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The Zapatistas OnlineShifting the Discourse of Globalization
Abstract
This study examines the complex and contradictory dynamic of localization and globalization as they are manifest in online postings created by Zapatista supporters in Mexico. The aim is to develop an understanding of the dimensions of the Internet that contribute to its efficacy as a tool in grassroots globalization. Online newsgroup postings and websites created by Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) supporters are examined here in terms of the technological dimensions particular to computer-mediated communication. These dimensions include a relative lack of centralized control, the decentered author, interactivity and an alliance-building capacity. Combined, these technological dimensions facilitate a particular type of communication and contribute to a broadening of the discourse regarding the Mexican government as well as dominant conceptions of the Mexican nation.
... Dubious information can be subjected to rapid rebuttal through new media far faster than through print or broadcast media. Thus, from the early stages, the internet provided an important means for the rapid dissemination of information by pro-Zapatistas (Russell, 2001a). ...
... Information circulated online also had the effect of enhancing the scope of reports in traditional media. An example is the Anderson Valley Advertiser, a small progressive newspaper in California, whose detailed reports on Chiapas reached a national audience on the internet (Russell, 2001b). A notable instance here was a report regarding a leaked memorandum from Chase Manhattan Bank urging the Mexican government to deal decisively with the Zapatistas, which was circulated widely online and led to protests about the government acting at the seeming behest of international capital. ...
... To overcome this, EZLN materials were initially prepared as written communiques for the mass media and passed to sympathetic reporters. Such materials were then either scanned or typed up for distribution on the internet (Russell, 2001b). Thus, EZLN presence on the internet is often not direct, but rather the result of the efforts of supporters who are willing to relay communiques, coordinate actions, and distribute information. ...
p>This thesis poses the following question: do the structural preconditions exist in the present for the emergence of transnational public spheres? Following a reconstruction of Habermasian public sphere theory, I define a transnational public sphere as a site of deliberation in which non-state actors reach understandings about issues of common concern. I identify trends that may coalesce to provide the structural preconditions for the emergence of transnational public spheres. These are threefold. First, developing communicative capacity across state borders due to new media technologies, particularly the internet. Second, transformations in sites of political authority, such as the evolution of multi-layered global governance, which poses challenges to traditional conceptions of state sovereignty. Third, emerging transnational communities of recognition that use new media to communicate and to politically mobilise.
I define a community of recognition as distinguished by the following; by a sense of collection identity as a ‘public’ due to shared identities and interests, and by the demonstration of a common endorsement of the norms of publicity in communicative interaction. With reference to these criteria, I examine the activities of three transnational social movements: the international women’s movement, the Zapatista movement and Greenpeace and the international environmental movement. I also consider whether a transformative influence can be identified on hegemonic discourse and the international institutional framework as a result of the activities of these movements.
I argue that a suitable environment has developed in which transnational public spheres can indeed emerge. However, the development and consolidation of transnational public spheres may be constrained by other factors. These include global disparities in access and ownership to communication technologies, and the influence of private and state interests on the development of new media. I conclude with some suggestions for future research.</p
... Key here is their communication strategy - Castells (2000), for instance, describes this strategy as the first informational guerrilla movement. When commercial media refused to transmit Zapatista communiqués, dispatches went to Usenet groups around the world (Russell, 2001). There are today over 45,000 Zapatista-related websites in 26 countries, and the ...
... The Zapatistas were, in this way, able to attract a great deal of attention and bring international journalists and members of NGOs into the region, making it hard for the Mexican government to engage in repressive measures, and bringing into focus issues of political corruption and social exclusion, forcing the government to negotiate (Castells, 2000). In this way the Zapatistas have been able to bring a local struggle to global attention, to reach the centre with their 'peripheral vision' (Russell, 2001). They have very skilfully connected their struggle to those taking place elsewhere, in sentiments such as Marcos's slogan 'we are you': 'Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Jew in Germany, a gypsy in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a single woman on the metro at 10 p.m., a peasant without land, an unemployed worker and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains'. ...
