Hacktivism and Cyberwars: Rebels with a cause?

"As global society becomes more and more dependent, politically and economically, on the flow of information, the power of those who can disrupt and manipulate that flow also increases. In Hacktivism and

Cyberwars: Rebels with a cause? Tim Jordan and Paul A. Taylor provide a detailed history of hacktivism’s evolution from early hacking culture to its present-day status as the radical face of online politics. They describe the ways in which hacktivism has re-appropriated hacking techniques to create an innovative new form of political protest. A full explanation is given of the different strands of hacktivism and the ‘cyberwars’ it has created, ranging from such avant-garde groups as the Electronic Disturbance Theatre to more virtually focused groups labelled ‘the digitally correct’. The full social and historical context of hacktivism is

portrayed to take into account its position in terms of new social movements, direct action and its contribution to the globalisation debate. This book provides an important corrective flipside to

mainstream accounts of e-commerce and broadens the conceptualisation of the Internet to take into full account the other side of the digital divide."

Tim Jordanis a Lecturer in Sociology at the Open University and Paul A. Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in the Institute for Communication Studies at the University of Leeds.

Available here

Electronic Civil Desobedience

This article by Stefan Wray discuss the genealogy of the cyberactivism. From the earlier days of activists networks to the direct actions in the late 1990's, Wray gives a good first look at the movement. An essential piece of work for discussions about the present and the future of cyberactivism.

Link: http://switch.sjsu.edu/web/v4n2/stefan/

Putin's Khanate: How Moscow is trying to integrate crimean muslims

On the following link, Rober D. Crews will briefly defend how the Crimean crisis correlates with the Islam's role in Russia.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141105/robert-d-crews/putins-khanate

Ocupy New York: digital reflexes

An empirical study available here presents data about the posts of O.N.Y movement adherents on Twitter. The periodic analysed embraces a fifteen months period, initiated three months before the beginning of the protest. One of the results found is that, during the time, the number of people in the
movement was decreasing. Another discovery was that allusions to revolutionary movements wasn't too much significant; among another things.

(blog) Activists and Scholars debate Social Movements and Social Change

With the purpose of enhancing dialogue between scholars and activists, the Mobilizing Ideas blog has published interdisciplinary perspectives on social movements, social change and public sphere, featuring original essayas responding to a wide variety of concerning issues.

Violent state repression is currently the debated issue, and the idea is to provoke reflection on some of these questions in light of contemporaray cases: How does repression affect future protest? How do states decide to engage in violent repression? What responses are available to protestors? And, does the type of protestor or the cause matter for who is repressed?

Founded in August 2011, Mobilizing Ideas is hosted by the Center for the Study of Social Movements at Notre Dame. Check it out here.