Certainly not new IMO social movements taking on the state / government, modern IT is clearly an enabler and a vulnerability. Communication is simply faster.
There is more to it than that, information not only moves faster, it penetrates more deeply. States have less capability to control information, and as Bob Jones would tell you if you don't control the information you don't control the people. I think the Arab Spring and other events around the world have validated that.

North Korea is terrified of South Korean citizens sending information into North Korea via ballons and have threatened to go to war over it. Attaching a message to a ballon isn't exactly modern information technology, but it still works. Once the paradigm is challenged it begins to rust, in some cases that corrosion is quicker than others.

In locations where cell phones, computers, blackberries, Ipads, etc. it does enable "smarter" and more effective protest efforts. It allows identity groups to form that would have difficult or impossible previously. Where did the protest movements start prior to the advent of online communities? Union meetings, Mosques, Churches, Colleges, etc. Now groups can be formed outside of these institutions.

In the end it isn't new, just different.