Are Connective Action's Strengths Also Its Weaknesses?

• In Event: Building a Comparative Framework for Addressing the Role of Media in the Turkish and Brazilian 2013 Protests

Abstract

In recent years, multiple protests that have seemingly come out of nowhere have rocked country after country. From Tahrir to Gezi to Hong Kong to Ukraine, these movements rely heavily on digital infrastructure to coordinate, organize and publicize. However, at the same time as empowering protesters, digital technology also appears to engender common weaknesses, leading to a boom-bust cycle where the policy and electoral impacts are not proportional to the size and energy the protests inspired. Based on hundreds of formal interviews, as well as participant-observation in multiple protests including Gezi, Occupy and Tahrir, this paper argues that the novel use of digital infrastructure to bypass organizational steps and disengage from formal and institutional politics, which shows up as a common protester desire and predates the rise of digital technologies, is creating movements that are a curious mix of powerful effects and weak showings.

Author

• Zeynep Tufekci, U of North Carolina