Source search report

The most useful search was definitely anything that involved 'The Sierra Club', but also adding in the terms 'rhetoric', 'strategies', and 'fundraising' all were useful. My question has a few angles, looking at both the history of the Club but also at how their site is structured, rhetorically, so using multiple terms in combination with 'The Sierra Club' offered a wide range of sources. A couple sources I found as byproducts of my initial search did give me some new angles to think about, especially a few that are research oriented, and based in scientific methodology. Also, gathering a few sources that negatively discuss the Club spark some curiosity, and will hopefully give me some greater insight into how the Club's methods are perceived, and how successful they are.
The four I have chosen so far I based off of diversity, as my question has a few different angles. I chose one that describes the history of the organization, as well as a book on the 'rebirth' of environmentalism, which has a chapter on the Club and John Muir specifically. These I would like to use for my historical analysis, and how it ties into contemporary focuses of the Club. The most exciting source I found was an article based on a research study conducted on how the Sierra Club uses a 'framing' strategy to increase awareness of important issues. My final source comes from the Club itself, and is actually a grouping of multiple webpages the site has dedicated to its multiple 'Move Beyond Fossil Fuels' campaigns, and I plan to use 3 of the 4 specific pages in my analysis, but may settle on less than that.

Works Cited:

Bevington, Douglas. The Rebirth of Environmentalism: Grassroots Activism from the Spotted Owl to the Polar Bear. Washington, DC: Island, 2009. Print.

"Moving Beyond Fossil Fuels." Sierra Club. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2014.

Parsons, Marion Randall. "The Sierra Club." JSTOR. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2014.

Reber, Bryan H., and Bruce K. Berger. "Framing Analysis of Activist Rhetoric: How The Sierra Club Succeeds or Fails at Creating Salient Messages."Science Direct. Public Relations Review, 1 Feb. 2005. Web. 28 Oct. 2014.

Week 8 Assignment

“How does the Sierra Club use its website to represent their traditional areas of focus, like environmental conservation, while also devoting focus to contemporary issues like fossil fuels and climate change?”

Analysis: 

The home page of the Sierra Club website is headed with a large picture of the Sierra Valley, with the phrase “Explore, Enjoy, and Protect the Planet” in large type next to the Sierra Club logo. This is a great representation of what the club's intentions and purposes are, which has been around for over a 100 years, and was founded on the principle of environmental conservation by its legendary figure head John Muir. Muir was inspired to save and maintain the Sierra Valley which he cherished so much, and so naturally, it makes sense to highlight this classic aspect of the club. But this non-profit organization is one of the largest in the United States, and so has moved beyond focusing on just environmental conservation, but turning focus also to contemporary issues such as climate change and fossil fuels. So, how does the club use the digital presence created by their website to not only communicate their traditional principles, but also to engage in contemporary issues?

While the Sierra Valley picture is a dominant figure upon initial arrival to the site, below the picture is a set of 5 tabs of links to main areas of the site. These are the main links for the site, and the first three tabs follow as such: Move Beyond Fossil Fuels, Preserve our Wild America, and Enjoy the Outdoors. These seem to exemplify the most significant focuses of the Club, and combine the traditional aspects with the modern. In 2011, the Sierra Club launched its 'move beyond coal' campaign, and upon clicking the Move Beyond Fossil Fuels link, the user is taken to a page with extensive information on the topic. This is the first tab, reading from left to right, and the following tab, Preserve our Wild America, focuses on the Club's traditional efforts, and how they are continuing this tradition. We could imagine that this order is intentional, as the fossil fuel campaign represents the contemporary focus, and the preservation tab represents that continued principle of conservation.

The Club has developed its efforts significantly since its conception, and this can be seen in the structure of their website. While it does give focus to traditional principles, the Club has developed into an organization that not only works to raise awareness, but also to create an identity and a lifestyle. To the left of the Sierra Valley picture, there is a roaming tool bar that has links to social media sites. Scrolling just below the picture and main toolbar there are sub-tool bars, such as Act Now, What's Happening, and Go Local. The Club puts extensive effort towards getting people informed, motivated, and engaged, and their site represents this.

