[Air-l] Social Movements

[LLang944 at aol.com]

Social movements/Internet

We are glad to see our work cited, more recently Castells and Sklair have 
used some of our perspective.  I am not familiar with the citations shown in the 
post, but with Internet, stuff gets posted everywhere/anywhere.   For folks 
who want to look it up/have a print reference, the paper we gave at AoIR 1.0, 
much revised appears as

Langman, Lauren, Douglas Morris and Jackie Zalewski, "Cyberactivism and 
Alternative Globalization Movements", in Wilma A,. Dunaway, ed. Emerging Issues in 
the 21st Century World-System. pp. 218 -35. Westport: Conn, Greenwood Press, 
2002.

We have another paper in press that notes the World Social Forum in Porto 
Alegre, it is concerned with virtual public spheres, will appear (04) in Social 
Theory. We did an early, power point version at our Midwest Soc and Steve Jones 
was the commentator.  (Will send ppt if asked)  

For folks in/near  Atlanta, Dana Fisher will have a session at ASA, Aug, on 
soc movements and will do our latest version. 

Further, I have organized a session for AoIR 4.0 Toronto, with Valerie 
Scatamburlo, Victor Pikard and Steve Walker on the topic of sm on the net. Do join 
us. 

Personal comment: while not well covered in mass media, the internet is 
empowering people accross the globe and slowly, surely, there is ever more 
resistance, confrontation against domination-now fascilitated by the net.  The 
extensive use of the net in organizing Porto Alegre and organizing NGOs is amazing, 
and while demonstrations get press, you know the "crazy criminals" that 
challenge global power and capitalism, the extent of grass roots organization is 
where the action is at. 

For example, as we network, there are major contests between the masses of 
people in Iran and the theolocratic gerontocracy-and one place this takes place 
is cyberspace.  A major issue besides the political is the moral, pornography 
abounds. But in this case, much like the old pre net, samistad (sp?) presses 
in the USSR,  pornography, as an exemplar of the grotesque of carnival, as 
Bakhtin has shown, is a protest, resistance, albiet symbolic, against established 
authority.  Now I am not saying that watching porn> freedom and democracy, it 
may actually be the other way around, but it does become a point along a 
policed border on the cultural terrain, where established power is challenged.  (I 
am doing a paper for a book on cyberporn if anyone has any ideas, please 
send), 


Hope to see all at AiOR 4.0 


 





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