This essay adopts a Freedom‐centred view of development with Political Freedom at its core. It questions the conditions that enable Civil Society in developing countries to use the internet to create (virtual) public spheres. It will begin by reviewing literature on Civil Society and on Habermas’ theorization of the public sphere. It will then analyse the impact of the internet in redefining the public sphere and its contribution to the emergence of the Zapatista effect. Two factors are consequently identified as facilitating a (virtual) public sphere: identity politics in a network environment and the socio‐political conditions. Based on the experience of Civil Society in Tanzania, we will see that these factors cannot be ‘engineered’ as the complexities of the public sphere cannot be overlooked. Future research should focus on the specific contextual elements that create a public sphere in the specific circumstances of developing countries.

Palestinian students live in a turbulent socio-political environment, often subjected to violent repression. Our paper seeks to understand the dialectic relationship between domination and resistance in the redefinition and reinforcement of students' use of ICTs to achieve desirable freedoms. We will adopt a freedom view of development and use structuration theory to analyse macro social structures and its relation with the knowledgeable and reflexive agent. Our research took place in two Al-Quds University campuses located on opposite sides of the Israeli separation wall. We found that Al-Quds university students use ICTs as part of collective resistance to Israeli military occupation, emphasizing agency's active role in monitoring wider social structures. Students use ICTs to 'work around' unplanned obstacles to their daily routines, sometimes in inadvertent ways and often for short-term gains. Nevertheless, the effects of Israeli policies have shown signs of disintegrating Palestinian collectiveness, provoking uncoordinated efforts amongst students. The concept of freedom has become relative and conflicting on both sides of the wall, even though both campuses are within what once was the greater Jerusalem area. Students have consequently used ICTs in different ways to pursue what they interpret as freedoms. In addition, ICTs may be facilitating a Palestinian exodus abroad and enabling the dissemination of new ideas that create tensions with the existing value system.