This accessible text provides a comprehensive overview of globalization and its consequences from the perspective of social and political critical theory. Thematic chapters provoke student inquiry and the book shows how the views of critical theorists are crucial to understanding the global processes shaping the world today. © Patrick Hayden and Chamsy el-Ojeili 2006. All rights reserved.
... They particularly noted that that The Zapatistas used internet to gain political strength and publicize their cause (Russell 2001;Wolfson 2012). However, this group of academics did not focus on the interconnection of indigenous groups through technologies, nor it addresses the composition of non-indigenous indigenous partnerships across space. ...
... Past research has substantiated the Internet's capacity to encourage political behaviors by individuals (Best & Keegan 2009;Johnson & Kaye 2003;Jennings & Zeitner 2003;Tolbert & McNeal 2003;Xenos & Moy 2007), as well as facilitate and streamline organization and mobilization by political groups and institutions (Bimber 2003;Shirky 2008). Anecdotes and case studies also abound, illustrating instances in which the Internet was harnessed to effect democratic ends (Chan 2005;Froehling 1997;Russell 2001a;Russell 2001b;). However, it is also the case that several prominent studies have revealed a null effect of Internet use on the political behavior of individuals (Bimber 1998(Bimber , 2001(Bimber , 2003Kroh & Neiss 2009;Quintelier & Vissers 2008). ...
While scholarship is already underway investigating when the Internet will (and will not) facilitate political behaviors and organization, this study makes a unique contribution to this effort by considering whether the Internet also influences the desire to organize in the first place. Through a randomized field experiment conducted in Tanzania in the months leading up to the 2010 presidential election, this study explores whether the Internet influenced individuals' perception of the fairness of the election and recount. The history of protests, riots, and revolts precipitated by contested electoral results in nations transitioning to democracy render this an important consideration of the Internet's capacity to alter citizens' satisfaction with their government. Additionally, by employing a randomized field experiment, this study provides a direct test of the Internet's causal effect on political evaluations. The findings reveal that the Internet did negatively influence individuals' perception of the fairness of both the election and the subsequent re-count.
... In one of the largest of public opinion analyses, Nesbit et al. find that the Internet drives democratic expectations, especially in countries that already have a few democratic habits (Nisbet, Stoycheff, and Pearce 2012). Ever since the Zapatista rebels used the World Wide Web to promote their struggle for indigenous land rights in 1994, international analysts have been engaged in explaining the uses of digital technology by grassroots activists and social movements and determining the technologies' effects on political outcomes (Meikle 2002;Russell 2001Russell , 2005. In years since, many have contributed valuable insights into this phenomenon in specific geographic and temporal contexts, sometimes focused on moments of heightened contention, such as national elections or social justice campaigns (Margolis, Resnick, and Tu 1997;Pedersen and Saglie 2005;Howard 2010;Sreberny and Khiabany 2010;Earl and Kimport 2011). ...
It has been 15 years since the last wave of democratization. But as a region, North Africa and the Middle East were noticeably devoid of popular democracy movements—until the early months of 2011. Democratization movements had existed long before technologies like mobile phones and the Internet came to these countries. But with these technologies, people sharing an interest in democracy built extensive networks and activated collective action movements for political change. What might have made regimes more susceptible than others to these uprisings, and what might explain the relative successes of some movements over others? What role does information technology have in the modern recipe for democratization? Weighing multiple political, economic, demographic, and cultural conditions, we find that information infrastructure—especially mobile phone use—consistently appears as one of the key ingredients in parsimonious models for the conjoined combinations of causes behind regime fragility and social movement success. To understand the successes and failures of contemporary political protests, we must also assess how civil society leaders and authoritarian security forces treat communication technologies as democratically consequential.
... Additionally, critical organizational communication scholars can draw from theories of organizational technology to understand the role of technology in facilitating this decentralized strategy (see for example Owens & Palmer, 2003;Russell, 2001). Also, by focusing on task accomplishment over individual behavior, discursive approaches to leadership (Fairhurst, 2003) can facilitate critical studies of the transformative potential of "leaderless movements." ...
