Political Campaigning on the Web 9783839410479

Table of contents :
Content
General Reflections on Political Campaigning on the Web
Introduction: Political Campaigning in Changing Media Cultures – Typological and Historical Approaches
The Publics Behind Political Web Campaigning. The Digital Transformation of ‘Classic’ Counter-Public Spheres
Forms of Digital Resistance. The Internet and the Constitution of a Transnational Public Sphere
Appropriation of the Web
Characteristics and Developments of Political Party Web Campaigns in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States between 1997 and 2007
Virtualized Campaigning for Europe: Towards Reinvigoration of European Public Sphere(s)?
Petitioning Online. The Role of E-Petitions in Web Campaigning
Internet Campaigning across Borders: The Virtual Revival of Labour Internationalism?
Political Struggles within the Market Sphere – The Internet as a ‘Weapon’?
Organization, Mobilization, and Identity: National and Transnational Grassroots Campaigns between Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Communication
Subsumption and Outlook
Communication and Campaign Strategies of Intermediary Organizations – A Comparative Analysis
Geert Lovink interviewed by Johanna Niesyto A Plea for More Experiments and Creativity in Political Laboratories
Contributors

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Sigrid Baringhorst, Veronika Kneip, Johanna Niesyto (eds.) Political Campaigning on the Web

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The series “Medienumbrüche | Media Upheavals” is edited by Peter Gendolla.

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Sigrid Baringhorst, Veronika Kneip, Johanna Niesyto (eds.)

Political Campaigning on the Web

Medienumbrüche | Media Upheavals | Volume 37

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The Collaborative Research Center 615 at the University of Siegen with funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) produced this book.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de

© 2009 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover layout: Kordula Röckenhaus, Bielefeld Cover illustration: www.avatomatic.de Proofread & Typeset by S. Baringhorst, V. Kneip, J. Niesyto Printed by Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, Wetzlar ISBN 978-3-8376-1047-5

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Content General Reflections on Political Campaigning on the Web Sigrid Baringhorst Introduction: Political Campaigning in Changing Media Cultures – Typological and Historical Approaches............................................................ 9 Jeffrey Wimmer The Publics Behind Political Web Campaigning. The Digital Transformation of ‘Classic’ Counter-Public Spheres ...........31 Rainer Winter Forms of Digital Resistance. The Internet and the Constitution of a Transnational Public Sphere ......................................................................53

Appropriation of the Web Sarah Zielmann/Ulrike Röttger Characteristics and Developments of Political Party Web Campaigns in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States between 1997 and 2007..........................................................................................69 Johanna Niesyto Virtualized Campaigning for Europe: Towards Reinvigoration of European Public Sphere(s)? ..........................................................................93 Lorenzo Mosca/Daria Santucci Petitioning Online. The Role of E-Petitions in Web Campaigning......121 Stuart Hodkinson Internet Campaigning across Borders: The Virtual Revival of Labour Internationalism? .............................................................................147 Veronika Kneip Political Struggles within the Market Sphere – The Internet as a ‘Weapon’? .............................................................................173

Alice Mattoni Organization, Mobilization, and Identity: National and Transnational Grassroots Campaigns between Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Communication................................................... 199

Subsumption and Outlook Ralf Lindner Communication and Campaign Strategies of Intermediary Organizations – A Comparative Analysis..................................................... 233 Geert Lovink interviewed by Johanna Niesyto A Plea for More Experiments and Creativity in Political Laboratories .................................................................................... 257 Contributors............................................................................................................ 273

General Reflections on Political Campaigning on the Web

Sigrid Baringhorst

Introduction: Political Campaigning in Changing Media Cultures – Typological and Historical Approaches This chapter aims at developing a general definition and typology of political campaigning based on a comparison of different types of political actors, different types of aims involved as well as time and space-related differences. It gives an overview of major changes in the history of political campaigning by focussing on the interrelations between changing modes of political campaigning and processes of modernization of media technology and media systems, as well as general changes in political cultures in Western European societies. With regard to the latter, it discusses the decline of old ideological political campaigning and the rise of single issue-oriented campaigns. This occurred against the background of other social transformations, which lead to a weakening of class-based politics and the weakening of affiliations between citizens, political institutions and organizations, as well as a growing understanding of publics as audiences and of citizens as customers. The introduction of public TV and, even more so, of commercial TV has changed practices of political campaigning by strengthening trends of professionalization, centralization, visualization, personalization, audience targeting, multi-mediatization, and the increased dynamism of political campaigning, while challenging traditional notions of liberal as well as participatory democracy. The final part of this chapter asks, are these trends reversed by the introduction and spread of virtual or virtualized campaigns? Or do we see a multi-directional change, cross-tendencies of centripetal orientation towards mass media attention combined with centrifugal diversification and orientation to a more and more fragmented public of publics (Bohman 2004)?

Between War and Market Operations: Definition and Typologies of Political Campaigning Political campaigning has become a mode of articulation of the political that encompasses all political subject areas and types of political actors. Before we discuss in the next section some reasons for the growing dominance of professional political campaigning in public opinion formation, first it is necessary to develop a general definition and typology of political campaigning.

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An etymological approach to defining political campaigning highlights the similarity of political campaigns with social actions in the fields of war and markets. Campaign is etymologically derived from the late-Latin campania meaning level country (from Latin campus a field). The term originally denoted a temporarily limited activity in the country as well as any expiditio, any temporarily limited military operation. The period of military campaigns was determined by the seasons: it usually started in June when armies took to the open field or battlefield and ended by November when they withdrew from the campaign to spend the winter in quarters. In England by mid 17th century, the term took on a non-literal meaning when the sessions of the House of Commons were called campaigns. With the introduction of democratic elections to Parliament, the meaning of the word shifted to strategic endeavours that competitors undertook to get as many votes as possible in order to gain a parliamentary seat (Leggewie 2006: 107). Campaign became synonymous for any race between candidates for elective office, the verb campaigning generally meant “an effort to win any kind of election, but most particularly the phase involving open, active electioneering” (Safire 1993: 98). The military and political meaning was extended to also denote strategic operations in the market sphere in late 19th and early 20th century. In the context of advertising, campaigns signified strategies of commercial communication aiming at informing customers about goods and services as well as persuading them to buy these products usually through the means of brand creation and reinforcement. Today campaigns have become ubiquitous in the commercial as well as in the political arena. Given the plethora of strategic actions in all societal subsystems, it is difficult to gain a precise definition, covering all types of campaigns. Generally campaigns can be understood as a series of communicative activities undertaken to achieve predefined goals and objectives regarding a defined target audience in a set time period with a given amount of resources. Thus campaigns can be distinguished with regard to their goals, their strategies, tactics, and tools, as well as in relation to campaign actors and targeted audiences. A lowest common denominator can be seen regarding the goals and objectives involved. Three minimal goals are shared by all campaigns: 1. Gaining public awareness for a particular cause, service, organization or person; 2. generating credibility for a person or organization; and 3. generating cognitive, evaluative and behavioural changes in a targeted group of people (Saxer 2006: 30-31; Bonfadelli 2004: 101). Campaigns give information, but also want to gain acceptance for certain principles, causes, services and often mobilize for a particular political action like voting for a particular candidate or party, becoming a member of an organization or donating resources to an organization. The behavioural effect can consist in just a one-off action, like voting. How-

