Net-Activism. How digital technologies have been changing individual and collective actions

Net-Activism. How digital technologies have been changing individual and collective actions
Author: Francesco Antonelli
Publisher: Roma TrE-Press
Total Pages: 142
Release: 2017-04-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 8894885151

Recently, the digital architectures of interaction have also become, more than a new information architecture, a new ecology of dialogue and participation. In addition to the new forms of debate and interaction which are expressed far beyond the dynamics of modern public opinion, the digital networks have opened spaces of experimentation for new decision-making collaborative practices. In several areas, the creation of platforms and architectures of debate and deliberations is putting new questions about the technological possibility of overcoming the representative democracy. Finally, this new digital ecology has been changing social actions in everyday life. The book analyzes these phenomena both through a theoretical reflection (first part) and by some case studies (second part), as the result of the activities promoted by the Net-Activism International Research Network based on Atopos Lab in Universidade de São Paulo. At the Network join: Università degli Studi “Roma Tre”, Universidade Lusófona do Porto, Université de Lille 2, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris. Francesco Antonelli is Research Fellow in Sociology at the Department of Political Sciences, Università degli Studi “Roma Tre”. Recent publications: “European Politics of Numbers: Sociological Perspectives on Official Statistics. General Trends”, International Review of Sociology, 26,3, 2016; L’Europa del dissenso. Teorie e analisi sociopolitiche, Milano, Franco Angeli 2016.

Digitally Enabled Social Change

Digitally Enabled Social Change
Author: Jennifer Earl
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2011
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0262015102

Where we have been and where we are headed -- The look and feel of e-tactics and their Web sites -- Tacking action on the cheap: costs and participation -- Making action on the cheap: costs and organizing -- Being together versus working together : copresence in participation -- From power in numbers to power laws: copresence in organizing -- A new digital repertoire of contention?

The Rise of Digital Repression

The Rise of Digital Repression
Author: Steven Feldstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0190057513

The world is undergoing a profound set of digital disruptions that are changing the nature of how governments counter dissent and assert control over their countries. While increasing numbers of people rely primarily or exclusively on online platforms, authoritarian regimes have concurrently developed a formidable array of technological capabilities to constrain and repress their citizens. In The Rise of Digital Repression, Steven Feldstein documents how the emergence of advanced digital tools bring new dimensions to political repression. Presenting new field research from Thailand, the Philippines, and Ethiopia, he investigates the goals, motivations, and drivers of these digital tactics. Feldstein further highlights how governments pursue digital strategies based on a range of factors: ongoing levels of repression, political leadership, state capacity, and technological development. The international community, he argues, is already seeing glimpses of what the frontiers of repression look like. For instance, Chinese authorities have brought together mass surveillance, censorship, DNA collection, and artificial intelligence to enforce their directives in Xinjiang. As many of these trends go global, Feldstein shows how this has major implications for democracies and civil society activists around the world. A compelling synthesis of how anti-democratic leaders harness powerful technology to advance their political objectives, The Rise of Digital Repression concludes by laying out innovative ideas and strategies for civil society and opposition movements to respond to the digital autocratic wave.

CasaPound Italia

CasaPound Italia
Author: Caterina Froio
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2020-01-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000765032

In 2003, the occupation of a state-owned building in Rome led to the emergence of a new extreme-right youth movement: CasaPound Italia (CPI). Its members described themselves as 'Fascists of the Third Millennium', and were unabashed about their admiration for Benito Mussolini. Over the next 15 years, they would take to the street, contest national elections, open over a hundred centres across Italy, and capture the attention of the Italian public. While CPI can count only on a few thousands votes, it enjoys disproportionate attention in public debates from the media. So what exactly is CasaPound? How can we explain the high profile achieved by such a nostalgic group with no electoral support? In this book, Caterina Froio, Pietro Castelli Gattinara, Giorgia Bulli and Matteo Albanese explore CasaPound Italia and its particular political strategy combining the organization and style of both political parties and social movements and bringing together extreme-right ideas and pop-culture symbols. They contend that this strategy of hybridization allowed a fringe organization like CasaPound to consolidate its position within the Italian far-right milieu, but also, crucially, to make extreme-right ideas routine in public debates. The authors illustrate this argument drawing on unique empirical material gathered during five years of research, including several months of overt observation at concerts and events, face-to-face interviews, and the qualitative and quantitative analysis of online and offline campaigns. By describing how hybridization grants extremist groups the leeway to expand their reach and penetrate mainstream political debates, this book is core reading for anyone concerned about the nature and growth of far-right politics in contemporary democracies. Providing a fresh insight as to how contemporary extreme-right groups organize to capture public attention, this study will also be of interest to students, scholars and activists interested in the complex relationship between party competition and street protest more generally.

