Net Activism How Digital Technologies Have Been Changing Individual And Collective Actions

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.

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.

At the end of the last century, the so-called “new technologies” started to question the process of design, production, sales and consumption through a radical change, which today re-defi nes many concepts both in industry and every-day life. The notion of “size” – a cross-cutting term in the cultural and creative sector – has gone through a phase of crisis from which it is now re-emerging, enriched with new meanings and possibilities. To redefine this complex term, the authors of the book have observed the path of audiovisual products and social media, fashion, everyday objects, architectures and cities, and identified in each of these fields elements of continuity, breaking points with the past as well as future alternatives. In this collection of essays, the authors adopt an interdisciplinary approach overcoming the boundaries of their discipline. Through different perspectives this volume presents and develops new paradigms that explain the complexities of the contemporary era and its new “sizes”.

"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.

As extreme and far right movements become increasingly widespread in many countries, the sociology of social movements is called to confront them. This book addresses the specific challenges entailed by the empirical study of such movements, presenting case studies from Japan, Thailand, England, France, Italy, the USA, and Turkey. Based on empirical fieldwork, the chapters explore the ethics and politics of researching far right movements, considering the researcher's reflexivity and the methodological issues raised by being emotionally linked to a research object that affirms and strives for values that differ markedly from those of the researcher. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and politics with interests in social movements and research methods.

An investigation into how specific Web technologies can change the dynamics of organizing and participating in political and social protest. Much attention has been paid in recent years to the emergence of “Internet activism,” but scholars and pundits disagree about whether online political activity is different in kind from more traditional forms of activism. Does the global reach and blazing speed of the Internet affect the essential character or dynamics of online political protest? In Digitally Enabled Social Change, Jennifer Earl and Katrina Kimport examine key characteristics of web activism and investigate their impacts on organizing and participation. Earl and Kimport argue that the web offers two key affordances relevant to activism: sharply reduced costs for creating, organizing, and participating in protest; and the decreased need for activists to be physically together in order to act together. Drawing on evidence from samples of online petitions, boycotts, and letter-writing and e-mailing campaigns, Earl and Kimport show that the more these affordances are leveraged, the more transformative the changes to organizing and participating in protest.

From renowned author Ulrike Schuerkens comes an in-depth exploration of social transformations and developments. Combining an international approach with up-to-date research, this book provides a comprehensive introduction perfect for a range of Sociology courses taught at first and second year.

This surprising study of online political mobilization shows that money and organizational sophistication influence politics online as much as off, and casts doubt on the democratizing power of digital activism. The internet has been hailed as a leveling force that is reshaping activism. From the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, digital activism seemed cheap, fast, and open to all. Now this celebratory narrative finds itself competing with an increasingly sinister story as platforms like Facebook and Twitter—once the darlings of digital democracy—are on the defensive for their role in promoting fake news. While hashtag activism captures headlines, conservative digital activism is proving more effective on the ground. In this sharp-eyed and counterintuitive study, Jen Schradie shows how the web has become another weapon in the arsenal of the powerful. She zeroes in on workers’ rights advocacy in North Carolina and finds a case study with broad implications. North Carolina’s hard-right turn in the early 2010s should have alerted political analysts to the web’s antidemocratic potential: amid booming online organizing, one of the country’s most closely contested states elected the most conservative government in North Carolina’s history. The Revolution That Wasn’t identifies the reasons behind this previously undiagnosed digital-activism gap. Large hierarchical political organizations with professional staff can amplify their digital impact, while horizontally organized volunteer groups tend to be less effective at translating online goodwill into meaningful action. Not only does technology fail to level the playing field, it tilts it further, so that only the most sophisticated and well-funded players can compete.