Organizing With Self-Organization?

Abstract

This chapter aims at exploring the ramifications of the strategic usage of Facebook in informal civic activism against the yet-to-be-studied case of an African third wave democratic country. Focusing on the emergence of Sokols up to the unprecedented 2017 street demonstration in Cape Verde, it reviews findings from a multidimensional empiric-holistic method that addresses the associated role of Facebook. The study confirms the existence of a heterarchical and distributed leadership alongside a horizontal and collaborative decision-making arrangement in a Facebook-mediated civic activism movement. While corroborating the tendency of grassroots activism in adopting a hybrid blend of online and offline, it concludes that Facebook was used in support of the largely self-organized Sokols movement and the loosely structured street demonstration held in São Vicente. However, besides not necessarily changing the fundamental structures of the civic activism movement—including organization, leadership, decision-making and protest staging—Facebook only supplemented the offline practices.