Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review 2012, 48(3): 493-508 | DOI: 10.13060/00380288.2012.48.3.05

From Brigades to Blogs: Environmentalism Online in Slovakia 20 Years after the Velvet Revolution

Edward Snajdr
City University of New York

This article examines aspects of contemporary Slovak environmental activist discourse in the digital realm of blogging and cyberspace. It explores this subject by first comparing volunteer brigades and samizdat writing from the late communist period with present digital forms of environmentalism in the new millennium. Current environmental blogs are then analysed according to material, substantive, and discursive aspects as these suggest obstacles and benefits to promoting environmentalism in the wake of political transformation. In examining this issue in one Central and East European context, the paper aims to raise broader questions regarding both research on environmental behaviour and policy in post-socialist Europe as well as the relationships between culture, political consciousness and technology in an age of globalisation.

Keywords: environmentalism, ecological activism, internet, blogging, postcommunism, Slovakia

Published: June 1, 2012Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
Snajdr, E. (2012). From Brigades to Blogs: Environmentalism Online in Slovakia 20 Years after the Velvet Revolution. Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review, 48(3), 493-508. doi: 10.13060/00380288.2012.48.3.05.
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. Bach, Jonathan and David Stark. 2003. 'Technology and Transformation: Facilitating Knowledge Networks in Eastern Europe. Technology, Business and Society Program.' Paper No. 10. Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.
    2. Bunzl, Matti. 2000. Altering States: Ethnographies of Transition in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
    3. Bútora, Martin. 1990. 'Vyvzdoruvanie alebo kazdodennost positivnych deviantov.' (The Resistance or Everydayness of Positive Deviance) Pp. 76-88 in Lesk a bieda každodennosti. M. Ac et al. Bratislava: Smena.
    4. Bútora, M. Z. Bútorová and T. Rosová. 1991. 'The Hard Birth of Democracy in Slovakia.' Journal of Communist Studies 7 (4): 435-459. Go to original source...
    5. Bútora, M., V. Krivý and S. Szomolányiová. 1989. 'Positive Deviance: The Career of a Concept in Czecho-slovakia in the late 1980s.' Unpublished manuscript.
    6. Darnton, Robert. 1989. 'Toward a History of Reading.' The Wilson Quarterly. 13 (4): 86-103.
    7. DeLuca, Kevin Michael. 1999. Image Politics: The New Rhetoric of Environmental Activism. Guildford: Guildford Press.
    8. Doellinger, David. 2002. 'From Prayer to Protests: The Impact of Religious-Based Dissent in the Emergence of Civil Society in Slovakia and the GDR.' PhD dissertation, Department of History, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.
    9. Drakulić, Slavenka. 1993. How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed. New York: Harper Perennial.
    10. Dunn, Elizabeth C. 2006. 'Standards of Person-making in East Central Europe.' Pp. 173-193 in Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics and Ethics, edited by A. Ong and S. J. Collier. London: Blackwell Publishing. Go to original source...
    11. Fagan, Adam. 2004. Environment and Democracy in the Czech Republic: The Environmental Movement in the Transition Process. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
    12. Garton Ash, Timothy. 1990. The Magic Lantern. New York: Random House.
    13. Gille, Zsuzsa. 2007. From the Cult of Waste to the Trash Heap of History: The Politics of Waste in Socialist and Post-socialist Hungary. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
    14. Gladwell, Malcom. 2010. 'Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted.' The New Yorker, 4 October, pp. 42-49.
    15. Hampton, Keith and Barry Wellman. 2003. 'Neighboring in Netville: How the Internet Supports Community and Social Capital in a Wired Suburb.' City & Community 2 (4): 277-311. Go to original source...
    16. Harper, Krista. 2006. Wild Capitalism: Environmental Activists and Post-socialist Political Ecology in Hungary. New York: East European Monographs and Columbia University Press.
    17. Harvey, David. 2007. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
    18. Huba, Mikuláš. 2003. 'The Development of the Non-governmental Environmental Movement in Slovakia: The Slovak Union of Nature and Landscape Conservationists.' Pp. 92-104 in Local Communities and Post-communist Transformation: Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, edited by Simon Smith. London: Routledge.
    19. Humphrey, Carolyn. 2000. The Unmaking of Soviet Life: Everyday Economics after Socialism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
    20. Johnston, Gordon. 1999. 'What Is the History of Samizdat?' Social History. 24 (2): 115-133. Go to original source...
    21. Joo, Hyung-Min. 2004. 'Voices of Freedom: Samizdat.' Europe-Asia Studies 56 (4): 571-594. Go to original source...
    22. Katz, James E. and Ronald E. Rice. 2002. Social Consequences of Internet Use. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Go to original source...
    23. Kenney, Padraic. 2003. A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
    24. Komaromi, Ann. 2004. 'The Material Existence of Soviet Samizdat.' Slavic Review 63 (3): 597-618. Go to original source...
    25. Ludrovská, Katarina. 2008. Blogs in Slovakia: New Media and Freedom of Expression in Slovakia. Saarbrucken: Lambert Academic Publishing.
    26. Malaby, Thomas. 2009. Making Virtual Worlds: Linden Lab and Second Life. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
    27. Maratea, Ray. 2008. 'The E-Rise and Fall of Social Problems: The Blogosphere as a Public Arena.' Social Problems 55 (1): 139-160. Go to original source...
    28. Podoba, Juraj. 1998. 'Rejecting Green Velvet: Transition, Environment and Nationalism in Slovakia.' Environmental Politics. 7 (1): 128-144. Go to original source...
    29. Schwartz, Katrina. 2006. Nature and National Identity after Communism: Globalizing the Ethnoscape. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
    30. Seiler, Cotton. 2009. 'Putting the Market in Its Places.' American Quarterly 61 (4): 943-953. Go to original source...
    31. Snajdr, Edward. 1998. 'The Children of the Greens: New Ecological Activism in Post-socialist Slovakia.' Problems of Post-communism 45 (1): 54-62. Go to original source...
    32. Snajdr, Edward. 2008. Nature Protests: The End of Ecology in Slovakia. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
    33. Snajdr, Edward. 2009. 'Two Landscapes: Comparing Ecology Movements in Slovakia and Hungary.' Hungarian Studies 23 (2): 211-222. Go to original source...
    34. Sunstein, Cass. 2006. Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press.
    35. Surman, Mark. 2002. 'Changenet.sk: Giving Voice to Slovak NGOs and Activists.' Understanding Civil Society Portals. Retrieved 1 June 2012 (http://www.commons.ca/articles/fulltext.shtml?x=423).
    36. Wesch, Michael. 2007. 'What is Web 2.0? What Does It Mean for Anthropology?' Anthropology News 48 (5): 30-31. Go to original source...
    37. Wright, Patrick. 1990. 'Gesture Politics.' New Statesman and Society, 1 June, pp. 16-20.
    38. Yakushev, Alexei. 1975. 'The Samizdat Movement in the USSR: A Note on Spontaneity and Organization.' Russian Review 34 (2): 186-193. Go to original source...

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.


    Return to the content