Add an eventSessions at SXSW Interactive 2012 about Politics
Your current filters are…
- Topic: Politics
Friday 9th March 2012
-
Half Day Event-The Americans Elect Lounge
Recharge your batteries and your brain in our lounge, and find out about our lounge's Flash Mob Happy Hours by following us on Twitter (@AmericansElect) and via #sxaelounge.
We'll have charging stations, classic board games like Battleship, Connect Four, and Operation, videos to watch, swag, and a version of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots that we modded with donkey and elephant heads just for SXSW!
And if you happen to see a giant plush elephant and donkey walking around SXSW, they're with us. Like the two parties, they can't agree on anything. Tweet photos and videos of them in action at #donkeyVelephant and you could win your own Limited Edition Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots: Donkey v. Elephant Edition. Only five exist in the world!
More about Americans Elect:We're hosting a national online primary this summer. Any registered voter can participate, and whoever the American people choose will be on the ballot nationwide, right next to the Republican and Democratic candidates.
We're nonpartisan, so it's completely up to you to pick this third option. We're using the internet to empower voters and circumvent the two parties. Together we'll pick a president, not a party. Check us out at www.AmericansElect.org !
-
Political Humor 2.0: Teh Internetz R Leaking
by Carol Hartsell, Alf LaMont, Greg Proops, Sara Benincasa and Rory Albanese
In an election year that is as divisive as any in recent memory, a snarky, slightly jaded and unflinching group of funny folk are taking action and making an impact on the political scene. Learn how the internet empowered comedians and comedy writers and how funny folk are wielding their online prowess to affect some real-world change. Join comedians and staff from The Daily Show, Huffington Post,and Wonkette in an in-depth discussion that may very well save the world!
-
Social Media Sharecropping: Black Tech Adoption
This panel is about the many ways in which modern internet adoption and use mirrors the development of agrarian sharecropping in the South following the Civil War- whereby African Americans provided massive amounts of labor to make other people rich, but could never move beyond basic subsistence living. According to the Pew Internet& American Life Project,as of May 2011, 25% of online African Americans now use Twitter, compared with 9% of such whites. African-American and Latino internet users are each significantly more likely than whites to be Twitter adopters. One out of ten African-American internet users now visit Twitter on a typical day—that is double the rate for Latinos and nearly four times the rate for whites. Pew research has also indicated that Blacks and Latinos are significantly more likely to use mobile devices to text message, use social networking sites, use the internet, watch and record videos, make charitable donation, use email, play games, listen to music, instant message and post multimedia content online. Yet disproportionate consumption of technology among Blacks, does not appear to be translating into wealth building and job creation in a community facing a 16.1 unemployment rate. Techcrunch founder, Michael Arrington caused a minor controversy when CNN’s Soledad O’Brien asked him about Black entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and Arrington replied “I don’t know a single Black entrepreneur.” In 2012, the definition of Digital Divide appears to have shifted from access to technology to how communities of color leverage that technology.
-
Iranian Outlaws: Satire vs. Censorship
by Saman Arbabi and Raina Kumra
Saman Arbabi will use his signature wit to relate how the satirical TV program challenges the oppressive Iranian regime all the while influencing the direction of the country’s political landscape. The program, “Parazit,” has become a runaway hit in Iran despite the gov’s strict censorship practices. The program uses alternate channels of distribution to reach their audience which has driven the program further underground and contributed to its outlaw status and popularity. The show has so completely seeped into the Iranian psyche that the president and his supporters have launched a counter-Parazit program. Saman will give insight into their innovative methods of growing an audience that was previously all but unreachable. At SXSW, he will unveil his latest: "Weapons of Mouse Destruction," the largest global art project against government Internet censorship. Raina Kumra BBG Director of Innovation will open the session with an overview of closed media environments around the world.
