PUBLICATION: Protest XX (2021)
ABSTRACT
How can we account for the exponential increase in worldwide mass protests over the past twenty years? While protests are not new, their rate and size are. Today, thousands of people can be assembled instantaneously to demonstrate for or against a variety of causes that in the past might not have attracted more than a handful of people. The cultural and social conditions of the cyberage have accelerated the distribution of information that fuels protests. I will argue below that this new phenomenon affecting all netizens needs a new key term to describe its range and power today. The best term, in my view is cyberatomism.
ARTICLE
How can we account for the exponential increase in worldwide mass protests over the past twenty years? While protests are not new, their rate and size are. This essay is not about the specific factors provoking a spike in public protests. I leave causation to social movement theorists. My concern is to name the conditions that pertain once a political cause has been identified, its informa- tion disseminated so that people will sign on to it, and the organizing begins. What has provoked the metaphysics of twenty-first century protests?