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ever, often campaigns are intended to lead to more lasting behaviour changes and socialization effects. Information, persuasion and socialization are according to Swanson and Mancini (1996: 53) the crucial aspects of political mobilization by campaigning: […] while information assumes a ready-made consensus that can be activated by tapping upon shared interests, grievances and habitus, the persuasive and socializing patterns deal with the construction of issues, purposes, interests and preferences. In the case of persuasion, mobilization is about the explicit, supplementary efforts to convince individuals to become active by giving them good reasons to join a good cause. […] Finally socialisation is proposed as a process through which mobilization generates and reproduces its own conditions: shared commitments, preferences, interests and identities. Political campaigns can be analytically differentiated as informational and educational campaigns to achieve a better understanding of and awareness for certain issues, as action campaigns to mobilize for a certain action in a targeted audience, as recruiting campaigns to win new members or supporters or other resources for an organization, or as influence-seeking campaigns to lobby political decision-makers for a certain issue. These distinctions are only analytical, since political campaigning usually combines several of these goals (Lahusen 1997: 179; Lahusen 2002: 40; Kamps 2007). Looking at the multitude of campaigning actors, one can distinguish political campaigns according to the type of actors that initiate them. As mentioned above, campaigns are usually launched by organizational actors and not individual actors, although particularly election campaigns in majority vote systems often give the impression of being launched by persons and not parties. Due, however, to the cost intensity of current electoral campaigns and the low winning chances of candidates not affiliated with a political party, parties play a major role particularly on the national and European level of electoral campaigning. Compared to other organizational actors, political communication research has put a major emphasis on the political campaigning of political parties; less attention is given to campaigning by government institutions.1 The history of government campaigning, however, is as long as of electoral campaigning and develops parallel to the democratization of nation-states in the 19th century. The transition from professional armies to mass recruited armies has particularly put governments under pressure to secure public acceptance 1

For an overview of political parties’ webcampaigning see Zielmann/Röttger in this volume; Niesyto (in this volume) broaches the issue of governmental webcampaigning with the example of the European Union.

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for military operations with high demands on capital resources and potential death tolls. This leads government campaigns to dramatize political conflicts and legitimize military action. Persuasive campaigns have become an integral part of military campaigning. In peacetime as well, government institutions address citizens in campaigns to inform them on and gain acceptance for new and controversial political measures that usually either involve regulatory changes that have an impact on the collective identity formation, such as the introduction of the Euro, or that have a strong impact on the redistribution of public resources. Another field of government campaigning are national, regional, or urban campaigns either directed at constructing and reconfirming collective identities and/or seeking positive resonance in the international political or competitive economic arena (Baringhorst 2004). Political campaigns are usually analyzed as strategic communicative activities on the politics dimension of the political, as they are launched to position actors in processes of political competition, interest or value-oriented conflicts. Political campaigning can also, however, play a crucial role in the policy implementation processes. Current problems of state deficit have given campaigning strategies of persuasion a more prominent role in packaging political measures and have led to an increase of policy campaigns like campaigns against obesity or other lifestyle related health campaigns like safe-sex and family-planning campaigns. Another type of political actor consists of intermediary organization actors like interest and lobby groups and, most of all, professional organizations like unions and employers’ federations. Interest groups launch campaigns to legitimate their particularistic demands, to gain support among a wider public, gain and/or lobby political decision-makers. Campaigns play a major role in organizational relationship management in terms of communicating certain issues or constructing favourable organizational images either as part of everyday organizational management or as part of a particular crisis management. Partly overlapping with social interest groups are the vast number of civil society actors, which are defined by their independence from state institutions as well as from economic profit seeking and usually articulate their claims as universalistic aims. Campaigning by interest groups and civil society actors covers the whole range of campaigning goals. However, while government actors resort to campaigning most often as a means of information and education (information and educational campaign) or of promoting certain services (product campaigning) or in order to create certain images (national or regional image campaigns), interest groups and civil society actors most often combine functions of information and image creation with the mobilization for certain activities in order to build up public pressure (action campaigns) and/or for the mobilization of

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social solidarity to support moral issues like social justice or human rights (solidarity campaigns). Another approach to categorize the plethora of political campaigns is based on time and space related criteria. Although electoral campaigns are clearly determined by their purpose and periodical timing as well as by clearly defined territorial constituents, many authors see current political communication in Western democracies characterized by a change from temporally defined campaigning to permanent campaigning (Norris 2000). This trend, however, does not only apply to political party campaigning. Supported by the networking facilities of web-based communication technologies, transnational civil society action networks have emerged that put forward their demands in permanent protest campaigns (Bennett 2004). In many cases, these permanent transnational protest campaigns are identified as political actors and not as a communicative activity of collective actors. The organizational members of these networks disappear behind campaign labels like International Campaign against Landmines, Jubilee Campaign or Clean Clothes Campaign. The goals of these permanent umbrella campaigns are articulated in changing and temporally limited action campaigns putting forward clearly defined demands against certain opponents among specific government or corporate actors. Campaigns can be further analyzed from their external or internal communicative dimension, regarding their external relations as they aim to inform and mobilize a wider public or clearly defined target groups, and internally as they have to coordinate and emotionally integrate organizational members and supporters. Building on the general distinction between internal and external communication, Vowe (2006) has suggested to differentiate the communicative strategies of political campaigns on four communicative dimensions: firstly, the internal communication aims at orienting coordinated actors towards a common goal, secondly the conflict dimension of communication, covering the orientation towards a political opponent, strives to exploit the opponent’s weaknesses, thirdly the media communication intends to change public opinion formation and fourthly the communication that results from media resonance, such as a campaign being mentioned in a parliamentary debate, at political party meetings or in everyday street corner conversations.

