From the Streets to the Internet: The Cyber-Diffusion of Contention

The Internet has been widely credited with sparking a revolution in everything from consumer shopping habits and the management of stock portfolios to the practice of popular democracy. It is also leaving its mark on the dynamics of popular contention. Political protest traditionally relied heavily on claims makers' gathering in the streets to contest power holders. The Internet is altering this dynamic by electronically promoting the diffusion of protest ideas and tactics efficiently and quickly across the globe. Less concerned with such constraints as time and geographic space, it has caught policymakers off guard with its ease of public accessibility and immediacy of impact. This cyber-diffusion, however, has a cautionary side: while significantly enhancing the potential for disparate individuals and groups to collectively pool resources and strategy, the Internet also holds the power to turn unreliable and unverifiable information into a global electronic riot.