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Rationale

Power Up, Power Down: Digital Technology & Global Citizenship

As preservice teachers in 2020, the world that we learned to navigate as children is not the same world that students are confronted with today. As the world grows more complex, not only in technology but also in access to information, students today are being bombarded by a constant flood of cultural messages, news headlines, and social media options. Cumulatively, this has problematized and reframed the ways that governments and citizens can and do interact with each other using digital technology. In response to this authentic and relevant world problem, our study poses the following guiding question:

How can governments and citizens use digital technology to exercise power?

An interdisciplinary design approach underpins our efforts to facilitate students’ understandings of the nuances of globalization, power, and digital technology. Using the disciplines of social studies, English language arts, and visual arts, this unit is intended to invite grade 10 students to make meaningful and enlightening connections between their lived realities as it relates to technology and social media platforms, through the lenses of history, political science, economics, communications technology, visual arts, and critical literacy. In this process, students will actively interrogate the ways their own beliefs and actions interact with the global and cultural patterns of the past, present, and future. 

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Week 1: Introduction to Digital Technology

What is digital technology? How can it be used to exercise power?

Content Description: This week will introduce concepts such as power and social media to serve as the foundation for discussions throughout the rest of the unit. The teacher should introduce the idea that digital technology can be used for political means, both intentionally and unintentionally. Definitions of power should differentiate hard power from soft power and the ways both may be used by governments and citizens. 

Case Study: 2019-2020 Protests in Lebanon - On the 17th of October, 2019, the Lebanese government announced tax measures to address the growing national economic crisis. Included was a tax on the popular online messaging service, WhatsApp. This resulted in tens of thousands of Lebanese citizens to protest, ultimately leading to strife between the state and citizens. The Internal security forces responded to the peaceful protests with beatings, teargas, rubber bullets, and more. Further, the state began summoning and charging people who had made social media posts criticizing the government. Some were forced to sign pledges to stop criticizing the state. Lebanese citizens continue to use social media as a mechanism for protest by documenting the situation in the country and calling for unity among the people. Social media use continues to play a significant role in the ongoing protests. Civilians and ex-patriots use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and more to communicate their frustrations with the state and to demand change in policy and governance.

Resources:

Mentimeter can be used to create a word cloud related to key terms in this week, such as power and digital technology.

Lebanon Times Instagram post (1). 

Lebanon Times Instagram post (2). 

Connection between music and protests in Lebanon.

Workshop Description: Introduction to Collage

The workshop this week will introduce students to the culminating activity. Arpan Dhaliwal’s example (hyperlink) will be provided as an exemplar. Other professional examples will be shared with students, including:

Hito Steyerl

Tia Halliday (Calgarian Artist)

Ai Wei Wei 

Martha Rosler (collage artist)

*If the teacher is able to invite a local artist like Tia Halliday to speak to students about the technique of collage, this would be the week to do so!

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Week 2: Oppression

How can and does the government use digital technology to exercise power?

Content Description: This week students will define key terms such as ‘oppression’ and ‘surveillance society’ and will further their understandings of governmental usage of technologies, for better and for worse. Kahoot! can be used to define concepts such as oppression and a surveillance society. These terms will be defined as follows:

Oppression: the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner; an act of subjecting one to cruel or unjust impositions or restraints.

Surveillance society: extensive collection, recording, storage, analysis and application of information on individuals and groups in those societies as they go about their lives.

Using the case study below, students will explore the ways digital technology can be used by governments in a technologized world, and the implication of this on us as citizens.

Case Study: Uighur Muslims of China - The Uighurs are a mostly Muslim Turkic ethnicity who regard themselves as culturally and ethnically close to Central Asian nations. The majority live in Xinjiang, where they number about 11 million people. The region's economy has for centuries revolved around agriculture and trade. Towns there such as Kashgar thrived with the growth of the famous Silk Road trading route.Uighur communities are also found in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, and several thousand live in Australia. They have their own language, also called Uighur, though China is accused of forcing those taken to camps in Xinjiang to learn Mandarin. As of 2018, it was estimated that Chinese authorities may have detained hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other ethnic Turkic Muslims, Christians as well as some foreign citizens such as Kazakhstanis, who are being held in these secretive internment camps which are located throughout the region. For more information, consider using this resource.

So how does this case study connect with digital technologies?

In 2017, President Xi Jinping issued a directive that "religions in China must be Chinese in orientation" and "adapt themselves to socialist society". The directive led to a fresh crackdown on religious practice that particularly affected the Uighurs. To intensify this statement, the Chinese government has used digital technologies to scan Uighurs’ digital communications, look for suspect patterns, and also flag religious speech or even a lack of fervour in using Mandarin. Deep-learning systems search in real time through video feeds capturing millions of faces, building an archive that can supposedly help identify suspicious behaviour in order to predict who will become an “unsafe” actor. Actions that can trigger these “computer vision” technologies include dressing in an Islamic fashion and failing to attend nationalistic flag-raising ceremonies. All of these technological systems are brought together in the Ijop, which is constantly learning from the behaviours of the Uighurs it watches. 

A demonstrator wearing a mask painted with the colours of the flag of East Turkestan and a hand bearing the colours of the Chinese flag attends a protest to denounce China's treatment of ethnic Uighur Muslims. | Ozan Kose/AFP.

