First off, what if anything do you remember or have you heard about the WTO protests, and how does it fit or not fit with what you saw in the film and/or read in Murphy & Pfaff?
The WTO Protests take place on the cusp of some of the transitions we’ve talked about in class regarding media – between an older broadcast-centered media environment and a newer “new media”-centered environment. How does the film display that shift, and how do Murphy & Pfaff help us understand that shift?
Where are the points of overlap and where are the points of difference between advocacy around human rights issues and the kind of activism shown in the film?
Murphy and Pfaff focus on the modes of organizing that activists utilized before and during the WTO Protests in Seattle, and the film interviews some of those organizers and shows some of those strategies in action. What does this form of organizing tell us about both the WTO Protests and current activism?
Finally, how can we use the film to dig deeper into an analysis of news (using other theorists like Hartley and Jenkins as well) that goes beyond the simple label of “fake news.”
As always, these prompts… you know the drill.
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murphy_and_pfaff.pdf
