Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
attacking poverty; environmental protection; women's, handicapped peoples',
animal, and minority rights; and opposition to economic and political exploitation,
including some types of corporate globalization (Lipshutz
1992
; Hawken
2007
).
The internet has become indispensible to grassroots social movements advo-
cating ''globalization from below'' (Della Porta et al.
2006
). As neoliberalism has
gutted state functions throughout the world, numerous non governmental organi-
zations and other civil society actors have grown accordingly. Social movements are
non-state actors whose intentions, behavior, and strategies cannot be reduced to
market forces. The internet has become indispensible for such groups, linking like-
minded people on a global scale through the day-to-day coordination of trans-
national organizations dedicated to nonviolent social change (Bandy and Smith
2005
; Della Porta et al.
2006
). Indeed, the recent, prolific growth of nongovern-
mental organizations, social movements, and global civil society is inconceivable
without the internet. Cyberspace allows the expression of numerous subaltern voices
in this regard that would otherwise remain silent, including those that circumvent
government attempts at censorship and suppression internet-based ''network
armies'' also often lobby offline (Cammaerts
2005
). The internet is relatively low in
cost and easy to use, and its low barriers to entry reduce a major obstacle to the
participation in public debate by the poor and disenfranchised. Cyberspace provides
an accessible venue for information, lessons, best practices, and expertise to be
shared, moral commitments and group solidarity to be enhanced, publicity to be
gained, dissent made public, sympathizers alerted, resources to be pooled, and funds
to be raised. Over the internet, activists can not only organize but also publicize their
actions. For groups that have little expertise in public relations, the internet allows
communications to be leveraged to maximum success (Taylor et al.
2001
).
The rhizomic architecture of cyberspace, without a clear core or periphery, is
well suited to the decentralized, polycentric types of organizations that dominate
civil society movements. It thus favors bi-directional, interactive forms of com-
munication among geographically dispersed individuals rather than traditional,
hierarchical flows within narrow social and spatial channels. Such a structure
stands in marked contrast with the oligopolized, one-way nature of traditional
print, radio, and television media. Moreover, the internet is well adapted to
accommodating diverse views among progressives, who are often given to frac-
tious in-fighting. Bennett (
2003
, p. 154) argues that internet-driven campaigns
''allow different political perspectives to co-exist without the conflicts that such
differences might create in more centralized coalitions.'' In Harvey's (
1996
)
words, such strategies constitute a form of ''militant particularism,'' in which local
solidarities find common ground with one another. Langman (
2005
) goes further,
holding that internetworked social movements may be a qualitatively new form of
social movement. Similarly, Blood (
2001
, p. 160) argues that due to cyberspace,
''the centre of gravity of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) movement as a
whole is being shifted to a more radical and more overtly anti-capitalist position.''
There is a relatively short, but rich, history of the use of the internet by protest
groups. Of course, the use of communications technologies by subaltern groups
generating geographies of resistance is nothing new: in their day, newspapers, the
