Carty Victoria - Social Movements and New Technology

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

AND NEW TECHNOLOGY

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LCCN: 2014950631

ISBN: 978-0-8133-4587-1 (e-book)

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To those who struggle for social justice, and especially our youth, God speed to you.

CONTENTS

E lectronic technological innovations and applications have had a revolutionary impact on communication, the way social relationships are established and maintained, and how social movements emerge and develop. In Social Movements and New Technology, Victoria Carty provides a brilliant introduction to these topics, specifically on how new technologies are forcing modifications of social movement theories and how they have played crucial roles in recent major social movements.

The impact that individual access to the Internet and social media has had on social movements can be described in reference to Neil Smelsers classic framework for the development of collective behavior. First, movement participants ability to bypass traditional media (which is often controlled by an anti-movement state or corporations) and overcome lack of physical proximity significantly expands the conduciveness of an environment for social movement development. Second, the individuals ability to video record experiences, conditions, and events and instantly communicate them to others in the digitally expanded public sphere increases the capacity to spread or intensify discontent with an existing regime or policy. Third, new electronic media enhances the ability to spread a shared belief regarding the cause of a problem, which Smelser noted is necessary to establish effective collective action to deal with that problem. The shared belief is an application of the sociological imagination that maintains that the problem people experience or are concerned about is due to social factors that are capable of being changed through collective action. Fourth, personal access to the Internet permits individuals to convey images of emotionally charged episodes of repression and injusticewhat Smelser termed precipitating incidentsto a much wider population in a more convincing way than ever before possible. Being able to electronically witness these events further inflames peoples discontent and reinforces the shared belief. These transmitted recordings act as sparks to ignite the powder keg of built-up frustration, motivating people to take action. Fifth, especially in the early phase of a social movements development, the new personalized digital media lessens the need for clearly identifiable, charismatic, intellectual, and managerial social movement leaders. In the past, many of the functions in Smelsers analysissuch as initiating a movement and developing and communicating a shared beliefwere carried out top down by social movement leadership. Now these functions are carried out horizontally among movement activists with little or no fixed leadership. And sixth, smart phones and other forms of digital communication allow movement participants to rapidly adjust to social control agencies actions and develop new plans and tactics in response.

In Social Movements and New Technology, the author describes the effects of digital media on the most important recent social movements, including the MoveOn.org and Tea Party movements, the Arab Spring protests and revolutions, the Occupy Movement and its precursors, and the Occupy Student Debt and DREAMers movements. She explains how participants in these movements used the Internet and social media to get their messages out despite often unsympathetic traditional media and rapidly adjusted their tactics in response to the measures taken by hostile governments to stifle or repress them. Further, she describes how activists use the Internet to influence not only domestic opinion but also world opinion, with the goal of getting international support for their movements or at least making it more difficult for other governments to aid their adversaries.

The author notes that effective modern social movements combine the capabilities provided by digital media, the creation of weak Internet ties, and shared virtual identity with on-the-ground action that builds strong ties among mobilized participants and the resiliency to resist repression. Effective collective action may require the assistance or the formation of real world social movement organizations and leadership. But digital media provides a new means to constantly and effectively reinvigorate and re-democratize social movement organizations that may have become too authoritarian, bound by inertia, or collaborative with the status quo.

Digital media, the author notes, also provides whistle-blowers like Edward Snowden the ability to go global with their messages and revelations, undermining government and traditional media censorship and even stimulating movements in other nations.

The author does not ignore the fact that digital technology can also be used by established power holders to frustrate and disrupt social movements through tactics like blocking Internet or cell phone access, spreading false information, or setting up their own counter-movement websites. Governments also have the capability to use high-powered computers to spy on millions of individuals, recording and analyzing their telephone conversations, e-mails, text messages, and writings, as well as book, magazine, journal, and website preferences. Such information could be used to target and intimidate large numbers of actual or potential activists. The author also provides an excellent description of how the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has demonstrated a sophisticated capacity to use digital media in attempts to influence public opinion and recruit new ISIS soldiers.

Throughout the book, the author integrates social movement theories and concepts, showing how these are useful in understanding the role of modern communication technology in social movements, while also noting how theoretical perspectives should be modified to reflect the impacts of digital devices and instantaneous global communication.