IS research has a lot to say about how information and communication technologies (ICT) can support democracy in closed societies, i.e., those ruled by undemocratic regimes. Evidence suggests that technologies indeed facilitate the creation of non-standard communication networks that connect citizens and allow them to share information and participate in activities that foster democracy. Because these action networks are an ensemble of technical artifacts and social mechanisms (e.g., contextual conditions and historical events), IS research can offer an insightful perspective on how to untangle the sociomaterial practices that bring about social outcomes in this phenomenon. This research uses closed societies as a reference and aims at explaining how censorship-resistant communication networks emerge as different social actors actualize the affordances of different IT artifacts. An interpretivist case study about 14ymedio, the first independent digital media in Cuba, is proposed as the method to answer our research question.
