| BOOK REVIEW OF CYBERPROTEST: ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM ONLINE | | |
| JENNY PICKERILL, 2003 MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS COST: Rs.950 | | |
Protest movements are continuously appropriating new technologies. Technology is of our own making and the use to which we put it is a result of social processes. The telephone, still camera, video camera, mobile phone, and fax machine have all been utilised. In many ways Computer Mediated Communications (CMC) is simply one more addition to this list.
The question at the crux of this book, is whether the ways in which CMC is being utilised enables fundamental changes in the way environmentalists organise themselves, the tactics they develop and even the influence and success they can achieve.
The book is structured around the analysis of various implications. Each chapter explores one of the five broad themes: the paradox of technology use, access to CMC, mobilisation through CMC, electronic tactics and on-line surveillance and counterstrategies.
This book’s objective is to examine:
· Relationship between the strategies of environmental activism movements in Britain and their use of CMC. The activists were apparently able to reach a wider audience of potential participants than ever before and thus able to spark a rampage.
· CMC use on different implications for established environmental lobbying organisations as opposed to the non-hierarchical fluid networks of direct action groups.
· How activists resolved the tensions of using a potentially environmentally damaging technology.
· Challenges the technology poses for activism.
· CMC influence on campaign strategies and consequently on business, government and regulatory responses to environmental activism.
· The ways in which environmental activists overcome the barriers and utilise these opportunities illustrates the complex ways in which cyberspace is used as resistance.
The significance of CMC:
· It aids the development of a radical democratic techno-politics that will use new technologies to advance the interests of oppositional social groups.
· It creates awareness of various movements that have been excluded from mainstream media and political debate.
· It increases speed in terms of response, information gathering and networking ability to Social Movement Organisations, which in turn might alter their organisational capabilities.
· It could be used as a virtual public sphere to organise protests by involving vast number of other individuals to distribute their ideas and critique existing intellectuals for the movement to move further towards participatory democracy.
· It affects the strength of movement networks in that communication becomes simultaneously both easier and more fragmented by increasing communication between the different types of groups.
The concept of an environmental activist…...
The definition of environmental activist is given quite broadly within this book. The term represents far more than the limited stereotype which denotes short term physical action. An activist is one who takes any form of action, ranging from direct physical acts to minute lifestyle adjustments, and also includes those who simply voice their concern or opinions through letter writing or discussion. Activism is not something that can be clearly bounded, marked as separate from everyday life.
Paradox of technology use:
‘Technology itself is not intrinsically bad but that it is the way that you use technology that counts’.
Environmental activists view and navigate and examine the consequences of this negotiation of techno-environmentalism. They can mitigate the environmental effects of computer by reusing and recycling components, reducing the energy used by their computers and by using renewable energy sources. Many can sought to minimise their consumption of hardware by reusing existing components to construct or upgrade existing machines, or by recycling their disused equipment.
Access to CMC:
‘The constraints to cyber-activism are largely those that hobble other political involvement’.
CMC enables an international audience to be reached, at relatively low cost and at speed activists can co-ordinate global wide protests or share ideas and solutions with international activists. Access to CMC is shaped by several constraining factors: finance, location and office space, technical skills and training, technical specifications and support, gender, class and ethnicity and language. Workshops can be used to share skills or individuals learn by example from others. The few highly technically skilled individuals at the forefront of innovative CMC can attempt at skill sharing.
Mobilisation through CMC:
‘Strengthen the ties that bind’.
The use of CMC is to mobilise participation and facilitate the networking of, environmental activism. This includes an examination of the impediments of using CMC for mobilisation and networking. Electronic publication can attract new audience. By simulating on-line debates people can become more involved in the campaign. Using CMC to raise the profile of their campaign activists can indirectly aid their attempts at mobilisation. If the website is made more interactive, people can participate by introducing new ideas.
Electronic Tactics:
‘It’s a bit of a game you’ve got to come up with some sort of stunt’.
Environmentalists can extend their use of the technology to develop CMC as a tool of protest. This includes the use of CMC as a substitution for a reliance upon mainstream media, and thus for the production of a digital alternative media. Environmentalists can display information which counters opponent’s opinions, it is itself a tactical use of the technology. Emails can be used in the same way as letters or faxes for personal requests or as part of mass petitions.
