Internet activism

Internet activism uses Internet communications technologies to enable faster communications and coordination by citizen movements.

The sophistication and impact of Internet activism seems to be growing. 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 StopDrLaura.com 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
• 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 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] (http://press.meetup.com)

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] (http://www.ipdi.org/UploadedFiles/political%20influentials.pdf)

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] (http://press.meetup.com)

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. While perhaps valid to a certain extent on a global level, this concern is increasingly specious in light of studies by the Pew Center for the Internet and American Life suggesting 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] (http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5093013.htm) 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.

See also

• 501c4
• 527 committee
• 9-11 Truth Movement
• America Coming Together (ACT)
• America Votes
• Anti-cult movement
• Center for American Progress
• Citizens United
• Clergy Leadership Network
• E-democracy
• EMILY's List
• Environment 2004
• Flash mob
• Grassfire.org Alliance
• Grassroots Democrats
• Hacktivism
• Internet democracy
• Log Cabin Republicans
• Media Fund
• New Democrat Network
• Safer World / Nuclear Threat Initiative
• Soft money
• Soft money groups
• Thunder Road Group
• U.S. presidential election, 2004: Active Advocacy Groups
• U.S. presidential election, 2004: Campaign Ads

External links and references

• Democracies Online Newswire (http://www.dowire.org) — A news source on e-activism
• GetTheRealScoop.org (http://www.gettherealscoop.org/) environmentalism
• weconverge.net (http://www.weconverge.net) community building
• Depresident George W. Bush (http://www.depresident.com) Anti Bush
• Bush in 30 Seconds (http://www.bushin30seconds.org/) — See MoveOn
• CauseNet (http://causenet.commoncause.org/) is good example of the "Capitol Advantage" (http://capitoladvantage.com/) foundation services
• Industry Events: Technology in Campaigns & Politics (http://www.civicactions.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Campaign_Trade_Events)
• www.misleader.org - A Daily Chronicle of Bush Administration Distortion (http://www.misleader.org).
• Ed Schwartz, NetActivism:How Citizens Use the Internet (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/netactivism/excerpt/), (Cambridge, MA: O'Reilly Media, Inc., 1996), ISBN 1565921607
• Activism on the Internet (http://www.cc.utah.edu/~sm1968/activism.html), University of Utah.
• Josh Richman, "Point-and-Click Activism (http://www.eactivist.org/eactivist/Oakland_Tribune.htm)," Oakland Tribune (Oakland, CA), June 9, 2002.
• Steve Davis, Larry Elin and Grant Reeher, Click on Democracy: The Internet's Power to Change Political Apathy into Civic Action (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2002), ISBN 0813340055.
• Eric J.S. Townsend, E-Activism Connects Protest Groups. Web Makes It Easy To Organize Rallies Quickly, But Sheer Volume Of E-Mail Can Hinder Cause (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1204-01.htm), Hartford Courant, December 4, 2002.
• Scott Duke Harris, "Anti-war movement marshals forces online (http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5093013.htm)," San Jose Mercury News, February 3, 2003.
• B.L. Ochman, "Online Activists' Lessons For Online Business (http://www.webpronews.com/ebusiness/sitepromotion/wpn-3-20030805OnlineActivistsLessonsForOnlineBusiness.html)," WebProNews, August 5, 2003.
• Garance Franke-Ruta, "Virtual Politics (http://www.prospect.org/print-friendly/print/V14/9/franke-ruta-g.html)," The American Prospect, Volume 14, Issue 9, October 1, 2003.
• Klaus Marre, "Grassroots Growing Fast in Cyberspace (http://www.thehill.com/news/101503/grassroots.aspx)," The Hill, October 13, 2003.
• Amy Harmon, "Politics of the Web: Meet, Greet, Segregate, Meet Again," New York Times, January 25, 2004.
• Ann M. Mack, "Campaign '04: How the Internet is Changing Politics (http://press.meetup.com)," MediaWeek, January 26, 2004.
• "Political Influentials Online in the 2004 Presidential Campaign (http://www.ipdi.org/UploadedFiles/political%20influentials.pdf)," Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet, Graduate School of Political Management, George Washington University, February 5, 2004.
• Daniel H. Steinberg, "O'Reilly's Digital Democracy Teach-In (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2004/02/10/digdemo.html)," O'Reilly Network, February 10, 2004.
• Mark Surman & Katherine Reilly, "Appropriating the Internet for Global Activism (http://www.yesmagazine.org/29globalhope/surmanreilly.htm)," Yes Magazine, Spring 2004. Also here (http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18045).
• Dan Hazen and Tai Moses, Troops Rally For Regime Change Battle (http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18054), AlterNet, March 5, 2004.
• Carlos Watson, "The Rise of the Online Citizen (http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/17/polls)," CNN.com, March 17, 2004, suggests that blogs may be "Democrats' answer to talk radio," citing a study by George Washington University showing that "online political citizens" outnumber Republicans almost 2 to 1 (49% to 27%).
• Matt Stoller, "When Mainstream Political Kibitzing Comes Online (http://www.bopnews.com/archives/000493.html)," The Blogging of the President 2004, April 4, 2004, notes "some interesting similarities between talk radio and blogs," with "one key difference...blogs create memory, whereas talk radio and cable punditry destroys it by turning opinion and analysis into an ethereal product."
• Joe Trippi, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything (Regan Books, 2004), ISBN 0060761555.
• John Emerson, "An Introduction to Activism on the Internet (http://www.backspace.com/action)," January 2005.