Saturday 10th March 2012
-
Social Media in Colombia: An Agent for Change
by Andrés Traslaviña MS Ed and Daniel Medina MBA
The role of social media has been instrumental in the more recent political and economic development of Colombia, especially overcoming a devastating period of civil strife and violence. What inspired people to protest against violence? Colombia’s former Minister of Telecommunications will discuss how social media empowered people to join the war against drug trafficking and defeat the FARC, the guerillas of the revolutionary armed forces of Colombia. We discuss their own experience growing up in a drug-funded violent country known as “narcoterrorism”, which affected every level of society and became the greatest threat to social stability starting in the late 1980s. This caused them and many others to leave the country in search of freedom. The speakers will share their insight about how social media will continue to help decrease poverty levels and increase literacy in marginalized areas in Colombia, thus improving the well-being of people and promoting socio-economic equity.
-
Why Doesn't Congress Grok The Internet?
by Jennifer Hoelzer, Ron Wyden, Jayme White and Rob Pegoraro
As January's SOPA showdown proved, intellectual property and digital fair-use questions no longer amount to a molehill on Capitol Hill. But if that episode revealed that Hollywood needs to reboot its understanding of IP politics, the run-up to it also exposed a frightening degree of ignorance in Congress about the Internet and the digital economy in general--in some cases, members all but bragged about not being familiar with the architecture of the online world. As long as the entertainment industry's interest in protecting its work from infringement collides with tech firms' desire to work free of government interference--and the growing awareness among citizens of the risks of copyright-protection mandates breaking their software or Internet services--these squabbles will continue. But can we at least get a better understanding among our elected representatives of the online machinery they propose to tinker with?
Blogger Rob Pegoraro will lead a discussion with Sen. Ron Wyden (D.-Ore.) about how Congress has approached Internet policy issues in the past, how the SOPA battle might have changed their views and what's likely to happen next.
-
Reporters & Evangelists: Politics of Online News
by Andrew Gruen, Prajwal Ciryam, Mary O'Hara and Shira Toeplitz
How much does ideology matter for online journalists and news sites? People talk about a fractured web of ideological bubbles where liberals go to Daily Kos and conservatives to The Daily Caller. But do more traditional media outlets use ideology as a way to make their brands stand out online? Does taking an ideological position on the Web damage a reporter's credibility? Is selling your ideology a good way to make a living on the internet?This panel assembles an all-star cast of reporters from the BBC, The Guardian, Politico, and even Ohmynews.com in Korea to debate that question. Between them they have written for some of the top online news sites on three continents and have appeared on ABC, CBS, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and FOX. Representing a range of political attitudes and journalistic creeds, the panel will seek to answer: What is the role of ideological journalism in online news? This Future of Journalism Track is sponsored by The Knight Foundation.
-
Social Media and Politics Meet Up
Get together with other social media and politics experts for an hour of brainstorming, idea-buidling, networking, friend-making and career-enhancement. Or, attend this Meet Up to learn more about this segment of the industry -- or if you are looking to hire a social media and politics expert for your campaign.
-
The Wars of Tech
by Steven Levy
It's easy to get caught up with the horse races of Facebook versus Google or Microsoft versus Apple or record labels versus the Internet. But in nearly 30 years of covering technology I find that the major conflicts are those of philosophy, politics and power. You could almost view the past few decades as a spectacular cycle of fantasy novels with the Hacker Spirit as the protagonist and amazing supporting characters including Steve Jobs, Richard Stallman, Bill Gates, Larry Page, Stephen Wolfram, Whitfield Diffie, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg (all of whom I've spent considerable time interviewing.) And as our lives are more intertwined with the giant digital shift, these conflicts are ever more vital. Here's an attempt to deconstruct a revolution--and point to what's ahead.
-
The White House on the Road
by Jose Rico and Giovanni Rodriguez
With the commoditizaion of digital technologies for engagement, organizations are beginning to see the opportunity to go one step further by bridging the gap between the virtual and the physical worlds. Hear how a group inside the White House has launched a digitally-powered program to enable live engagement with Latin-America citizens throughout the US. A key component of the program is a multi-city event series where the White House will send officials to meet, engage, and work with local leaders on a wide range of projects. Featuring key White House staff leading this initiative, “THE WHITE HOUSE – ON THE ROAD” explores what could be the next frontier for interactive – “an intelligent return to the physical world.”
