Short description:

This book highlights how online networking offers potential for new forms of activist mobilizing, repertoires, participatory democracy, direct action, fundraising, and civic engagement. It calls for a re-conceptualization of some of the main tenets of contentious and electoral politics, which were originally constructed to describe and analyze face-to-face forms of mobilization, in order to more accurately analyze contemporary forms of protest, electoral processes, and civil society organizing.

Long description:

This book highlights how online networking offers potential for new forms of activist mobilizing, repertoires, participatory democracy, direct action, fundraising, and civic engagement. It calls for a re-conceptualization of some of the main tenets of contentious and electoral politics, which were originally constructed to describe and analyze face-to-face forms of mobilization, in order to more accurately analyze contemporary forms of protest, electoral processes, and civil society organizing.

"Many people regard the present as a lull in political activism, certainly from the Left, although the Tea Party movement suggests that right-wing social movements are alive and well. This book challenges that assumption and suggests that the focus for organization has shifted to the Internet." ?Highly Recommended in CHOICE. Review by Y. R. Magrass, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

Table of Contents:

Introduction  1. Overview of Social Movement Theories and a Proposed Synthesis  2. Students Against Sweatshops and Corporate Social Responsibility: The Anti-Nike Campaign  3. Contentious Politics, Cyberactivism, and Electoral Reform: The Reemergence of the Peace Movement Post 9-11  4. MoveOn.org and the Digital Revolution  5. The 2008 Presidential Election and Youth Activism: Digital Technologies as Grassroots Empowerment or Elite Control?  Conclusion