[Air-l] social movements / social software

Ellis Godard ellis.godard at csun.edu
Fri Apr 14 15:11:02 PDT 2006


This interests me in part because my Master's Thesis (completed in early
1995) addressed social movements about, for, and within cyberspace. 

You might want to consider previous research (largely since my Thesis, which
itself I don't particularly recommend) which relates to, supports, and even
predicts some of the things you discuss, such as NetLab's work (the National
Geographic studies, the Connected Lives study, the Pew study).

-eg

> -----Original Message-----
> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
> [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Anastasia Kavada
> Sent: Friday, April 14, 2006 4:10 AM
> To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Subject: Re: [Air-l] social movements / social software
> 
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> I'm currently writing-up my PhD thesis on the use of the
> internet by the 'movement for alternative globalization' or 
> anti-globalization movement as it is more widely known. I 
> have focused on the European Social Forum, one of the main 
> events organized every year by the movement in Europe 
> attracting thousands of participants. I have examined the 
> processes of mobilization, organization and collective 
> identity formation through interviews with organizers, a 
> content analysis of the main email lists devoted to the 
> organizing process, as well as a survey of activists who 
> mobilized to participate in it. 
> 
> One of the main patterns that seems to be emerging from this
> research is that the impact of email lists and the internet 
> in general cannot be fully understood without examining their 
> relationship and co-existence with other modes of 
> communication and particularly face-to-face. For instance, in 
> the European Social Forum organizing process the main 
> decisions are taken in face-to-face, large meetings, while 
> the internet is used to prepare for these meetings (in terms 
> of circulating the agenda, circulating/co-writing documents 
> for discussion, publicising the time and place of meetings 
> and making practical arrangements for people to attend) and 
> also circulate, discuss and challenge the decisions that have 
> been taken. In addition, while face-to-face communication is 
> deemed indispensable for the development of relationships of 
> trust and solidarity (a recurrent quote is that 'you have to 
> look people in the eyes' in order to trust them), the 
> internet helps to maintain these links in-between physical 
> meetings and across geographical boundaries. 
> 
> On a more general level, it seems that different modes of
> communication are better suited to different functions within 
> the political process depending on how they configure time 
> and space. In that respect, synchronous, oral, interpersonal 
> communication aids the development of a sense of unity and 
> belonging within a bounded space and time. On the other hand, 
> asynchronous, written and more impersonal communication 
> expands the geographical scale of social movements and helps 
> to relax the constraints and frustrations of direct 
> face-to-face contact, allowing a looser, more flexible 
> structure to emerge. Of course this is a quite simplified 
> suggestion as different applications or modes of 
> communication display varying degrees of 
> synchronous/asynchronous, oral/written and 
> personal/impersonal communication.
> 
> Now on the issue of mobilization, the results of my survey
> seem to agree with Todd's suggestion that interpersonal 
> communication is the most important mode of communication. 
> People attending the ESF in Paris in 2003 (my survey had 257 
> participants) were mobilized predominantly through 
> face-to-face communication and then through email or email 
> lists. Only 4% has heard about the ESF solely through the 
> mass media and not also through a political organization, 
> friends or relatives, the workplace or the university. (For 
> anyone who might be interested in more info about this, I've 
> published an article in an open-access journal, which is 
> available here
> http://www.wmin.ac.uk/mad/pdf/Kavada.pdf)
> 
> I'm really sorry for the long email, it's just so exciting to
> see people interested in this subject.
> 
> Anastasia Kavada
> 
> PhD Candidate
> University of Westminster
> 
> Send instant messages to your online friends
> http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com 
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