Abstract
Many journalists and governments today assume that new media technologies (including mobile communications and social media) play an important role in the diffusion of a protest action. This study seeks to discover if that is true in the case of transnational protest actions. An examination of existing literature on collective action revealed that participation is likely driven by personal stake in the outcome of the action; as such, the existence of a digital, global civil society is posited to explain a transnational stake in the actions of participants separated by geography. To explore the dynamics of diffusion, two case studies are examined: the diffusion of riots starting in London in 2011 and the diffusion of protests emanating from Tunisia that same year. The studies showed that new media operates on two levels: public and private; communication carried out via private media (such as text messaging between mobile phones) was likely utilized to organize protests at the ground level, while public new media (such as Twitter) facilitated an outside conversation by previous participants and non-participants. As such, organization is mostly carried out within existing social circles, as is historically the case, but public new media primes participants from other nations to mimic protest behavior.