While many people use social media in their daily lives, have you ever considered using it to spark a revolution? Join Carleton Connects for Professor Devashree Gupta’s presentation “Meet Me At the Corner of Facebook and Twitter: Social Movements and Protest in the Digital Era.” She will focus on the role that “Internet 2.0” — social media in particular — play in mobilizing activists and staging protests. Using examples, including the Arab Spring uprisings and the “hacktivism” of groups like Anonymous, she will map out some of the different ways in which the internet can play a role in protest, talk about ways in which this relationship between virtual activism and activism in the physical world is evolving, and identify some of the challenges that emerge when protest goes online, wholly or in part. She will be joined by Ed Bice ’88, founder and CEO of Meedan, an online English-Arabic news-sharing forum that played a major role during the Egyptian revolution of 2011. He will provide comments and answer questions during the Q&A.
This program took place on Wednesday, January 30, 2013
About the Speakers
Professor Devashree Gupta teaches in the Department of Political Science. She received her PhD in Government from Cornell University. Her research focuses on issues of nationalism, social movements and protest, and political extremism, with a particular focus on the politics of Britain, Ireland, and South Africa. She has published her work in Mobilization,
PS: Political Science & Politics, Comparative Politics, and Comparative European Politics. She is currently working on a book manuscript that explores the dynamics of radicalization and competition in nationalist movements as well as smaller projects on social movement coalitions as well as the political engagement of diaspora and immigrant communities in Europe. She teaches the introductory class in comparative politics as well as courses on social movements, comparative nationalism, ethnic conflict, religion and politics, and research methods. Prof. Gupta is the coordinator of the international relations track.
Ed Bice ’88 is Meedan’s founding CEO. A co-chair of the U.S.-Palestinian Partnership (UPP) and the Middle East Strategy Group, Ed has represented Meedan at enough global conferences to have tapped out his phones contact list capacity. He fervently believes that the diversity and openness of the internet is the key indicator of human progress. While he resists the label, having helped to guide Meedan’s successful transition to a technology design and development consultancy, Ed is sometimes tagged as a social entrepreneur. Joi Ito included Ed in his 2008 book Freesouls, portraits of 296 people working to build the open web. Ed holds a US patent on hybrid human and machine translation and has been published in national press including the NY Times, New Republic, and Mother Jones, and has been interviewed on national and international radio news programs like NPR, BBC, and CBS. He attended Carleton College where he received a B.A. in philosophy. When he is not editing staff bios and sending emails, Ed folds laundry and cooks with garlic in Woodacre, California.