Practicum #2-Meredith

I started out not really knowing what to do for this project. I didn't know where to look or how to find "social and political activists." My first post was about how the Egyptian protestors have been using twitter and facebook to expose their revolution to the world. There have been a lot of interesting articles lately on what's been going on and I encourage people to follow the political crisis. However, I don't know anything about middle eastern politics and the complications that come with their social and political system so I decided to focus on something different- something close to home.

As we all know, Madison has been in an uproar for the last week over the Walker proposed bill. If you have't recieved e-mails about joining facebook groups or going to protests, well then I don't know where you've been. I have received a number of e-mails from student organizations like the student labor coalition association and ASM encouraging everyone to get out there and protests. After click on the link for the "hands off our teachers" event, I joined the event so I could start posting things. I asked the question most of us UW students want to know: What is going to happen to UW if the bill passes? So far I haven't received a response yet. However, people who have been posting on this event's wall are really heated and the argument is over whether or not Unions are good for the nation. Trevor Schmit is not too popular with the democrats on the site, but unfortunately he makes some good points about the poor economic conditions of Wisconsin. It appears to me that people have been posting on this event all week. I'm going to see if it continues.

I also joined the I heart UW event, which was a march to the capitol on Valentine's Day.

I asked the same question but It doesn't seem to be as active. I'm going to see what happens with that.

The Wisconsin Bill is only a little side study I'm doing. I'm going to immerse my self in the DNC website. So far I have seen some interesting things. The first thing I did was check out the facebook page. I had a hard time figuring out how to comment on things and ask questions. Then I realized you have to like the page before you are allowed to comment on anything. I comment on a post from the Democratic Party which posted something regarding the protesting in Madison. I included a screen shot of this. I asked the question "what does this do to the Universities in Wisconsin?" I'll be checking back to see if I have a response. The DNC website is linked with twitter, flickr, youtube, and a news link. The website for anyone that wants to check it out is: democrats.org I will continue posting on the page and getting to know the site and how the DNC uses twitter, youtube and flickr. I also am going to try to find out if there is a blog of discussion board somewhere. I have found some videos but I'm not done exploring them and their connection to the website.

(the screen shots are of the DNC facebook page and the DNC website. As you can see the banner on the top is a picture of what's going on here in Madison).