Introduction
A core element involved with social movements is collective action and mobilization which requires “space” or “venues” for which to exist in order to create a statement or portray a message. Social movements create associations with a unique purpose and engage in tactics such as demonstrations, petitions, drives, public statements, and meetings; with actors who attempt to identify themselves as public and worthy of their cause. Through group action, these movements target things such as government authorities, business owners, religious leaders, corporations, and unjust laws, and work to carry out, resist or undo social change (Deric, 150). So what then are physical space and cyberspace and why are they so vital for social movements? This physical space can be understood as areas such as a square, park, event halls, or commercial centers and cyberspace can be understood as international video media, social networking and online websites, and online groups. Typically, social movements and revolutions “are shaped by the broader set of political constraints and opportunities unique to the national context in which they are embedded” (McAdams, 3). According to Della Porta, these movements use tools such as roadblocks, protests, and public demonstrations as a means to increase and create political participation (105). Physical space is vital for movements to be successful as Fraser explains, since it allows them to better achieve their goals and creates new forms of redistribution and recognition (145). Cyberspace allows for these movements to broaden their scope and range and gain support on issues that affect lives worldwide. Movements today are forced to reshape the political space – and quite possibly the global space – in which they exist to effectively target injustice and create change; for this reason, it is difficult as well as vital for social movements to secure a physical or cyber “space”. In today’s society space no longer solely means areas in which a participant can situate themselves to make an impact, instead they have also branched off into the cyber world as a vital aspect and more than just a tool for social movements.
Compared to movements seen in the past, such as civil rights or women’s movements, today’s movements rely considerably on the power of technology to organize and associate themselves. The use of the internet today has helped and is helping to shape our understanding of social movements and the tactics they use to achieve their goals (Van Laer, 230). It can be argued that the internet has given social movements today new and improved opportunities to not only engage in social action but also in political action. The internet has allowed for social movements to transition transnationally and internationally and allowed them to operate on a more global level but “For the movement to survive, insurgents must be able to create a more enduring organizational structure to collective action” (McAdams, 13). By examining how modern movements utilize both physical and cyber “spaces”, this paper will seek to answer if modern movements can exist solely in one dimension or if it is vital to have the use of both “spaces”.
The Changing (Inter)Face of Social Movements
Gladwell explains that the world is now in a technological revolution and that the new tools of social media have shaped and changed the face of social activism; Facebook and Twitter have reinvented traditional relationships between political authority and the popular will of the people, allowing for easier methods of collaboration and coordination in voicing concerns regarding injustices (1). Soguk examines the uprisings which swept the Arab world and the effects they had in creating change or raising awareness (295). It is easily understood that these uprisings began with Twitter and Facebook, such as Hosni Mubarak getting “de-friended” by hundreds overnight as a means to pose a political statement (Soguk, 296). This use of cyberspace to demonstrate solidarity to uprisings and revolutions may seem to appear “out of this world” (Gladwell, 2) but they bring with it a notion of change. It is easy to attribute the success of certain demonstrations over others on the internet, but how much effect did it actually have?
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Gladwell explains that the utilization of cyberspace such as the use of Twitter was instrumental in organizing the demonstrations, so much so that protestors asked the website to delay site maintenance at the time since they did not want any disturbances during the protests themselves (2). Yet, many of the social activists “tweeting” were not from the countries where protests and demonstrations were occurring. For example in Moldova and in Iran, the demonstrations became international yet few participants even had a Twitter or Facebook account – for most, there was no deep personal connection to the cause (Gladwell, 2). So then the “absence of any real mobilizing structure would almost surely prevent their spread to the minimum number of people required to afford a basis of collective action” (McAdams, 6). Activists, as they were previously understood, attacked deep-rooted problems and required a personal connection to a movement to be able to fully associate oneself with it (Gladwell, 3). Yet social networks seen online today increase the motivation to participate since they lessen the actual requirements of participation that were previously necessary (Gladwell, 4). Social networking sites make it easier for activists to express themselves politically, but seemingly difficult for that expression to have any real form of impact on its own. The use of the internet does help social movements organize and mobilize themselves easier, but what real significance do people “tweeting” from the other side of the world really have on the ground level of these demonstrations?
One could argue that due to the “conscious strategic efforts by groups of people to fashion shared understandings of the world and of themselves that legitimate and motivate collective action” (McAdams, 9), the use of cyberspace has created a new platform for social movements to exist and utilize - such as the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. Hardt and Negri analyze the “we are here” movement and the various protests that rallied across the United States and the world (Hardt, 1). The “Occupy” movement accomplished the notion of physical space being understood as something within already existing public space as a means of creating a message through its use of encampments (Hardt, 3). Although, the movement itself would have been nothing without the attention it gained from the mass media, through the use of Facebook, Twitter, and various tools such as these to organize itself. These “tools” such as Twitter were used to make announcements for events, organized participants, and for gaining polling views of large assemblies on a specific issue or decisions in real-time, allowing for it to take on a very real cyberspace. This method works for small-scale assemblies, but can it function effectively for larger ones, to achieve larger goals with an organized element? Although the internet can be a useful tool for the organizational phase of movements, can it be considered a form of “space”?
The use of physical vs. cyber “space”
Protests of the past, as well as the more recent ones today such as “Occupy Wall Street”, “Black Lives Matter”, “#MeToo”, and the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” to name a few, show that there is a need for social change. This will not be achieved solely by occupying physical space, it will also be necessary to use more modern tools which the internet provides to create new cyberspaces and new public awareness of issues worldwide. Although physical space provides several opportunities for contentious politics by social movements, using cyberspace through computer-mediated communication can strengthen these opportunities and possibly create change faster than seen in the past; which could potentially function as a form of entirely new social movements. The use of the internet shows that it increases awareness worldwide and has the ability to create global communities and cyber spaces which have been previously unseen. It is not yet clear if social movements can be successful without the use of physical space but through analysis of some of the earlier-mentioned movements they can serve to show how the use of cyberspace can strengthen demonstrations, protests, and resolves on issues by encouraging international sympathy for a cause.
Technological advancements have allowed for the creation of broadly used social media networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, the widespread use of personal mobile devices and wireless networks, and search-based networks such as Google and YouTube, have changed the way in which people communicate with one another. People today live in an increasingly technologically accessible world in which information about individuals, organizations, and governments has become much easier to gather. Due to this, it is easier to foster and increase the popularity of social networking sites since they create communities for people to stay “connected” with one another. The use of cyberspaces helps increase the speed, reach, and effectiveness of social movements in regard to the way in which those participating can mobilize and communicate with one another (McAdams, 5). Computer-mediated communication has the potential to create a border between inward and outward communication since it allows social movements to spread uncensored information rapidly, therefore influencing the traditional mass media. Since it is a cost-effective means of communication, resource-poor actors can take advantage of it and open the arena for political communication; creating global citizens through the web (Della Porta, 93).
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