Internet activism

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Internet activism (also known as electronic advocacy, cyberactivism, and online organizing) is the use of communication technologies such as e-mail, web sites, and podcasts to enable faster communications by citizen movements and deliver a message to a large audience. These Internet technologies are used for cause-related fundraising, lobbying, volunteering, community building, and organizing.

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[edit] Growth

The sophistication and impact of Internet activism seems to be growing. It's origins are arguably the early nineties when internet communications enabled mexican rebel group The Zapatistas to reach out from behind the frontline in a previously unheard of manner, effectively networking with first world activists and stimulating the anti-globalisation movement's Peoples Global Action. This group remained at the forefront of the movement, with large scale protests beginning in Geneva and London. Media activists utilised growing internet technologies to communicate their struggle, essentially creating the globalisation of protest. Following extensive protest in London in which such media activism was developed, when the protests eventually hit America this had developed to such a point that a global network of internet activist sites, under the umbrella name of Indymedia, sprang up in 1999.

In 1999, opponents of corporate-led globalization used the Internet effectively to coordinate protests against the World Trade Organization that came to be known as the "Battle of Seattle." Groups like MoveOn and Care2 have successfully used the Internet to raise funds and push their causes. U.S. election campaigns that have used the Internet successfully for fundraising or other purposes have included:

  • Bill Bradley, who raised more than $2 million via the Internet in his 2000 Democratic U.S. presidential primary race
  • Howard Dean, in his 2004 Democratic U.S. presidential primary race
  • John Kerry, in his 2004 U.S. presidential run
  • John McCain, in his 2000 Republican U.S. presidential primary race
  • Jesse Ventura, in his successful third-party run for governor of Minnesota

Carol Darr, director of the George Washington University Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet in Washington, D.C., thinks the Internet works best as an organizing tool for "charismatic, outspoken mavericks" with "outsider" appeal in elections. It also invites a decentralized approach to campaigning that runs contrary to the traditional controlled, top-down, message-focused approach. "The mantra has always been, 'Keep your message consistent. Keep your message consistent,'" said John Hlinko, who has participated in Internet campaigns for MoveOn and the electoral primary campaign of Wesley Clark. "That was all well and good in the past. Now it's a recipe for disaster...You can choose to have a Stalinist structure that's really doctrinaire and that's really opposed to grassroots. Or you can say, 'Go forth. Do what you're going to do.' As long as we're running in the same direction, it's much better to give some freedom." [1]

According to some observers, the Internet may have considerable potential to reach and engage opinion leaders who influence the thinking and behavior of others. According to the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, "Online Political Citizens" (OPCs) are "seven times more likely than average citizens to serve as opinion leaders among their friends, relatives and colleagues...Normally, 10% of Americans qualify as Influentials. Our study found that 69% of Online Political Citizens are Influentials." [2]

The Internet has also made it easier for small donors to play a meaningful role in financing political campaigns. Previously, small-donor fundraising was prohibitively expensive, as costs of printing and postage ate up most of the money raised. Groups like MoveOn, however, have found that they can raise large amounts of money from small donors at minimal cost, with credit card transaction fees constituting their biggest expense. "For the first time, you have a door into the political process that isn't marked 'big money,' " says Darr. "That changes everything." [3]

[edit] Criticism

Internet activism has been criticized on grounds that it gives disproportionate access to affluent activists, because poor people, minorities and elderly citizens either lack access or are inexperienced in the new technologies. This concern is especially relevant in developing countries, where many people still lack even the basic literacy needed to access written materials on Internet. In developed countries such as the United States, however, this concern appears to be fading. A recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project suggested that more than 90% of Americans have access to the World Wide Web either directly or through work and family. Studies by both Pew and Nielsen indicate that the elderly are one of the fastest growing demographics on the Web, and one of the most literate in computer use.

Another concern, expressed by author and law professor Cass Sunstein, is that online political discussions lead to "cyberbalkanization"—discussions that lead to fragmentation and polarization rather than consensus, because the same medium that lets people access a large number of news sources also lets them pinpoint the ones they agree with and ignore the rest. "The experience of the echo chamber is easier to create with a computer than with many of the forms of political interaction that preceded it," Sunstein told the New York Times. "The discussion will be about strategy, or horse race issues or how bad the other candidates are, and it will seem like debate. It's not like this should be censored, but it can increase acrimony, increase extremism and make mutual understanding more difficult."

Other critics of Internet activism have suggested that it can be counterproductive because it "makes people feel like they've done something when they haven't," in the words of Allen "Gunner" Gunn of The Ruckus Society, a training group for activists based in Oakland, California. "That's the low-hanging fruit and doesn't really mean they've embraced the issue...and politicians understand that."

"The Internet connects an ideologically broad anti-war constituency, from the leftists of ANSWER to the pressed-for-time 'soccer moms' who might prefer MoveOn, and conservative activists as well," observes Scott Duke Harris. According to University of California professor Barbara Epstein, however, the Internet "allows people who agree with each other to talk to each other and gives them the impression of being part of a much larger network than is necessarily the case." She warns that the impersonal nature of communication by computer may actually undermine important human contact that always has been crucial to social movements. [4] However, some Internet sites, such as Meetup.com, have been used by activists for the very purpose of overcoming the social isolation that has become common in modern, TV-fed society.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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