New media, transnational mobilization and the public sphere reestructuration

Abstract

The accelerated diffusion of the new interactive communication technologies lends urgency to the question about their democratic potential. This paper maintains that public deliberation is at the core of democracy. While economic globalization raises the need for global political regulation, active civil societal structures on the global level are needed as a democratic counterforce. The case of the Zapatista movement is a relatively rare example of actual collaboration between grassroots actors from the global South and North. It is taken for an empirical study of how different media interfaces were used to create transnational linkages between the insurgent Mayan peasants in Chiapas and their supporters in other regions of Mexico and in cities around the world. These linkages helped the rebels to survive and catalyzed transnational mobilization over the modes of global regulation. The changing networks of communication and alliance building suggest that publics are dynamic and in constant processes of restructuring. Their democratic potential depends largely on their appropriation by creative social actors.