Reflection:

Moving forward, my main goal is to gain more perspective into the Club's methods by conducting more extensive research, both explained by the Club's website but also through outside sources. I think a more advanced knowledge of the Club's historical efforts as well as what they are doing today will allow me to more successfully analyze their web page and how it is structured in such a way that relates to my research question.

  

Revised research question

"Is the Sierra Club too focused on oil?"
Overall, I am still favorable towards my intended aim of research. However, Hal responded to my question with a nice revision:
"Why would the Sierra Club choose rhetoric that focuses on fossil fuel consumption?"
This slightly strays away from my original intent, to research into how this focus affects the Club's overall message/appearance. But I like its more acute focus on the particular rhetoric of the Club, and I will most likely find a way to include both of these areas of research.
Anne brought up a reasonable concern: Where are you going to focus your research?
I plan on focusing on the Facebook page and the Club's website, probably both and not just one.
So as I move forward I want to first address the questions Anne brought up:
1. What is the purpose of the Club, and how is this represented online
2. How do they present other topics, such that oil is a main focus
3. How is this a detriment/advancement, and if the former, how does the web design portray this particular rhetoric

I feel that once I have found at least general answers to these questions, I will find myself in a comfortable place with research going forward.

Response to Castells

Castells first details the brief social movement of multiple Arab states, from 2010 called the 'Arab Spring'. He focuses on how digitality played a role in the uprisings, specifically mediating alienation from the respective states, consensus among the population in protest, and the defense of the movement by the international public opinion. Castells uses this example to show how media can play a very important communicative role in social movements. However, he also uses this example to point out that there is a very fine line that movements need to be wary of, and that is of counter violence as a response to military violence. Castells argues that once a movement becomes engaged in a counter-militant agenda, then the movement loses its democratic characteristic and any civil/peaceful weight.
He then transfers the themes of this section into a more abstract sense, focusing on the overall power of digital networks in a social movement. He claims that contemporary social networking engenders a "self communication" in the user, and this overall plays into the horizontal structure of networking and social movements. This is what Castells focuses on throughout this section, on how digital social networks factor into social movements. He claims they play a very important role, and argues that they are necessary, however they are not sufficient for creating/determining social movements. His argument is centered around autonomy of the movement, and how successful it is at occupying urban space; which Castells claims is the most important aim of a social movement.
For me, I instantly thought of Papacharissi's 'virtual sphere', and how that translates to this 'space of autonomy'. Papacharissi's 'public sphere' would seem to be exactly what Castells is going for when he talks of urban space. He may not be as articulate as to what specifications this urban space holds, but nonetheless, it is a public area that is required to inspire social/political change.
I did not find many similarities between Castells argument and Stewart, Smith, and Denton's, however they both argue that digitality and its prevailing social networks are crucial to social movements.

Shaping Research Questions: Part 3

"How does the Sierra Club represent their efforts/actions in an online forum, such as Facebook?"
This paper would involve research into both the organization's offline and online actions, and how the offline is translated into the online forum. It would require sources from inside the organization, and outside, such as scholarly work in the field of environmental activism, etc. This question interests me because it is somewhat broad, in that it asks how the organization shows what it is doing in the real world, and how they represent this action online. An addition to the question could be, do they do this successfully? Is it represented accurately?

"How do ecowatch.com and the Sierra Club website comparatively inform their audience and how do they differ?"
This paper would require research into both websites, analyzing them rhetorically, and thus evoking the similar messages they present and how they present it. It would involve a comparison, which means how they are similar, and how they are unique, which would make for an interesting paper in that they both are aimed at environmental sustainability and protection, presumably. I would need to cite both organizations, do some research into their respective programs, and probably some outside sources on environmental protection/action.

