A firsthand account and incisive analysis of modern protest, revealing internet-fueled social movements' greatest strengths and frequent challenges. To understand a thwarted Turkish coup, an anti-Wall Street encampment, and a packed Tahrir Square, we must first comprehend the power and the weaknesses of using new technologies to mobilize large numbers of people. Tufekci explains the nuanced trajectories of modern protests--how they form, how they operate differently from past protests, and why they have difficulty persisting in their long-term quests for change. Tufekci speaks from direct experience, combining on-the-ground interviews with insightful analysis. She describes how the internet helped the Zapatista uprisings in Mexico, the necessity of remote Twitter users to organize medical supplies during Arab Spring, the refusal to use bullhorns in the Occupy Movement that started in New York, and the empowering effect of tear gas in Istanbul's Gezi Park. These details from life inside social movements complete a …
A firsthand account and incisive analysis of modern protest, revealing internet-fueled social movements' greatest strengths and frequent challenges. To understand a thwarted Turkish coup, an anti-Wall Street encampment, and a packed Tahrir Square, we must first comprehend the power and the weaknesses of using new technologies to mobilize large numbers of people. Tufekci explains the nuanced trajectories of modern protests--how they form, how they operate differently from past protests, and why they have difficulty persisting in their long-term quests for change. Tufekci speaks from direct experience, combining on-the-ground interviews with insightful analysis. She describes how the internet helped the Zapatista uprisings in Mexico, the necessity of remote Twitter users to organize medical supplies during Arab Spring, the refusal to use bullhorns in the Occupy Movement that started in New York, and the empowering effect of tear gas in Istanbul's Gezi Park. These details from life inside social movements complete a moving investigation of authority, technology, and culture--and offer essential insights into the future of governance.
Tufekci gives a comprehensive and clear-eyed overview of the role in social media in organized protest all over the world in the opening decades of the twenty-first century. She recognizes the new vistas that social media has opened up, but also outlines the challenges that it creates. Notably, protest movements such as Occupy Wall Street were capable of bringing large numbers of people to the streets, but unable to translate that into concrete political action. As with most books on technological topics, events have moved quickly after the books publication: it is hard to imagine Twitter and Reddit occupying the same place of prominence today that they did when Tufekci wrote the book in 2017. Nevertheless, the broader lessons are applicable, making this a worthwhile read.
This is a must-read for anyone --- lay person or academic --- interested in the increasing role the Internet and social media has played in recent protests around the globe. Tufecki draws on her extensive first-hand experience with movements that have used recent technologies from the Zapatistas through Occupy and recent events in the Middle East and the last US presidental election, looking at how today's networked platforms can be easily co-opted by small groups to reach large audiences and the resulting successes and failures, contrasting the work with earlier movements such as the American civil rights movement of the 1960s. Given her cultural heritage, she presents an especially interesting and personal account of events in Turkey as they apply to today's networks.
Three areas of the book really stand out to me: her observations and anecdotes about how today's platforms enable very small groups of people to drive large …
This is a must-read for anyone --- lay person or academic --- interested in the increasing role the Internet and social media has played in recent protests around the globe. Tufecki draws on her extensive first-hand experience with movements that have used recent technologies from the Zapatistas through Occupy and recent events in the Middle East and the last US presidental election, looking at how today's networked platforms can be easily co-opted by small groups to reach large audiences and the resulting successes and failures, contrasting the work with earlier movements such as the American civil rights movement of the 1960s. Given her cultural heritage, she presents an especially interesting and personal account of events in Turkey as they apply to today's networks.
Three areas of the book really stand out to me: her observations and anecdotes about how today's platforms enable very small groups of people to drive large movements very quickly; the advantages and disadvantages these movements have because they are generally consensually led rather than hierarchical, and the close relationship between users, the corporations of the social platforms they use, and their interaction with the nation-states in which they operate.
Tufecki also advances the capacities and signals model for how these networks operate. There I think she might have done somewhat better --- or perhaps I lost the thread of her argument, as my background is more technical than sociological. The model seems sound (although I am not qualified to dispute it), but could have been called out more clearly in some ways from her relating of specific observations and trends. To her credit, she does a good job of summarizing the model in both the introduction and conclusion. This may be a weak point to the academic reader, although I imagine her model is --- or will be --- better-covered in her writing targeted specifically at that audience.
The material she presents is accessible to anyone, but I think has special value for three groups of people: those attempting to implement change using today's networked mediums, those studying trends and developments in Internet culture, and those working on Internet technologies that should be aware that their work has real social consequences that are difficult to foresee in advance.
