Panel Member

• In Event: Grassroots Educational Organizing in an Era of Global Capital

Abstract

Kurt Squire (2008, 2011) will investigate the potential of new social media for producing systemic change in education. The possibilities of digital democracy for grassroots educational organizing are illuminated through critical theories of media and situated cognition and the provision of firsthand accounts from recent struggles in Madison, Wisconsin, where thousands occupied the state capital to protest attacks on teachers unions and other public sectors. In this case, new social media—smart phones, email, YouTube, Facebook, and Websites—were used to organize locally and to rally national and international support. As elsewhere, actions in Wisconsin's state capital were supported by corporate leaders, including the Koch brothers. Despite this reality, Squire's commentary reveals social media to have participatory and democratic potential for organizing against corporate governance.

Author

• Kurt D. Squire, University of Wisconsin - Madison