Insurgency Online
Subtitle: Web Activism and Global Conflict (Digital Futures)
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: April 15, 2006
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 240
ISBN-13: 9780802085535
Subjects: Impact of science & technology on society; Internet; Political activism; Telecommunications; Science/Mathematics; Technology; Politics / Current Events; Internet - World Wide Web; Political Freedom & Security - General; Social Aspects - General; Technology / Telecommunications; Political aspects; Social aspects; World Wide Web
First sentence: As the second Gulf War raged in March and April 2003, a struggle over perceptions of the conflict erupted in newspapers, cable television networks, and on the World Wide Web.
Description: "In Insurgency Online, Michael Dartnell focuses on a new form of conflict made possible by today's communication systems. The Internet, Dartnell argues, is affecting extensive changes to the way politics are carried out by allowing a range of non-state actors onto the global political stage. He demonstrates that Web activism raises issues about the organization of societies and the distribution of power, and contends that the development of online activism has far-reaching social and political implications with parallels to the influence of the invention of the printing press, the telegraph, and the radio." "Dartnell concentrates on Web activists who use the Internet as a media tool, distinguishing this use from information terrorism, which threatens or harasses through 'hacking' or electronic sabotage. Using the examples of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), which opposed the Taliban, the Peruvian Movimento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA) and its campaign against the Fujimori government, and the Irish Republican Socialist Movement (IRSM), Dartnell evaluates the political implications and general character of Web activism. Insurgency Online shows that online activism is a ripe, new method for non-governmental movements and individuals to raise awareness and develop support around the world."--Jacket.