Electronic Networking and Activism

1
Electronic Networking and Activism

• Christine Shearer

2
1950s U.S.

• Fordist Mode of production
• Assembly line
• Mass production
• Standardization
• Vertically-integrated industry (within a
  nation-state)
• Mirrored organization of social life
• - Standardized nuclear family husband at work,
  housewife
• - Mass consumption

3
1970s

• Beginning of major changes in production,
  particularly
• - Outsourcing of manufacturing from First to
  Third World
• Reluctance on the part of many social scientists
  to say the change was due to technology, because
  it comes off as technological determinism.
  Instead many globalization theorists ascribe the
  cause as decreasing returns on capital invested
  in production, leading corporations to send their
  manufacturing operations abroad where production
  costs are lower (i.e. wages, taxes, less
  regulations, etc.)

4
New Mode of Production Flexibilization

• Manufacturing becomes organized along global
  commodity chains, with each piece produced where
  it is most cost-efficient
• Just in time production
• Subcontracting
• Flexible labor
• Containerization

5
Globalization

• Decentralization of production necessitates
  tighter integration at level of command
• Many corporations subcontract production and
  focus instead on the more profitable area of
  marketing, advertising, research and design, etc.
• Global cities (Sassen 2001) have the
  technological infrastructure to act as
  coordinating nodes in the global economy (e.g.
  NY, Tokyo)
• Idea of a trans-national class elites whose
  interests lie outside any particular nation-state

6
Fordism vs. Flexibilization

• Fordism
• - Mass production
• - Nation-state
• - Full-time work
• - Keynesianism
• - Autos/Electronics

• Flexibilization
• - Just in time
• - Trans-national
• - PT, Temp, Contract
• - Neoliberalism
• - Technology/Info

7
Trans-National Activism

• As corporations take on a trans-national
  perspective, political activists need to do the
  same.
• And as corporations use technology to make their
  activities more efficient, political activists
  should do the same.

8
Structure of Activism Changing?

• - W. Lance Bennett (2003) Social movements
  changing from top-down, bureaucratic structures
  (NGOs) to decentralized, horizontally-integrated
  direct action networks (DANs) a big
  generalization and Bennett offers no actual
  examples, so it seems most useful to look at as
  ideal-type models

9
Role of Hackers

• According to Critical Art Ensemble (thanks, Alan)
  the old-school leftist activists need to link
  up with computer hackers. Old activists still
  targeting concrete structures, when the real
  damage to be done is in cyberspace, by blocking
  flows of info (i.e. the centralization of command
  discussed earlier).
• Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD).

10
Zapatistas

• Maria Torres (2001) went to Chiapas in 1993 as
  part of an electronic project to get local NGOs
  and popular orgs in Mexico on-line. The effect?
• - Just two days after rising up in Chiapas,
  Subcomandante Marcos was online, thus able to
  send the Zapatista message and subvert the
  reports of major Mexican media orgs. Ten days
  after that the Mexican army was called off, as
  people around the world held demonstrations
  supporting the Zapatistas.

11
Precursor to the World Social Forum?

• In July 1996 the Zapatista call for a worldwide
  conference against neoliberalism brought over
  3,000 people from five continents to Chiapas

12
Zapatista Networks

• Garrido and Halavais (2003) mapped out the
  communication network of the Zapatistas main
  site (www.ezln.org) and found it was linked with
  various global NGOs and was central to connecting
  many of them together
• seems a somewhat obvious finding, which the
  authors admit, but it shows the degree of
  connection of the Zapatista struggle with other
  online activist groups.

13
Electronic Disturbance Theater

• Floodnet
• Website that uses a Java applet to make browsers
  automatically reload targeted webpages several
  times per minuteall someone has to do is connect
  their browser to the website at a certain hour.
• Was used by EDT and Zapatista supporters as a
  form of Free Speech expressed artistically on
  the Interneta virtual sit-in. (Debate on
  whether its legal, but EDT considers it ethical
  its a disturbance, not hacking.)
• As the target, usually the Mexican President's
  website, is automatically reloaded, netizens
  could upload server log messages such as
  "human-rights not found on this server."

14
Effect of Internet on Zapatistas

• To spread information from the Zapatista point of
  view
• To link up with other groups/orgs.
• To organize conferences
• To plan for and engage in electronic civil
  disobedience
• Inspired creative, electronic uses of free speech?

15
Electronic Frontier Foundation

• Fighting for civil liberties in cyberspace
• Group of legal and/or tech-savvy professionals
  and activists who use the law to fight against
  infringements of freedom in cyberspace.
• Carry on this battle mainly in courts, bringing
  and defending lawsuits often against the US Govt
  or big corporations.
• Also informs the press on tech issues and helps
  fund freedom-enhancing technologies.

16
Activists and Hacktivists

• Common belief in liberty and freedom, and refusal
  to obey unjust laws.
• Striving for effective, efficient action.
• Hactivists who engage in electronic civil
  disobedience face the same penalties as activists
  who engage in civil disobedience both are
  considered criminal acts (e.g. its illegal to
  intentionally cause damage to a website).