The Role of the Internet in the December 2011 Moscow Protests (original) (raw)
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In the recent years, discourse on internet’s democratic potential to spark revolutions in authoritarian states has flourished in academia and other public spheres, yielding contradicting school of thoughts. Partisan scholars and analysts simply categorized themselves into two contesting groups- techno-optimist and techno-pessimist generally talking past each other. (Megenta, 2001) Techno-Optimists who advocate internet’s democratic potential generalizes that network of diverse groups cannot be sustained without the presence of digital communication channels that facilitate information exchange on the common cause to abound. Certainly, the scale of protest at the global level is impossible without a platform facilitating global participation and communication. Thus, internet in its democratic and decentralized form is deemed to foster diversity and global scale of a protest in a highly economic fashion. (McAdm, Tarrow, and Tilly, 2001) Too, there lies strongly a voice of dissent in the sea of optimism eulogizing the new opportunity. The critics generally argue that the web acts as a boon for the bullies especially when they also learn to take advantage of the digital platform for their own interests. Techno-pessimists who are sceptical of the digital civic participation further opine the ability of the democratic platform to backfire. For instance, the internet might take away the power from the authoritarian regime, however without confirming its transfer to a pro-democratic group. (Morozov, 2009) “A movement that does not make into the media is non-existent.”(Rucht, forthcoming, cited in Bennett,2003,p.17) Starkingly emphasizing the importance of media in movements, the essay not only examines the positive role of new media- INTERNET- in galvanizing social and political mobilizations but also evaluates the new opportunity in terms of its caveats.
Internet and Politics in Russia
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Spassov, Orlin, ed. "Internet and Politics in Russia." Euxeinos - Culture and Governance in the Black Sea Region, no. 4 (2012).
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The Internet As a Tool For Political Activism and Political Campaigning.
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#Rezist 2017: Communicating Dissent in a Hypermedia Environment
Protest communication and campaigning plays a crucial role in democracy, and can bring about regime change, yet is treated as of secondary importance to electioneering activities. This paper counters the imbalance by focusing on the #Rezist protests in Romania 2017; triggered by an attempt by government to exonerate senior politicians who had been found guilty of corruption. Young Romanians took control of Victory Square, facing the government building, to demand the law be repealed and European law be respected. In order to counter the government narrative which dominated party supportive media, protesters quickly developed their own media channels to build support. The protests spread across Romania and the diaspora; the younger, entrepreneurial class gained the attention required to bring about short-term changes. Through interviews with some of the key activists and monitoring of developments in the anti-corruption campaign we chart the role social media plays in building the emotional mood and sense of solidarity required to meet short term goals. But equally our analysis shows that once short term objectives are attained the campaigns that bring together Internet-mediated issue generalists can become fragile. Hence this paper offers a more balanced perspective of Internet-mediated social movements than studies of Castells and others. Our study serves to highlight how protests can emerge through the emotional power of outrage, can mobilise citizens around narrow objectives, and can evolve to become a social