Social cybermovements: a review of the concept and theoretical framework

Abstract

The empirical works that explore the ways in which social movements and democracy are changing in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) age have increased in number, especially since 2011 (with the emergence of global indignation movements). The growing mass of studies devoted to this subject has begun to define a new field of research. This area requires specific categories and an organised theoretical framework to distinguish the wide scope of collective action that forms the basis of this field. This paper aims to advance in this direction, offering an analysis of theoretical framework for the study of “social cybermovements”. Firstly, we will explore some of the main causes that have got involved in the birth of this field of study in the digital era. Secondly, we will differentiate the theoretical framework of the social cybermovements and we will stress that it is important to keep in mind the particular characteristics in the diverse cases of collective action. We will review the different studies that have tackled the collective action in the Internet age. We will observe that there are several terms of collective actions which do not refer exactly to the concept of social movement. Thirdly, we will analyse the emerging theoretical framework on social cybermovements. We will study some of the principal works of the literature in the field of the social movements in the networks society.