Protest on the Information Highway

Jennifer Earl

Department of Sociology

University of California, Santa Barbara

“Internet Activism”

• Use of the Internet to support of facilitate offline protests

• Use of the Internet to help organize protest actions that happen offline (TxtMob)

• Use of the Internet to organize and produce online protest actions

• Online participation in protest actions

Stacking the Theoretical Deck

• DiMaggio et al. (2001): pre-existing entities domesticate technologies

• Research findings show domestication: the Internet “super-sizes” activism by making it bigger, faster and cheaper

• Are there changes beyond scale changes?

Model, versus Scale, Changes

• Earl and Schussman’s (2001; 2003; 2004; Schussman and Earl 2004; Earl 2005) work suggests protest actions produced online can differ in:– Organization and infrastructure (e.g., role of SMOs)– Internal processes (e.g., leadership, decision-making)– Relations with external actors (e.g., repression)– Relationship with key structuring elements that run

across (e.g., changing role of resources)

Networks in Explanations

• Scholars who see predict no lasting change often see networks rooted in face-to-face encounters and activism rooted in networks

• Scholars who see scale changes seem to believe that networks still matter, but can be facilitated and extended online

• I would predict larger long term changes and would argue that networks will matter for only some forms of activism

Why such different findings?

Two key questions:

-Where does participation occur (although one could think of organization too)?

-What kinds of actors are doing the organizing?

NSF CAREER Project

• Part 1: How the format of participation changes activism• Part 2: Are the organizers of “internet activism” different and/or

behave differently?• Specifically, the project examines whether:

– the lower up-front costs of organizing protest actions online will allow new kinds of organizers to enter social movements;

– the lower up-front costs of organizing protest actions will also allow organizers to target broader ranges of entities more cost-effectively, making protest against non-governmental targets more likely over time;

– social movement organizations established prior to the pervasive use of the Internet will be more likely to rely on for-profit technological contractors for creating and maintaining online opportunities to participate in protest; and

– social movement organizations established prior to the pervasive use of the Internet will be less likely to engage in illegal online protest activities than other kinds of organizers