Governance within online communities
The course will analyze the phenomenon of digital communities. It will discuss issues such as anonymity, seniority mechanisms, and other group characteristics that emerge online. The module will also present an overview of the topics and issues around which digital communities form and analyze the ways in which they emerge, grow, and deal with issues such as hate speech, trolling and harassment.
Against this background, in the next module, participants will look at case studies of online communities that have managed to grow successfully. They will also analyze the ways in which such communities dealt with problems related to hate speech, trolling, harassment, and a lack of diversity. The case studies will be quite diverse and might include large-scale projects such as Wikipedia, Facebook groups, Reddit sub-forums (known also as subreddits), and specialist communities such as Hacker News.
The final module will allow participants to work in smaller groups in order to determine how to implement the lessons of the previous two days in their personal and professional lives. This could include a simulation game that deals with trolling or disinformation.