POLITICAL PROTEST AND THE INTERNET

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POLITICAL PROTEST
THE INTERNET
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CENTRAL QUESTION

• What are the possibilities and constraints
• of political protest on the Internet
• and what is its role for democracy?
• New phenomenon, new context
• Old theories
• - Jürgen Habermas
• - Ulrich Beck

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Habermas model of deliberative democracy

• Between Facts and Norms (1998)
• Two-track conception of politics the center and
  the periphery
• Democratization change of mode of operation
  approximation of postulates
• State-centric model

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Becks theory of second modernity

• modernization of modern society
• Subpolitics beneath and beyond the nation-state
• Network ideologically thin political actor
• De-territorialized
• Democratization of social institutions

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The possibilities of the Internet

• The Internet as a tool
• Communication, mobilization, coordination,
  formation of networks
• Inclusive and unrestricted publicness
• The Internet as an alternative space
• Old forms innovative new forms
• The Internet and civic culture
• Expressive force asserting on your own terms
• Constitutive force civic identity
• Empowerment

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The constraints of the Internet

• The Digital Divide
• Material, motivational, skills access
• The Colonization of the Internet
• Unrestricted, not straightforward
• Reliance on other forms of communication
• Fragmentation vs. focus
• Publicist and self-referential character

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Mobilization, coordination,

• One-issue campaigns
• Save the Internet
• Protest platforms
• Protest.Net
• Publicity
• Circumvent the mass media
• On their own terms

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Subvertizing
The Adbusters Media Foundation
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Political protest on the Internet

• Old forms
• e-mail campaigns, online petitions, electronic
  civil disobedience
• New forms
• subverting conventions of cultural forms
• defacements, redirects and parodies of Web sites
• Google Bomb

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Online games and protest

• Gaming conventions Amnesty International
• Game world Second Life

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• Thank you for listening