Digitally Enabled Social Change: Activism in the Internet Age

Much attention has been paid in recent years to the emergence of "Internetactivism," but scholars and pundits disagree about whether online political activity isdifferent in kind from more traditional forms of activism. Does the global reach and blazing speedof the Internet affect the essential character or dynamics of online political protest? InDigitally Enabled Social Change, Jennifer Earl and Katrina Kimport examine keycharacteristics of web activism and investigate their impacts on organizing andparticipation.
Earl and Kimport argue that the web offers two key affordancesrelevant to activism: sharply reduced costs for creating, organizing, and participating in protest;and the decreased need for activists to be physically together in order to act together. Drawing onevidence from samples of online petitions, boycotts, and letter-writing and e-mailing campaigns,Earl and Kimport show that the more these affordances are leveraged, the more transformative thechanges to organizing and participating in protest.