There is a winter weather advisory through today until 4 am tomorrow. (Click the graphic above to get more weather information.) Our class would be meeting today as the snow increases and the temps fall. I have decided that rather than wait until the campus is perhaps closed at that time, to have our class activities for today done at home and, to some extent, online.
• Read all of Zandt by next class. If you must get it as an eBook to do that, please do, and return any hardcopy books if they arrive later. And be sure to note any issues that come up in the course of doing this: prices, advantages and disadvantages, time frames, alternatives, and anything else that should be considered in a feminist analysis of the educational uses of social media. Take notes!
• Examine this website carefully, investigate all links, notice what gets added to it through this evening (and of course for next week too) and thoughtfully consider it too within a feminist analysis of the educational uses of social media. Take notes!
• Take notes on this whole experience of substituting this work enabled by social media technologies for our face to face class. Consider this our first exercise in the uses of social media for educational purposes! Notice this and think about it all. What's good about it? What's not so good? What resources does it require? Who is accommodated, who is put at a disadvantage and how? How well can this practice accomplish what a face to face f2f meeting would make happen?
• Take all the notes, and write up a paragraph to share with the class next time, analyzing this experience and its meanings for feminist analysis. Then notice what feminist tools, or theories or ideas you used to do this. Make a list of those too. Bring that to class to turn in next Wed, as well as having read all of Zandt.
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Some exercises to do with Zandt and some more writing to bring in for class next Wednesday:
• Notice how many different formats the Zandt book is available in: regular book both hardcover and paper, eBooks for various platforms (for the Kindle, for other devices, and to be read online in what forms?), and audio. What audiences does this assume? What audiences does it add?
• Look at Zandt's website, both appreciatively and critically: what sort of website is it? Who are its audiences? Who pays Zandt for what kinds of work and how? Look at her client list. How is the site "commercialized"? What does that mean? See the Wikipedia on commercialization....
• Consider the social media Zandt addresses. Make a list of all of them and then any more you know about. Put them in order of greater and lesser commercialization. Which are the most commercialized? Which are the least commercialized? Does commercialization promote feminist goals here, or does it alter them for the worst? or can you tell? how would you know?
• Feminists sometimes talk about and critique "commodification." What is that? See the Wikipedia on commodification.... What is the relationship between commercialization and commodification as you understand them addressed by the Wikipedia? Is one better or worse than the other? Are they just different names for the same thing? How can you tell?
• Lots of talk in the media today about "privatization" and feminists also talk about and often critique it. What is privatization? See the Wikpedia on privatization.... What are some relationships you see among commercialization, commodification, and privatization? Where does Zandt's book fit in all this? her website? her clients? What is going on here? Is it good, bad, a mix, which bits are which, and do you care? why or why not?
• After doing all this write up two paragraphs on what you conclude from your explorations, analyses and thoughts here. Do a couple of drafts of what you write, not like a quick journal entry, but more like a formal paper but very very short. You will turn this in for credit next class, and you will tell others in the class about what you wrote and thought.
• For extra credit also read and include in your analysis this additional entry in the Wikipedia on the structural transformation of the public sphere and also this essay on the web by a teacher about "doing Disney." What do each of these have to do with Zandt?
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