Activism (Coffee Party).

Many onlookers doubt the ability of digital media to revolutionize the political
game. The Internet is associated in the new global activism far beyond just reducing
the costs of communication, or surpassing the geographical and temporal barriers
accompanying with other message media. Innumerable uses of the Internet and digital
media expedite the loosely designed networks, the weak character ties, and the
patterns of issue and protest organizing that define a new global demonstration
politics. Scrutiny of various cases shows how digital network patterns can facilitate:
perpetual campaigns of the Coffee Party Movement, the evolution of broad networks
despite comparatively weak social identity and ideology ties, alteration of individual
member organizations and whole networks, and the capacity to link messages from
personal computers to television screens. The same merits that make these
communication-based politics resilient, and also make them vulnerable to hitches of
control, policymaking and collective identity.
This essay uses the realization and fruition of the Coffee Party, a political
association in the US that inaugurated as a Facebook Group, to see the upsurge of
a transnational activism that is aimed past states and directly at corporations, trade and
development organizations bargains a fruitful area for indulging how communication
practices can help in creation of new politics. Documentary filmmaker Annabel Park
formed the political party as a forward leaning rejoinder to the Tea Party movement in
the US. As a tryout, Park setup a Facebook group called, "Join the Coffee Party
Movement," conjecturing that the way to instigate political participation in the
general inhabitants was to create a public sphere for civil discourse. The fame and
critical mass involvement on Facebook offered a new, and well-suited podium for
Parks experiment (Bimber, 2007).

The public spheres created by the Internet and the Web are more than just
parallel information universes that exist independently of the traditional mass media.
A growing conventional wisdom among communication scholars is that the Internet is
changing the way in which news is made (Boeder, n.d.). New media provide
substitute communication spaces in which information can develop and be sociable
widely with fewer conventions or editorial filters than in the mainstream media. The
gate-keeping capacity of the traditional press is weakened when information appears
on the Internet, presenting new material that may prove irresistible to competitors in
the sphere of 24/7 cable news channels that now occupy important niches in the press
food chain. Moreover, journalists may actively seek story ideas and information from
Web sources, thus creating many pathways for information to flow from micro to
mass media (Boeder, n.d.).
New forms of virtual political organization are changing public discourse
by broadening and altering participation. Issue entrepreneurship, first
conceptualized by Jrgen to explain the effects of the Internets openness and
immensity on political discourse is shown here to be at once prescient and
insufficient (An encyclopedia
http://www.seangoggins.net/sites/default/files/p11_mascaro.pdf ).
The anticipation of the issue entrepreneur as a central player in Internet enabled
political discourse, before it really existed, is prescient (Edward & Chomsky, n.d.).
We see issue entrepreneurs emerge from Coffee Party Leadership, from amongst
the members and in a few different types of dissent. Jrgens lattice structure,
however, fails to anticipate the one-dimensional nature of the political context
studied here. Ideology is dominant, and nation, geography and organizational
dimensions are nearly absent.

Mass media framing of movements clearly varies from case to case, depending
on how activist communication strategies interact with media gatekeeping (Habermas,
2003). A global activist movement that is committed to inclusiveness and diversity
over central leadership and issue simplicity should have low expectations of news
coverage of demonstrations that display the movements leaderless diversity in
chaotic settings. Why has a movement that has learned to secure good publicity for
particular issue campaigns and organizations not developed more effective media
communication strategies for mass demonstrations? I think that the answer here
returns us to the opening discussion of the social and personal context in which this
activism takes place. Not only are many activists in these broadly distributed protest
networks opposed to central leadership and simple collective identity frames, but they
may accurately perceive that the interdependence of global politics defies the degree
of simplification demanded by most mass media discourse. While issue campaign
networks tend to focus on dramatic charges against familiar targets, most of the
demonstration organizing networks celebrate the diversity of the movement and resist
strategic communication based on core issues or identity frames (Bimber, 2007).
For instance, discourse enabled by social and participatory media reduce
physical barriers, but in this case also make traditional boundaries nearly invisible.
The theoretical, design and practical implications of this for socio-technical
citizenship are immense. The social and economic interests of citizens are more
closely related to nation, geography and institutional dimensions; yet, for the Coffee
Party, discourse is not focused there. Self-interest is, in some ways, marginalized by
the socio-technical system from which Coffee Party discourse emerges. One
important dimension of deliberative discourse on the Coffee Party Facebook
page is the presence of both official leadership and leadership that emerges from

