As you prepare to cast a vote in what may be your first election, you will be invited to explore the ways in which social media and related technologies are reshaping political landscapes around the world. In the course, we will look at the ways in which politicians have already adopted social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, paying close attention to current developments in national, state and local politics as events unfold in real time during the semester. We will also closely examine an array of emerging “civic technologies,” including those developed by new political parties (Pirate Party, Partido de la Red), nonprofit organizations (Sunlight Labs, Democracy.Earth, Participatory Democracy Foundation), for-profit startups (Brigade, PopVox, Democracy.com) and government agencies (We The People, Tunisian and Icelandic crowdsourced constitutions, eStonia, Participatory Budgeting). Students will be encouraged to develop critical perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses of new approaches to democracy from technical, political-economic and critical-theoretical perspectives.