Dandelions by Taeyoon Choi
• It’s not all lightbulbs by W. Patrick McCray

Assignment: Analyze one episode of the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Listen to the live broadcast, weekdays at 10am-noon. Pay attention to audience participation, what are their questions, how well do you think they engage with the subjects being discussed? Call in with a question or comment, if you feel inclined to.

Week 4: political affordances

Monday 2018-09-24

• Discussion
• Tutorial: HTML Forms

Wednesday 2018-09-26

• Tutorial: Mobile Web
• Video: The Gap by Ira Glass

Readings

• Bodies in Alliance and the Politics of the Street by Judith Butler
• Naomi Klein at Harvard

Assignment: Create an online petition that includes a written call to action and a web form soliciting individual signatures. Appeal to your fellow advocates with the promise of moving the needle on your issue. What injustice can you improve together?

Event: Forward Union in NYC Saturday + Sunday

Week 5: seeing and hearing

Monday 2018-10-01

• Discussion
• Reference: images, screencaps, and GIFs

Wednesday 2018-10-03

• Tutorial: audio and video
• Case study: Race, Discipline, and Safety at U.S. Public Schools

Readings

• Not all information wants to be free by Tara Robertson
• How Not to be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File by Hito Steyerl

Assignment: Modify your petition to include a persuasive audio/visual artifact. When you're happy with how it looks and reads, start sharing it with people you might want to organize with. Include at least 3 people who are not fellow classmates. Due Wed 2018-10-10

Week 6: the open internet

Monday 2018-10-08

• Discussion
• Tutorial: git + github

Wednesday 2018-10-10

• Tutorial: DNS + HTTPS
• Midterm workshop

Readings

• Proxy Politics as Social Cybernetics by Wendy Hui Kyong Chun

Assignment: Take what you have created so far this semester, and use it to take action in the most targeted way you can think of. The specific action you take will depend on the issue you're working on. It could be a persuasive letter signed on behalf of a list of names, it could be a telephone campaign, you could organize a direct action (demonstration, sit-in, etc.), you could distribute pamphlets to raise awareness. It's up to you how you want to mobilize the contacts you've collected so far to enact change in the world. Make sure to document as much as you can so you can report back to class. Due Mon 2018-10-15

Week 7: midterms

Monday 2018-10-15

• Midterm presentations

Event: AI Now Symposium Tuesday

Wednesday 2018-10-17

• Midterm presentations

Readings

• The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online by danah boyd

Week 8: transition

Monday 2018-10-22

• No class (long weekend)

Wednesday 2018-10-24

• Discussion
• Midterm presentations (continued)

Readings

• Big Brother's Blind Spot by Joanne McNeil
• Do Not Track Episode 1

Assignment: Data scraping assignment.

Week 9: digital cartography

Monday 2018-10-29

• Discussion
• Tutorial: QGis + Census TIGER/Line

Wednesday 2018-10-31

• Tutorial: Leaflet + GeoJSON
• Case study: What the District!?

Readings

• Weapons of Math Destruction, Chapter 5: "Civilian Casualties" by Cathy O'Neil
• Usenix Keynote by James Mickens

Assignment: Mapping assignment.

Week 10: rows and columns

Monday 2018-11-05

• Discussion
• Tutorial: CSVs + SQLite

Election Day Tuesday

Wednesday 2018-11-07

• No class (plan day)

Readings

• How social media took us from Tahrir Square to Donald Trump by Zeynep Tufekci
• The Moderators by Adrian Chen and Ciaran Cassidy

Week 11: nobody knows you're a dog

Monday 2018-11-12

• Discussion
• Tutorial: social media APIs

Wednesday 2018-11-14

• Tutorial: social media archives
• Video: 7on7 Miranda July + Paul Ford

Readings

• What to Say When the Police Tell You to Stop Filming Them by Robinson Meyer
• In Suggestions for Victorious Bus Boycotters, MLK’s Powerful Turn Toward Nonviolence by Rebecca Onion

Assignment: Create a web-based map based on social media archives. Check out this introduction and these tutorials

Week 12: know your rights

Monday 2018-11-19

• Discussion
• Guest speakers: Gina Kim + Allen Tan

Wednesday 2018-11-21

• No class (Thanksgiving)

Readings

• Machine Bias by Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, Surya Mattu and Lauren Kirchner

Assignment: Propose a final project.

Week 13: public data

Monday 2018-11-26

• Discussion
• Tutorial: Census TIGER/Line

Wednesday 2018-11-28

• Tutorial: @unitedstates
• Video: How I won the lottery by Darius Kazemi

Readings

• From Voicemails to Votes by opengov
• Google risks mega-fine in EU over location 'stalking'

Assignment: Work on your final project.

Week 14: home stretch

Monday 2018-12-03

• Discussion
• Final project workshop

Wednesday 2018-12-05

• Guest speaker: Dhruv Mehrotra

Readings

• The Worst Thing We've Ever Done by Brooke Gladstone
• Biopunk: Subverting Biopolitics by Simone Browne, Heather Dewey-Hagborg and Joerg Blumtritt

Assignment: Work on your final project.

Week 15

Monday 2018-12-10

• Final Projects

Wednesday 2018-12-12

• Final Projects