members. Members lead in two ways; by joining in the discussion for a compelling
topic (low frequency posters), or by sparking discourse across a range of topics
(high frequency posters).One caution about the discourse we analyzed is the
disappearance of user 4283s comments on the Coffee Party Facebook page
(Agre, 2008).
Beyond the characterizations of the Coffee Party activists, the predominant
news framing of the overall protest movement is also negative, as in antiglobalization. This is clearly a news construction that is at odds with how many of
the activists think of their common cause. If movement media framing could be put to
a vote among activists, democratic globalization would win over antiglobalization by a wide margin. For example, here is how American labor John
Sweeney put it: It's clear that globalization is here to stay. We have to admit that and
work on having a seat at the bench when the rules are written about how globalization
works." It is apprehensive with the world: omnipresence of corporate decree, the
rampages of monetary markets, environmental destruction, maldistribution of power
and wealth, international institutions persistently overstepping their mandates and lack
of international democracy. (Habermas, 2003).
The elimination of contributions of dissenters, for whatever reason,
would not be commensurate of Dahlbergs criteria. In a socio-technical space,
however, they demonstrate rudimentary gardening of content similar to what occurs
on Wikipedia. Future designs of political discourse oriented social and
participatory media ought to consider tools and practices for maintaining
awareness of editing and what some might view as censorship. Finally, the network
structure of this emergent, virtual organization reveals that, although the Coffee
Party Administrators are responsible for the parent post content, they avoid

participation in discourse regarding controversial ones. Advocates show up as

central figures in the discussions that they lead, as do dissenters.
Dissenters, however, draw a more diffuse, less centralized network around
them. This phenomenon warrants future study focused on understanding how
dissent that limits discourse might be separated from dissent that engages
discourse. An interesting contrast to focus on here is between user 4283, who
dissented without discourse and user 4080, who dissented with reason and direct
references to other discussants. Designers of social and participatory media for
political discourse might consider incorporating more sophisticated social cues for
identifying and managing both dissent and advocacy. Social and participatory media
has the potential to engage citizens.
The Internet is mixed up in the new global activism far beyond plummeting
the costs of communication, or outdoing the geographical and temporal barricades
found in other communication broadcasting. Different uses of the Internet and other
digital media facilitate the loosely structured networks, the puny identity ties, and the
question and demonstration campaign unifying that define a new overall politics
(Richard & Douglas, n.d). In specific, we have seen how certain configurations of
digital networks enable: Cofee Party campaigns, the growth of extensive networks
despite (or because of) comparatively weak social identity and ideology ties, the
transformation of both discrete member organizations and the growing patterns of
whole networks, and the aptitude to communicate messages from desktops to TV
screens. The same qualities that make these communication-based politics sturdy also
make them vulnerable to problems of control, decision-making and collective identity
(Ancu & Cozma, 2009).

The Coffee Party is an illustrative example of how this type of

technology begins to realize deliberative discourse through technology; and also a
study of how this discourse is constrained. Future research should consider both
what we learned, and how new social and practice oriented designs can lead to
greater citizen engagement. The rise of circulated electronic public domains may
ultimately become the model for public facts in many areas of politics, whether
launch or oppositional. It is clear that conventional news is disdainful from the
attrition of audiences (more in commercial than in public service structures), and from
the shattering of remaining audiences as channels increase.
Perhaps the next step is a meticulously personalized information system in
which the precincts of different issues and different political tactics become more
permeable, enabling ordinary citizens to join campaigns, demonstrations, and virtual
communities with few philosophical or partisan divisions. In this apparition, the
current organizational weaknesses of Internet conscription may become a core
resource for the growth of new global publics.

References.
Richard K. & Douglas MK. n.d. Oppositional Politics and the Internet: A Critical/
Reconstructive Approach. 704-725.
Habermas, J. (2003). The theory of communicative action (1). Boston: Beacon Press.
Agre, P. E. (2008). The Practical Republic: Social Skills and the Progress of
Citizenship. In A. Feenberg (Ed.), Community in the Digital Age (pp. 201-224).
Rowman and Littlefield. Ancu, M., & Cozma, R. (2009). MySpace Politics: Uses and
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