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Conclusion

Our research establishes the value of the Internet as an information and communication tool for democratic opposition in non–democratic societies. For this potential to be fully realized, certain conditions must exist: “a general situation of contention in the country; the lack of its coverage in traditional media; and, the availability of strong oppositional groups and voices (both political and civil).” [66]

Under these conditions in Ukraine, the Internet provided a robust informational channel that enabled the dissenters to effectively coordinate their activities, to gain ever–increasing international support, and to successfully erode the positions of the authorities. During the Revolution the situational dynamics consistently developed in a direction favorable to the protesters and adverse to their opponents. As time went on, the process of the successful development of the Revolution became hardly stoppable within the system defined. Our proposed framework describes and explains these dynamics.

As an overall conclusion we can state that Internet–based ICTs are capable of offering strong potential for both delivering alternative information to individuals in non–democratic countries and ensuring robust communication channels for active dissenters and their potential supporters. The role of ICTs in the near future will probably only increase. The situations examined in our study can be compared to similar electoral revolutions in order to create a more comprehensive and reliable theoretical framework for the effective use of the Internet in non–violent revolutionary transformations to democracy in non–democratic countries.

In our research we used an inductive approach. In order to confirm and further develop our conclusions and hypotheses the employment of other methods of scientific inquiry is desirable. In particular, such research tools as additional direct interviews, surveys, various methods of statistical and social network analysis, and system dynamics modeling could be used. Additional research into the role of new (widely appearing after 2004) Internet–based ICTs, such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and other social networking systems, in electoral revolutions should also be conducted, particularly given their roles in the recent 2009 “Twitter revolutions” in Iran and Moldova. The application of our proposed framework to these new conditions could be an area of fruitful research to examine what, if any, new features these tools add to our initial system as outlined in this paper. Our next research will also be devoted to the investigation of these questions.