Understanding the Effects of New Information and Communication Technologies on Political Mobilization and Violence
Open Access
- Author:
- Arva, Bryan Joseph
- Graduate Program:
- Political Science
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 07, 2019
- Committee Members:
- James A Piazza, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
James A Piazza, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Douglas William Lemke, Committee Member
Zaryab Iqbal, Committee Member
Richard B Felson, Outside Member - Keywords:
- Terrorism
Information and Communication Technologies
ICTs
Protests
Social Media
Political Mobilization
Political Violence - Abstract:
- By 2018, there were more cell phone subscriptions than people in the world and more than 50% of the global population had access to the internet. We have entered an unprecedented age of interconnectivity which would have seemed impossible to previous generations. These new information and communications technologies have impacted just about every aspect of our lives, including the ability of aggrieved groups to redress those grievances. Because of their coverage and ability to connect people immediately, oppositional groups have been able to successfully use these new ICTs for disseminating information, recruiting, fundraising, radicalization, and carrying out operations. Governments have recognized the positive impact these new ICTs could potentially have on the success of oppositional movements and have tried to find ways to exploit them in their favor: surveillance and censorship are the two most common ways. What has become abundantly clear is that if we want to understand the complex relationship between political mobilization and violence, we must take into account the role that ICTs play in those processes. In this dissertation, I look at the relationship between ICTs and mobilization in three different contexts: the effect of ICTs on terrorism, whether ICTs lead to more violent/nonviolent protests, and whether or not internet shutdowns are an effective means of preventing political mobilization. Across the three papers, I find that the influx of new information and communication technologies does seem to reduce violence in general but that the effects are different across contexts.