Syrian activists

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/04/20114814358353452.html

"While their government learned lessons on censoring and spying on the internet from Tunisian authorities, say activists, their counterparts in Tunis and Cairo taught the youth how to get around the cyber police.

'We use a proxy server and change it almost every day,' explains the activist. 'Today most young Syrians have mobile phones with high quality cameras so each one has become like a journalist. I upload videos and statements from internet cafes. I leave after 10 minutes and don't come back to the same one for a long time.'"

   This article shows a few things. The people working together are in several different countries - the U.S., Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere.  This shows that the Internet makes geography much less important for collective action.  Also, as the quote above shows, it demonstrates the necessity to have protected communication.  For people under an oppressive government, this must be done by the individual through hiding their identity and location.  Finally, it shows that collective action has structure.  There is one person acting in this case as a clearing house or master communicator, one person collecting information, one person broadcasting that information.  Structure, however, does not require hierarchy.  In this case there may be hierarchy but I can't tell from the article.

   This could be a classic example of ICA; a loose-knit group of people deciding to work together on a simple project (disseminating information about Syrian protests), using the Internet to communicate and distribute.