Social Movements and Their Technologies

Social Movements and Their Technologies
Author: Stefania Milan
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2013-11-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1137313544

Now in paperback for the first time, Social Movements and their Technologies explores the interplay between social movements and their 'liberated technologies'. It analyzes the rise of low-power radio stations and radical internet projects ('emancipatory communication practices') as a political subject, focusing on the sociological and cultural processes at play. It provides an overview of the relationship between social movements and technology, and investigates what is behind the communication infrastructure that made possible the main protest events of the past fifteen years. In doing so, Stefania Milan illustrates how contemporary social movements organize in order to create autonomous alternatives to communication systems and networks, and how they contribute to change the way people communicate in daily life, as well as try to change communication policy from the grassroots. She situates these efforts in a historical context in order to show the origins of contemporary communication activism, and its linkages to media reform campaigns and policy advocacy.

Social Movements and New Technology

Social Movements and New Technology
Author: Victoria Carty
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2018-09-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0429961669

The emergence of new communication technologies (such as the Internet and social media networking sites and platforms) has strongly affected social movement activism. In this compelling and timely book, Victoria Carty examines these movements and their uses of digital technologies within the context of social movement theory and history. With an accessible and unique mix of theory and real-world examples, Social Movements and New Technology takes readers on a tour through MoveOn and Tea Party e-mail campaigns, the hacktivist tactics of Anonymous, global online protests against rapists and rape culture, and the tweets and Facebook pages that accompanied uprisings across the Arab world, Europe, and the United States. In each case study, the reader is invited to examine the movement, organization, or protest and their use of digital tools through the lens of social movement theory. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter invite critical thinking, further reflection, and debate.

The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements

The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements
Author: Donatella Della Porta
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 865
Release: 2015
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0199678405

The Handbook presents a most updated and comprehensive exploration of social movement research. It not only maps, but also expands the field of social movement studies, taking stock of recent developments in cognate areas of studies, within and beyond sociology and political science. While structured around traditional social movement concepts, each section combines the mapping of the state of the art with attempts to broaden our knowledge of social movements beyond classic theoretical agendas, and to identify the contribution that social movement studies can give to other fields of knowledge.

The Future of Change

The Future of Change
Author: Ray Brescia
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2020-04-15
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1501748130

In The Future of Change, Ray Brescia identifies a series of "social innovation moments" in American history. Through these moments—during which social movements have embraced advances in communications technologies—he illuminates the complicated, dangerous, innovative, and exciting relationship between these technologies, social movements, and social change. Brescia shows that, almost without fail, developments in how we communicate shape social movements, just as those movements change the very technologies themselves. From the printing press to the television, social movements have leveraged communications technologies to advance change. In this moment of rapidly evolving communications, it's imperative to assess the role that the Internet, mobile devices, and social media can play in promoting social justice. But first we must look to the past, to examples of movements throughout American history that successfully harnessed communications technology, thus facilitating positive social change. Such movements embraced new communications technologies to help organize their communities; to form grassroots networks in order to facilitate face-to-face interactions; and to promote positive, inclusive messaging that stressed their participants' shared dignity and humanity. Using the past as prologue, The Future of Change provides effective lessons in the use of communications technology so that we can have the best communicative tools at our disposal—both now and in the future.

Networks of Outrage and Hope

Networks of Outrage and Hope
Author: Manuel Castells
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2015-06-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0745695795

Networks of Outrage and Hope is an exploration of the new forms of social movements and protests that are erupting in the world today, from the Arab uprisings to the indignadas movement in Spain, from the Occupy Wall Street movement to the social protests in Turkey, Brazil and elsewhere. While these and similar social movements differ in many important ways, there is one thing they share in common: they are all interwoven inextricably with the creation of autonomous communication networks supported by the Internet and wireless communication. In this new edition of his timely and important book, Manuel Castells examines the social, cultural and political roots of these new social movements, studies their innovative forms of self-organization, assesses the precise role of technology in the dynamics of the movements, suggests the reasons for the support they have found in large segments of society, and probes their capacity to induce political change by influencing people’s minds. Two new chapters bring the analysis up-to-date and draw out the implications of these social movements and protests for understanding the new forms of social change and political democracy in the global network society.

Promoting Social Change and Democracy Through Information Technology

Promoting Social Change and Democracy Through Information Technology
Author: Vikas Kumar
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2015-06-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1466685034

Life in the digital era offers an array of new and invigorating opportunities, as well as a new set of challenges when facing the dissemination of fresh innovations. While once reserved for personal use, online platforms are now being utilized for more critical purposes, such as ocial revolution, political influence, and governance at both the local and national levels. Promoting Social Changes and Democracy through Information Technology is a definitive reference source for the latest scholarly research on the use of the internet, mobile phones, and other digital platforms for political discourse between citizens and governments. Focusing on empirical case studies and pivotal theoretical applications of technology within political science and social activism, this comprehensive book is an essential reference source for advanced-level students, researchers, practitioners, and academicians interested in the changing landscape of democratic development and social welfare.

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 Good Drone

The Good Drone
Author: Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2020-07-28
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0262358468

How small-scale drones, satellites, kites, and balloons are used by social movements for the greater good. Drones are famous for doing bad things: weaponized, they implement remote-control war; used for surveillance, they threaten civil liberties and violate privacy. In The Good Drone, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick examines a different range of uses: the deployment of drones for the greater good. Choi-Fitzpatrick analyzes the way small-scale drones--as well as satellites, kites, and balloons--are used for a great many things, including documenting human rights abuses, estimating demonstration crowd size, supporting anti-poaching advocacy, and advancing climate change research. In fact, he finds, small drones are used disproportionately for good; nonviolent prosocial uses predominate.

Wired and Mobilizing

Wired and Mobilizing
Author: Victoria Carty
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2010-09-13
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 113690803X

This book highlights how online networking offers potential for new forms of activist mobilizing, repertoires, participatory democracy, direct action, fundraising, and civic engagement. It calls for a re-conceptualization of some of the main tenets of contentious and electoral politics, which were originally constructed to describe and analyze face-to-face forms of mobilization, in order to more accurately analyze contemporary forms of protest, electoral processes, and civil society organizing.