This essay addresses the need for organizational communication scholarship to come to terms with the contested nature of globalization through analyses of collective resistance. We argue that organizational communication has largely situated the study of resistance at the level of the individual, and characterized it as an element of micro-politics located within organizational boundaries. Thus, resistance has been considered in localized, interpersonal terms, without full appreciation of its political and ideological significance. This essay builds a case for reconsidering resistance in order to study “globalization from below” and highlights protest movements as exemplars of transformative resistance. Finally, the essay advances a study of organizational communication with expanded disciplinary engagement with respect to globalization.
המאמר מנתח את תרומתה של רשת האינטרנט להתארגנויות חברה אזרחית וליזמים פוליטיים. לצורך כך יוצגו שלושה סיפורי הצלחה מקומיים בולטים של יזמים אזרחיים אשר בחרו להשתמש באינטרנט על מנת לגבש התאגדויות מקומיות –לעתים אף בניגוד למדיניות ממשלתית ועירונית – ועל ידי כך לקדם את מטרות חבריהן. המקרים הללו, בסיועה של מסגרת תאורטית, מדגימים כי האינטרנט מעשיר את ארגז הכלים של תנועות חברתיות ושל יזמים פוליטיים, ומקל על ארגון ציבורים ועל ניתובם והירתמותם למטרות המשותפות לחבריהם
ספר זה מציג לראשונה בשפה העברית מגוון מחקרים מדיסציפלינות שונות הנוגעים להשפעת טכנולוגיות הרישות והמידע, ובייחוד רשת האינטרנט – על הספֶרה הפוליטית, החברתית והכלכלית.
There are as many different versions, perceptions and means of interaction with ‘global cultural forces’ as there are locales and social groups in the world. Central to these are translocal and transnational pathways and their intersections, the routes along which cultural influences travel and operate. These include migration, travel and diaspora; transnational solidarities that cross ethnic, political and religious boundaries (including international non-governmental organisations, INGOS) and the media. In this chapter we explore specific global cultural influences and the pathways along which they operate in the particular contexts of Irish, Kurdish and Islamist self-determination movements (SDMs).
Drawing on the examples of the neo-Zapatista movement and the pro-immigrant marches of 2006, this article analyzes images of Emiliano Zapata, a Mexican national hero intricately tied to postrevolution nation rebuilding, as used within transnational movements that "de/territorialize" his image. At the same time that people in these movements have felt the negative effects of globalization, they have also benefited from certain recent technological developments associated with globalization, especially "technoscapes" and "mediascapes" that have launched the "local" discourse of Revolutionary nationalism across borders and onto the world stage through a variety of national and international (cyber)spaces, creating transnational heterotopias or "other spaces" for cultural and political expression that transgress national boundaries. Analyzing examples of Zapata imagery from the post-revolutionary era (1920s-1930s) against the neo-Zapatista movement of the 1990s and 2000s and the 2006 migrant protests in the United States, the paper explores the ways in which the formation of transnational "imagined communities" can destabilize traditional concepts of the nation-state.
This article argues that as an inclusive social movement, the National Liberation ZapatistaArmy (EZLN), opens diverse critical challenges to unilateral interpretations of globalization—viathe construction of communicative action undertaken by international alternative social networks.There is a subversive potentiality in the very concept of globalization as possibility: on the onehand, globalization should be appropriated as rejecting absolute truths of what it is supposed tomean to be globalized; on the other hand, it should provide spaces for the communicative actionof subaltern counterpublics in which different human groups interact, discuss diverse topics andcreate social networks. Likewise, the article argues that the subject is the main agent of liberation,wherein no identity determinant dominates another—class, race, sex, ethnic group, gender—butthe subject is the quintessential vanguard—as a plural collectivity—of social struggles forging a potential solidarity against diverse forms of domination. Therefore, if the Neozapatista experiencehas a lesson, it is precisely its initiative to transform the international indigenous subject—as wellas other oppressed identities—into a catalyst for claims of unity in difference
This study contributes to the research on the Internet's effect on political behavior and organization by examining how the Internet influences the types of evaluations that may motivate individuals to organize politically. This study employs a randomized field experiment to determine whether the Internet influenced individuals' perception of the fairness of the 2010 Tanzanian presidential election. It provides a direct causal test of the Internet's effect on political evaluations, and the findings reveal that the Internet negatively influenced individuals' perception of the fairness of the election and recount. However, the findings also reveal that the impact of the Internet on political life may not always enrich democratic values. In this case, more critical Internet users also became less likely to vote.