Changing Media and Political Culture – Impact on Political Campaigning Despite numerous differences between political campaigns, all strive to cause cognitive, behavioural or evaluative effects in more or less clearly defined target groups. In order to achieve their goals, they all aim at gaining response

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from the media, most of all from the mass media (Röttger 2006: 10). Mobilizing target groups and getting mass media resonance are closely intertwined: high media resonance and high resonance with the addressed target audiences necessitate each other. Changing media environments as well as social and political-cultural changes among targeted audiences have, as it is argued in the following, direct as well as indirect implications for the historical development of political campaigning. According to Pippa Norris (2000: 137-179), electoral campaigning evolved in reaction to changes of party organization, news media and the electorate in three major stages: premodern, modern and postmodern campaigning. This typology of evolutionary transition does not only apply to election campaigns. Norris’ theoretical framework, it is argued, can be extended and applied for the broader conception of political campaigns developed before. Thus, the following paragraphs will take Norris’ trisection as a starting point to structure the historical change of political campaigning in Western liberal democracies in general. Furthermore, this systematization will provide the basis for the subsequent remarks concerning the impact of new media. Premodern campaigning has its origin in the 19th century expansion of franchise and was more or less reduced to electoral campaigning. It is characterized by comparatively low financial resources spent on campaigning and a high dependency on the involvement of volunteers and grassroots members providing unpaid labour for local candidates and party branches by canvassing, leafleting, and organizing gatherings. Direct face-to-face contact between voters and party representatives was essential. Volunteer labour intensity was high, but the degree of professionalization as well as the sophistication of media technology of campaigning low. The media environment of premodern campaigning was characterized by a dominance of party owned press products as sources of information and newspapers with a clear political party affiliation. The introduction and spread of radio and newsreels since the 1920s contributed to a strengthening of the national dimension of party organizations and campaigning structures. Relatively stable sector-based social cleavages translated into party systems as well as into individual voting behaviour (Lipset/Rokkan 1967), shaping the political culture that favoured premodern campaigning. Party affiliations were high and reinforcing partisan supporters was the main purpose of campaigning (Lazarsfeld et. al. 1944). Changes in media technology, media and political culture since the mid1950s have led to a modernization of campaign communication characterized by a shift of campaign focus from the local to the national level of organizations: although the proportion of the electorate directly contacted by party organizations has not decreased, “direct forms of campaigning have become ancillary in general elections to mediated channels of party-voter communica-

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tion” (Norris 2000: 142). The national centralization of campaigning emerged on the background of new media technologies and cultures, mostly marked by the rise of public broadcasting starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s radio addresses – the so called fireside chats – and the first presidential debate on TV between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. Since then the intended media resonance of political campaigning was mainly interpreted in terms of resonance in the national evening news on public TV channels. TV communication altered the conditions for political campaigning in many respects: as the news was emancipated and independent from political party grip, norms of impartiality and neutrality were mandated and, thus, contributed to a general decrease of the influence of exposure of citizens to political party communication. Apart from this, television “enlarged the audience for political communication by penetrating a sector of the electorate that was previously more difficult to reach and less heavily exposed to message flows” (Blumler/Kavanagh 1999: 212). The golden age of parties (Janda/Colamn 1998: 612) lasted up to the mid1960s when long-lasting voter identifications decreased and a process of dealignment led to a structural decoupling of party systems, voter behaviour, and entrenched cleavages of social structure. The period of “high levels of confidence in political institutions” (Hallin 1992: 17) ended with the growing influence of televised politics. Not only political parties but also professional interest groups, civil society actors, and government institutions had to work harder “and learn new tricks” (Blumler/Kavanagh 1999: 215), a new language of soundbites as much as target group oriented campaigning strategies, to get their messages across. Given the fact that media attention is a highly scarce resource and becoming ever more difficult to gain, persuasive strategies of political campaigns became more and more strategically organized in order to address clearly defined targets groups with a set of different communicative tools like advertising, marketing or PR. Generating public TV resonance was not only relevant for electoral campaigning, it also played a major role in protest campaigning by civil society actors, as shown by analysis of campaigning among the student movement in the 1960s (Fahlenbrach 2002). However, media strategies of civil society actors were more complex than political party campaigning as they addressed two opposing but also complementary media environments: on the one hand, rallies, festivals, and press releases addressed plenty of alternative grassroots-oriented media, on the other hand, protest actors were also aiming at generating a response in mainstream TV and press despite the fact that mass media were heavily criticized for being hegemonic and manipulative. The increasing orientation of political campaigning towards gaining TV responses resulted in the growing tendencies of visualization and personalization of communication in all types of campaigning. The shifting

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trend from cleavage-based ideological class politics to personalization and deideologization of political communication is clearly shown in electoral campaigning,2 however, personalization and visualization are not only confined to political party campaigning. Analysis of social movement campaigning has similarly given evidence of an increased role of celebrities in testimonials and as promoters of protest issues (ibid.). Despite many similarities between political party and civil society organizational campaigning in the 1960s and 1970s, there are also marked differences. These refer most of all to the degree of professionalization of campaigning, which was highly influenced by the introduction and gradually intensified use of opinion-polls since the 1950s. Anja Kruke (2007) has analyzed the impact of opinion polls on party politics in the Federal Republic of Germany. Referring to the German Social Democratic Party, she has shown how opinion polls generated new forms of social self-descriptions and shaped new structures and patterns of action and communication among political elites. Opinion polls changed the relation between parties, media and voters, making parties more ‘responsive’ – a phrase entering the German language in the context of the spread of opinion polls in the 1960s – and leading to new framing strategies and new forms of voter contact like home visits, in order to attract new groups of voters. Based on opinion polls, market research and situation analysis, electoral campaign messages were increasingly tailored to appeal to particular target audiences, thus leading to an increasing segmentation of the national public. Overall professionalization can be understood as twofold: on the one hand it means a process of externalization of campaigning functions in the sense of a synthesis of commercialization and specialization (Donges 2006: 133). Party political actors, but also influential NGOs, unions, and other political actors, pay for communication experts like media consulting agencies, opinion pollsters, advertising and PR agencies. Besides, professionalization can also signify a characteristic of those specialists of persuasive communication (Holtz-Bacha 1999: 10), i.e. a specialization of political consulting as a new professional career. The third evolutionary phase of political campaigning is still ongoing and can be characterized as postmodern campaigning (Norris 2000: 147-149). Supplementing rather than replacing former modes of campaigning, the newest period of campaigning is enforcing former trends of modern campaigning in so far as campaigning has become ever more capital intensive, less dependent on the support of volunteers, and professionalized in its personnel as well as 2

Personalization of campaigning is not necessarily combined with a corresponding reorientation of voters’ behaviour. The impact of party leaders on voting behaviour is still disputed particularly regarding parliamentary systems.

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means of persuasion. Blumler and Kavanagh (1999) have called the media environment of postmodern campaigning the Third Age of Political Communication. They see this most recent period characterized by a pluralization of media channels due to the introduction of commercial satellite and cable stations and, as will be discussed in the next section, the spread of Internet communication, resulting in ubiquity, reach, and celerity of the main means of communication, an acceleration of news cycles and, overall, a changing culture of journalism. The main consequences for political communication are seen in: -

Intensified Professionalization of Political Advocacy has lead to an increase in dependency of political actors on professional assistance to manage media resonance.

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Increased Competitive Pressures wherein political actors have to feed an increasing number of media channels in order to achieve campaign aims.

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Anti-Elitist-Popularization and Populism strengthening bottom-up structures of political communication over top-down structures.

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Centrifugal Diversification in which, contrary to the centripetal tendency of communication in the period dominated by national public TV broadcasting channels, media recipients have more media options on offer. Thus political campaigning has to be more tailored according to a pluralized media system targeting a highly fragmented audience. “It creates openings for previously excluded voices to express their views and perhaps even be noticed by mainstream outlets. It creates opportunities for would-be persuaders to seek more efficient impact by selectively focussing their communication on preferred population sectors” (Blumler/Kavanagh 1999).

