TY - JOUR

T1 - Citizen Action in the Time of the Network

AU - Shah, Nishant

PY - 2013/5

Y1 - 2013/5

N2 - The recent rise of digital activism' has promoted a questioning of the existing relationships between state, markets, civil society and citizen action by developing new and networked ways of thinking. The network society has become the default context within which these acts of digital activism are located and understood. This contribution proposes that the newness in Activisms 2010+' is the imperative that the digital technologies put upon these events should be rendered intelligible, legible and accessible within the digital paradigm. There is a demand that local events, contextual histories and material practices should be made understandable and accountable to the global rhetoric of spectacle' that neglects, overrides and makes invisible acts that do not have the possibility of a spectacle. Through a case study of the Shanzhai Spring Festival Gala' in China, this article hopes to illustrate the need for a new conceptual framework and vocabulary to account for the new conditions of citizen action and the potentials for political change and intervention therein. It further suggests that the discourse around digital activism stop focusing on the new in terms of processes, spectacles and objects, and instead look at the new in conditions that make citizen action possible.

AB - The recent rise of digital activism' has promoted a questioning of the existing relationships between state, markets, civil society and citizen action by developing new and networked ways of thinking. The network society has become the default context within which these acts of digital activism are located and understood. This contribution proposes that the newness in Activisms 2010+' is the imperative that the digital technologies put upon these events should be rendered intelligible, legible and accessible within the digital paradigm. There is a demand that local events, contextual histories and material practices should be made understandable and accountable to the global rhetoric of spectacle' that neglects, overrides and makes invisible acts that do not have the possibility of a spectacle. Through a case study of the Shanzhai Spring Festival Gala' in China, this article hopes to illustrate the need for a new conceptual framework and vocabulary to account for the new conditions of citizen action and the potentials for political change and intervention therein. It further suggests that the discourse around digital activism stop focusing on the new in terms of processes, spectacles and objects, and instead look at the new in conditions that make citizen action possible.

KW - Digital media

KW - civil society

KW - conceptual framework

KW - information and communication technology

KW - political change

KW - social network

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84877878586&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/dech.12036

DO - 10.1111/dech.12036

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 44

SP - 665

EP - 681

JO - Development and Change

JF - Development and Change

SN - 0012-155X

IS - 3

ER -