Electronic Civil Disobedience: Theory and Practice

VIS149

SPRING 2008

Room: MANDE 212

Thursday 12:30 to 3:20

Professor: Ricardo Dominguez

Email: rrdominguez@ucsd.edu

Office Hours: Thursdays 4pm to 5pm (CAL IT2/Atkinson Hall 2nd fl - 2129)

 

Class Description:

 Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD) as a theory will be compared with the multiple forms of ECD practice that have emerged since the early 1990's. We will investigate how ECD intersects with earlier definitions of civil disobedience (CD) by Henry David Thoreau to Ghandi. The class will also examine the trajectories of tactical media, digital zapatismo, hacktivism, cyberwar and social netwar that arose at the same time as ECD. Core questions for the class will be: is ECD a useful tactic for contemporary activism and if so how and when; and, to what degree have post 9/11 politics effected the practice of ECD. What new tactics and strategies have emerged with social networking and distributed video models. The readings and examples of ECD practice will only be on-line. Among the E-books on ECD that we will read sections from: The Electronic Disturbance and Electronic Civil Disobedience by Critical Art Ensemble; also, Hackitivism: network_art_activism by Electronic Disturbance Theater; and The Zapatista Social Netwar in Mexico by David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla.

 

Grading Policies

Final Grade Evaluation:

25% Assignments ­ 1 Notebook Diary & One Midterm - 5 page essay (MLA Style).    

50% Attendance and Participation

25% Final Exam - Take home essay - 10 page essay (MLA Style).

 

Attendance:

You will be expected to attend every class. If you have more than 2 unexcused absences, your final grade will drop 1/2 a letter for every additional unexcused absence.  Two unexcused lateness will be considered an absence.

 

Recent, Current or Heading Our Way E-actions, CD actions and related trajectories.

Border Angels

May Day LA Last Year

The Olympic flame shines a different light on two Chinese women
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pride28apr28,1,5888240.story

Chinese Student in U.S. Is Caught in Confrontation
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/us/17student.html

Oil sit-in pushes out Mexico MPs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7350026.stm

In Mexico, obstruction leads to justice
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bloqueo14apr14,1,3507060.story

Twitter messages alerted world
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_8934411?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com

Torching the Olympics
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/04/10/torch/

Protests follow Olympic torch

Images and News of Tibet Riots Seep Onto Web, Despite Chinese AuthoritiesŐ Clampdown
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/images-and-news.html

Cyber risk 'equals 9/11 impact
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7335930.stm

U.S. Spies Want to Find Terrorists in World of Warcraft
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/nations-spies-w.html

Selling Cyberwar
http://airforce.com/achangingworld/?eref=RM_CenturyAhead

Class Structure:

April 3rd- Introduction

 Class Over View.

Watch Ghandi

 
April 10th - Civil Disobedience (CD)  

Read:

Henry David Thoreau - 1849

Civil Disobedience

http://eserver.org/thoreau/civil.html

 
Read:

Mark Shepard - 1990

Civil Disobedience, Nonviolence, and Satyagraha in the Real World

http://www.markshep.com/nonviolence/Myths.html

 
April 17th - Electronic Disturbance

Critical Art Ensemble - 1994
 

Electronic Disturbance (Read Chapters 2, 4 and 6)

http://www.critical-art.net/books/ted/index.html



NO CLASS April 24th - Digital Zapatistas  

Dr. Harry Cleaver - February, 1994

 The Chiapas Uprising and the Future of Class Struggle

http://www.eco.utexas.edu/facstaff/Cleaver/chiapasuprising.html

 
Jason Wehling - March, 1995

 Netwars and Activists: Power on the Internet

http://www.spunk.org/library/comms/sp001518/Netwars.html

 
Sites to Visit: 

Chase Manhattan Memo

Chase Manhattn Bank Urges Zapatista Wipe-Out

EZLN (Zapatistas On-Line)