The role of political actors in this process is still unclear. From one perspective they primarily seem to be objects of change, driven to adjust rapidly to new media environments (Norris 2000; Blumler/Kavanagh 1999).3 From another perspective they are the dynamic subjects of change. “The consumer has triumphed over the citizen” (Crouch 2004: 49) in concepts of political marketing (Scammell 1999) as well as concepts of post-democracy (Crouch). Particular political party actors are seen as promoting a customer-first approach in political campaigning contrary to old top-down strategies of selling candidates and is3

The postmodern conceptualization sees politicians essentially “lagging behind technological and economic changes, and running hard just to stay in place by adopting the techniques of political marketing in the struggle to cope with the more complex news environment – rather than driving these developments” (Norris 2000: 149).

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sues mainly through means of advertising. Given the pluralization of media outlets, the increasing fragmentation of audiences, the decreasing organizational affiliation expressed in declining party and union membership and growing voter volatility, the success of political campaigning has become less and less predictable. In the highly complex system of news media, a growing number of campaigning actors have to compete for media attention and resonance by targeting fragments of the population. Due to increasing complexity and competition on all sides, i.e. media channels, segmented audiences and campaigning activities, the marginal utility of political campaigning is diminishing (Bonfadelli 2004) and the risk of getting lost among competing attempts to get media attention is high. Not only political parties but also interest groups and protest actors have responded to the decreased marginal utility of campaigning with primarily two counter-strategies: on the one hand, political actors take a lot of measures in order to increase the news value of campaigns; on the other hand, they try to lower campaign costs by resorting to new media. With regard to the first option, campaigners develop campaigning strategies on the basis of event marketing and entertainment product placement, providing media gate keepers with sensationalist messages, exceptional visuals, celebrities as testimonials, and dramatized courses of event. Greenpeace campaigning has often been cited as a successful forerunner in developing professionalized event orientation in postmodern campaigning. Adopting the sign-economic laws of mass media communication increases the chances of being heard in the jungle of mediated messages, however, it also bears the danger of reducing complex issues to an extent that citizens lack the necessary informational background to take reasoned decisions. Event orientation in campaigning is often combined with strategies of morally loading campaign messages, dramatizing events according to binary schemata of good and evil, heroes and villains. This polarization and moralization of political campaigning reduces the scope for rational political discourse. Not denying the agonistic character of politics in general, there is dynamic of constant dramatization of conflicts in political campaigning that undermines the democratic culture of informed political contestation, discourse, and opinion formation.

New Media and Political Campaigning Regarding the second option to confront the problem of diminishing marginal utility, the Internet has offered all political actors new chances to differentiate their strategies and achieve their aims at lower costs. First of all, web-based campaigning facilitates the information function of political campaigning.

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While the adaptation to a competitive commercialized mass media culture has reduced the incentive to explain campaign issues in long statements and favoured a campaign culture of sound bites and strong visuals, the Internet has significantly reduced transaction costs of political information and mobilization due to its speed and the outreach of its communication. It offers opportunities to overcome traditional spatial limitations and contributes to a decentralization as well as transnationalization of political campaigning. John Street and Alan Scott (2001: 46) have summed up their considerations on the consequences of the spread of the Internet for political communication as: “High impact on little resource”. Many authors share their assumption that most of all resource poor political actors like protest actors and small political parties benefit from digitalized communication (Diani 2001: 122-123). However, big political parties, powerful interest groups, and civil society organizations, in particular those that operate with highly confrontational strategies (e.g. Greenpeace), extensively use the productive as well as co-productive means of the Internet. They use the Internet for extensive top-down communication by producing and providing large amounts of information on their websites, but they also provide means for participatory forms of interaction and offer members – and with varying degrees also non-members – opportunities to express and exchange their views on controversial issues of organizational campaigning, e.g. in the section Campaign Issues in the Greenpeace Cybercentre (cybercentre.greenpeace.org). Apart from that, they professionalize their action campaigning by strategically using the accelerated processes of Internet communication to improve conflict dramatization and put attacked opponents under pressure. The logistic advantages of Internet communication for resource poor organizations are not to be underestimated but undifferentiated assumptions of a particular empowerment of weak collective actors through the Internet have to be understood relatively. Firstly, the use of the Internet still presupposes more financial and human capital resources than often acknowledged. Even big parties, interest groups, and social movement organizations stress the high costs that are connected with the adaptation of technical tools and the constant need to update information and to moderate interactive means of participation. Apart from that, the individual access to and use of political information on the Internet is still far from evenly distributed and according to the thesis of digital divide (Norris 2001) highly selective. Internet communication represents a new source of political inequality and, thus, it is hardly able to generate democratic legitimacy for campaign actors. According to the enforcement thesis, the Internet aggravates existing differences in political participation instead of compensating for them. “As a means of political communication the Internet offers several advantages from the perspective of interested citizens but it is

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overestimated in terms of its relevance as a medium of activating the citizenry and democratizing political discourses” (Rucht et al. 2004: 90-91, translation S.B.). The selectivity of Internet access follows geographical and socio-demographical factors. In all world regions, Internet access and use is unequal regarding age and gender as well as education and income. Apart from that, many experts argue that the Internet benefits active citizens more than politically inactive and desinterested citizens (e.g. Emmer et al. 2006). Though in their analysis of the participatory potentials of digital Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) among the supporters of the British Countryside Alliance, Lusoli and Ward (2006: 76), have found not only evidence for the enforcement thesis, but their empirical findings also strengthen the mobilization thesis. According to the mobilization thesis, the Internet also motivates those citizens to participate politically, who would have stayed inactive without the Internet. Digital ICTs, they argue, have important widening as well deepening effects on participatory potential (ibid.: 75). The protest organization could address new supporters via website and email contributed to an enforcement of political activity particularly among those who already had been members of the organization. As mentioned above, political campaigns aim at evoking cognitive, evaluative, and behavioural changes in a defined target group or audience. In order to achieve these goals they have to gain mass media resonance either in order to reach individual recipients and/or in order to put scandalized collective actors under pressure, as is the case, for instance with many protest campaigns. To what extent has Internet campaigning altered this need to generate mass media response or – more generally – how has it changed the relation between campaign actors and mass media? The Internet differs from older media in so far as it allows for desintermediation. Meso-media of political campaigns like campaign websites and blogs can compensate for the logistical deficits of former organizational media like party newsletters, interest group brochures or radical protest media (Atton 2002: 139). The problem of needing high circulation figures in order to cover organizational costs of organizational media is rendered unimportant for online-media. The latter are neither limited in time nor limited in their scope of current and archived information. Members of geographically dispersed and even culturally heterogeneous collective actors can mutually observe each other on the Internet and develop shared understandings of political issues. Thus the traditional distinction between internal and external communication of campaign actors has become less important (Rucht 2004: 51) or at least permeable (della Porta et. al. 2006: 93). While organizational media have been mainly directed to an internal audience of members and supporters, now the possibilities to find resonance for organizational news and pictures via the meso-media of the Internet are increased.

