Network activism and identity connections: New perspectives for social movements

Abstract

In this work, I attempt to identify the main characteristics of the new organizational forms of social movements based on the use of new information and communication technologies. After describing some cases, it is demonstrated that social collectives ascribe the internet a core role in their ways of interconnection, successfully developing new forms of organization, sharing ideas, aligning strategies, and building coalitions and alliance of global reach. Such phenomenon opens a new horizon for social change that points to the emergence of new dynamics for collective action based on complex identity networks, oriented by "universal values". It is on those trends that I focus the analysis in this paper. © 2007 Programa de Pós-Graduação em Sociologia - UFRGS.