The Logic of Connective Action

The Logic of Connective Action
Author: W. Lance Bennett
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2013-08-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1107025745

The Logic of Connective Action shows how political action is coordinated and power is organized in communication-based networks, and what political outcomes may result.

Digital Roots

Digital Roots
Author: Gabriele Balbi
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2021-09-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 3110740281

As media environments and communication practices evolve over time, so do theoretical concepts. This book analyzes some of the most well-known and fiercely discussed concepts of the digital age from a historical perspective, showing how many of them have pre-digital roots and how they have changed and still are constantly changing in the digital era. Written by leading authors in media and communication studies, the chapters historicize 16 concepts that have become central in the digital media literature, focusing on three main areas. The first part, Technologies and Connections, historicises concepts like network, media convergence, multimedia, interactivity and artificial intelligence. The second one is related to Agency and Politics and explores global governance, datafication, fake news, echo chambers, digital media activism. The last one, Users and Practices, is finally devoted to telepresence, digital loneliness, amateurism, user generated content, fandom and authenticity. The book aims to shed light on how concepts emerge and are co-shaped, circulated, used and reappropriated in different contexts. It argues for the need for a conceptual media and communication history that will reveal new developments without concealing continuities and it demonstrates how the analogue/digital dichotomy is often a misleading one.

Digital Activism Decoded

Digital Activism Decoded
Author: Mary C. Joyce
Publisher: IDEA
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2010
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9781932716603

"The media has recently been abuzz with cases of citizens around the world using digital technologies to push for social and political change: from the use of Twitter to amplify protests in Iran and Moldova to the thousands of American non-profits creating Facebook accounts in the hopes of luring supporters. These stories have been published, discussed, extolled, and derided, but have not yet been viewed holistically as a new field of human endeavor. We call this field "digital activism" and its dynamics, practices, misconceptions, and possible futures are presented together for the first time in this book."--Pub. desc.

Social Changes in a Global World

Social Changes in a Global World
Author: Ulrike Schuerkens
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2017-05-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1526414058

Renowned author Ulrike Schuerkens presents an in-depth exploration of social transformations and developments. Combining an international approach with up-to-date research, the book: Has dedicated chapters on contemporary topics including technology, new media, war and terror, political culture and inequality Includes an analysis of societal structures – inequality, globalization, transnationalism Contains learning features including: discussion questions, annotated further reading, chapter summaries and pointers to online resources to assist with study A must buy for students taking modules in social change, social inequality, social theory and globalization.

Collective Action in Organizations

Collective Action in Organizations
Author: Bruce Bimber
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2012-02-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0521191726

Explores how people participate in public life through organizations. The authors examine three organizations and show surprising similarities across them.

Political Turbulence

Political Turbulence
Author: Helen Margetts
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2017-09-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0691177929

How social media is giving rise to a chaotic new form of politics As people spend increasing proportions of their daily lives using social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, they are being invited to support myriad political causes by sharing, liking, endorsing, or downloading. Chain reactions caused by these tiny acts of participation form a growing part of collective action today, from neighborhood campaigns to global political movements. Political Turbulence reveals that, in fact, most attempts at collective action online do not succeed, but some give rise to huge mobilizations—even revolutions. Drawing on large-scale data generated from the Internet and real-world events, this book shows how mobilizations that succeed are unpredictable, unstable, and often unsustainable. To better understand this unruly new force in the political world, the authors use experiments that test how social media influence citizens deciding whether or not to participate. They show how different personality types react to social influences and identify which types of people are willing to participate at an early stage in a mobilization when there are few supporters or signals of viability. The authors argue that pluralism is the model of democracy that is emerging in the social media age—not the ordered, organized vision of early pluralists, but a chaotic, turbulent form of politics. This book demonstrates how data science and experimentation with social data can provide a methodological toolkit for understanding, shaping, and perhaps even predicting the outcomes of this democratic turbulence.