Order from Chaos: How Networked Activists Self-Organize by Creating a Participation Architecture

2021 ◽  
pp. 000183922110088
Author(s):  
Felipe G. Massa ◽  
Siobhan O’Mahony
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Digital Networks ◽  
Managerial Control ◽  
Open Boundaries ◽  
Rapid Exchange ◽  
Complex Activities ◽  
Archival Study

Collectives attempting to self-organize without relying on managerial control can leverage open, digital networks to foster information exchange and agility. But, as collectives grow, the open boundaries that enable the mobilization of participants and rapid exchange of ideas can give rise to new organizing challenges that make collective action untenable. We examine this tension by exploring how networked activists self-organize through open, digital networks to achieve shared aims without belonging to a common organization that supports their cause. With a seven-year, inductive field and archival study, we capture how activists from the Anonymous collective organized 70 protest actions while struggling to integrate newcomers and coordinate increasingly complex activities. Rather than succumb to chaos or managerial control, Anonymous learned to self-organize, gradually abandoning normative forms of control in favor of forms of architectural control. By creating a participation architecture—a sociotechnical framework that empowered technical experts and unobtrusively channeled newcomers to designated forums—networked activists enhanced their collective ability to coordinate complex, interdependent actions at scale. Our grounded theoretical model reveals how the challenges of self-organizing emerge with rapid growth and how these can be overcome by configuring architectural control.

scholarly journals Activismo Transmedia. Narrativas de participación para el cambio social. Entre la comunicación creativa y el media art

Obra digital ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 123-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Ortuño Mengual ◽  
Virginia Villaplana Ruiz
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Mobile Devices ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Media Art ◽  
Digital Networks ◽  
Participatory Media ◽  
Network Culture ◽  
Activist Groups ◽  
Media Practices

El artículo propone una revisión de prácticas activistas mediáticas, origen de las formas participativas de la narrativa transmedia, en relación al lugar y la acción política. La implantación de las redes digitales ha permitido el desarrollo de una cultura red. Se analizan prácticas artísticas de colectivos activistas y las nuevas propuestas desarrolladas con dispositivos móviles vía GPS y webdoc. En este sentido, se proponen tres líneas discursivas sobre el activismo transmedia: las aperturas narrativas del territorio y la ciudadanía, las políticas de acción y representación colectiva, y finalmente, la expresión de la experiencia mediante el testimonio.Transmedia activism. Participatory narratives for social changeAbstractWe propose a review of media activist practices giving rise to participative transmedia narratives in relation to political action and location. Digital networks have allowed the development of a network culture. We discuss artistic practices of activist groups and new proposals made via GPS with mobile devices and web documentaries. We identify three kinds of discourse in transmedia activism: narratives that open up to the regionand its inhabitants, policies for collective action and representation, and the expression of experiences through witness.Keywords: Transmedia, activism, participatory media practices, discursive communication, creative communication, social artpp. 123-144

Conclusion

2011 ◽  
pp. 303-311
Author(s):  
Sylvie Albert ◽  
Don Flournoy ◽  
Rolland LeBrasseur
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Digital Networks ◽  
Content Creation ◽  
Internet Connection ◽  
Product Service ◽  
Service Production ◽  
Healthy Growth ◽  
Radical Transformation

A new set of conditions for healthy growth and adaptation is emerging for 21st century communities. This book has sought to explain what some of these conditions are, and to advise forward-thinking community leaders and stakeholders about how to take advantage of broadband bi-directional telecommunications to assure a better future for all. The high-speed Internet has given individuals, institutions and businesses ways to more efficiently connect and collaborate with one another, locally and globally. With pervasive digital networks in place, the economics of access, innovation and distribution have undergone radical transformation. The costs continue to drop throughout the value chain of products and services. The instruments of digital product, service and content creation that only a century ago were in the hands of governments, and only a decade ago were in the hands of big business, are now in the hands of local entrepreneurs and citizens as well. Anyone with a personal computer can now be a publisher, and anyone with an Internet connection can be a producer, marketer and distributor. Ordinary citizens who once thought of themselves only as consumers of other people’s products can now create their own content and build applications that can be—and are being—sold and adopted globally as well as locally. The democratization of the tools of content and service production and the collaborative networks that make information exchange more efficient and productive allow for more prosperous communities.

scholarly journals Networking Alone? Digital Communications and Collective Action in Vietnam

2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 123-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Kurfürst
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Digital Networks ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Bauxite Mining ◽  
The Social ◽  
Power Differentials ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Diverse Groups

This article explores the potential for the formation of collective action in Vietnam. Referring to land and labour protests, bauxite mining, anti-China demonstrations, as well as the revision of the 1992 Constitution, the article examines the social movement repertoires diverse groups have adopted to reach their objectives. Drawing on social movement theory and communication power, this contribution shows that apart from access to the technology, citizens’ opportunities to participate in digital networks as well as access to the default communication network of the state are necessary prerequisites in order to attain public attention and possibly to achieve social change. Moreover, this article shows that existing power differentials in Vietnam are reproduced in digital space. It concludes that for different collective behaviours to result in a social movement, it is essential to “switch” and to connect the different networks. For the moment, the call to protect Vietnam's sovereignty offers common ground for collective action.