Sunday 11th March 2012
-
All Day Event - The Americans Elect Lounge
Recharge your batteries and your brain in our lounge, and find out about our lounge's Flash Mob Happy Hours by following us on Twitter (@AmericansElect) and via #sxaelounge.
We'll have charging stations, classic board games like Battleship, Connect Four, and Operation, videos to watch, swag, and a version of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots that we modded with donkey and elephant heads just for SXSW!
And if you happen to see a giant plush elephant and donkey walking around SXSW, they're with us. Like the two parties, they can't agree on anything. Tweet photos and videos of them in action at #donkeyVelephant and you could win your own Limited Edition Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots: Donkey v. Elephant Edition. Only five exist in the world!
More about Americans Elect:We're hosting a national online primary this summer. Any registered voter can participate, and whoever the American people choose will be on the ballot nationwide, right next to the Republican and Democratic candidates.
We're nonpartisan, so it's completely up to you to pick this third option. We're using the internet to empower voters and circumvent the two parties. Together we'll pick a president, not a party. Check us out at www.AmericansElect.org !
-
Socializing the Presidency: Digital Politics 2012
by Craig Newmark, Maria Teresa Kumar, Christina Bellantoni, Heather Smith and Mary Katharine Ham
What are the trends in social and digital media that will help shape the 2012 presidential election? What can we learn from grassroots election efforts like Rock the Vote, now in its 20th year, contrasted with the very short history and transformational social media tactics used in recent presidential politics? Is it a natural evolution of activism, is it disruptive? If so - how? Join PBS NewsHour moderator Christina Bellantoni and panelists Mary Katharine Ham (radio host/political commentator); Maria Teresa Kumar (founding executive director, Voto Latino); Craig Newmark (founder craigslist and craigconnects); Heather Smith (president, Rock the Vote); and others to be announced, for a wide-ranging, idea-generating, big-picture discussion of trends past, present and future on how the presidential election may be shaped and transformed by social media services such as Twitter and Facebook to new location based and mobile technologies.
-
How Digital Softened Brazil's Iron Lady
In 2010 Brazil elected their first female president, Dilma Rousseff. Not only was she the first female to be elected, she was also unique in being the first candidate in Brazil to connect with millions of voters online to solidify public opinion. While many emerging markets, South America in particular, love social media, their electorate had never participated in elections through an online medium. The session will explore the future of digital in Brazil (and emerging markets) that have thus far embraced the evolution of new media, mostly by embracing it via traditional media channels. We will look at how, by leveraging diverse social media channels, Dilma’s team was able to introduce and humanize her in a way never before seen by the Brazilian people.
-
Vote4Geeks: Why Techies Should Run for Office
by Lindsay Marsh and Julie Germany
On the surface level, scientists, technologists, and engineers might not seem like the perfect politicians. Maybe they aren’t always as airbrushed as the pundits on TV. But consider this: each year decisions are made on school boards, in state legislatures, and in Congress that effect infrastructure, science education, health research, and the technology industry. We need more geeks at all levels of government -- school boards, city councils, state legislatures, and Congress. America needs you. And you need to know how to position yourself, fundraise, mobilize grassroots support, run for office, and win.
-
But Hasn't Politics Always Been Social?
by Adam Conner and Katie Harbath
Everyone is talking about how "social media" is changing politics and elections. But hasn't politics always been social? Townhalls, rallies, knocking on doors, talking to friends and the act of asking for a vote has always been a social experience. But now, thanks to new technology, we can see what social means for politics in the U.S. and around the world. Join Facebook's political outreach gurus, Adam Conner (D) and Katie Harbath (R), as these bipartisan campaign veterans explain why “social” isn’t a new phenomenon but the core of American democracy and how 2012 can become year of "the social campaign."
