Cyberspace as an Environment for Civil Society Activity in Brazil

Abstract

Access to modern information and communication technologies contributed to the development of active citizenship by facilitating significantly the functioning of non-governmental organizations. It refers to all NGO s but it is particularly important in the areas where government institutions are rather inefficient. Such situation can be observed in Brazil, which was chosen as an object of the analysis in this paper. Non-governmental organizations, depending on citizens who unite voluntarily around a particular cause or idea, due to their very nature must base their activity on a network structure and have to use their modest assets as effectively as possible. Moving great part of their activity to the virtual space facilitated the following aspects of their functioning: communication, information, visibility, cooperation, management. Brazil, although it is regarded as a rising regional power, continues to suffer from various social and economic shortcomings. Moreover, it has a relatively young population, the factor which favors the activity with the use of modern communication technologies. The article analyzes the activity of chosen Brazilian NGO sin cyberspace.