Challenging Codes
Collective Action in the Information Age

Leading social movements theorist examines collective action in the context of the information society.

Alberto Melucci (Author)

9780521578431, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 12 September 1996

456 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.6 cm, 0.737 kg

'Melucci's new book - his master book - is both the most comprehensive analytical study of social movements and an elaborate analysis of the new generation of collective actions which try to incorporate into private and collective experience the effects of a globalized and rapidly changing social context'. Alain Touraine, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris

In Challenging Codes Melucci brings an original perspective to research on collective action which both emphasizes the role of culture and makes telling connections with the experience of the individual in postmodern society. The focus is on the role of information in an age which knows both fragmentation and globalisation, building on the analysis of collective action familiar from the author's Nomads of the Present. Melucci addresses a wide range of contemporary issues, including political conflict and change, feminism, ecology, identity politics, power and inequality.

Introduction
Part I. Theory of Collective Action: 1. The construction of collective action
2. Conflict and change
3. Action and meaning
4. The process of collective identity
Part II. Contemporary Collective Action: 5. conflicts of culture
6. Invention of the present
7. The time of difference
8. Roots for today and for tomorrow
9. A search for ethics
10. Information, power, domination
Part III. The Field of Collective Action: 11. A society without a centre
12. The political system
13. The state and the distribution of social resources
14. Modernization, crisis, and conflict: the case of Italy
Part IV. Acting Collectively: 15. Mobilization and political participation
16. The organization of movements
17. Leadership in social movements
18. Collective action and discourse
19. Forms of action
20. Research on collective action.

Subject Areas: Cultural studies [JFC]