-
Optimism: The Ultimate Revolutionary Act
It takes optimism to launch revolutions, to believe that you can end decades of dictatorship and that you deserve freedom and dignity. Why are the people of the Middle East and North Africa - all too aware of the challenges they face in rising up to despots - more optimistic about their revolutions and uprisings than those outside the region - who all too often take for granted their own freedoms?
-
Election 2012: Campaigns, Coverage & the Internet
by Michael Scherer, Teddy Goff, Micah Sifry, Zeynep Tufekci and Claudia Milne
From smear campaigns on Twitter to owning a domain before the opposition does to constituent hangouts on Google+, social media and the web have changed the election process for good. Candidates rely on social media to get their message out on their terms, journalists report and react to the story as it happens, and social platforms help to galvanize public opinion, support volunteers and solicit donations. With viewpoints from journalists, scholars, and campaign practitioners, this panel will reflect on the 2012 presidential campaign and how new media has made its mark. Specifically, the panel will look at which online platforms are performing the best in the 2012 election, the convergence of new and traditional mediums on the campaign trail, and analyze how campaigns are using these tools to promote their issue platforms and candidates, successfully or not.
-
Isn’t It Time for an Online Presidential Primary?
by Kahlil Byrd and Joshua Levine
The Presidential Primary system is broken. It’s a hodgepodge of partisan elections that form a strange serpentine journey through the calendar and each state’s public opinion -- always playing to the extremes of the respective parties to capture their “base.” It's also the only system we had to choose presidential candidates. Until now.
Isn’t it time we used the Internet to flatten the playing field? Shouldn’t each voter, from every state, have an equal voice in selecting presidential candidates?
We're creating the vehicle, but it’s up to our Delegates to drive it home. Any registered voter can become an Americans Elect Delegate. And as a Delegate, you'll help craft the rules, shape the debate, and ultimately choose the nominees. Isn’t it time for AmericansElect.org?
-
Still Invisible? Waging Stories with Social Media
by Jackie Mahendra, Heather Cronk, Jehmu Greene, Felipe Matos and Joe Sudbay
What does it mean to wage a story? In this panel, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas describes the moment of coming out as an undocumented immigrant, an "outlaw" in his own country. He explores the ways in which his radically visible story traveled from the New York Times to Facebook to Youtube and back -- and forced a toxic national debate into a human frame. As context for Jose's incredible story, Joe Sudbay, Deputy Editor of AMERICABlog, describes how bold, hi-tech storytelling transformed the political calculus during the waning months of the last Congress and landed him in a meeting with President Obama at the White House. Felipe Matos takes us on a journey that reinvents what it means to push for civil rights: a 1,500 mile walk from Miami to DC, tweeted at every turn.These hypervisible, once-invisible stories are changing what we thought we knew about the communities that are "coming out," as well as how to tap the power of social media to ignite change.
Monday 12th March 2012
-
All Day Event - The Americans Elect Lounge
Recharge your batteries and your brain in our lounge, and find out about our lounge's Flash Mob Happy Hours by following us on Twitter (@AmericansElect) and via #sxaelounge.
We'll have charging stations, classic board games like Battleship, Connect Four, and Operation, videos to watch, swag, and a version of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots that we modded with donkey and elephant heads just for SXSW!
And if you happen to see a giant plush elephant and donkey walking around SXSW, they're with us. Like the two parties, they can't agree on anything. Tweet photos and videos of them in action at #donkeyVelephant and you could win your own Limited Edition Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots: Donkey v. Elephant Edition. Only five exist in the world!
More about Americans Elect:We're hosting a national online primary this summer. Any registered voter can participate, and whoever the American people choose will be on the ballot nationwide, right next to the Republican and Democratic candidates.
We're nonpartisan, so it's completely up to you to pick this third option. We're using the internet to empower voters and circumvent the two parties. Together we'll pick a president, not a party. Check us out at www.AmericansElect.org !
