Summary:

Castells, Manuel. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012.

“A hybrid public space made of digital social networks and of anewly created urban community was at the heart of the movement, both as a tool for self-reflection and as a statement of people’s power. Powerlessness was turned into empowerment” (45).

In the opening of Manuel Castells’ book he discusses that “By sharing sorrow and hope in the free public space of the Internet, by connecting to each other, and by envisioning projects from multiple sources of being, individuals formed networks, regardless of their personal views or organizational attachments. They came together” (2). Castells lays the framework for what he will explore in the book. He explains that networked social movements first spread in the Arab world, others in Europe and the United states. This network between cyberspace and urban space made revolutions possible. The true work of what the book will do is laid out on page 4:

In all cases the movements ignored political parties, distrusted the media, did not recognize any leadership and rejected all formal organization, relying on the Internetand local assemblies for collective debate and decision-making.

This book attempts to shed light on these movements: on their formation, ehtir dynamics, their values and their prospects for social transformation. This is an inquiry into the social movements of the network society…

Castells discusses how the shaping of minds is much more powerful than coercion. He discusses how mass communication on horizontal networks is all difficult to control by governments and corporations. The multimodality of digital communication also makes it too complex to control. He later defines social movements as the producers of new values and goals and new norms to organize social life, free from those holding power (9). The networked space between the digital and the public is one of autonomy. He discusses how occupied spaces play major roles in the history of social change for three reasons: 1) they create community based on togetherness; 2) occupied spaces are not meaningless; 3) by constructing a free community in symbolic spaces, social movements create public spaces. He writes that social movements are emotions mobilized. Despite that in the past social movements were dependent on very specific communication mechanisms, now we have digital communications linked horizontally.

In “Prelude to Revolution” Castells discusses Tunisia and Iceland’s social movements. He opens the Tunisia section with Mohamed Bouazizi setting himself on fire because of the humiliation of having to deal with bribes with a corrupt local police. He continues by summarizing how that led to hundreds of youthstaging protest in front of the same buildings. Demonstrations followed. The police killed nearly 150 people. The dictator soon fled but demonstrators continued to demand that all commanding personal be removed from the regime. Castells discusses the role of Islam in the revolution. Like the rest of the following chapters, Castells also discusses who those protesters were: unemployed educated youth; unemployment was 21% among college graduates. Unionized workers also participated. The group operated with ad hoc leadership. As far as the Internet goes “There was a symbiotic relationship between mobile phone citizen journalists uploading images and information to YouTube and Al Jazeera using feeds from citizen journalism and then broadcasting them to the population at large…essential during the weeks of the revolts (27). The movement ultimately led to clean open elections.

Iceland is discussed next in this chapter. The corrupt nature of the banks Kaupthing, Landsbank, and Glitner is discussed in detail. In 2007 the issue could no longer be ignored. The banks attempt to stabilize everything between each other failed and Iceland’s credit rating plummeted, the stock market, bonds, and real estate fell, and this all led to the Kitchenware Revolution. I’m still not quite sure why it is called this… One important fact is that 94 percent of Icelanders use the internet and 2/3 of them use Facebook. Ultimately the demonstrators asked for a new constitution to be drafted. Interestingly enough, the first openly gay prime minister was elected in 2009. The legal action with the banks is still being worked out today. The new democratic gov. saved the country by signing a social stability pact to protect citizens from the effects of the financial crisis, they focused on fish sales, aluminum, and tourism, and the government established control of capital flow and foreign currency. Castells notes that the revolution wasn’t about economic restoration; moreso, it was about transforming the political system. Some of the tenets of the constitutional bill are discussed on pgs 40-42.

Castells discusses how Iceland and Tunisa are similar. Both began after a major event. Both relied on mobile phones and social networks on the Internet. Both utilized television. The hybridity of public and digital social network space was also key.

In “The Egyptian Revolution”  the 25 January Revolution is discussed. Groups began to form on FB and elsewhere, calling for supporters “to demonstrate in front of the Ministry of Interior to protest against the police brutality that had terrorized Egyptians for three decades” (54). Most communication continued through FB. Castells discusses several factors that made the Egyptian Revolution possible including that 80% of Egyptians had a cell phone, 25% of households had access to the internet, and there were 5 million users on FB. Twitter also stood as an important platform. “Thus the activists, as some put it, planned the protests on Facebook, coordinated them through Twitter, spread them by SMSs and webcast them to the world on YouTube” (58). Still, the occupation of public space was most important according to Castells. Egypt attempted to block websites and even turning off the Internet, but ultimately this failed because of networking and the multimodality of the communication platforms. He also discusses the various ways around such a block such as the speak to Tweet program.  Shutting down the internet also affects many of the means of revenue for Egypt. Castells also discussed the who behind the protesters: young, college students; the poor; industrial workers; an impoverished middle class; women. Castells then discusses Islam and how for Islamists to come to power that they had to largely moderate their standing, which they have done.

In “Dignity, Violence, Geopolitics: The Arab Uprisings” castells focuses on Gaddafi and Benghazi. He discusses how before Gaddafi could do anything about the rebels that France, Italy, and the UK sent a message with an airstrike. Castells suggests that the civil war killed the original social movement. The people’s original desires turned into complete demand for political reform. “Freedom and automnomous deliberation continue  in the occupied squares and in the digital networks where the movement was born. There is no going back for the Syrian people (103). Castells discusses how the internet in Arab uprising, as elsewhere, provides a space for autonomy. I thought the discussion of how important art was in the movements was particularly interesting towards the end of this chapter.