Zapatistas in Cyberspaces

http://www.radioinsurgente.org

http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/

http://chiapas.indymedia.org



MAY 1
  - Electronic Civil Disobedience  
Critical Art Ensemble - 1995

 Electronic Civil Disobedience (Chapter 1 and 2).

http://www.critical-art.net/books/ecd/index.html

 
MAY 8th  - Digital Zapatistas 2  

Dr. Harry Cleaver - 1998

 A Contribution to the Discussion of Electronic Civil Disobedience

http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/harrycontrib.html

 
Performance Art in a Digital Age - 1998

http://www.thing.net/~rdom/nyu/ECDperformance.doc



MAY 15th
  - Social Netwar


MID TERM DUE ­ 5 Pages.

 
RAND - 1998

Zapatista Social Netwar in Mexico (Chapter 2, 4 and 6)

http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR994/

The Strength of Weak Ties Revisted

 Site to Visit

 Electronic Disturbance Theater

http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/ecd.html



MAY 22
  - Social Netwar 2  

Dr. Dorothy E. Denning - 1999

 Activism, Hacktivism, and Cyberterrorism

http://www.totse.com/en/technology/cyberspace_the_new_frontier/cyberspc.html

  Dr. Jill Lane - 2000

 Digital Zapatistas

http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/DigitalZapatistas.pdf


MAY 29th  - Hacktivism  

Mapping ECD 2001
 

Steal This Modem

A Transparent and Civil Act of Disobedience

http://post.thing.net/node/304

Hight Court Says Online Demonstration is Not Force
http://post.thing.net/node/1370

JUNE 5th  - What Next?

  mobileactive.org

You Tube Actions


FINAL PAPER DUE - JUNE 10th

NEW LINKS - ONLINE ACTIONS OR ANALYSIS DURING OUR CLASS

Border Hacks - Rita Raley

Hacktivism and the Future of Political Participation - Alexandra Whitney Samuel

Virtual Non-Violence - Andrew Calabrese

Resistance Studies Network

'Cyber terrorists'

Toronto ‘hactivists’ benefit from grant



More Suggested Books:  

William Bogard, The Simulation of Surveillance (1996)

 Scott Bukatman, Terminal Identity (1993)

 Dorothy E. Denning, Information Warfare and Security (1999)

 Chris Hables Gray, Postmodern War (1997)

 Tim Jordan, Activism!: Hacktivism and the Future of Society (2002)

 Martha Mccaughey, Cyberactivism (2003)

 Graham Meikle, Future Active (2002)

 Nettime.org, Read Me! Read Me! Read Me! (1999)

 Michael Perelman, Class Warfare In The Information Age (1998)

 Benjamin Shepard, from ACT UP to the WTO (2002)

 Winn Schwartua, Cybershock (2000)

 Adam Wishart and Regula Bochsler, Leaving Reality Behind (2002)

 

___________

 

Online Simulations and Performance: Interview with Ricardo Dominguez

 http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/onlinesimulations.pdf

 

The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest

 http://www.journalofaestheticsandprotest.org/about/index.html

 

Tactical Media Reader

http://www.n5m.org/n5m4/dox/n5m_reader.pdf

 

Emergence of Noopolitik

http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1033/

 

More Suggested Essays

 

 Stefan Wray - 1999

 World Wide Web of Hacktivism

http://switch.sjsu.edu/web/v4n2/stefan/index.html

 

 Dr. Jon McKenzie - 1999

 !nt3rh4ckt!v!ty

http://www.thing.net/~rdom/nyu/interhacktivity.doc

 

 the electrohippies collective occasional paper no.1 - February, 2000

 Client-side Distributed Denial-of-Service

http://www.fraw.org.uk/ehippies/papers/op1.html

 

Hacktivists Stage Virtual Sit-In at WEF Web site 

http://www.alternet.org/story/12374

 

Targeting Diebold with Electronic Civil Disobedience

http://www.why-war.com/features/2003/10/diebold.html

 

Net Activism Tools

http://backspace.com/action