Building Communities Through Mesh Networks

Alyx Baldwin is the kind of technologist we love. While we are impressed which much of Baldwin’s work, the project Tidepools is a brilliant blend of technology, community organizing, and local creativity. Tidepools was created as Baldwin’s thesis project for Parsons School of Design, and works as a localized mapping platform »

Crowd-Sourced Comics and the Power of Political Cartoons

Nikahang Kowsar loves to make people laugh at the world’s problems, and he is deeply committed to doing so. As an Iranian-born and Canadian-based cartoonist now based in DC, Kowsar is the Editor in Chief at the citizen journalism platform Khodnevis, and founder of Toonistan, a social network for making »

A Chinese Comic Artist Inspired by Animal Farm

In late 2011, the Chinese comic artist Crazy Crab came to my attention when he kicked off the Dark Glasses Portrait project. As an internet meme in support of the blind activist lawyer Chen Guangcheng, the Dark Glasses Portrait encouraged netizens to post pictures of themselves wearing sunglasses. The meme »

Challenging tropes of Native American representation, hashtag by hashtag

Earlier this year, the Washington Redsk*ns trademarks have been canceled by the US Patent Office on the grounds of being “disparaging to Native Americans.”  “Redskins,” defined a racial slur in Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, has long been associated with this major football team and used publicly in a wide variety of »

Cultural Specificity and Conceptions of Privacy: An Interview with Vietmeme (Part 3 of 3)

In the final section of a three-part interview with Patrick Sharbaugh of Vietmeme,we look at the culture of the internet and how the internet is shifting citizens’ world views. See Part One and Part Two. Tell us a bit about your research into the culture of Vietnam’s internet. Vietnam’s Internet culture differs from »

Censorship and Surveillance on Vietnam’s Web: An Interview With Vietmeme (Part 2 of 3)

Shortly before the end of 2013, we published the first of a three-part interview with Patrick Sharbaugh of Vietmeme, focusing on civic life in Vietnam as seen through and influenced by the web. We continue that discussion with the second in our series, looking at censorship and surveillance within the country. Some »

Civic Engagement Through Play: An Interview With Vietmeme (Part 1 of 3)

A new publication we’ve been reading, Vietmeme, focuses on civic life in Vietnam as seen through and influenced by the web. After interviewing Anh-Minh Do from the Tech in Asia about the Vietnamese internet, I found that Vietmeme founder Patrick Sharbaugh’s work, expertise, and unique position of having a deep »

Humor and Visibility: A Chat With the Person Behind #BisexualFacts

I’m really proud of #bisexualfacts today. Good day for laughing instead of being angry. — ASSHOLE WIZARD GIRL™ (@verylemonade) December 2, 2013 Point of clarification: #bisexualfacts the HT itself was not my invention, it got used a couple years back — ASSHOLE WIZARD GIRL™ (@verylemonade) December 2, 2013 but I »

Light Saber Police Duels and Decree 72: An Interview with Tech in Asia’s Anh Minh Do

We at The Civic Beat want to elevate the work of important resources and netizens from all over the world. Tech in Asia is an important resource for anyone wanting to know about the burgeoning tech scene in Asia. Anh-Minh Do, an Editor for Tech in Asia, is definitely someone »

#AskAMemeMaker – What did we learn?

A few months ago, as part of our efforts to build a community around The Civic Beat and meme-making, we launched #AskAMemeMaker Day, in the same vein as #AskACurator.  Hyperallergic, one of our spiritual blog forebears, was kind enough to write a short piece about it, and we were pleased »