scholarly journals COLLABORATIVE ACTION IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA: DIGITAL CAPITAL, PUBLIC DISCOURSE AND POWER NETWORKS

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1(3)) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frol Revin
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Modern Technology ◽  
Digital Networks ◽  
Bona Fide ◽  
Digital Capital

The article explores potential consequences of utilizing digital networks viewed as a consolidating resource for generating trust and shared values necessary to establish credible commitments though e-driven cooperative pursuits. By taking advantage of research on web-facilitated collaborative algorithms I survey their importance for stimulating user civic engagement as well as highlight the resultant digital capital creation within the informational platforms in which they are embedded. Acknowledging the relevance of communication power in contemporary network societies (Castells) it becomes especially poignant to further analyze the fragmentation of authority brought about by ICT exposure rarely evident within the more conventional concentrated hubs of socio-political discourse. Specifically, I conjecture that compared to more traditional forms of public goods creation digital capital as a pioneering form of web-based interaction breads equally novel challenges for collective gains through the use of a virtually wholly decentralized architecture. With the development of ever more elaborate ways of communicating and connecting digital media allows us to make transparent and democratize the emergence of trend-generating communities that facilitate cooperation, discourage group bias while engendering trustworthiness across all levels of the social strata. Current research, thus, pursues the goal of scrutinizing if and how modern digital networks can be considered as effective, durable tools for accumulating social capital able to accrue critical mass necessary to give momentum to and spur its users towards solving collective action problems. While certain prominent theorists (Habermas, Bourdieu) can be interpreted to suggest that modern technology has had a detrimental effect on communal cohesion leading to slanted, overly manipulative depletion of networks through which it can take root and flow, the author has a more charitable outlook on the utility of digitally produced social capital. In particular, I contend that novel communication channels based on high speed broadband connection coupled with portable, on the go mobile communication have the capacity to create a broad societal nexus of trust by maintaining and multiplying bona fide social bonds. Keywords: cooperation, collective action, virtual networks, ICT, social capital, digital capital, communication power, public sphere, fields of influence

scholarly journals Create an Information Exchange Platform for the Mandarin Library: The Management Strategy of E-paper of SLIS Program Leadership Team

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol W. D. Huang ◽  
Gilbert Jian-ming Wang
Keyword(s):  
Information Exchange ◽  
School Libraries ◽  
Leadership Team ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Digital Networks ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Knowledge Database ◽  
Library Community ◽  
Program Leadership ◽  
Set Up

In contrast with certain well developed areas in the world, the operating conditions of the senior high school libraries in the Chinese world still has much to improve. One of the feasible ways to strengthen cooperation is via digital networks, namely the e-papers, by incorporating both information and opinions marketplace. To enhance the cooperation functions among communities, resolve the insufficient professional knowledge among community operators issue, and improve overall service quality, the SLIS Program Leadership Team has issued an e-paper. Also, from the viewpoint of knowledge management, it has set up a homepage based community knowledge database for the e-paper. Furthermore, with a mutually-shared mind by initially providing it to the entire Chinese community for reference, with more and more library community members participate, consequently the goal is forming, that is, Make Chinese World the Exchange Platform. Finally, this report will cover four sections as: the e-paper’s media functions, problems faced in Taiwan, solutions and strategies based on the experience of Lo-tung Senior School, and suggestions for further studies.

scholarly journals Index Structures for XML Databases

2010 ◽  
pp. 98-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samir Mohammad ◽  
Patrick Martin
Keyword(s):  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Data Model ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Semistructured Data ◽  
Open Problems ◽  
Xml Databases ◽  
The World ◽  
Extensible Markup ◽  
History Of

Extensible Markup Language (XML), which provides a flexible way to define semistructured data, is a de facto standard for information exchange in the World Wide Web. The trend towards storing data in its XML format has meant a rapid growth in XML databases and the need to query them. Indexing plays a key role in improving the execution of a query. In this chapter the authors give a brief history of the creation and the development of the XML data model. They discuss the three main categories of indexes proposed in the literature to handle the XML semistructured data model and provide an evaluation of indexing schemes within these categories. Finally, they discuss limitations and open problems related to the major existing indexing schemes.

