Mobilizing Generation 2.0

Ben Rigby and Rock the Vote have put together a book for activists, politicos, and organizers called “Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web 2.0.” It is a how-to guide to help those who want to mobilize using the web, focusing on how organizers can leverage blogging, social network sites, photo/video sharing, mobile phones, wikis, maps and virtual worlds. Interspersed between the directly practical and usable are a handful of “Big Picture” essays which are intended to help organizers put the practical and usable into a broader context. I had the honor of writing one of these based on my talk last year at Personal Democracy Forum. My essay is called “Digital Handshakes in Networked Publics: Why Politicians Must Interact, Not Broadcast.” In short, I outline why it is important the politicians treat the online world as another form of public space where direct outreach and interaction is critical. If you see networked publics as a modern-day street, it only makes sense to login to the street and start shaking hands.

If you’re only looking to read what I’ve written, you can check my essay out here. If you’re an organizer or activist, you might enjoy it better in the context of the whole book.

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10 thoughts on “Mobilizing Generation 2.0

  1. Jon

    Thanks LS. Some very good stuff there. I added this to the links section on the wiki page for the May 22 Computers, Freedom, and Privacy workshop on activism and education using social networks. If any readers of this thread know of other good resources, please add them to the wiki!

  2. Antony Berkman

    Thanks for the recommendation. The book looks great. I read the first few pages, one of which talks about Amnesty International and use of their blog as a tool to encourage real action.

    BlogCatalog has created Bloggers Unite, http://unite.blogcatalog.com which calls on bloggers to blog and act on a specified day about a particular social cause. On May 15th Bloggers are Uniting for Human Rights, an event that Amnesty International reached out to lend their support.

    I can’t wait to read Mobilizing Generation 2.0 to get more insights into how to further engage bloggers to participate.

  3. Ben Rigby

    Thanks for blogging about the book danah. Your essay is a gem of an addition. Also, fyi, my editor told me at one point “maybe you should quote someone other than danah in the social networking chapter.” It was like a danah quote-a-thon prior to that editing round.

    In answer to one of the questions above, some of the resources mentioned in the book are listed here: http://blog.mobilizingyouth.org/book-resources.html – they’re not polished in any sort of way, but maybe useful. I actually have thousands of links on basecamp that my research team collected for doing book research (should have used delicious) – when I can figure out a good way to transfer and annotate them, I’ll put a reference to them on the blog.

    cheers,
    ben rigby

  4. Ben Rigby

    Thanks for blogging about the book danah. Your essay is a gem of an addition. Also, fyi, my editor told me at one point “maybe you should quote someone other than danah in the social networking chapter.” It was like a danah quote-a-thon prior to that editing round.

    In answer to one of the questions above, some of the resources mentioned in the book are listed here: http://blog.mobilizingyouth.org/book-resources.html – they’re not polished in any sort of way, but maybe useful. I actually have thousands of links on basecamp that my research team collected for doing book research (should have used delicious) – when I can figure out a good way to transfer and annotate them, I’ll put a reference to them on the blog.

    cheers,
    ben rigby

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