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All in all, Internet communication offers political organizations significantly more power in defining and framing images of candidates and organizations as well as controversial issues. Unfavourable print and TV news can be confronted with an organization’s own views in instant rebuttals and with low costs via organizational meso-media like campaign websites and micro-media like emails (Street/Scott 2001: 46). The literature on political communication on the Internet stresses the snowball effects of a reconnected communication between online micro and meso-media on the one hand and macro-mass media on the other hand, in order to highlight the increased organizational power of definition as well as a grown importance of individual actors over collective actors (e.g. Peretti/Micheletti 2004: 138-139). Any stakeholder or member of a powerful organization can easily leak secret information anonymously and make it open to a wider public on the Internet. While in former times political scandals were based on personal contacts between informant and journalist, in the context of desintermediated Internet communication anybody can become a powerful opponent independent from journalistic gatekeepers. Less analyzed than the use of the Internet as a means of information and framing is the use of the Internet as a tactical media of political campaigning. To what extent does the Internet provide a new repertoire of collective action (Cardon/Granjon 2003)? Civil society actors in particular have used online media as a ‘weapon’ and target of political campaigning (Jordan 2004). The repertoire of virtual political action displays a mixture of known forms of civil disobedience and recombinant forms that have only been rendered possible through the technical potential of the Internet (Schönberger 2005). First applied and still often used is the articulation of political claims and complaints in forms of electronic petitions. Organizations like Campact (www.campact.de) have perfected this electronic mode of campaigning politics by, particularly, launching Internet campaigns for diverse issues based on standardized information packages and action procedures ideally suited for the educated political activist short of time but devoted to diverse political complaints. Less known and used are virtual campaign practices that mobilize online rallies like they have been developed in the context of the Euro Mayday Parade or Internet strikes and denial-of-service-attacks. They aim at deactivating symbolic targets like a certain website through the mobilization of Internet users via chat groups and mailing lists. Online activities are most often closely connected with offline activities. Regarding other campaigning functions like informing and framing, mobilizing through the Internet is not replacing but rather supplementing traditional organizational and mass media. Critics often argue that online petitions are perceived by addressees of campaigns like government actors as well media gate-keepers as being less influential than activities that

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entail a higher degree of personal involvement (Rucht 2004: 51). However, the research project on anti-corporate campaigning on the Internet, carried out at the University of Siegen, supports the counter-thesis insofar as the targeted companies systematically scan the Internet in order to anticipate future criticism and protest.4 They seem to take standardized protest more relevant than critics suggest. There was also hardly any evidence for the assumption that individual supporters would suffer from what Voss (2007: 184) has called campaign fatigue and disinterest due to standardized forms of mobilization on the Internet. Altogether, it seems that the general dilemma of gaining media and audience attention for political campaign issues in a highly competitive media culture and fragmented audience structure cannot be solved by simply introducing the issues to the new media arena. As Internet activism is usually less directly targeting a political opponent than aiming at gaining mass media response, new online activities like mail bombings or Internet strikes are bound to loose their spectacular character the more they become an integrated part of Internet campaigning. These new activities got a lot of press coverage when they were first experimented with several years ago, but soon after that they have lost their novelty and thus also news value.

Web Campaigning – A Solution to the Dilemma of Mass Media Campaigning? “The potential of net communication is […] remarkable if there are shifts in traditional modes of organization. Hence, reformation of organization and modification of social practice present underlying challenges for realizing innovation of political communication via net communication” (Jarren 1998: 21, translation S.B.). Criticism against the reduction of political complexity in moralized, personalized, and highly professionalized political campaigning is often based on two main arguments: firstly, the growing dominance of political campaigning is seen as an indicator for an overriding orientation of political communication towards strategic, instrumental, and non-communicative political action. Non-governmental organizations and other civil society actors, it is often argued, have adjusted to the communicative strategies of mainstream political as well as commercial actors and presented their issues in social advertising, marketing or public relations campaigns (Baringhorst 1998; 2006), 4

Kneip (in this volume) provides detailed information about this research project and presents some findings on the interrelations between protest and corporate action on the web.

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thus giving up on former aims of democratizing the public sphere by confronting manipulative top-down communication with more egalitarian spaces of public deliberation. The second argument against the hegemonic character of political campaigning relates to the segmentation of the public into numerous disconnected target groups in professional political marketing. To what extent, it is finally asked, does web campaigning counteract these major shortcomings of mass media campaigning? Although much research is still needed to give empirically valid evidence on the role of ICTs in political campaigning, it seems that the logic of campaigning as it has developed by the adaptation to news factors of mass media gate-keepers is not significantly reduced by the introduction and spread of Internet communication. There is more potential for information, individual participation, and dialogical communication. The realization of this potential in party and governmental political campaigning as well as civil society campaigning has not fundamentally altered the traditional top-down structure of campaign communication. On the one hand, political actors still want to attract a wide public awareness which is usually only realized through mass media attention. On the other hand, they usually aim at incorporating as many citizens as possible in collective action and give them chances to express their views in emails, blogs, mailing lists or in other forms of interactivity. While the Internet structure supports a more decentralized, egalitarian, and direct civic participation, the success of political campaigning strategies still highly depends on a campaign logic that requires a more centralist approach to politics, aiming at mass media audiences based on the mobilizing power of large, professionalized organizational actors. For a long time, literature on the political potential of the Internet has exaggerated its capability to transform the political culture of representative democracies in terms of strengthening responsive and interactive modes of political participation.5 Great hopes of democratizing political and social systems through technological changes have meanwhile turned into sobering experiences. Individual citizens, as much as political organizations, can benefit from the Internet when it comes to gathering and spreading information or to collaborate with other citizens or organizations. However, the interactive dimension of Internet communication is still underdeveloped as far as political campaigning is concerned. The asymmetry of power between campaigning organizations and individual supporters has not been significantly decreased since the introduction of new ICTs. 5

The literature has spawned varying positions in this context, for an overview see Gibson et al. (2004: 6-7).

