Radu-Michael ALEXANDRESCU
| Abstract: | This article examines how the transition from analogue to digital dissent has reshaped the strategies, capacities, and vulnerabilities of contemporary civil resistance movements. Building on a mixed theoretical framework that combines classic resource mobilisation theory, Hannah Arendt’s conception of power and public space, Castells’s network society, Bennett and Segerberg’s “connective action,” and critical perspectives on surveillance capitalism and digital authoritarianism, the paper advances the hypothesis that digitalisation simultaneously enhances mobilisation while increasing exposure to surveillance and algorithmic control. Methodologically, the study employs a qualitative–comparative case-study design, focusing on two emblematic movements: the Arab Spring (2010–2011) and Euromaidan in Ukraine (2013–2014). Using content analysis of digital protest materials, NGO and international reports, and specialist academic literature, the article explores the role of social media, mobile technologies, and platform infrastructures in enabling rapid mobilization, networked coordination, and transnational diffusion of protest. The findings are structured on three analytical levels: micro (individual mobilization and personalized participation), meso (network structures, leaderless organization, and platform dependence), and macro (state policies, digital repression, and mass surveillance). Across all three levels, digital dissent appears fundamentally ambivalent: it expands civic power and lowers the barriers to participation while simultaneously generating new vulnerabilities—from predictive profiling and targeted intimidation to shutdowns, disinformation, and dependency on private platforms. The article concludes with normative recommendations for safeguarding digital dissent, including the protection of digital rights as fundamental rights, limiting mass surveillance, preserving net neutrality, increasing platform accountability, and fostering civic tech and international regulatory frameworks. It argues that defending dissent in the digital age is essential to preserving the foundations of democracy and human dignity. |
| Keywords: | digital dissent, civil resistance, networked social movements, surveillance capitalism, digital authoritarianism, Arab Spring, Euromaidan |