E-Mail as the Modern SOS: Enlisting Cyber Allies in a "Save our Undergraduate Program" Campaign

Authors

  • James A. Forte Salisbury University, Maryland

Abstract

Social workers ' ambivalence about computer technologies has limited the application of new tools to social action projects. An interactionist framework for appraising the utility and morality of technological applications is presented. Additionally, a natural history of how e-mail was used as a "pragmatic technology" to enlist "cyber allies" in response to the threatened closure of an undergraduate social work program is narrated. The social and political context for computer-mediated community organizing is described, and the major components of the improvised change process (guiding conceptions, goals, intervention tools, assessment procedures, evaluation) are reviewed. Post-crisis interpretations of how members of a virtual social network acted together to save the program, and lessons for social work educators and practitioners open to the practical and responsible use of the internet are offered.

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How to Cite

Forte, J. A. (2014). E-Mail as the Modern SOS: Enlisting Cyber Allies in a "Save our Undergraduate Program" Campaign. Reflections: Narratives of Professional Helping, 11(2), 32–46. Retrieved from https://reflectionsnarrativesofprofessionalhelping.org/index.php/Reflections/article/view/1142

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Section

General Submissions