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If web campaigning is not significantly diminishing the problem of a top-down structure of political campaigning, to what extent can it contribute to confront the problem of segmentation of the democratic public? The danger of fragmentation of the public sphere, its disintegration into an uncountable number of more or less connected issue-publics (Sunstein 2002), seems to be less dire, as is often assumed, given the manifold links between campaigning websites and the hub function of commercial as well as independent news platforms. The reintermediarization of Internet communication through web activities of political parties, interest groups and particularly of large networks of civil society actors counteracts the often-mentioned risk of cyberbalkanization of web-based nanoaudiences (Kahn/Kellner 2005). The web sphere is a “contested terrain, used by left, right, and centre of both dominant cultures and subcultures to promote their own agendas and interests” (ibid.). It offers new options of for all kinds of campaigning: electoral campaigning of political parties, information, and image campaigns of governments as well as action campaigns of unions and solidarity campaigns of civil society actors. Powerful actors can increase their public influence and pressure by creatively combining mass media and Internet strategies; but also more resource poor interest groups and civil society actors can benefit from the new option to reach a wider audience for their claims. However, web campaigning does not solve the problem of undemocratic top-town structure of political campaigning. Web-based campaigns are still strategic forms of collective action and far apart from the ideal of discursive, communicative action envisaged in notions of deliberative democracy. All in all, web-based political campaigns offer more options for political participation and dialogical interaction among supporters as well as between organizational campaign actors and individual supporters. Web campaigning can be more democratic than traditional mass media by widening the array of publicly articulated opinions by fully using the co-productive, interactive tools of Internet communication. Apart from that, it allows for a transnationalization of political mobilization and opinion formation that is much more adequate to the risks and political challenges resulting from an accelerated denationalization of economic markets and processes of a transformation of the nation-state.

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Overview of the Chapters The aim of this volume,6 therefore, is to examine both opportunities and problems of political campaigning on the web by considering a range of key actors within liberal democracies – executive government bodies, political parties, lobbying groups, trade unions, social movements – within different (trans)national contexts. Before providing empirical insights, the book theoretically discusses the concept of public sphere with regard to political campaigning on the web in the first part General Reflections on Political Campaigning on the Web. By taking cyber protest and net activism into account, Jeffrey Wimmer differentiates between alternative, participatory, and media activists’ counterpublic spheres. Political campaigns initialized by non-established political actors on the Internet, he argues, are not part of a unitary counter-public sphere. Particularly due to the widespread use of new media, he calls for a concept of counter-public spheres in plural in order to detect the political efficiency of web campaigning. In line with this, he argues that the analysis of connection of different levels of public communication through web campaigning is necessary to understand the shifting dividing lines between public and counter-public spheres. Drawing on media and cultural studies, Rainer Winter traces the transnational dimension of counter-public sphere(s), which build an opposition to dominant cultures and provide moments of self-empowerment. He emphasizes the significance of an active, creative use of new media in political campaigns and digital resistance. According to Winter, the use of tactical online media and the constitution of (virtual) aesthetic communities bear potential to contribute to a revitalization of democracy but need to be traced in cultural practices and the habits of everyday life. The following section, Appropriation on the Web, assesses how different political actors are using the World Wide Web in order to realize their specific campaigning goals and functions. Overall the chapters suggest that political actors and institutions are still at the stage of experimenting with the new technology. The chapter by Sarah Zielmann and Ulrike Röttger outlines characteristics and developments of political parties’ and presidential web campaigning. Focusing on Germany, France, United Kingdom, and the United States, they highlight differences between these countries in terms of the when and the how the potential of the Internet was appropriated for campaigning, defining the US as a first-mover and France ascribed as being still relatively unacquainted. The authors see particular opportunities for web campaigning to support offline efforts, e.g. fundraising, though they emphasize the problem of 6

The editors wish to thank Kenzie Burchell, Henrike Libal, and Franziska Liebig for their valuable assistance within the editorial process of this volume.

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restricted access for small parties due to the need of costly expertise for online activities in the age of professionalized public relations. Looking at executive and legislative governmental bodies, the chapters by Johanna Niesyto as well as Lorenzo Mosca and Daria Santucci focus on web campaigning in the context of the European Union (EU). Exemplifying the EU campaign European Year of Equal Opportunities for All, Niesyto argues that this governmental solidarity campaign on the web does not fully utilize the reinvigorating potentials provided by web technology. Based on her analysis, however, she identifies reshaped campaign characteristics, such as a (partial) withdrawal of political actors in favour of the individual netizens to communicate their own positive judgements on the campaign’s universalistic claim in order to support the governmental activities. By taking the European Parliament’s Committee on Petitions as an example, Mosca and Santucci critically analyze the role of e-petitioning in political web campaigns, especially as a means for bottom-up participation. The authors also discuss its potential in empowering citizens to conduct their own web campaign, but also its limited usability and effectiveness. Dealing with civil society actors, the following chapters consider both the appropriation of the Internet by rather resource-weak actors such as grassroots activists as well as institutionalized actors with higher resources. With regard to the latter, Stuart Hodkinson discusses Internet-supported labour campaigning and points to general opportunities and obstacles of web campaigning. Hodkinson considers the transnational scope of Internet communication as a major chance to foster transnational solidarity. Constraints, however, are seen in the digital divide as well as in language barriers. Concerning these barriers, he outlines the positive role of intermediary actors such as Babels for transnational communication. Overall, he sees a qualitative and quantitative shift through ICT appropriation for enabling inclusivity, responsiveness, and internationalism. Nevertheless, he concludes that the real obstacles to internationalism cannot be resolved by using the Internet since they are political in nature. By drawing on empirical findings based upon the research project Changing Protest and Media Cultures at the University of Siegen, Germany, Veronika Kneip compares anti-corporate campaigns conducted by trade unions, NGOs and grassroots activists. In examining how these different actors use the Internet as a ‘weapon’ she refers to tensions between campaign designs and the use of Internet technology. Though her analysis shows each campaign approach is reflected in a particular manner of web use, Kneip states that centred campaign approaches are partially opened by the introduction of interactive elements and decentred campaign actions are bundled via websites. Also from a qualitative perspective, Alice Mattoni’s contribution analyzes grassroots campaigning with the example of the Euro Mayday Campaign. Her case study underlines the significance of the so called encounter level for protest campaigning in particular,

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and for a Europeanization of public sphere, in general. Furthermore, Mattoni draws the conclusion that chances and challenges of the Internet might be constituted differently at national and transnational level since web technology affects more the organizational process of the protest campaign at the national level and at the transnational level it affects more identification processes. In the last part, Subsumption and Outlook, Ralf Lindner presents a comprehensive analysis of campaigns conducted by various political actors such as parties, unions, and protest alliances in Canada in order to define differences and similarities in Internet use by intermediary actors. He suggests a correlation between the organizations’ views of democracy and certain online-communication practices. Finally, Geert Lovink will reflect in an interview, conducted by Johanna Niesyto, the offered theoretical implications as well as the empirical findings in the book and set them in the broader context of Internet politics and technologies: Are we entering a new era of political communication? Lovink remains sceptical about the chances of the empowerment of the individual through political web campaigning and criticizes lifestyle politics mirrored in web campaigns. Similar to Winter, he pleas for a more active and creative use of the Internet in order to connect people transnationally beyond the ‘rhetoric’ of solidarity. Overall, Lovink calls for experiments being grounded on the reflection of early ideas such as open software or open content in order to use the web more effectively for political web campaigning.