Individuals and groups all over the world have responded by posting on their social media platforms and in particular one teen from the U.S. Feroz Aziz posted about the situation in China on Tiktok, but soon after she was banned for “breaching content guidelines.” 

 Resources:

Article and link to TikTok

Article: “How the internet first freed and then trapped Uighur Muslims in China”

Article: “China’s hi-tech war on its Muslim minority”

YouTube Video: “China & Uighurs: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)”

Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel by George Orwell.

Workshop Description: Work Time

This workshop will provide students with time to begin working on their collages. The teacher should check-in with each student to ensure they have made a decision about which approach (digital or traditional 2D) they would like to use.

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Week 3: Resistance

How can and do citizens use digital technology to exercise power?

Content Description: This week will explore the variety of ways citizens can use digital technology to exercise power as a form of resistance. This resistance will be illustrated through several historical and contemporary examples across a wide range of digital technologies. Using the tools of critical media studies, students will explore which avenues of resistance are effective and why, and what potential benefits and harms citizens should be aware of when they take up this citizenship work online. 

Case Studies: There are a multitude of applicable case studies for this week. A few options are provided below.

2011 Egyptian Protests - On January 25, 2011, thousands of protestors gather in Egypt to demand the end of president Hosni Mubarak’s 30 years of rule. Social media was critical to organizing protest efforts (“We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world”). This case study exemplifies the power citizens can exercise via digital technology. The exemplar by Arpan Dhaliwal can be used to illustrate this case study. 

Black Lives Matter Protests - Black Lives Matter protests around the world have led to a flood of powerful images flooding social media showcasing individuals’ participation in these resistance efforts. However, there has been concern about the ability of law enforcement to track these protestors down using these images. This contemporary case study illustrates the increased risks to citizens exercising power via digital technology. The tone and context of this resistance in America could be analyzed using Childish Gambino’s “This is America” music video as a text.

#IdleNoMore Movement - This is an Indigenous movement that started in November 2012 among Treaty people in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Members of this movement used social media to organize protests against the Canadian government’s dismantling of environmental protection laws. This timeline of the movement illustrates the great strides these citizens have taken to show resistance in Canada. *The teacher may also wish to use the example of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Canada as an issue that many have utilized digital technology (especially documentary film) in order to resist and raise awareness.

Resources:

The Square - a 2013 Egyptian-American film depicting Egyptian efforts that culminated in a revolution in Tahrir Square on January 25, 2011. Available on Netflix.

Zahra’s Paradise by Amir Khalil - graphic novel of a mother who uses blogging to keep the memory of her son, a protestor who went missing in the aftermath of Iran's fraudulent elections of 2009, alive.

Viral TikToks as forms of protest that raise awareness:

MMIWG: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSQdRj7h/ 

Black Lives Matter: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSQdBkDB/

Workshop Description: Self-reflection Session

This workshop will provide formative feedback for students as they continue to progress through their collage work. This can be done through a formal structure where the teacher first provides a set of self reflective to be completed by students individually. Suggested self reflection questions include:

What is my collage intended to say?

Does my choice in medium (i.e. digital or traditional 2D) contribute to the narrative I am constructing?

What has been my source of inspiration as I have created this collage?

Has your collage taken an unexpected turn as we have progressed through the weeks of this study? 

The feedback gathered from this workshop will be helpful for students as they create their final artist rationales.

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Week 4: Harmony

What future can we imagine where governments and citizens are exercising their power together via digital technology? 

Content Description: This week we will explore the future of citizen-government interactions through digital technology to assess the ways previous governments and citizens have created harmonious relationships using technology to protect against corruption. We will also speculate about the future of technology in society and discuss ways to stabilize this precarious balance of power moving forward. How can we involve ourselves in the creation of better societies, and how might this happen?  

Case Studies: 

Estonia: in the troubled history of Estonia, we see a small Baltic nation struggling to keep itself free in the midst of a successive wave of occupations by stronger foreign powers. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, however, Estonia has rebuilt their government from the ground up to almost eliminate the pains of bureaucracy and use digital technology to protect and promote the freedom of its citizens, emphasizing transparency, and holding the government accountable in unprecedented ways. 

Accessibility to politicians: In the age of social media, politicians have direct access to the citizens they govern and vice versa. What are the benefits and risks of this new reality? How do these direct channels of communication impact the democratic process? As individuals such as Jagmeet Singh and Donald Trump increasingly use digital media to connect with supporters, is this a path to increased accountability or increased partisanship?

Looking to the future: utopia or dystopia? As we imagine how technology will continue to shape politics and society, we finish the week by inviting students to share predictions and hopes for the future. What will need to happen to ensure that power stays in the hands of the people?

Workshop Description: Peer-reflection Session

Following the self reflection period from week #3, the teacher can place the students in small groups (that the teacher should attempt to sit in on, if possible). As a small group, individuals can share their emerging work and gather feedback and brainstormed ideas that may inform their end product. 

The feedback gathered from this workshop will be helpful for students as they create their final artist rationales.

Resources:

New Yorker Article (with audio) 

TED Talk: Anna Piperal on Digital Government

TED Talk: Haley Van Dyck

Documentary: To Breathe as One - Accessible for free on Kanopy (with a library card)

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Week 5: Wrap-Up

Students will use this final week to wrap-up any work on their collages and artist statements. The teacher can plan a gallery walk at the end of the week for students to showcase their work to members of the school community.