Sunday, October 5, 2014

Activism Activity

Unit Details: Activism
Key concept
Related concept(s)
Global context
Communication
Adaptation/ Innovation
Fairness and Development
Statement of inquiry
Adaptation and innovation in communication contributes fair treatment and development within communities.
Inquiry questions
Factual      — What are the impacts of the different communication systems/tools?
Conceptual— How do communities express themselves using digital tools?
Debatable —To what extent have digital communication tools enhanced fairness?

Work on the tasks in Pairs
Activity one
An international training institute to teach online tactics for human rights campaigners is being set up in the Italian city of Florence.

The first students, starting in the New Year, will be drawn from human rights activists around the world - with the aim of arming them with the latest tools for digital dissent.

a)    
i)             Name FOUR of the online tools that you think the students will be trained to use for digital dissent or activism.
  
ii)           Name TWO ways that governments can use to control access by human rights activists to the online tools.
  
iii)         Describe in detail how TWO of the tools can be used by the human rights activist for human rights abuse campaign.


  
Activity two
Read current article titled,” In Hong Kong’s protests, technology is a battlefield” in

You can also read the article titled, “Hong Kong protesters in cyberwar” in http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/03/opinion/yang-hong-kong/index.html

And respond to the following questions

a)   Why are the university students protesting in Hong Kong?

b)   What digital tools are being used in this protest?

c)   “Facebook didn’t solve everything in the Arab Spring protests and hashtag activism is all too often a feel-good exercise with limited, or no, results.”  This is according to Lokman Tsui, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Support or disagree with the above statement with some evidence from research.

d)   What is the difference between Hong Kong and main land China is terms of the use of technological tools?

Name the different digital tools not permitted to be used in main China and give reasons why? support evidence.

e)   Do you think the protestors will succeed in their protest using digital tools? Why?

f)    What action do you think Main land China will take or has already taken in response to the protest in terms of technology? Support with evidence from other examples.


g)   What lessons can we learn from the use of digital technology in this protest?

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