Free software meets Facebook: Placing digital platforms’ usage by free culture communities

2020 ◽  
pp. 146144482097162
Author(s):  
Dafne Calvo
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Free Software ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Digital Platforms

The use of digital platforms in social movements has given the Internet a central role in analyzing activism over the last decade. However, social networks’ potential for social change has to be analyzed critically and take complex economic and political contexts where actors remain unequally powerful into consideration. Through a combined methodology, this article explores the tensions of free culture communities in Spain when using proprietary digital platforms. These communities include 1651 platforms, of which 1162 are proprietary, and 489 are free. They describe a complex ecology in which they use proprietary platforms or free alternatives depending on their ultimate goals. The logic of technological corporations is notably imposed when communities aim to communicate with outsiders as commercial social networks attract a significantly greater number of users.

scholarly journals Progressive Social Movements and the Internet

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah J. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Power ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Internet ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
The Public Sphere

Because of the field’s foundational concerns with both social power and media, communication scholars have long been at the center of scholarly thought at the intersection of social change and technology. Early critical scholarship in communication named media technologies as central in the creation and maintenance of dominant political ideologies and as a balm against dissent among the masses. This work detailed the marginalization of groups who faced restricted access to mass media creation and exclusion from representational discourse and images, alongside the connections of mass media institutions to political and cultural elites. Yet scholars also highlighted the ways collectives use media technologies for resistance inside their communities and as interventions in the public sphere. Following the advent of the World Wide Web in the late 1980s, and the granting of public access to the Internet in 1991, communication scholars faced a medium that seemed to buck the one-way and gatekeeping norms of others. There was much optimism about the democratic potentials of this new technology. With the integration of Internet technology into everyday life, and its central role in shaping politics and culture in the 21st century, scholars face new questions about its role in dissent and collective efforts for social change. The Internet requires us to reconsider definitions of the public sphere and civil society, document the potentials and limitations of access to and creation of resistant and revolutionary media, and observe and predict the rapidly changing infrastructures and corresponding uses of technology—including the temporality of online messaging alongside the increasingly transnational reach of social movement organizing. Optimism remains, but it has been tempered by the realities of the Internet’s limitations as an activist tool and warnings of the Internet-enabled evolution of state suppression and surveillance of social movements. Across the body of critical work on these topics particular characteristics of the Internet, including its rapidly evolving infrastructures and individualized nature, have led scholars to explore new conceptualizations of collective action and power in a digital media landscape.

Where the Imaginary Meets the Virtual

2020 ◽  
pp. 161-198
Author(s):  
Neville Bolt
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Information Age ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Network Effect ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
Slow Moving ◽  
Mobile Phone Networks

Chapter 6 examines how the insurgent landscape has been transformed by the digital revolution; how migrant disaporas and social networks have been brought closer together by digital technologies in the Information Age, and how social movements, once below the radar of states or emergent states, affect and outmaneuver slow-moving bureaucracies. This begs the question: is Propaganda of the Deed active or reactive, truly strategic or opportunistic? The answer lies closer to strategic opportunism, offering a strategy of fluidity able to capitalize on the switch from a one-to-many model of historic communications to a many-to-many model of contemporary communications. Indeed, it exploits to the full the network effect across the Internet and mobile phone networks.

scholarly journals Talk Is Silver, Code Is Gold? Beyond Traditional Notions of Contribution in Peer Production: The Case of Drupal

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Rozas ◽  
Nigel Gilbert ◽  
Paul Hodkinson ◽  
Samer Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Source Code ◽  
Free Software ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Software Project ◽  
Peer Production ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Digital Commons ◽  
The Creation

Peer production communities are based on the collaboration of communities of people, mediated by the Internet, typically to create digital commons, as in Wikipedia or free software. The contribution activities around the creation of such commons (e.g., source code, articles, or documentation) have been widely explored. However, other types of contribution whose focus is directed toward the community have remained significantly less visible (e.g., the organization of events or mentoring). This work challenges the notion of contribution in peer production through an in-depth qualitative study of a prominent “code-centric” example: the case of the free software project Drupal. Involving the collaboration of more than a million participants, the Drupal project supports nearly 2% of websites worldwide. This research (1) offers empirical evidence of the perception of “community-oriented” activities as contributions, and (2) analyzes their lack of visibility in the digital platforms of collaboration. Therefore, through the exploration of a complex and “code-centric” case, this study aims to broaden our understanding of the notion of contribution in peer production communities, incorporating new kinds of contributions customarily left invisible.

scholarly journals Batman, Pandaman and the Blind Man: A Case Study in Social Change Memes and Internet Censorship in China

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
An Xiao Mina
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
Media Environments ◽  
Internet Censorship ◽  
Community Expression

While the internet has been examined as a utilitarian space for social movements, it also acts as a cultural space for personal and community expression about important social issues. While examining the particularities of the memetic form – often catchy humor, simple imagery, and remixing – the author examines meme culture as a vehicle for political and social critique in the context of China’s stringent web censorship and propaganda. She looks at social change memes that have arisen around internet censorship and in support of the blind lawyer activist Chen Guangcheng. First, she considers these memes as visual and creative practices that sidestep the mechanics of internet censorship in China. She then argues for the role of internet memes in challenging hegemonic media environments, and maintains that these actions should be considered important political acts in and of themselves.

