ICTs AS AN OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURE IN SOUTHERN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Social movements operate in ‘an environment for politics that is increasingly information-rich and communication-intensive’ (Bimber 2001 Bimber, B. 2001. Information and political engagement in America: the search for effects of information technology at the individual level. Political Research Quarterly, 54(1): 53–67. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], p. 53). There is an established literature on new ICTs and social movements, but little of it considers mobilization in the global South. This paper presents a case study on the use of ICTs by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a South African social movement campaigning for the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS. McAdam et al.'s comparative framework of three theoretical perspectives on mobilization (McAdam et al. 1996 McAdam, D., McCarthy, J. D. and Zald, M. N. 1996. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, Cambridge, , UK: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) – mobilising structures, opportunity structures and framing processes – is used to link the analysis into the social movement literature. The findings show extensive use of email, mailing lists and the Internet in TAC activities despite low levels of access among the movement's largely poor activist base. ICTs are used to help the movement engage with elites, professional groups and media, as well as in the development of local and international movement networks. There is also widespread informal use of mobile phones, which a local NGO is working with the TAC to extend. Mobiles are seen as a way to reach the previously disconnected majority, strengthening their involvement in existing processes as well as extending the movement's reach beyond its current branch-based structure.