The Hague University of Applied Sciences

Faculty Member, European Studies & Communication Management

Other Affiliations: University of York, Sociology

Alumnus

Thesis Title: Communicating Offline Protest Online: Mapping Changes in Mobilization, Identity-building and Organization

About

My thesis considered the possible contribution Internet-mediated communication can make to fostering greater participation in offline social movement protest events. Participation was examined as manifest in three distinct processes: mobilization, identity-building and organizational transformation. These processes were scrutinized from a comparative standpoint which contrasted participation in high and low risk protest events, respectively. Although arguably an important dimension of analysis for involvement in protest events, this distinction seems to have remained largely unexplored in studies of Internet use in protest politics. It is suggested in the thesis that the distinction may provide new insights principally into the structural factors influencing the use of the Internet for participation in social movement protests. In particular, the investigation focused on people unaffiliated to social movement organizations who, it was argued, are structurally less accessible to appeals to participation in protest events than those activists more closely affiliated.  Empirical findings drawn from two case studies of environmental protests in Romania and the UK provided evidence for the conclusion that Internet-mediated communication has a more significant contribution to the participation of the unaffiliated at a low-risk than at a high-risk event.