I hope some of you find it of interest. Constructive criticism welcome.
Anyone who cannot access it, send me a private request and I'll see what
I can do.
Abstract:
The day Wikipedia stood still: Wikipedia’s editors’ participation in the
2012 anti-SOPA protests as a case study of online organization
empowering international and national political opportunity structures
This article contributes to the discussions on Internet mobilization and
on international social movements’ ability to influence national policy.
The event studied is the ‘first Internet strike’ of 18 January 2012
aimed against the SOPA legislation proposed in the USA. Wikipedia’s
volunteer editors from all around the world took part in the vote
concerning whether Wikipedia should undertake a protest action aimed at
influencing American policymakers. Wikipedia editors are shown to share
values of the international free culture movement, though experienced
editors were also likely to be conflicted about whether taking part in a
protest action was not violating the site’s principle of encyclopedic
neutrality. Further, Wikipedia’s participation in this protest action
allowed non-US citizens to have a visible impact on the US national
legislation. As such, Wikipedia can be seen as an international social
movement organization, whose 24 hour-long blackout of its popular
website was a major factor in the success of the anti-SOPA protests.
Wikipedia’s blackout was an expression of an international political
opportunity structure in the form of worldwide awareness and protests,
which in turn enabled a national political opportunity structure by
informing and mobilizing American citizens.
http://csi.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/09/26/0011392114551649
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Piotr Konieczny, PhD
http://hanyang.academia.edu/PiotrKonieczny
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gdV8_AEAAAAJ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Piotrus