"Is the way the Sierra Club presents itself too narrowly focused on oil?"
This question seems a little too narrow, but it is actually my favorite of the three, because it is focused and yet it is focused enough where I can spend time both on the issue(oil) and how the rhetoric of the organization represents that problem. This paper would require research into both the organization and on the current oil crisis, as well as a rhetorical analysis of either the Facebook page(probably) or the webpage. Sources would need to vary, coming from the organization and outside, scholarly sources on oil and most likely on environmental protection.

Shaping Research Questions: Part Two

"What are the most effective online strategies for mobilizing individuals for social action?"

This is a very interesting question, but it is too broad to focus on for a 5-7 page research paper. However, if narrowed down, it could be shaped into a great question, because it is complex: It is multi-faceted, it requires extensive research, and it needs an argument. If it were to focus on, say, how a specific organization has been successful in relation to others, thus comparatively showing how some strategies are more effective than others, this would result in a great project. 

This is the question I think involves more research. 

"Are children smarter because of the internet?"

First of all, I cringed after reading the word 'smarter'. Secondly, it is a yes no question, which would result in a very short response and not much research needed. This is not a bad question in nature, if  a more specific focus were added it could turn into a very interesting paper. I would first change 'smarter' to 'affected', or 'educated', and focus on how a specific organization or webpage is structured to help educate children/or is detrimental to their learning(misinformed, bias, etc.). It needs to incorporate a research aspect, and thus needs to add an additional component to the question. An example could follow as such, "How certain webpages X, Y, and Z, are educating children, and how we should learn from them" Including the final consequence need not be necessary, but regardless, their should be some kind of additional, specific, information added to the question. 

This is the question I think involves much less research. 

Looking Forward - Class Projects

As of now, I am pretty clear as to what is being asked of for the class project. We will be gradually building and working towards our final goal, and through this method we will be able to incorporate what we discuss and learn in class into our own research. At this point, my only concern is just locating a specific topic/question that will drive my research.

Ekman Response

Ekman's essay researches the 'Darker Side' of digital activism, focusing on extreme right-wing activists in Sweden. After giving a historical background about the movement, Ekman's main goal is to analyze how these groups use digitality to endorse their cause, specifically through Youtube.
I think Ekman's analysis falls right in line with Stewart, Smith, and Denton's perspective, most particularly with the concept of 'transferring perceptions of reality'. This is obviously a key focus for the right-wing extremists in Sweden, as Ekman highlights their showcase of seemingly innocent or 'everyday', as he describes it, activities like hiking or socializing. This is used as a technique to relate with the audience, to make them feel like this is something that would interest them to be doing.
I think Youtube is a great platform for the type of persuasion that Ekman analyzes, because the videos can be personally edited and framed in any way, and then presented on an objective or unbiased format. There are no caution advisories stating that the content is racist or anti-Semitic, it is just presented, and the audience needs to decide how they are to respond to the video with no presumptions.
What I find most fascinating is this idea of transferring perceptions of reality, it seems to me to be the ultimate goal of rhetoricizing. While it does appear very abstract and substantial, changing the reality of a person can be as simple as adjusting the relationship between their personal narrative viewpoint and the world that they act within.

Response to Papacharissi

In The Internet, the Public Sphere, and beyond, Papacharissi examines the concept of a public sphere, and idea created by Habermas (1962), which describes where a community of citizens promote their ideas and opinions. Papacharissi examines the traditional model of the public sphere, and extends this examination to the more recent 'virtual sphere' brought about by communicative technology like the internet. Based off of her findings, Papacharissi then offers a concept for a new virtual sphere, version 2.0, which she writes has potential for coming to be in the future, based off of more contemporary social and political happenings throughout the digital world.
I think the concept of a public sphere is very reasonable, however, I worry that Habermas' "rational accord" requirement is too strong. First, we need a definition of what rationality means. Second, he seems to introduce this to separate public sphere from just mere public space, but it seems to me that you could still have a functioning public sphere without every single member acting rationally, necessarily. It seems to me, that a public sphere would work just fine with members contributing however they would like. I believe the rationality requirement would have to be applied to the structure, in some form of sustained coherence throughout the sphere, regulated by the system in such a way that it doesn't remove or delete comments, only reorganizes them.

