Social Collaboration in the Context of Political Activism1. Examples of Emergent Political Activism 1.1. Discussion of Smart Mobs 1.1.1. Definition, and how they relate to policitcal collaboration 1.1.2. Strengths/weaknesses, any issues in dealing with or using them 1.2. Wireless Access Bicycles 1.2. Philipines Protests 2. Theoretical Framework To Analyze These Phenomena 2.1. Distributed Cognitions 2.2. Howard Rheingold Analysis 2.2.1. Collective Action and Public Goods (define collective action, why important? define public good, why important concept?); discuss issues of free riders and what motivation people have to work for public goods in the first place 2.2.2. Relationship of these Concepts to the concept of the commons; managing the commons; how as some groups solved their collective dilemma problems? Sociologist Elinor Ostrom argued that a community may be able to manage the common without an external authority by following these guidelines: 2.2.3. How do these concepts help us to understand these phenomena? 2.2.4. Revisit the idea of Smart Mobs, providing some analysis with our newly defined framework 2.2.5. Place to tie in Gerhard's publications... couch potatoes, making all voices heard 3. How do we use these concepts to analyze Dean Space? Does DeanSpace and the Howard Dean organization reflect, use, disregard the guidelines discussed above? 3.1. What tools did Dean Space provide which augment social/political collaboration? How do they tie into the ideas of collective action, public good, the concept of the commons, and smart mobs? 3.2. What additional tools could have been provided? 3.3. What final impact did Dean Space have on the collaboration of its users? Has there been any kind of fallout analysis? 3.4. How did these tools compare to othter tools available at the time?
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