Citizen protest in the online networks: the case of the China's bloody map
Résumé
In the last few years, cyber-activism has become a very hot topic. In countries with authoritarian regimes, the Internet has offered new spaces of expression (Benkler, 2006). The recent emergence of social media and the Web 2.0 has increased this phenomenon. Social media offer innovative terrains of expression, less standardized and controlled. Particularly where public venues are too dangerous to express one's opinions, the blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts may give voice to citizen' needs and ideas in a safer way. But what makes the Internet a powerful and dreaded tool in censorship environments is his potential in disseminating information. Thanks to its vast and interconnected nature (Barabasi, 2002), the Web immediately connects local protests in a global network promoting local issues to a worldwide visibility (Beutz Land, 2009). Once the protest is published in a webpage, what makes it interesting and relevant are the connections from and toward this webpage. The passage from a personal to a public contestation, from a punctual to a global issue is not just the result of being published on the Web, but of being included in a network of links. This paper aims at investigating the dynamics of the dissemination of information concerning citizen contestations through the Web. How is dissent information coming from countries where the use of Internet is subject to censorship transmitted around the world? Which network is created by protesting website and by their hyper-links? Which network is created by the links received by such websites? Which types of actors are involved? How the network of actors is developing in time and in space?
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)
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