Protests, Social Movements and Media Legislation in Mexico 2012-2014

The objective of this chapter is to describe and analyze the use of ICTs by social movements in Mexico in their attempt to keep proposed legislation from concentrating, or at least failing to dilute, the already concentrated power of the Mexican media. These technologies not only have been a means of organization and synchronization for protests and mobilization, but also, before restrictions in Mexican law, served as alternative media for citizens to obtain more truthful information and make use of their right to communicate.

The Road to Egypt's Tahrir Square

On January 25th 2011, Egyptians revolted, thereby making history. Before the date, roads to political activism were being incrementally built towards their eventual converging on Tahrir Square. This chapter argues that “nodes of convergence,” defined as shared political and economic grievances, as well as shared virtual and physical spaces, had to be created first before mass mobilization for a collective action of millions on the street could ensue. Providing in-depth examination of events leading to January 25th, this chapter offers a case study for mobilization, from which generalized theory is extrapolated about online communities' convergence, networking, and coalition building. Two main Facebook pages were studied: April 6th Youth Movement and We Are All Khaled Said-- both in Arabic. The conceptualization is built on anthropological fieldwork trips in Egypt since March 2011. This covered ethnographic participant-observations and interviewing. For evidence triangulation purposes of the “convergence effect”, the authors conducted qualitative content analysis of significant posts.

Political Participation in Mexico Offline and Through Twitter

We used survey data and collected data from the online social network Twitter between October 5, 2015 to November 9, 2015 to provide an overview related to political participation in Mexico. With the former we provided a qualitative assessment of participation by examining electoral participation, participation between regions, interest in politics and sources of political information. With Twitter data, we described the intensity of participation, we identified locations of high activity and identified movements including agencies behind them. We compare and contrast participation in Mexico to its counterpart in Twitter. We show that participation seems to be decreasing. However, participation through Twitter seems to be increasing. Our research points towards the emergence of Twitter as a significant platform in terms of political participation in Mexico. Our study analyses the impact of how different agencies related to social movements can enhance participation through Twitter. We show that emergent topics are important because they could help to explore how politics becomes of public interest.

Free and Open Source Software Movements as Agents of an Alternative Use of Copyright Law

Digital technology produced a move from a performative model to a player-as producer paradigm since it has potentiated user-generated transformative uses of intellectual works. In fact, sharing, sampling, remixing and creating new derivative content through digital network collaboration platforms are today pillars of the so-called “age of remix”. However, when unauthorized, such activities may constitute copyright infringement since the making available right and the right to make new derivative works are exclusive rights granted by copyright law. A restrictive exercise of exclusive rights may hinder the implementation of online platforms envisioned to facilitate access to knowledge and to potentiate the creation of new works. The present chapter analyzes the creation the importance of online communities of practice using free/open source software licenses like GNU GPL or Creative Commons Licenses as agents of an alternative and less rigid exercise of the powers granted by copyright law in favor of a freer system of creation and dissemination of creative works in the digital world.

A Social Influence Perspective on Uses of Online Football Forums

This study aims to shed light on Turkish football forum users on the Internet from a social identity and uses and gratifications (U&G) perspective in order to reveal joint intentions among football fans online. The research model of the current study applies a uses and gratifications approach to examine whether fan motivations while using online football forums determine we-intentions among forum members. Social influence processes are also essential in the context of research on online forums, since they determine changes in attitudes and actions produced by the virtual social influence that may occur at different levels. Findings reveal uses and gratifications of football forum participation as maintaining interpersonal interconnectivity, generating entertainment and purposive value along with affective social identity construct determined we-intention among forum users.

The Impact of Social Media on Social Movements

The primary objective of this chapter is to analyze the support of social media for social movements within the context of the anti-consumption movement. Social media have proved to be strategic for initiating, organizing and communicating social movements. The anti-consumption movement is a trend of the postmodernism era that has not yet reached a large following. A secondary aim of this chapter is to analyze the similarities and differences in the support of social media for the anti-consumption movement between one developed and one emerging market. To achieve this goal, a content analysis was employed to analyze Facebook accounts of anti-consumption online communities in the USA and Turkey. The findings show that social media can be the right medium to increase coverage of social movements in society. Additionally, the online institutionalization and decentralized organization of the online community as well as stable social media sharing help support non-radical social movements like anti-consumption.

The Formation of Consensus in Iranian Online Communities

For several years now, the role that digitally mediated social movements and online communities play in challenging authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa has been extensively debated. The focus of attention on the political use of the Internet shapes conventional wisdom that political issues are widespread in online communities in these contexts and that the users are predominantly oppositional users with political democratic motivations. Using fresh methods and techniques to gather a variety of online data, this chapter argues and reveals that, at least in the case of Iran, this view selectively overlooks the diversity of users and the broad range of issues frequently and intensively discussed among users in online communities. The failure to examine a broader range of issues means that scholars have neglected how consensus forms and develops among online users in other issues. This study broadens our understanding of the current social issues and possible areas of change in Iran through investigating a more comprehensive frame of the Iranian web.

Social Media Support for the Occupation of Public Schools in São Paulo, Brazil

Networked social movements have amplified the emancipation of protesters everywhere. In Brazil, a conflict arose after the São Paulo State Secretariat for Education announced the closing of 94 public schools, impacting 311,000 people. In response, about 30 students organized the occupation of the State School Fernão Dias Paes. Subsequently, the occupation spread to other schools. Based on a case study of the first school occupied in the city of São Paulo, this research aims to identify the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and social media tools in generating and sustaining the successful occupation protest of public schools in São Paulo. This chapter covers theories on demonstrations initiated online, on the social panorama in Latin America and educational issues in Brazil. It also addresses and analyzes the occupation process at this school, which reached visibility and support at national and international levels using ICTs and social media, confirming the steps of occupy movements around the world.

Connected Living for Positive Ageing

This chapter proposes that social use of digital technologies can play a useful role in meeting the social and economic challenges posed by the ageing populations in developed countries. Many citizens become increasingly isolated as they age and this has a detrimental impact on their wellbeing. The authors present research which shows how, with suitable devices and ongoing support, older people can develop the digital capability to remain connected to family and community. They can also engaged in activities that give meaning to their lives. The research shows the importance of taking an individualized approach to meeting the needs of each older person who is motivated to learn and of making this learning fun. It also demonstrates how mastering just one or two digital applications can not only enhance social wellbeing but also enable citizens to have more control of their lives and be less of a burden on others.

Information and Communication Technologies as Drivers of Social Unrest

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are alleviating frictions associated with the gathering and distribution of information, as well as reducing transaction costs related to the identifying, monitoring, and coordination of citizens dissatisfied with certain government policies. We conducted a random-effect logit tests based on a uniquely developed panel dataset of 138 countries from 2005 to 2014 to determine, ceteris paribus, whether or not ICTs play a role in facilitating changes to the status quo that gravitate against government policies. We found that ICTs although it can reduce hysteresis, the tendency to remain passive, inertia, is stronger. In addition, because ICTs are multi-purpose technologies they also support other beneficial economic and political activities which can explain why we don't see greater evidence of social unrest with these technologies. The literature on social unrest provide some clues about this phenomenon. People are willing to engage in these movements but it appears that only during a crisis.