Gramsci, social movements and cyberspace: reflections on new environments of hegemony

Abstract

the developments in information and communication technologies generated cyberspace, a new environment of human sociability. In the two decades of the 21st century we witnessed the expansion of this environment, and especially of Internet, one of its major components; along with this expansion, we also see cyberspace’s political, economic and social growing importance. It is precisely at this point that the paper aims to mobilize the Gramscian theory to discuss how cyberspace, as a space of social life, is also subject to hegemonic relations and, therefore, an environment of political struggle. Hence, we discuss the internal dynamics of the cyber world, the existence of diffusion spaces of ruling classes’ world-conception, as well as alternative spaces. The conclusion points to the Internet as a tool of great importance for social movements, helping the generation of the collective subject and the collective will, central aspects to the diffusion of a world-conception based on subaltern classes and groups, the proposal of the Sardinian communist.