1.1 The information environment

The information environment is the field of information practice. The environment, in this study, refers to a social space constituted by the computer-mediated communication. For purpose of constructing a social aggregation, understanding how to connect with their memberbase is the main task. The task of virtual mobilization is to set up the emotional connection, which can achieve the cultural expressiveness. The utilization of CMC can be expected to generate new information environment a networks or virtual extensions, problematic the usage of information and the constitution of community [1]. In this case, generally stated, virtual movements employ e-mail or on-line chat rooms to enable user to associate with others. For instance, in a study of a British environmental protection group, one researcher found out that e-mail is a useful facility to share mutual experiences [2]. For the sake of creating an effective communication pattern, in contrast with mode of mass communication, computer mediated communication (CMC) holds a crucial position. As Coleman [3] observes, “many-to-many communication permits experiential knowledge to return to its rightful place in the hierarchy of social communication. It allows people to discuss on the basis of what they know from doing as well as from contemplation”(p.208). Precisely, information is more likely to be an effective tool in mobilizing members without personal contact, and this differentiates information movements from traditional movements. Pickerill (2001) argued, “it has been illustrated that it is possible to mobilize those who are already within the movement networks (or those who are cognate) using CMC without face-to-face contact”(p.164). Furthermore, virtual movements can create a hybrid social surrounding in which traditional or mediated forms coexist. As Sypher and Collins argue:

The technology can function to replace or displace traditional community or social activity much like any other activity. It can also function to provide people with alternative communities that only exist by virtue of the technology-forms of community that do not exist in unmediated environments [5].

In short, in order to review how virtual movement functions, the way in which the movement groups use the new communication strategies created by information to connect members will be an important criterion to consider. Moreover, in order to understand the character of virtual association, the electronic artifact from the users also is a locus, that allows us to understand a “textualized” space in terms of symbolic communication practices [6].

1.2 Everyday practices and Social movements

My approach views social movement as about the project of everyday life rather than social unit of epistemological knowledge. Due to the emergence of identity-based movements or new social movement, organization the organizer of information and knowledge is under challenge [7]. One study of a Palestinian refugee camp indicates that the diasporic fragmentation of refugees has become an essential character of the Palestinian resistance movement. In Refugees, Resistance and Identity, Peteet [8] writes, “fragmentation, with its multiple geographic and cultural sites of exile, has fostered in Palestinians transnational identities. The Palestinians are seeking of common ground on a variety of levels of affiliation”(p.185). In other words, a de-centralized organization of social movements is appearing. The discussions on the virtual moment might shed a new light on the increasingly complicated phenomena of social movements. In this article, I argue that the identity is the function of spatial practice.

Traditional social movement theories focus on the role of organizations in political mobilization, and the practical accomplishment of converting the established order; on the other hand, many new social movements insist on the struggle for cultural identities. In definition, compared with traditional social movements, British sociologist Giddens regards the new social movements as “life politics” [9]. Giddens urges that social movements may be seen as an important constitution of reflexivity in modern society. However, due to the proliferation of communication media, communication technologies might become a new base for reshaping collective action rather than the social reflectivity. In the study of collective action, the purpose of studying cultural identity of social movement is about exploring the creation of luminal place.

In other words, instead of centralized organization in social movements, cultural movements focus on a more flexible form of organizing for mobilization. In terms of practical purposes, cultural movement put more emphasis on the struggle for cultural identities than substantial political community. In summary, from the perspective of social movement, the communication of social aggregation is about to set up a communication site for the extending the activities of social imaginaries.

1.3 Information movements

The main effect of the new technologies in social movements has been the creation of a naïve form of resistance. From the resistance in a manner of providing texts to horizontal networking or connecting with similar interest groups, ICT plays a significant role in disseminating purposive messages. In addition, this new form of social movement induces the theorists of social movements to reconsider the mobilization pattern of social movement used by these movements.

This is not to say that by utilizing the potential of the Internet, the marginal could somehow magically and suddenly realign the relationship between the dominant and the marginal, but it is possible to enter into a dialog where the dominant cannot systematically drown out or silence the marginal [10].

An ethnographic analysis also suggests that the uses of the Internet extend the life-world, and upholds the public sphere or public culture to the colonized world that has been undermined by commercial and political forces. As Bakardjieva and Smith [11] argue, “In the absence of such a project [a democratic encounter project], users will be forced to give up to the totalizing stabilization of the consumption possibilities (e-commerce, Web TV, etc) foisted on them by the dominant economic and political rationality”(p.81).

