CAREER: The Internet, Activism and Social Movements

詹妮弗·厄尔加州大学圣巴巴拉分校互联网的迅速发展对社会产生了重大影响，给各个学科的学者，包括对激进主义和社会运动感兴趣的研究人员提出了长期的问题。这个CAREER项目通过研究在什么条件下行动主义和社会运动可能受到互联网使用的影响以及什么机制可能导致这种影响，重点关注互联网与社会运动之间的重要关系。具体来说，这个项目考察了两组关于网络行动主义的假设。首先，互联网正在改变人们参与行动主义的方式。在某些情况下，互联网允许在线支持离线抗议，例如在线宣传或后勤协调，但在其他情况下，现在个人可以在线参与抗议行动，例如在线请愿和拒绝服务行动等活动。本项目考察了以下假设：(1)在线参与抗议活动的机会将随着时间的推移而增加，并且这些机会将变得更加自动化；(2)与合法抗议策略相比，非法抗议策略在网络上的移动速度更慢；(3)使用在线协调和物流工具的线下抗议活动受无线互联网技术的影响大于有线互联网技术的影响；(4)提供线上和线下抗议行动的团体将提供线上和线下类似的行动，例如提供线上和线下的写信活动。其次，该项目还关注传统的组织者，如正式的社会运动组织，是否会像历史上组织线下抗议活动一样，在组织参与在线抗议活动的机会方面发挥关键作用。具体假设认为：(1)在线组织抗议活动的前期成本较低，将允许新型组织者进入社会运动；(2)组织抗议行动的前期成本较低，也将使组织者能够以更具成本效益的方式针对更广泛的实体，随着时间的推移，针对非政府目标的抗议更有可能发生；(3)在互联网普及之前建立的社会运动组织将更有可能依赖营利性技术承包商来创造和维护参与抗议的在线机会；(4)与其他类型的组织者相比，在互联网普及之前成立的社会运动组织从事非法在线抗议活动的可能性较小。在线抗议相关活动的数据将使用一种创新的方法来收集，这种方法可以生成网站的准随机样本。具体来说，该项目将收集两个纵向数据集（一个横截面时间序列和一个面板数据集）和四个专注于上述假设的专门数据集。统计分析，包括多项逻辑回归和时间序列分析，将根据收集的数据来检验项目的假设。综上所述，对这些假设的分析将有助于形成一个更细致入微的关于互联网与行动主义之间关系的理论。该项目还将在理解抗议策略、参与此类策略的形式以及这些策略的制作和协调如何受到有线和无线互联网使用的影响方面取得重大进展。该项目的更广泛影响包括：(1)在研究方法、高级定量方法、计算机程序和编程（包括有偿和无偿研究机会）方面广泛指导代表性不足的研究生和本科生；(2)政策影响传播给对行动主义和社会运动的变化形式感兴趣的非学术受众，无论是在线还是离线。

SES-0547990Jennifer EarlUniversity of California, Santa BarbaraThe rapid expansion of the Internet has major social implications that present long-term questions for scholars across disciplines, including researchers interested in activism and social movements. This CAREER project focuses on the important relationship between the Internet and social movements by examining under what conditions activism and social movements may be affected by Internet use and what mechanisms may lead to such effects. Specifically, this project examines two sets of hypotheses about Internet activism. First, the Internet is changing the way in which people participate in activism. In some cases, the Internet allows for online support of offline protests, such as online publicity or logistics coordination, but in other cases it is now possible for individuals to participate in protest actions while they are online, as is the case of online petitions and denial of service actions, among other activities. This project examines hypotheses claiming that: (1) opportunities to participate online in protest actions will increase over time and that these opportunities will become more automated; (2) illegal protest tactics will move online more slowly than legal protest tactics; (3) offline protests that use online coordination and logistics tools will be more affected by the use of wireless Internet technologies than wired Internet technologies; and (4) groups offering online and offline protest actions will offer similar kinds of actions online and offline, such as by offering letter-writing campaigns both offline and online. Second, the project is also concerned with whether traditional organizers, such as formal social movement organizations, will be as pivotal to organizing online opportunities to participate in protest as they have been historically to organizing offline protest events. Specific hypotheses claim that: (1) the lower up-front costs of organizing protest actions online will allow new kinds of organizers to enter social movements; (2) the lower up-front costs of organizing protest actions will also allow organizers to target broader ranges of entities more cost-effectively, making protest against non-governmental targets more likely over time; (3) social movement organizations established prior to the pervasive use of the Internet will be more likely to rely on for-profit technological contractors for creating and maintaining online opportunities to participate in protest; and (4) social movement organizations established prior to the pervasive use of the Internet will be less likely to engage in illegal online protest activities than other kinds of organizers.Data on online protest-related activities will be collected using an innovative method for generating quasi-random samples of websites. Specifically, the project will collect two longitudinal data sets (one cross-sectional time series and one panel dataset) and four specialized datasets that focus on the hypotheses above. Statistical analyses, including multinomial logistic regressions and time series analyses, will be employed to examine the project's hypotheses in light of collected data. Together, analyses of these hypotheses will allow a more nuanced theory of the relationship between Internet and activism to be developed. The project will also lead to major advances in understanding how protest tactics, the form of participation in such tactics, and the production and coordination of those tactics is affected by wired and wireless Internet use.Broader impacts of the project include: (1) extensive mentoring of underrepresented graduate and undergraduate students in research methods, advanced quantitative methods, and computer programs and programming (including both paid and unpaid research opportunities); and (2) policy implications disseminated to non-academic audiences interested in the changing shape of activism and social movements, whether online and offline.