The Ebbs and Flows of Digital Leadership
Join us for an engaging conversation with
Albana Dwonch, PhD, University of Washington
Wednesday, January 29, 2020 | Jepson Center Wolff Auditorium
5:30-6:00 Pizza and Networking
6:00-7:00 p.m. Presentation
Make sure to RSVP below!
SUMMARY
Across the globe, contemporary protest movements from Occupy Wall Street in the US, to the Robin Hood Tax Campaign in the UK, and the Arab Spring in the Middle East, have propelled “invisible” leaders of small groups as originators of protests of high visibility and managers of large social media accounts that explode or shrink in unexpected and often unpredictable ad-hoc mobilizations. Can concepts of leadership, as we know it today, help us understand the organizational dynamics of social political and economic movements in a digital era?
Set against the backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and building on her recent research on social media and activism after the Arab Spring, Albana Dwonch will discuss various aspects and contradictions of leadership in the social media age. Through her detailed analysis on the formational dynamics, composition and complex processes of internal organizations among and within small social media youth groups, she will explore such notions as “leaderless movements”; “invisible organizational structures” “Horizontal group management”; “core actors” and peripheral networks. She will examine the challenges and opportunities of leaders without organizational resources, and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their internal functioning within social media netowrks.
MORE ABOUT ALBANA
Albana Dwonch is a Visiting Scholar at Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. She recently returned from Israel and Palestine, where she conducted four years of research and fieldwork to revise her manuscript and write her book “Palestinian Youth Activism in the Internet Age.”
https://www.amazon.com/Palestinian-Youth-Activism-Internet-Age/dp/1838600639
This presentation will also draw upon Albana’s previous professional career in the International Humanitarian field as Aid worker in the Youth Development Sector in the Middle East, including Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, and Israel.