Abstract
The central argument of this book is that there have been four waves of digital activism: the first from 1994, the second from 9/11, the third phase from 2007 to 2010 that saw the spread of digital activism and the fourth phase since 2010 that is marked by control, mainstreaming and co-optation. The first phase was made possible by the invention of the World Wide Web and the rise of an online activism pioneered by resource-poor groups such as the Zapatistas and Indymedia in the anti–World Trade Organization (WTO) protests. The second phase started with the attacks on New York and Washington and saw the flowering of anti-war on terror online protests. The third phase started with the South Ossetia conflict and includes Obama’s use of social media to win the 2008 US Presidential Election. The fourth phase starts with Wikileaks and includes the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement and anti-austerity protests across Europe. This fourth phase is characterized by the normalization of Internet activism where it has become politics as usual, and in the longer term it will become ‘ineffective and inconsequential’.