-
Can Bloggers Put Hope Back into the 2012 Election?
by Quentin James, Biko Baker, Rashad Robinson, Erica Williams and Chloe Hilliard
2008 was the first Election in American History where bloggers and vloggers helped shape the political narrative and carry President Obama to the presidency. 4 years later, the Administration has not nurtured these pop cultural connections. Will the blogosphere turn out for Obama in 2012?
-
Voting’s Viral: Voters, Election Officials & Social
by Dean Logan, Dana Chisnell, Jared Marcotte, Jeannie Layson and Lee Rainie
How do you get reliable information about elections? Many voters get their information about who is running for election and what the issues are from friends and family. Increasingly, those friends and family are online, getting their information from social media sources and passing it on. What’s the conversation between voters and election officials? What’s the potential for increasing civic engagement through social media? This panel will discuss breakthroughs and cautions, experiences and pointers. What you learn about who is using what and why will surprise you.
-
Your iPhone Is Political: Mobile Democracy
by Nilay Patel, Josh Levy, Parul Desai and Katherine Maher
By 2014, more of us will access the Internet with mobile devices than with desktops or laptops. Android phones, iPhones, iPads and other mobile devices are quickly becoming our primary gateways to the Internet.
Everything we do online -- the ways that we produce news, organize our communities, and communicate with each other -- will increasingly depend on access to these devices and the broadband data connections they provide.
Meanwhile, wireless companies are seeking to determine what content we can see and how we can access it. As users fight for control over their mobile experience, it's fair to say that your Android or iPhone is political.
This panel of policy experts, tech journalists and public interest advocates will discuss how demographic and social shifts are changing how we use mobile devices and networks, how carriers and the public are fighting for control over them, and how good policies can protect consumers from wireless carrier abuse.
-
How Social Media Imperils Political Parties
by Joe Trippi, Matt Bai, Mark McKinnon, Marci Harris and Nathan Daschle
Most things in our lives are now custom fit. If we want coffee, we can order it 50 ways. If we want to watch a movie, we can choose between Netflix, iTunes, On Demand, etc. If we need a restaurant review, we have OpenTable, Yelp, etc. However, for one of the most important aspects of our life, politics, we still have only two "meat or fish" options. We are also at a point where people are more disaffected than ever by political parties. A Pew post-election poll in 2010 found for the first time in modern American history, Independents outnumbered Democrats and Republicans in terms of party affiliation. This need for tailoring our lives has now met our distaste for political institutions. While political parties will always be a piece of American politics, their relevance is being severely diminished by the growth of social media. The biggest political movements in the last year (Wisconsin, the Arab Spring, the Tea Party movement) all came together OUTSIDE of political institutions, not from within (and largely due to social media). This panel will discuss this trend.
-
SOPA / PIPA / ACTA Meet Up
In Washington, there is no such thing as a sure thing. Still at one point, passing the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT-IP (PIPA) seemed like a cakewalk. Both bills were aimed at curbing access to so-called “rogue” websites. But critics cried foul, pointing out how SOPA and PIPA would undermine internet security, compromise free expression and chill innovation. A massive internet blackout as well as millions of emails and phone calls to legislators stopped the proposals dead in their tracks. Meanwhile, the US government continued to push for adoption of the multi-national Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which sparked massive protests across several European nations. What are the takeaways? Can the sides come together to protect intellectual property without endangering what’s great about the internet? How we answer these questions today will impact generations to come. Join us at this Meet Up for a conversation about where we might go from here.
-
An Unusual Arsenal: Tech Tools to Topple a Tyrant
by Neal Ungerleider, Sonja Gittens-Ottley, Aasil Ahmad, David Gorodyansky and Jamal Dajani
Instead of guns and knives, the revolutionaries who descended upon Tahrir Square on Feb. 1 packed a potent arsenal of technological tools that ended the corrupt, 30-year reign of President Hosni Mubarak. Their weapons of choice: Twitter, Facebook and YouTube – everyday tools that can be used to plan a party or plot a revolution.
