2022/07/14 by Fernández Calderón, Adriana
#FOS: Media and communications
paper · doi:10.25598/jkm/2022-14.32
The rise of multiple new social movements (NSMs) across the globe, such as the #Black-Lives Matter movement in the United States, the wave of feminist protests in Latin America organised by the #NiUnaMenos movement and the international #MeToo claim, have renewed academic debate about the role that information and communications technologies (ICTs) play in the emergence and eventual success of social movements. Optimistic interpretations have attributed to ICTs the power of enabling new forms of protest and civil organisation, amplifying the voices of marginalised voices, reducing transaction costs in collective actions, and allowing movements to be more inclusive and horizontal. On the opposite side,pessimistic approaches have claimed that ICTs have negative effects on NSMs because theypromote a shallow commitment with the causes, demobilise individuals from taking real action, increase the fragmentation of political agendas and, instead of supporting emancipatory goals, enable new forms of control and commercial exploitation of data. This paper discusses critically the findings of previous research around the contradiction of the role of ICTs in NSMs, presents concrete cases of social movements where technologies have played a key role and assesses the factors that explain their ability or limitations to have a real effect onthe political landscape.