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Since 2007, Anastasia Kavada is a post-doctoral researcher, with her current role as developing research on: social technologies (such as blogs, social networking sites, picture and video sharing sites) in the establishment of international campaigns and political coalitions, in practices of citizenship and democracy, as well as in the formation of political identities and feelings of belonging to political groups (The University of Westminster, n.d.). In her article, Collective action and the social web: Comparing the architecture of Avaaz.org and Openesf.net, Kavada discusses the differences between the two platforms for "... the European Social Forum [ESF] and [the] global movement website Avaaz" (Kavada, 2009b, p. 130). The following main topics are discussed: * Web 2.0 And Transnational Collective Action * Political Organizations And Web Interactivity * Openesf: Openness And Distributed Construction * Avaaz: Outward Orientation And Central * Coordination Of Individual Contributions She concludes that whilst both platforms are inherently different for use in their particular organisations, Avaaz has gone one step further to reaching people using social networking sites such as Facebook (REF). In 2010, Kavada wrote an article titled Image, Bonding, and Collective Identity Across Multiple Platforms: Avaaz on Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube (Kavada, 2010). In this paper, Kavada explores the prospective spaces for global activism by "... examining the case of Avaaz.org, a 'global web movement' created in 2007 aiming to bring people-powered politics to global decision-making" (Kavada, 2010, p. 1). * Growth of digital activism * Web Platforms, Bonding and Group Identity: Two Complementary Views * Methods and research * Platforms as a Surface of Bonding and Group Identity * Platforms As a Site of Engagement, Bonding and Group Identity In brief, this article discusses whether or not, Avaaz can hold onto

its identity whilst spread across multiple platforms. Kavada has established that organisations such as Avaaz can indeed remain in control of its identity even though they lack in "... interpersonal interaction among supporters" (Kavada, 2010, p. 19). The Avaaz organisational strategy has met with success as more than thirty-seven million actions have been completed by its members (Avaaz.org, 2011). Bibliography: Avaaz.org. (2011). Avaaz - The World in Action - About. Retrieved from http://www.avaaz.org/en/about.php Kavada, A. (2007). The 'Horizontals' and the "Verticals": Competing Communicative Logics in the 2004 European Social Forum. Paper presented at the General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research, 6-8 September, Pisa, Italy. Kavada, A. (2009a). Decentralization and Communication: Email Lists and the Organizing Process of the European Social Forum. pp. 188-204 in A. Karatzogianni (Ed.) Cyber Conflict and Global Politics. London: Routledge. Kavada, A. (2009b). Collective action and the social web: Comparing the architecture of Avaaz.org and Openesf.net. In Communicative Approaches To Politics And Ethics In Europe. Tartu University Press. Retrieved from http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/suso/reco_book5.pdf#page=130 Kavada, A. (2010). Image, Bonding, and Collective Identity Across Multiple Platforms: Avaaz on Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube. All Academic Inc. Retrieved from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p404477_index.html The University of Westminster. (n.d.). Anastasia Kavada - CAMRI Post-Doctoral Researcher. Retrieved from http://www.westminster.ac.uk/schools/media/camri/research-staff/kavada,-anastas