On the functions and consequences of the Internet for social movements and voluntary associations

Abstract: "Voluntary associations are particularly prone to embrace the new Net technologies, because on the basis of these new tools, they are better able to be what they always aspired to be: democratically constituted collectivities relying on a complex interplay between internal and external, vertical and horizontal, upward and downward, informal and formal, bilateral and multilateral communications. As the most flexible, adaptive of all media - the Internet has very different functions and consequences under different environmental conditions, so that it can be fitted into almost existing socio-cultural settings and is more likely to consolidate and strengthen them than to act as a causal agent of change. Likewise, the conclusion is warranted that primary face to face interactions as well as conventional mass media communications will not become obsolete with expanding computer-supported interactions. On the contrary, they may have to be expanded and intensified before the full potentia

Object Details

• Alternative title: Über die Funktionen und Konsequenzen des Internet für soziale Bewegungen und freiwillige Vereinigungen
• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource, 66 S.
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: unbekannt

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Zürich
• (when): 2001
• Creator: Geser, Hans
• Contributor: Universität Zürich, Philosophische Fakultät, Soziologisches Institut

Further information

• URN: urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-323283
• Rights: Open Access unbekannt; Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:30 AM CEST