References Atton, C. (2002) Alternative Media, London et. al.: Sage. Baringhorst, S. (2006) ‘Sweet Charity. Zum moralischen Ethos zeitgenössischer Sozialkampagnen’, in U. Röttger (ed.) PR-Kampagnen. Über die Inszenierung von Öffentlichkeit, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 247266. ——— (2004) ‘Soziale Integration durch politische Kampagnen? Gesellschaftssteuerung durch Inszenierung?’, in S. Lange and U. Schimank (eds) Governance und gesellschaftliche Integration, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 129-146. ——— (1998) Politik als Kampagne. Zur medialen Erzeugung von Solidarität, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Bennett, L.W. (2004) ‘Communicating Global Activism. Strengths and Vulnerabilities of Networked Politics’, in W. van de Donk et al. (eds) Cyberprotest. New Media, Citizens and Social Movements, London/New York, NY: Routledge, 123-146.

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Blumler, J. and Kavanagh, D. (1999) ‘The Third Age of Political Communication: Influences and Features’, Political Communication, 16: 209-230. Bohman, J. (2004) ‘Expanding Dialogue: The Internet, Public Sphere, and Transnational Democracy’, in P.M. Shane (ed.) Democracy Online. The Prospects for Political Renewal through the Internet, London/New York, NY: Routledge, 47-61. Bonfadelli, H. (2004) Medienwirkungsforschung II. Anwendungen, Konstanz: UVK. Cardon, D. and Granjon, F. (2003) ‘Peut-on se liberer des formats mediatiques? Le mouvement alter-mondialisation et l’Internet, Movements, 25: 6773. Crouch, C. (2004) Post-Democracy, Oxford et al.: Polity Press. Diani, M. (2001) ‘Social Movement Networks. Virtual and Real’, in F. Webster (ed.) Culture and Politics in the Information Age, London et al.: Routledge, 117127. della Porta, Donatella et al. (2006) Globalization from Below. Transnational Activists and Protest Networks, Minneapolis, MN/London: University of Minnesota Press. Donges, P. (2006) ‘Politische Kampagnen’, in U. Röttger (ed.) PR-Kampagnen. Über die Inszenierung von Öffentlichkeit, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 123-138. Emmer, M. et al. (2006) ‘Internet und politische Kommunikation: Die Mobilisierungsthese auf dem Prüfstand. Ergebnisse einer repräsentativen Panelstudie in Deutschland’, in P. Filzmaier et al. (eds) Politik und Medien – Medien und Politik, Wien: WUV, 170-187. Fahlenbrach, K. (2002) Protest-Inszenierungen. Visuelle Kommunikation und kollektive Identitäten in Protestbewegungen, Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Gibson, R.K. et al. (2004) ‘Introduction. Representative Democracy and the Internet’, in R.K. Gibson et al. (eds) Electronic Democracy. Mobilisation, Organisation and Participation via new ICT’s, London et al.: Routledge, 1-16. Holtz-Bacha, C. (1999) ‘Bundestagswahlkampf 1998 – Modernisierung und Professionalisierung’, in C. Holtz-Bacha and L. Lee Kaid (eds) Wahlkampf in den Medien – Wahlkampf mit den Medien. Ein Reader zum Wahljahr 1998, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 9-44. Jarren, O. (1998) ‘Internet – Eine neue Chance für die politische Kommunikation?’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, B 40: 13-21. Jordan, T. (2004) Activisms: Direct Action, Hacktivism and the Future of Society, London: Reaktion Books.

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Kahn, R. and Kellner, D. (2005) ‘Oppositional Politics and the Internet: A Critical/Reconstructive Approach’, Cultural Politics, 1: 75-100. Kamps, K. (2007) Politisches Kommunikationsmanagement. Grundlagen und Professionalisierung moderner Politikvermittlung, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Kavanagh, D. (1995) Election Campaigning. The New Marketing of Politics, Oxford et al.: Blackwell. Kruke, A. (2006) ‘“Resonsivität” und Medialisierung. Meinungsforschung für Parteien in den sechziger Jahren’, in: F. Bösch and Frei, N. (eds) Medialisierung und Demokratie im 20. Jahrhundert, Göttingen: Wallstein, 145-178. Lahusen, C. (2002) ‘Transnationale Kampagnen sozialer Bewegungen’, Forschungsjournal Neue Soziale Bewegungen, 15: 40-46. ——— (1997) ‘Die Organisation kollektiven Handelns. Formen und Möglichkeiten internationaler Kampagnen’, in E. Altvater (ed.) Vernetzt und verstrickt. Nicht-Regierungsorganisationen als gesellschaftliche Produktivkraft, Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 176-195. Lazarsfeld, P.F. et al. (1944) The People’s Choice: How the Voter Makes up His Mind in A Presidential Campaign, New York, NY: Duell, Sloan and Pearce. Leggewie, C. (2006) ‘Kampagnenpolitik. Eine nicht ganz neue Form politischer Mobilisierung’, in U. Röttger (ed.) PR-Kampagnen. Über die Inszenierung von Öffentlichkeit, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 106-122. Lipset, S.M. and Rokkan, S. (1967) Party Systems and Voter Alignments, New York, NY: Free Press. Lusoli, W. and Ward, S. (2006) ‘Hunting Protestors: Mobilisation, Participation and Protest Online in the Countryside Alliance’, in S. Oates et al. (eds) The Internet and Politics. Citizen, Voters and Activists, London/New York, NY: Routledge, 59-80. Norris, P. (2001) Digital Divide, Civic Engagement, Information Poverty and the Internet Worldwide, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ——— (2000) A Virtuous Circle. Political Communications in Postindustrial Societies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Peretti, J. and Micheletti, M. (2004) ‘The Nike Sweatshop Email. Political Consumerism, Internet, and Culture Jamming’, in M. Micheletti et al. (eds) Politics, Products and Markets. Exploring Political Consumerism Past and Present, New Brunswick, NJ/London: Transaction Press, 127-142.

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Röttger, U. (2006) Campaigns (f)or a Better World?, in U. Röttger (ed.) PRKampagnen. Über die Inszenierung von Öffentlichkeit, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 9-26. Rucht, D. (2004) ‘The Quadruple “A”. Media Strategies of Protest Movements since the 1960s’, in W. van de Donk et al. (eds) Cyberprotest. New Media, Citizens and Social Movements, London/New York, NY: Routledge, 29-56. Rucht, D. et al. (2004) Die Besonderheiten netzbasierter Kommunikation am Beispiel des Genfood-Diskurses, report prepared for the German Parliament, Berlin 2004. Safire, W. (1993) Safires New Political Dictionary, New York, NY: Random House. Saxer, U. (2006) ‘PR-Kampagnen, Medienöffentlichkeit und politische Entscheidungsprozesse. Eine Fallstudie zur schweizerischen Abstimmung über den EWR’, in U. Röttger (ed.) PR-Kampagnen. Über die Inszenierung von Öffentlichkeit, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 27-50. Scammell, M. (1999) ‘Political Marketing: Lessons for Political Science’, Political Studies, 47: 718-739. Schönberger, K. (2005) Persistenz und Rekombination. NGOs und zivilgesellschaftliche Organisationen zwischen traditionalen und weiterentwickelten Praktiken politischen Handelns in netzbasierter Kommunikation, report prepared for the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Parliament, Berlin 2005. Street, J. and Scott, A. (2001) ‘From Media Politics to E-Protest. The Use of Popular Culture and the New Media in Parties and Social Movements’, in F. Webster (ed.) Culture and Politics in the Information Age: A New Politics, London et al.: Routledge, 32-51. Sunstein, C. (2002) Republic.com, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Swanson, D. and Mancini, P. (eds) (1996) Politics Media and Modern Democracy: An International Study of Innovations in Electronical Campaigning and their Consequences, Westport, CT: Praeger. Voss, K. (2007) Öffentlichkeitsarbeit von Nichtregierungsorganisationen. Mittel – Ziele – interne Strukturen, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