2.1 The resources of information movement

In order to challenge the commercialized media, information movements try to create their own channel of communication. First of all, the virtual movements try to create an alternative opinion compared with those cast by mainstream media. For example, in The Power of Identity, scholar Castells [1] tells of how a Mexican nationalist movement organization, Zapatistas, successfully used a fax and Internet-based world alliance to bring the issue of social exclusion and political corruption to the eyes and ears of world public opinion. Sustaining the prolonged development of social movement is the main function because of employing information technologies employed. As Fortier insists:

By now, and despite the strength of mainstream media, they continue to provide alternative information, crucial to the logistics of progressive movements. Most important for the overall political balance, and through technological appropriation, different forms of ICTs and networks can more widely provide critical and alternative analysis, loosen information flows, and resist against pervasive surveillance [13].

Secondly, hyper-linking or associating a movement’s goal with the common interest of media is an effective way to create “virtual” movements’ narrative basis. For instance, as a result of connecting with the out-group public, the virtual movement can reach its potential supporters. Diani [14] indicates, “ the most likely outcome of the introduction of CMC is the conversion of dispersed communities of sympathizers into virtual communities with a slightly higher degree of interaction”(p.123). Moreover, due to high-capacity communication technologies, people reconnect themselves with visual materials; as a result, the legitimacy of the consumerism of mass media in capitalism societies will be challenged by virtual movements’ visual text. As Tambini mentions:

An ever greater proportion of information for citizenship is carried by for profit broadcasters, which only compounds the critique of society and politics as a sport or a spectacle for sale: what Garnham calls the politics of consumerism and others have called the society of the spectacles, or sound-bite politics. With the rise of new, interactive, and high-capacity media these problems are being reassessed, and the relationship between public, nation, and state (local and national) is being renegotiated [15].

For the sake of explanation, the point of information movement is described in the following section.

In comparison with new social movements and information movement employ different communication strategies to accomplish the social actor’s task. For instance, in terms of resources, due to distinctive purposes of connecting people, the information movement tends to enact an “imagined” community. In the information movement section, in terms of generating knowledge, the net movement tends to present the “language” or circulate “video materials” in order to manifest the existence of connection functions. In the category of purpose of action, the information movement group tries to associate with others in the psychological empowerment. For instance, the format of linked photo is employed by the guests and newcomers to show their interest in the movement group. Also, the affective connection becomes the important material basis to invite Web chatters’ participation in the Internet [16]. Such emotional contact, furthermore, is a way to set up a mediated community. The main character of information movements, in the purpose of action, seeks to share participants’ experiences, which consequently establishes the community.

The research uses the qualitative method to survey the text of virtual movement. First, the researcher jointed a tour of internet space, the PTT (http://www.ptt.cc/) , constituted by the baseball fans from May 1 to Oct 31, 2008. In Taiwan, fans usually talks in the BBS while they watch the televised baseball game. In other words, in part, the fans perform the identity by their own ways through the virtual space. For example, fan will say he met a player in a café when the player walks in the strike area. Therefore, the baseball game has been blurred into the fans’ threads in the BBS. The T-rex movement means that a social performance has been manoeuvred.

The purpose of trace of virtual community allowed the researcher survey the formation of identity in a natural setting. Second, during the event, the researcher also recorded the response of mainstream media. The data mainly comes from the newspaper columnist and sports television critics. These contents serve as the contextual elements, whereas the virtual movement was situated. Historically, the baseball report is mainly framed by the sports TV professionals because the information about baseball players is hard to convey by fans in Taiwan [17].

Taiwan’s baseball industry was established in 1991 furthermore. The Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) is organized by four professional baseball teams. CPBL-media linkage is usually operated by the cultural elites here. Through the televising sports programs, watching baseball programs seems the most favorite activity among Taiwanese. Let us take the T-Rex event as the example of virtual movement to review how the national imaginary has been readdressed.

In this study, 60 electronic artifacts, stored on the Bulletin Board System (BBS), have been selected as texts representing the participants’ movement experiences (Table 1). For studying the emergence of a virtual community, this time period was framed to study six months virtual activities. The research question is: what the purpose of information movement has attained? And, secondly, what is the role of information mobilization has played in, finally, in terms of theoretical concern, how the concept of information mobilization will contribute to the discussion of social movement.

Table 1: The text of T-Rex event stored by BBS.

