Digital Advocacy for Human Rights: Social Media and Open Source Intelligence

Catalog description

This course examines how digital technologies are transforming human rights advocacy, with primary emphasis on social media campaigning. Students will master hands-on social media platform practices while exploring how open source intelligence (OSINT) methodologies are used to monitor violations and present evidence online through recent case studies. The course prioritizes developing practical social media advocacy and analytic skills, examining how civil society organizations navigate platform policies, content moderation, and political pressures to drive change. Students will analyze how platform policy shifts and content governance changes constrain advocacy strategies, learning to craft campaigns and frame messages for specific audiences. They will analyze cases involving gender, immigration, and trafficking, among others. The OSINT component provides conceptual understanding through contemporary examples including forensic architecture investigations, satellite imagery documentation of mass atrocities, and open source evidence from conflicts like Ukraine. A key component of the course is a research or advocacy project of your choosing. You will develop framing strategies, map relevant networks, and create social media content that demonstrates mastery of digital advocacy techniques. The emergence of these new tools and organizations has produced new ethical dilemmas and reshaped old ones--concerning such fundamental issues as privacy vs. security, the limits of free speech, the trade-off between ethical and pragmatic messaging and fundraising strategies, topics that will be addressed at length in class discussions