Introduction; 1. The logic of connective action; 2. Personalized communication in protest networks; 3. Digital media and the organization of connective action; 4. How organizationally enabled networks engage publics; 5. Networks, power, and political outcomes; 6. Conclusion: when logics collide.
The Logic of Connective Action shows how political action is coordinated and power is organized in communication-based networks, and what political outcomes may result.
W. Lance Bennett is Ruddick C. Lawrence Professor of Communication and Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he is also director of the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement (www.engagedcitizen.org). His research and writing addresses how communication processes and technologies can enhance citizen engagement with politics and social life. Bennett has received the Ithiel de Sola Pool Lectureship and the Murray Edelman Distinguished Career Award from the American Political Science Association; a Doctor of Philosophy, honoris causa, from Uppsala University; the Olof Palme Visiting Professorship in Sweden; and the National Communication Association Distinguished Scholar career award. Alexandra Segerberg is a Research Fellow in the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University and Associate Editor of the ECPR Press, the publishing imprint of the European Consortium of Political Research. Her research centers on philosophical, political and empirical theories of collective action.
'W. Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg's The Logic of Connective
Action is a welcome introduction to the topic and should, I hope,
convince more sociologists that our theories of movements should
consider social media as a distinctive resource, one that
transforms the way people engage in activism rather than simply
augmenting traditional communications … This book makes a strong
case that social media and other forms of online activism should
grab the attention of social movement scholars.' Brayden G. King,
American Journal of Sociology
'Playing off Olson's title, Bennett and Segerberg describe the
emerging development of 'connective' action, in which the lower
costs of social media and the ability to claim credit for one's
substantive contribution to policy debates have fueled new modes
for personal political involvement. Through the development of a
sophisticated matrix of mobilization types and techniques and a set
of widely divergent case studies of social movement in a variety of
political settings, they show the potential for technology to
motivate, inform, and engage previously uninvolved individuals in
the policy process … Summing up: recommended.' S. E. Frantzich,
Choice
'Scholars interested in social movements or activism, political
organizing, political communication, civic engagement, new
information and communications technologies, and media studies
would find the book particularly useful. This path-breaking work,
along with others (Bimber, Flanagin, and Stohl, 2012, and Castells,
2012), will change how we think about organization and contentious
action for years to come.' Hao Cao, International Journal of
Communication
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