Social Movements Online

New ICTs and Social Movement Activity

The new media can be of value to social movements in a number of significant ways. First, e-mail offers the prospect of high-speed and cheaper communication between social movement actors. This can make possible more frequent communication between local branches and national or even international parts of the same organization. It can also facilitate communication between coalitions of social movements both within national boundaries and across them. The further development of electronic discussion forums makes it much easier for movement actors to participate in debates around particular issues. Such interactivity fosters two-way discussion between members and organizers and can thereby strengthen the building of shared identities through inclusiveness.

Second, Web sites can also be powerful, cost-effective communication tools for social movements. They enable movements to have a worldwide visibility and make information resources available to members to download. Campaigns can be launched and supported through Web sites enabling financial donations, electronic petitions, and notification of demonstrations. Recruitment of new activists may also be undertaken through Web sites, and such sites can also be used to provide existing members with up-to-date news and events.

Finally, computer-mediated communication (CMC) is a potentially powerful means to aggregate geographically dispersed aggrieved individuals into a group capable of purposive collective action. It can thereby contribute to the “mobilization” of social movement actors.

New Social Movements and ICTs

The subversive networking potential of the new media may have particular appeal to what some commentators have described as new social movements (NSMs). These groups are distinguished from earlier forms of social movements by their rejection of class-based materialist demands such as the redistribution of resources within and between societies; instead, they are characterized by their interest in lifestyle conflicts and campaigns of affinity. Movement identity is oriented around universal principles and moral values such as animal rights, environmentalism, sexuality, gender differences, and human rights and dignity. In contrast to social class solidarity, NSMs can be seen as loosely affiliated networks of people comprising a plurality of meanings and orientations. Such social network structures may be significantly facilitated through ICTs, which enable individual activists to express their multiple identities and allegiances to several social movements instead of one collective identity.

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