A recent review by Taiwanese scholars on Taiwans Sunflower Movement. The proposed framework of the Logic of Communitive Action, can be used to explain partly what I called the invisible co-ordination of the un-co-ordinated in Hong Kongs umbrella movement. They argued that the online network facilitated and built up the community consciousness through speeding up the spread of affect and anger. Such collective consciousness incentivized and mobilized the crowdsourcing activities, i.e. division of labour in both online and offline world. Fair reading for those who want to learn some theoretical framework merging collective actions and internet. ================= IPP2014: Crowdsourcing for Politics and Policy Boyu Chen, Dachi Liao, Hsin-Che Wu, San-Yih Hwang: The Logic of Communitive Action: A Case Study of Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement //This study has proposed the logic of communitive action as an avenue for analyzing social movements in the digital era, and attempted to facilitate a dialogue based on this logic and those of connective and collective action, and to analyze these three theories and the implications of their similarities and differences. This paper took Taiwan‟s Sunflower movement as case study, and hoped to propose a new way of thinking concerning the research of online politics. The logic of collective action starts with an assumption of materialist rationality, and believes selective incentives and coercion are necessary in order for collective actions aimed at the common good to succeed because of the individual‟s self-interested considerations. Therefore, it is necessary to have large scale social movement organizations to provide, resources and to mobilize participating groups in a top down manner. While new forms of media can lessen the capital necessary for collective action, it cannot alter organizational form or mobilization methods according to the logic of collective action. In contrast to materialist rationality, the logic of connective action emphasizes young netizens‟ self-expressive mentality in the post material society. It also emphasizes the personalizing effect internet technology has on social movements. At present, social movements are not led by large scale organizations, and do not have dominant organizers but, rather, are horizontal networks made up of individuals. The use of new forms of media has substantially decreased the importance of formal organizations, and communication technology itself has become the organization. This study proposes the logic of communitive action with three primary aspects differentiating it from the two other theories. Firstly, we believe emotion/affect plays the important role of creating community consciousness in online social movement mobilization. Furthermore, political opportunity spurs dissatisfied groups to express this dissatisfaction online, and these groups gradually come together in a collective identity, thus forming a community consciousness. Secondly, with respect to organizational form, the logic of communitive action emphasizes the importance of leadership. Internet initiated social movements still require the constant organizing process made by technologically savvy and politically knowledgeable leaders. While they do not have set large scale organization leadership, the existence of several core figures with strong feelings of political efficacy is critical. Thirdly, another impact of internet technology regards the division of labor in a social movement. Collective consciousness is a motive for online crowdsourcing, for which there are no set leaders or regulations. Therefore, the key properties of the network in communitive action are its horizontal connections. However, leaders and participants are still connected in a top down manner.//
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 05:24:51 +0000
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