Re-envisioning Prehispanic Mesoamerican Economies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary M. Feinman ◽  
Linda M. Nicholas
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Managerial Control ◽  
Market System ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Way

Exuberant Spanish accounts of the 16th century Aztec market system have been part of the documentary record for hundreds of years. Yet the significance of markets and marketplace exchanges in the prehispanic Mesoamerican world has consistently been under-theorized until relatively recently. One of the key, but not sole, factors that has forced a shift in our analytical framing is the archaeological evidence that almost all production (craft and agrarian) was situated domestically in prehispanic Mesoamerica, yet many households were producing at least in part for exchange. In consequence, centralized managerial control over production would have been difficult if not impossible to sustain. Although such findings have cast great doubt on long-held visions of Mesoamerican command economies, understanding how power was funded in different prehispanic time/space contexts remains a central issue with a greater analytical focus now shifted to the fiscal foundations of collective action, governance, and power. Despite important shifts in the specific lessons and legacies that we draw from Marx’s historical analysis, intellectual parallels and debts to this materialist frame of thought remain, and these help generate new questions to guide the way forward for studying this region’s past.

Outsourcing to the Post-Soviet Region and Gender

2010 ◽  
pp. 2231-2236
Author(s):  
Elena Gapova
Keyword(s):  
Information Exchange ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Digital Networks ◽  
World Region ◽  
Software Production ◽  
The Media ◽  
And Gender ◽  
High Level ◽  
Globalized World

The purpose of this article is to analyze the outsourcing of information technology (IT) jobs to a specific world region as a gendered phenomenon. Appadurai (2001) states that the contemporary globalized world is characterized by objects in motion, and these include ideas, people, goods, images, messages, technologies and techniques, and jobs. These flows are a part of “relations of disjuncture” (Appadurai, 2001, p. 5) created by an uneven economic process in different places of the globe and involving fundamental problems of livelihood, equality or justice. Outsourcing of jobs (to faraway countries) is one of such “disjunctive” relationships. Pay difference between the United States (U.S.) and some world regions created a whole new interest in the world beyond American borders. Looking for strategies to lower costs, employers move further geographically; and with digital projects, due to their special characteristics, distribution across different geographical areas can be extremely effective. First, digital networks allow reliable and real-time transfer of digital files (both work in progress and final products), making it possible to work in geographically separated locations. Second, in the presence of adequate mechanisms for coordination through information exchange, different stages of software production (conceptualization, high-level design and low-level analysis, coding) are also separable across space (Kagami, 2002). In the Western hemisphere, the argument for outsourcing is straightforward and powerful. It is believed that if an Indian, Chinese, Russian or Ukrainian software programmer is paid one-tenth of an American salary, a company that develops software elsewhere will save money. And provided that competitors do the same, the price of the software will fall, productivity will rise, the technology will spread, and new jobs will be created to adapt and improve it. But the argument against outsourcing centers on the loss of jobs by American workers. Although there is no statistics on the number of jobs lost to offshore outsourcing, the media write about the outcry of professionals who several years ago considered themselves invulnerable.

Should Buyers Try to Shape IT Markets Through Nonmarket (Collective) Action? Antecedents of a Transaction Cost Theory of Network Effects

2011 ◽  
pp. 163-184
Author(s):  
Kai Reimers ◽  
Mingzhi Li
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Transaction Cost ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Network Effects ◽  
Network Externalities ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
User Groups ◽  
Set Up

This chapter develops a transaction cost theoretic model of network effects and applies it to assessing the chances of users to influence, through collective action, the range of technological choices available to them on IT markets. The theoretical basis of the model is formulated through a number of empirically refutable propositions that overcome some conceptual and empirical difficulties encountered by the traditional interpretation of network effects as (positive) network externalities. The main difference between our model and modeling network effects as network externalities is that network effects are seen as caused by the costs of purchasing and marketing new technology, that is, transaction costs, rather than by the benefits of using a new technology. A first application of the model suggests that users can significantly improve the chances of replacing an established technology with a new, potentially superior one if they set up an organizational structure that serves as a conduit of information exchange and knowledge sharing. This, however, would call for a rather different type of collective user action than exists today in the form of user groups.

Decomposing Influence Strategies: Argument Structure and Dependence as Determinants of the Effectiveness of Influence Strategies in Gaining Channel Member Compliance

2005 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 66-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janice M. Payan ◽  
Richard G. McFarland
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
Channel Member ◽  
Unexpected Result ◽  
Influence Strategies ◽  
Influence Strategy ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Relational Outcomes

Although there is considerable research examining the effects of influence strategies on relational outcomes, research has been silent on the effectiveness of influence strategies in achieving the primary objective: channel member compliance. The authors develop a theoretical model that predicts that noncoercive influence strategies (Rationality, Recommendations, Information Exchange, and Requests) with an argument structure that contains more thorough content result in relatively greater levels of compliance. The model further predicts that coercive influence strategies (Promises and Threats) result in compliance only when target dependence levels are high. The authors develop a new influence strategy, Rationality, which represents a noncoercive strategy with a full argument structure. In general, empirical findings support the theoretical model. However, in contrast to expectations, the use of Recommendations had a negative effect on compliance. Post hoc analysis revealed a significant interaction between trust and Recommendations on compliance, thus providing an explanation for this unexpected result. When trust is low, Recommendation strategies are counterproductive. The authors discuss implications of the findings and directions for further research.

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