2.2 Engaging a social event

The fans Internet activities actually began with the circulation of television video. People seldom doubt about the performance of baseball players in Taiwan. Taiwanese people believe in the glory of baseball player over the past decades. The national symbol is actually framed by the TV sports elites who know the connections between the imaginary and representations of player on mainstream media. Occasionally, people in Taiwan have fixed the crippled baseball industry in recent two years. The strategy to do so is to raise the questions on some tricky performances that player had made in the mid of 2008. On June 14, 2008, the following message appeared on PTT. In line 3 to 4, a fan wrote:

The movement began with some quests raised by fans because they found the tricky plays in the uploaded television materials. Apparently, the fans’ discussions angered Shin Jian Chin (施建新) who is the vice president of T-Rex. As usual, Shin declaimed those BBS chatting as rumors or non-sense talks. As a matter of fact, the consequence of mentioning problem is way to define an event from the perspective of social movement [13]. After one month, On July 24th, Shin Jian Chin, T-Rex vice president, committed that he is the person Shiau Shin who used a faked name to manipulate most opinions that fans had posted in the BBS. After the truth released, mainstream media report was posted on the PTT immediately.

China Times “ Players plotted a game of point shaving? dmedia T-REX, the team has a clarification to make” July 24th 08.

Shin Jian Chin (施建新)had confessed that he is the “Shiau Shin”( 小新) yesterday, and his statement on the PTT arose a concern from the chief officers of CPBL and other baseball teams. So he was asked to clarify why he made statement which harmed the league at last night. When Shin Jian Chin was interviewing, he seemed to be very angry and said “ The report from the internet has completely misled my point, and I did not act like what the BBS represented, I never said that players was asked to plot a game of point shaving. I had recorded what I had said, so if you detoured what I said on the paper, I will definitely sue you.”

The pattern of information communication is considered as an important factor that has distinguished the information movements from social collective actions. After one month, the Taiwanese virtual movement mainly has employed the Internet as its own communication resource. Instead of ignoring the PTT users’ voices, finally, the mass media reported those players who may involve a match fixing scandal.

In response to Shin’s announcement, some user replies:

Recommendation(推, or I endorse) p********o: it is really pissing me off to read about his name right now.

→le********: he deserved it for what he had done.
→Ba *****: Is Shin Jian Chin also under the investigation of the bureau of investigation?

When the event has been initiated, tremendous information mobilization were represented by the word “recommendation” or “ 推”. Here, media reporters cover the Internet event by the number of recommendation. The larger number of recommendation makes the Internet event more visible on media space. Instead of viewing the fans’ discussion as rumor, the July’ report of China Times, a national newspaper, finally stated the movement. In the beginning, Shin condemned the fans’ quests as rumors and tried to conceal the match fixing scandals. However, the revelation of unidentified user-Shiau Shin(小新), has legitimized the newsgroup user’s claims.

2.3 The emotional user

The purpose of virtual movement launched by the T-Rex fans is to separate the players from the discourses of media-sport business rhetorically, which has distinguished the virtual space from the market of media space. T-Rex baseball team was kidnapped by the local gangster members until the vice president admitted he used a nickname to manage with the quests of fans joined in BBS. After the revelation, BBS attendants learned how the problem of game match could be. The people’s perception toward to player begins to reframe. The players are not honest. The passion of baseball lover is hurt again.

The first research question ever asked was about the main purpose of verbal actions created by the information movement. In the content survey of replies shown on the BBS the results is primarily related to the category of association. However, only parts of the e-mails are concerned with the debates of sports policy and reforms. The majority of responses are emotional and expressional passages, for instance greeting on the holidays or satires about current political events. In considering the purpose of action, the Taiwanese case demonstrated more emotion-oriented communities. The social identity may keep the members from isolation. Instead of establishing a rational sphere, such space reflects the emotional aggregation of individuals [18].

For instance, in an e-mail, a member replied:

Recommendation L***: Took somebody’s word serious that is really annoyed.
→t******: Definitely, you will completely lose if you take local people’s (people who like leave commentary on BBS with their own feeling ) words seriously.

In another e-mail, KIWI wrote:

Recommendation A******l: it is not the point that whether he took examples or not, the point is he imputed all the controversial statements he made to all baseball fans.

A user wrote:

Recommendation C****i: I don’t know what the function of the press conference is. We are not retard. They were acting very impassioning.

From three examples of e-mail, the virtual movement, we may say that fans mobilize the member or supporters in an emotional manner, which is the main character of virtual movements. In a word, such local knowledge is the materialistic basis to co-exist the social collectiveness.

The finding assures the thinking about the issue of emotional connecting in forming a community. In his thought, sociologists indicate that the issue of affectivity, a major dimension of community, functions as re-tribal Internet users into a social collectiveness, which reveals the characteristic of virtual communities [19]. It is evident that the T-rex event produces a social space to extend fans’ connections with others. So, even if it is non-membership movement, the identitynetworking process also can be considered social movement as well. Paralleled to the new social movement, the virtual movement actually begins with the bottom-up activities of BBS user’ chatting. Therefore, the alliance over individual user is realized through the inter-linking media watching materials shown on the television contents.