Environmental Activism, Social Networks and the Internet

2009 ◽  
Vol 198 ◽  
pp. 422-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Sullivan ◽  
Lei Xie
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Environmental Activism ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Individual Effect

AbstractSocial networks and the internet both have a substantial individual effect on environmental activism in China. In this article, we speculate that social linking patterns between environmental actors, which often facilitate activism on the ground, may also exist in cyberspace in the form of an online network. The article addresses the following empirical questions. Does such an online network exist? If so, who are the constituent actors? Are these the same actors observed on the ground? In addressing these questions the article aims to contribute to the growing debate on the implications of the internet for the potential emergence of social movements in China.

scholarly journals Community Networking as Radical Practice

2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Garth Graham
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Clear View ◽  
Effective Community ◽  
Community Networking

The practitioners of community networking sense that its nature as a “Movement” is ending. But what does that mean? As daily life online becomes ordinary, and as capacity to engender community online becomes an ordinary function of daily life, what is effective in advancing community networking as a community of practice? How can we get a clear view of community networking as radical practice in social change? Finding answers to these questions requires, in part, defining the roles of technologies and individuals in the structuring of social networks in unexpected ways. Effective community networking then occurs when individuals act cooperatively to make the Internet "happen" more rapidly in support of the need for community and the need for change in local governance.

scholarly journals Transnational social movements in the internet era: The case of „Avaaz”

Sociologija ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 497-517
Author(s):  
Mladen Stojadinovic
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Transnational Social Movements ◽  
Potential Impact

The paper will deal with concept and range of transnational social movements at the beginning of 21st century, which is a period characterized by huge growth of importance of new technologies and Internet. We will be interested in the role of transnational social movements which base or at least overwhelmingly organize their activity through Internet and social networks; ?Avaaz? will be taken as an example since it is the most popular activist community at the mentioned network. The key aim will be to describe and partly explain the possibilities that Internet provides for functioning of movements, but also to give indications of strategic and tactical changes in their actions, as well as of dangers such type of technology can cause in relation to practical social and political consequences. Firstly, it will shortly be spoken about the concept of transnational social movements, then about the relation between Internet and democracy, conditions that lead to development of new practices such as direct democracy or e-democracy and about the political participation on the Internet. Then the focus will move to ?Avaaz? movement, its recent features and activities, the ethics of this movement that might be defined as cosmopolitan, but also to critics that might be directed to ?Avaaz?. The final part of the paper will be devoted to considerations on transnational social movement?s future and their real and potential impact on emergence of global civil society, in order to assess the achievements of this particular and similar movements.

Internet-based Online Higher Education in Nepal Amidst COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashis Acharya ◽  
Nabaraj Poudyal ◽  
Ganesh Lamichhane ◽  
Babita Aryal ◽  
Bibek Raj Bhattarai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Online Classes ◽  
Traditional Concept ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Online Higher Education ◽  
Alternative Means ◽  
The Government

The COVID-19 global pandemic has affected all aspects of human life, with education, not an exception. In an attempt to stop the SARS-CoV-2 spreading like wildfire, the Government of Nepal has implemented nationwide lockdowns since March 24, 2020, that have enforced schools and universities to shut down. As a consequence, more than four hundred thousand students of various levels in higher education institutions (HEIs) are in a dilemma about restoring the situation. Several HEIs, nationwide, have leaped forward from the traditional concept of learning—limited within the boundary of the classroom—to choosing digital platforms as an alternative means of teaching because of the pandemic. For this research, the descriptive and inferential analysis was carried out to investigate the effects and challenges of learning via digital platforms during this pandemic. Data were collected from students and faculty at various levels of higher education and analyzed statistically with different factors using t-test and ANOVA, and variables were found to be approximately normally distributed. The study revealed that 70% of the respondents had access to the Internet, but 36% of the Internet accessed did not continue online classes due to unexpected disturbance in Internet and electrical connectivity. Likewise, 65% of students did not feel comfortable with online classes, and among attendees of online classes, 78% of students want to meet the instructor for a better understanding of course matters. According to the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) model, three factors, such as institutional policy, internet access, and poverty, are found to be significant factors affecting the online higher education systems in Nepal. On the brighter side, this outbreak has brought ample opportunities to reform the conventional teaching-learning paradigm in Nepal.

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