New media and protest in hybrid societies

The relationship between new social movements, especially those located in the global South, and their online media has often been discussed in terms of empowerment via a newly achieved global reach and subsequent extended networking capabilities beyond the locality. Less frequent is the analysis of the relationship between internet and social movements within societies characterized by a digital divide, product of unequal social, economic and political conditions. In this paper I explore the tensions between local, national and global forms of civil engagement in the online media produced by a new social movement opposed to the installation of two mega paper mills on the border between Argentina and Uruguay. The analysis shows that the relationship between this movement and its online media practices draws on "glocal" forms of civic engagement with empowering impact within the locality.