Politischer Protest im Netz – Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Mobilisierung transnationaler Öffentlichkeit im Zeichen digitaler Kommunikation

The transformation of current communication media, characterised by a digitalisation of distribution, deterritorialisation and fragmentation of public spheres as well as an increasing interconnection between old and new patterns of communication, offers new media-related opportunity structures particularly for political protest actors. Referring to actors of the Global Justice Movement this article discusses the pros and cons of net technologies regarding different social movement functions such as the logistic function of protest mobilisation, the cognitive function of knowledge production and distribution, the function of social organisation and network building as well as the function of community formation. Based on these general reflections a particular tension between internal and external communication of protest networks is explained in more detail with particular reference to Indymedia and transnational Anti-Corporate Campaigns. This tension is understood as a contradiction between a mode of protest communication that is egalitarian, following a network logic of digital media, and is directed to create an alternative public on the net, and a hierarchical mode of protest communication, that is articulated in political protest campaigns that mainly follow the selection logic of mass media.