The Spanish revolution had its grassroots in Facebook and was largely inspired by what happened in Iceland, according to Castells. Essentially, a massive occupy movement ensued and the police repeatedly failed to evict them. Castells says that the majority of the demonstrators were unemployed college graduates and the elderly. The demonstrators wanted the banks to be nationalized and not bailed out, they wanted the executives prosecuted, and asked for taxation of the rich and corporations. Still, there was no consensus as to what kind of economy would help with jobs, housing, and living conditions. Mutliple proposals were offered. Castells, in his own opinion, believes that the movement was really one from a pseudo-democracy to a real one ( 124). Castells then discusses the terms of discourse used during the revolution. One important thing about this movement was that it was leaderless. It was extremely important that the movement occupy space in order to materialize their needs. When elections came around, since there was immense distrust of the political system, there was nothing mentioned about how to vote. There was still an effect on the elections. Some parties gained voites, the socialist party lost votes, and there was an increase in blank ballots. Castells believes that the biggest accomplishment of the revolution was in changing people’s minds.

The Occupy Wall Street chapter was interesting to me because I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it when it was actually happening. I was finishing a degree and was really wrapped up in my own life. The chapter begins with a discussion of some statistics on wealth and the background of what was happening in the financial system in the US. Castells discusses how Obama, even though he ultimately had to forget about some of his campaign promises in order to focus on the financial crisis, instilled a lot of hope that couldn’t be taken away. Occupy Wall Street was aimed about restoring democracy by making the political system independent from the power of money (161). Orginally only about 1,000 people came to occupy Zucotti Park in Wall Street. YouTube aided in showing the repression brought on by police. Eventually more and more people took to occupying sites. Cities all over the country had citizens mobilizing. Most of the occupiers were young professionals and students, many of them were unemployed or suffering in some way from employment, and many of them were white. Others included African-Americans, union members, veterans, and working class. One interesting about the population that demonstrated is that the majority of them had demonstrated before. Castells then moves to discussing the importance of the internet: “The rapid geographical spread of the movement reflected its viral diffusion on the Internet. The movement was born on the Internet, diffused by the Internet, and maintained its presence on the Internet…” ( 168).  He discusses how the occupation of space creates a new form of time. He then continues on how OWS was born digital: blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Adbustered registering #occupywallstreet were all essential. His analysis of the use of Tumblr in the movement was really interesting, especially when he discusses how the personal narrative was key, quoted in Rosen, and how it allows anonymous messaging. (I’m not a Tumblr user). I thought the discussion about leadership in the movement was particularly interesting because I didn’t know that it was organized in such a way. It seemed to be different in every single location, some GAs needing 90% of the vote to pass something. Castells discusses the work of Spokes, a highly democratic structural component. I found Castells to be extremely utopic, especially when after he said that people see that because there was an absence of precise demands nothing was negotiated, he says that “’the movement’ is not a single entity, but multiple streams that converge into a diverse challenge to the existing order’ ( 187). He believes that simply asserting brings change overall. Castells discusses that the movement was realtively nonfviolent, mentioning Oakland and LA. Eventually many of the occupations were dissolved or evicted. He says that no major policy changes occurred but that some mortgages were reinstated and many people moved to credit unions. Primarily, according to Castells, the movement allowed for an awareness in Americans of class struggle. He claims that social inequality has come to the forefront in public discourse.

In the final chapter, really the conclusion, Castells shows the links between all of the social movements:

1.     They stem from a crisis of living conditions

2.     They’re prompted by distrust in political institutions

3.     A meaningful even triggers mobilization

He further discusses and names the common characteristics, which I will also number:

1.     They are networked in multiple forms

a.     Social networks offline and online

b.     Pre-existing social networks

c.      Networks formed during actions of movement

d.     No identifiable center

2.     Become a movement by occupying the urban space.

a.     Space of autonomy

3.     They are local and global

4.     Generat their own form of time

5.     Triggered by a spark of indignation

6.     Mobements are viral

7.     “The transition from outrage to hope is accomplished by deliberation in the space of autonomy”

8.     Multimodal networks create togetherness

9.     Highly self-reflective

10. Generally non-violent

11. Rarely pragmatic, but have multiple demands

12. Aimed at changing values of society as a whole.

13. Political in a fundamental sense.

Castells later discusses how movements don’t change a lot of policy and that the real change is in the minds of the people; the real change is in raising awareness.

Issues:

I wish there was more discussion of issues like when Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire. I’m just curious as to if these triggers that Castells discusses are necessary in order for social mobilization to occur. Do we need that personal narrative, that event that hits us in the heart, in order to socially mobilize? I think Castells’ point on triggers would have been more effective if he would have discussed other events such as that of Bouazizi. And which are the narratives that enact such long social movements? Considering how easy it is now to show the decapitation of a journalist on YouTube, what exactly is it that mobilizes us anymore?

Another point that Castells makes throughout his book is this idea of changing minds, especially in those situations where no true policy changes are made. Do we agree that we are more aware of class? He writes that “what is relatively new and meaningful is that there are indications that Occupy Wall Street has shaped the awareness of Americans on the reality of what I would dare to call class struggle” (194). Are we really as aware as Castells says we are? As persons in higher education, I want to know if anyone believes that these issues are coming to the surface in our classrooms? Has it changed higher education? The issues we tackle in our classrooms?

Another concern that I have with the text is that he is comparing the Occupy movement in the U.S. with extremely bloody social movements in other countries. I get that he is trying to make a point about movements involved in cyberspace and on the ground, but I think to compare the man (I remember) holding up a poster which states “Adam Laurent: Graduate of Harvard, PhD, $80,000 in student debt, and unemployed” and then in a chapter preceding glosses over the thousands of lives lost in another country, Castells is missing the mark.