Contents
- Index
4.2. Citizens Take to Cyberspace (Top)
From time to time during periods of political crises, Americans skirt the restrictions of representative government and burst into intensive grass roots political action. The turn of the 21st century is one of those times. However, this time the phenomenon is both quantitatively and qualitatively different from predecessors. In sheer volume of individual political acts and the number of issues that have been involved, this movement already ranks among the great civil movements, including civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War. Qualitatively, it is different in composition, processes, and leadership style and it is playing out on an entirely new medium. Instead of dissenters hitting the streets, millions of information age civilians are hitting the information highways with far-reaching agendas for change and a political statement that says their desires and expertise can no longer be ignored.
Unlike previous movements, political actions are at more immediate, more informed, shorter in duration, more focused, and more highly targeted through innovative Internet technologies and collegial leadership. Actions also are different because activists move in and out as they pursue their careers. In some respects the front lines are manned by a rotating citizenry. The result is that the movement is very broad-based and democratic in its composition and in important ways is the antithesis of elitist theories of social movements.
Emerging from this phenomenon is a huge, rapidly growing, and fluid network of self-organizing Internet-based public interest groups, now numbering in the thousands, along with email lists, bulletin boards, personal weblogs, and family and friends discussion groups, together numbering in the millions. In this network, issue identification and decision-making is informal and collegial and the role of leaders is to facilitate peers. Political power lies not in voting or social myth but in huge (virtual) crowds, independence, connectivity, communication skills, experience, knowledge, skills, lightning-fast responses, and (collectively) very deep pockets. Unlike previous movements that depended mostly on public rallies and demonstrations, this network targets every influence point in the system, including the executive, congress, the courts, the media, corporations, and the public itself. Its tools include bulletins, issue forums, petitions, vigils, demonstrations and rallies, boycotts, litigation, lobbying, media ads, candidate support, letter writing campaigns, independent polling, and sign, banner, and flyer campaigns.
Previous Next
To Comment Click Here
Materials
MoveOn petition sets record
A record-setting 20,000 people have signed the MoveOn.org's petition within one hour. The petition demands the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate the White House's outing of Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative and the wife of Joseph Wilson. You can read or sign the petition at MoveOn's website.
Posted on October 2, 2003 @ 1:46PM.
References
News articles
Anderson, David M. & Michael Cornfield (eds.), The Civic Web (Rowman & Littlefield: New York, 2003).
Ito, Joi, Emergent Democracy Paper, See Weblog References for Democracy and the Internet.
(Top)