How are social movements in the global South taking advantage of the ubiquity of mobile phones? Melissa Loudon, a researcher now working at the University of Capetown, looked at how the South African Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is using mobiles in their work to advocate for a comprehensive HIV/AIDS policy in South Afric, and wrote this article based on her research.
Kevin Gillan, a researcher on the British anti-war movement, describes social movements as “definitionally collective and communicative”. Co-ordination of protest action, mobilisation of financial resources and strategic interaction would be almost unthinkable without information and communication technologies (ICTs). Although the importance of mass media to social movements has long been recognised, new ICTs burst on the scene in 1999 when demonstrators in the 'Battle of Seattle' orchestrated unprecedented protest action using mobile phones, email and the Internet. Ever since, ICTs have been accepted as an integral part of mobilisation in the North.
