Digital Revolutions

From Occupy to Uncut, from the Arab Spring to the Slutwalk movement, few questions about recent activism raise as much controversy as the role of the internet. This book suggests that the internet is a tool, not a cause, of social change. It has profoundly affected the way people communicate, making it easier to find the truth, to learn from activists on the other side of the world, to co-ordinate campaigns without hierarchy and to expose governments and corporations to public ridicule. But it has also helped those same governments and corporations to spy on activists, to disrupt campaigns and to create illusions of popular support. Focused on the real-life experiences of activists rather than theory or abstract statistics, Digital Revolutions asks how the internet has affected activism, how it has allowed movements to go global more quickly and what the future holds for corporations and social movements that are doing battle online.