Week Six

17 March 2011 / Social Media and Social Context

Read chapter six from Hess, and danah boyd’s essay “White flight in networked publics?”

Additional resources include:

Archbishop Flynn’s pastoral letter on racism

Minnesota report

Ramsey County information

Dialogue helps

What is rhetoric?

Talking Together as Christians about Tough Social Issues (ELCA guide)

ELCA Ground Rules for discussion

Catholic Common Ground principles

ELCA Risky Discussions guide

Public Conversations Project dialogue guides

Helpful blogs include: Racialicious, Harlow’s Monkey, PracticingOurFaith.org.

Additional reading that you might enjoy:

Aaron, Charles. “Black like them,” in Utne Reader, March-April 1999, pp. 68-73. Originally printed in Spin Magazine, November 1998.

Bass, D. (1997). Practicing Our Faith. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (Especially the chapter on discernment.)

Nakamura, L. (2002). Cybertypes: Race, ethnicity and identity on the internet. New York: Routledge.

Another useful case study would be to consider the ways in which Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s words were picked up in national media, and then-candidate Barack Obama responded:

A collection of big newspaper responses (that is, the mega media)

Christian Scharen’s discussion of the Obama’s speech and Niebuhr’s theology

Brian McClaren’s study guide on the speech

Jim Wallis and Jimmy Carter on the Obama speech

Interview with Rev. Dr. McClain about the speech

Rhetorical analysis of King’s speech and Obama’s speech

A range of pieces Fernando’sDesk put together on the speech

David Troutt’s op-ed on the speech

A round-robin blog discussion up at TPMCafe

Powerline blog (a conservative blog) comments on the speech both here and here

Rush Limbaugh’s take on the speech

Other conservative reactions to the speech

Left-wing commentary on the speech