“We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world,” wrote one protester in a particularly succinct tweet.
But with one third of the world living under Internet censorship, the tools we take for granted in America are precious commodities elsewhere. When Mubarak’s government hit the kill switch, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – and those using these tools to rally – were rendered powerless. When the Internet goes black, as it did Jan. 27, how do revolutionaries access these invaluable social channels to communicate, mobilize and ultimately overthrow an unjust government? How do citizens in radio silence tune into the rest of the world – without incurring the wrath of their government? What are the tools behind the tools that every revolutionary should include in his tool kit? And why should you care?
-
Why Hasn't the Internet Made Voting Awesome?
by Seth Flaxman and Paul Schreiber
In the United States, only 50% of people vote in presidential elections. That drops to 40% for midterm elections, and 10% for primary, local and special elections. Worldwide, we rank 138th in voter turnout. The Internet has made it easy to find your old friends from college; download any song you want; get shoes delivered the very next day, and help create social change by signing petitions, making donations and lobbying congress.So why hasn't the Internet made voting awesome? Seth Flaxman and Paul Schreiber of Democracy Works will talk about why the voting system is so broken, and how the Internet can route around inefficiency and bureaucracy to increase voter turnout and make voting fit the way we live today.
-
The Big Squeeze: Communications Crisis in America
My new book, The Big Squeeze, will be coming out from Yale Press after SXSW, and I'll have a chapter for attendees. Did you know that a couple of enormous cable distributors control wired Internet access in America, and that they never compete with one another? Did you know that we have a grinding, crushing duopoly in wireless access? Did you know that the wireless guys (AT&T/VZ) have quietly divided up the world with the cable guys (Comcast/TW) and never compete across these markets? Did you know that many companies are afraid of criticizing any of these actors for fear of retribution? Did you know that the carriers treat the FCC as (at best) a peer and have zero fear of oversight, competition, or regulation? It's a genuine crisis. You guys - the public - are going to have to jump in, because politicians don't respond to arguments. They only respond to pressure and money.
-
DotAnything 101: Demystifying New Domain Extensions
After months of discussion and debate, ICANN, the governing body that oversees the use of domain names, has finally approved the creation of suffixes based on brands, hobbies, political causes, and just about anything else. This means that major brands like Apple can create addresses ending in ".ipad," Citi and Chase could compete over ".bank" and cities like New York can—and are— leveraging “.nyc”. However, starting a new registry to manage a new gTLD (generic top level domain) will be expensive ($185,000 for the application alone), and many people still have questions about if, or how, these new extensions will ultimately benefit their brand. This session will discuss the most important things entrepreneurs, business owners, and marketers need to understand in regards to the new gTLDs, the impact they will have on search and SEO, and the unique ways companies and organizations can use them not only to increase brand awareness but also to improve customer loyalty.
-
PurpleSight: A New Way to Look at Politics
PurpleSight is a startup focused on building technology that will make consuming, aggregating, and analyzing political news more efficient. Our vision is to modernize the way political campaigns operate by applying Lean Startup methodologies to create innovative, turn-key solutions. PurpleSight was developed in the University of Texas at Austin 1SemesterStartup incubator.
- 1
- 2
Schedule incomplete?
Filter by Day
- Friday 9th 4
- Saturday 10th 6
- Sunday 11th 9
- Monday 12th 11
- Tuesday 13th 8
Filter by Session type
- Panel 12
- Dual 8
- Solo 7
- Future15 2
- Meet Up 2
- Core Conversation 2
- Book Reading 1
Filter by coverage
- Audio 21
- Sketch notes 1
- Write-up 1
- Video 1
Filter by Topic
Filter by Venue
- AT&T 17
- ACC 16
- Hilton Downtown 1
- Hyatt Regency 2
- Omni Downtown 1
- Sheraton 1