"What happens when the means of communication, often centralized, become diffused? What happens when coalitions in South Africa, Malawi, China, Russia, Turkey, Burma, El Salvador, and the United States utilize electronic technologies to seek enfranchisement? This book describes such creative uses by emergent democratic movements and other cultural alliances seeking solidarity in these countries. It investigates the way the strange confluence of technological language and radical social change opens new discursive terrain. Unusual fissures and interstices appear; some auger well for the distribution of political power and the promotion of free speech, while unfortunately some open gaps within old hierarchies implicit in capitalistic discourses of technology."--BOOK JACKET.