This paper examines the conditions for group cohesion through the relationship between the modes of identification (in structured groups) and assertions of identity (in virtual groups). I would like to consider the nodes between local and global organisation of collectivities through the communication strategies of the Mexican Zapatistas as one of the movements most critically aware - in theory and practice - of the political nature of a social imaginary, and of the corresponding mechanisms of group psychology. The absence of the very possibility of identification in virtual groups calls into question the sustainability of a social (imaginary) project on a global scale. This, I will argue, provides one of the conditions for new forms of violence in identitarian mobilisations more generally.
Scholars have long been interested in the overlap between electronic communication systems and international affairs. New communication systems have brought an expectation for greater information flow and connection across geographical boundaries when compared to the systems that came before them. This study continued this longstanding scholarly interest by examining how the Internet facilitates a sense of connection to the international community at the individual level. Findings demonstrate that the Internet matters for international engagement. According to the results, the Internet connects individuals to the international community by helping them increase their knowledge of the world, facilitating their sense of belonging to the greater world, and motivating them to participate in international events and foreign volunteer opportunities. Further, findings suggest that younger users of the Internet tended to benefit more than older users from reading international news on the Internet with respect to international political knowledge and international participation.
This paper challenges certain everyday, widespread assumptions about the meaning, evidence and evaluation of `globalization'. Both as a journey and a destination, of late this notion has taken on a life of its own. In this essay, seven myths about globalization— `Big Is Better', `More Is Better', `Time and Space Have Disappeared', `Global Cultural Homogeneity', `Saving Planet Earth', `Democracy for Export via American TV' and `The New World Order'—are critically explored in the context of globalization as a historical process and a normative goal. Using myth as a way of classifying sets of ideas about world history, politics, economics, culture, communication and ecology, the argument is made that they serve ideological as well as explanatory ends.
lobalization is certainly a source of anxiety in the U.S. academic world. And the sources of this anxiety are many: Social scientists (especially economists) worry about whether markets and deregulation produce greater wealth at the price of increased inequality. Political scientists worry that their field might vanish along with their favorite object, the nation-state, if globaliza- tion truly creates a "world without borders." Cultural theorists, especially cultural Marxists, worry that in spite of its conformity with everything they already knew about capital, there may be some embarrassing new possibilities for equity hid- den in its workings. Historians, ever worried about the problem of the new, real- ize that globalization may not be a member of the familiar archive of large-scale historical shifts. And everyone in the academy is anxious to avoid seeming to be a mere publicist of the gigantic corporate machineries that celebrate globaliza- tion. Product differentiation is as important for (and within) the academy as it is for the corporations academics love to hate. Outside the academy there are quite different worries about globalization that include such questions as: What does globalization mean for labor markets and
This article begins by outlining John Locke's concept of global civil society and how it is embodied in the global non-governmental movements for peace, human rights, social justice, and environmental preservation and sustainability. The article then sum marizes the role that new globe-girdling communications technologies are now playing within the NGO movements and describes the emergence of one global computer network known as the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) which links more than 15.000 NGO computers in 95 countries. As one case in this dramatic trend, the paper then examines North American Free Trade Agreement, a market- and government-imposed plan to unite the economies of Mexico, the United States, and Canada.
The early formulation in the late 1960s of the cultural domination thesis occurred in a specific historical era. Although that period is over, this by no means indicates that cultural domination no longer exists. The difference today is that national (largely American) media‐cultural power has been largely (though not fully) subordinated to transnational corporate authority. A total cultural package—film, TV, music, sports, theme parks, shopping malls, etc.—is delivered worldwide by a small number of multi‐billion‐dollar media combines. To the extent that communication research ignores or glosses these developments, it loses its explanatory power.
- Froehling, Oliver