ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the Wild Strawberry Movement, which provided many 'first-timers' with their first taste of civil participation. Through in-depth analysis of the Wild Strawberry Movement, it proposes the concept of 'virtual ecologies' to depict the unique mobilization structure of Internet social movements. The chapter considers Wild Strawberry Movement as a causal-process observation to depict the ecological basis of the Internet and how it in turn influences the mobilization structure of the movement. It focuses on two Bulletin Board System (BBS) sites - the PTT and PTT2. The Wild Strawberry Movement's organizational structure can be best described as 'democratic groups without leaders'. Groups accomplished their goals individually without any leadership. However, they followed the principle of direct democracy and went through the procedures of the Grand Assembly before acting. Daily life connections fuelled the mobilization power during the Wild Strawberry Movement. It allowed initiation and mobilization without the presence of pre-existing organizations.