Week 5 Reflection

The most influential consequence of these first five weeks has been the awareness brought to me about digital activism. I have never really thought about digital activism, at least, I have never separated it from physical(?) activism. I think that my assumption has always been that there are activist organizations out there, and they use the internet to help promote their cause, but I have never thought about how effective or ineffective these methods are, or how important they are. After becoming aware of the distinction, and beginning to think about what digital activism is, I developed a skeptical bias towards digital activism. I noted in my first assignment that I feel a lack of intimacy in digital activism, and while I still hold this concern to a certain extent, by developing a broader knowledge of what digital activism is, I am beginning to focus on the distinction I noted before. It seems to me that digital activism has a specific cause, to broaden communication, but it also can make a real difference in physical change. For example, one of the websites I chose to rhetorically analyze focused on petition postings where users could sign petitions electronically. Reading through the website I saw not only petitions that moved me, but also that a lot of these petitions have made real difference in policy making and societal perspective. So while up to now we have been focused on developing a sense of what activism and digital activism are, I think moving forward my focus will turn towards the effectiveness and the outcomes that digital activism produces.

Potential Research Organization

My tentative choice is the Sierra Club. I have been following this organization on Facebook for over a year and they are constantly appearing on my news feed with posts or articles or links to webpages, and to me they embody what an effective activist organization should strive to be. They relate directly to my definition of activism, as they are actively trying to promote and direct social/political change in the favor of environmental conservation. I am interested in this organization because I am a supporter of their efforts, I have done a few projects on environmental conservation in the past that relate to their message, and I think they do a great job of conveying information that is directly conducive to their cause. However, I am not an active participant in environmental activism, and I believe through further research into this organization I and the class can become more knowledgeable of contemporary topics and how to take action.

Response to Kavada and Endres/Senda-Cook

Kavada writes about the research of activism across multiple digital platforms. The article focuses primarily on Facebook, MySpace, and Youtube, and how a particular activist group functions within these structures. Kavada identifies the differences in user participation, relative to each site, as well as how effective these platforms are. The research was inspired by critics' challenge against digital activism that it develops great masses of followers, but these followers are weakly committed. Kavada's research shows that while this challenge is a possibility for digital media platforms, they also serve as powerful resources for communal information sharing.
Endres and Senda-Cook write on the importance of place in rhetoric. Focusing on activism, they identify the multiple facets of how place and space play a role in both imagined and real ways. Using multiple specific examples, they argue that place should always be considered when rhetoricizing, as it examples illuminate how important place can make a difference in how successful a movement is and how it is perceived.
I took a point from each article that I found captivating. In Kavada, the notions of 'slacktivism' and 'clicktivism' are introduced, describing those 'so-called' activists who only participate from the arm chair and don't really take much action. Furthermore, Kavada writes that when one is attached to an activist group online, especially on social media communities like Facebook, that an added pressure from their friends and families who will 'see' their activity is bestowed upon the user. This is an important factor that hadn't crossed my mind, and I have not yet figured out if this is helpful for the activist organizations or if it takes away from the true reason behind someone's support, but it is an interesting question to ponder moving forward.
In the Endres/Senda-Cook article, they mentioned how place affects 'co-presence' vs 'mediated experience' of the protestors. How does this translate to digital activism? When analyzing a webpage, it seems that the presence that it creates should take the form of 'place' in this non-physical sense. So moving forward, we can include in our discussion of digital rhetoric, how does the page/organization establish co-presence or mediated experience?