Abstract
In the past two decades, we have witnessed the emergence of a new form of social movement, which has taken the shape of a globalized, digitized, radically democratic network formation. Provoked by transformations in global capitalism and the information age, this transnational form of political organizing is reconfiguring how we understand socio-political resistance. Marked by a cultural logic of horizontality, contemporary activists and organizers are building novel social movement institutions through forging flat, networked structures, participatory democratic processes and media organizing practices that link manifold sites of struggle. In this talk, Dr. Wolfson historicizes this contemporary logic of struggle by placing it in the context of the Old and New Left, arguing that we are entering a new phase in social movement organizing, the Cyber Left, that is interwoven with new information and communication technologies and other globalizing trends. Dr. Wolfson also aims to provide insight into some of the limits of this novel socio-political formation, focusing on the lack of analysis of class and capitalism and the inability of the Cyber Left to build enduring institutions and consequently proactive power.
Website
https://comminfo.rutgers.edu/directory/twolfson/index.html
Media Mobilizing Project
http://www.mediamobilizing.org/
Recent Publications
“Class In-Formation: The Intersection of Old and New Media in Contemporary Urban Social Movements” Social Movement Studies, 2013 (Co-authored with Peter Funke)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14742837.2013.831755
“Democracy or Autonomy: Indymedia and the Contradictions of Global Social Movement Networks” Global Networks 13 (3).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/glob.12030/pdf