On-line surveillance and counterstrategies:
‘Computerised electronic surveillance has ushered a whole new phase of domination’.
Environmental activists understand the threats due to on-line surveillance and the developed counterstrategies. The benefits of the publicity offered by CMC outweighed the inevitable loss of secrecy. The most secure form of communication is still the word of mouth… anything that should be kept a secret should not be done on the computer. Several multinationals prevent activists from making allegations by posting counter arguments online.
Why is the study of Social Movements important???
I agree with the author that it is necessary to explore in a little more depth what is meant by the use of social movement perspectives and then to outline their applicability and usefulness to understanding British environmental activism.
Social movement is a network of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups or organisations, the boundaries of which are determined by the collective identity shared by those involved or engaged in political or cultural conflicts, meant to promote or oppose social change either at the systematic or non-systemic level.
The three major trends of social movement: the collective behaviour perspective, resource mobilisation theory (RMT), and the political process perspective - provide frameworks for analysing different structural aspects of the old social movements.
The fourth trend the New Social Movements (NSM) approach contrasts with these earlier approaches by concentrating on the ‘why’ of collective action rather than upon the ‘how’. NSM theory tries to relate social movements to large-scale structural and cultural changes within the so-called ‘information age’. NSMs are concerned with adjusting the logic of the system.
Thus, CMC will serve to reproduce the political and social relations of capitalism. Inclusion of the importance of some aspects of technological development from the political economy perspective enables a clearer analysis of the political impacts upon cyberspace such as multinational ownership or government regulation of its uses. Furthermore, the way in which CMC is constructed is liable to have a significant influence upon the way in which it can be controlled.
Main questions asked:
Is the new technology of global communication changing the forms of the diffusion of collective challenges or only the speed of their transmission?
In the book author gives sociologist Manuel Castells’s answer. He asserts that the internet is indispensable to those social movements concerned with cultural values, organising in a non-hierarchical loose form and for those wishing to retain their local roots and yet act on a global level. In comparison to social movements, extensive and innovative use of CMC, Castells also illustrates the lack of interaction offered on-line by formal political parties. In all, he asserts that activists are able to benefit greatly from CMC use, despite cyberspace being a contested terrain by relatively levelling the ground of symbolic manipulation and by broadening the sources of communication, it does contribute to democratization.
‘Accessibility’ or ‘Innovation’?…. Which one is more important??
According to the author there should be a striking balance between accessibility and innovation. It is important to try and make the site obviously as interactive and as flash as possible but not to make the core ideas and the core content unobtainable, to make it as inclusive as possible on every browser and on every slowest machine. For example, the activist group McSpotlight sought to reduce the costs for its audience by enabling the site to be downloaded free of charge or viewed as a CD-ROM which enabled unlimited use, free of the constraints of continued Net access, line rentals and connection charges.
Where to now in the future???
It is pertinent to acknowledge that only the early stages of CMC use is a crucial period that determines future frameworks of technology use. CMC use will continue to evolve and be utilised by environmentalists, modifying and being modified by social processes. The new interactions triggered by CMC have significantly altered each of the environmental groups considered here, and are likely to aid new collaborations and the development of new forms of environmental protest, particularly internationally.
Although, this book will quickly become a historical account of CMC use, it is no less relevant for its time-specific context. The ability to examine these processes of negotiation around the use of CMC as the debates are occurring provides insight into the way in which CMC use has been practised in the twenty first century.
I conclude by saying that overall book gives a novelty about the use of CMC by environmentalists and its impact upon the forms and processes of various affiliated groups. British environmental activists are a diverse cohort composed of individuals and groups with diverging aims, ideologies and forms of organisation. These differences are exposed in their contrasting attitudes to and use of CMC. They are united, however, in their struggle to use CMC to their advantage and to continue their protest, activism, resistance and creation of positive alternatives through and in cyberspace. The environmental movement is particularly innovative, creative and skilful and this has been extended to its use of CMC.
D MOUNICA JYOTHI
CH10B039
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