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Jeffrey Wimmer

The Publics Behind Political Web Campaigning. The Digital Transformation of ‘Classic’ Counter-Public Spheres Campaigning constitutes the essential communicative connection between actors from the field of counterculture and their environment. By addressing the relevant audiences both internally and externally, campaigning establishes a successful issue-orientated network. Over the last few years, however, the operating conditions of political actors have radically changed. Socio-political and technological changes have played key roles within this process. From the viewpoint of communication, these changes not only have an impact on the constitution of counter-public spheres, but also influence campaign methods as the central instrument in gaining mass media resonance. Against this background, this analysis provides a theoretical framework for the basis of a deeper understanding and an empirical analysis of the structural change of counterpublic spheres. Firstly, this chapter explores not only the impact of new Internet uses1 on the formation of counter-public spheres in general, but the proposed theoretical framework also explains their (new) communicative relationship to the mass media public sphere, primarily through net activism and web campaigning. As the phenomenon of counter-public spheres is neither consistently nor sufficiently conceptually clarified, the second section delivers a short theoretical differentiation. The third section presents a comprehensive systematization of the various forms, functions and political potential of digital counter-public spheres and campaigning. The final section of this chapter discusses the potential positive and negative impacts of the digitalization of counter-public spheres and their communicative campaigning.

Counter-Public Spheres and (Web) Campaigning For different reasons, collective actors from the realm of counter-publicity have to prove themselves more and more versed on the ‘market of opinions’, i.e. in the arena of political public sphere, than established political actors: As they do not have direct access to the political system, they have to try, like all 1

Kahn and Kellner (2004) provide an overview on new forms of media activism and new forms of emancipative appropriation of new media beside the Internet (smart mobs etc.).

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non-established political actors, to gain political influence in the form of resonance in the media system. Ideally, they often pursue a double strategy. Firstly, they seek to inform and mobilize the audience around the positions of the counter-public spheres through use of mass and alternative media coverage. In a second step, interested recipients are to be integrated into the counter-public sphere by movement media.2 In order to reach these communication goals, Rucht (2004: 36-38) distinguishes four ideal types of communication strategies:3 abstention, attack, adaptation and alternatives. While abstention and attack strategies entail communication activities within a collective actor organization and are directed at the internal communication, the adaptation and alternatives strategies are externally directed, and thus involve addressing the mass media. In modern media society, it is crucial that these straightforward typologies of public communication and activities are increasingly organized as campaigns.4 Campaigns are ostensibly mass media orientated. They refer to the complex relationship between counter-public spheres and the mass media: Collective actors and their actions from different counter-public spheres are not plausible without coverage from alternative media (Downing 2001) or without established mass media (e.g. Gamson/Wolfsfeld 1993; Gitlin 1980). The different types of media initiate and maintain the public communication processes. Conversely, campaigns have always been comprehended in the context of their carrier. Unlike campaigns of the advertising industry and of established political actors, critical publics understand themselves as part of the normative tradition of counter-publicity, who want to revitalize a critical civil society rather than to solely to gain public attention.5 Central to the current process of change, however, is the process of digitalization. Collective actors of counter-publicity increasingly make use of the new media, specifically the Internet, as a space for their communicative activities and campaigns, generally referred to as web campaigning (Foot/Schneider 2

Media and audience related communication goals must be distinguished from policy-related goals (Wimmer 2007: 226-227). Following the terminology of Goffman, however, a distinction can be made between the publicly visible frontstage and a less visible backstage of political public. These are the perspectives from which other relationships between the actors and other types of political communication, e.g. lobbying, must be investigated.

3

Strictly speaking, Rucht (2004) only refers to new social movements (NSM). These media strategies, however, can be seen as ideal types for all actors of counter-publicity.

4

For non-established political actors see Baringhorst et al. 2007; Bennett 2004: 131134; generally Röttger 2006.

5

A survey of the normative approaches of counter-publicity offered in Wimmer 2007: 154-157.

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2006). Currently, new media seem to offer completely new possibilities of information, communication and mobilization, which can have a significant influence on the realization of a campaign. The frequent presumption that new media is hastily appropriated by all non-established political actors leads increasingly to the theoretical postulate that society is approaching a renaissance of critical voices in the public spheres and an overall digital reconstitution of alternative communication (e.g. Atton 2002). Graber (2002: 93-94) similarly observes: [T]he literature on interest networks and global activism seems particularly rich in examples of how various uses of the Internet and the Web have transformed activism, political pressure, and public communication strategies. […] Research on civic organizations and political mobilization is characterized by findings showing potentially large effects of new media and for the breadth of directly applicable theory. Often, the genesis of the Internet itself is used here as evidence. Oy (2002: 69) declares that in the United States (US) the development of computer technology would have not been possible without alternative counter-public spheres. In other words, the expressive power of critical counter-public spheres, technological change and social change are mutually dependant. A technological deterministic model, however, is not plausible, as the expressive power of counter-public spheres cannot be reduced to the process of data exchange. Thus, the various dimensions of this specific communication process (production, representation and appropriation) have to be simultaneously considered when analyzing the political consequences and implications of the digitalization of counter-publics and their campaigning. It is crucial to determine the degree to which new media is integrated in the activist’s political practice and what social network structures and participatory actions they create (e.g. Diani 2003; van de Donk et al. 2004).6 These issues are rapidly gaining importance due to the aforementioned new Internet applications and their potential for connectivity, interactivity and collaboration. The shift in the rights of use 6

Hamm and Zaiser (2000: 755, translation J.W.) were the first to call for research in this area: “The question is, whether the rapid appropriation of new media implicated a qualitative change in alternative forms of communication and networks. How is the use of technological possibilities connected to the makers’ political, cultural and social practice and the resulting products of left media on the Internet? How have the specific possibilities of information technology-speed, international accessibility with no printing and distribution costs resulted in a change in form, content and distribution of left-wing publications? Or do network publications reproduce already well-known forms based on existing correlations?”

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(principles of open source and open publishing) of these applications also effects the increasing import to activist practice.

The Phenomenon of Counter-Public Spheres from the Perspective of Communication and Media Studies In a narrow sense, counter-public sphere implies the relatively diverse phenomena of public communication and civil society networks, all often subsumed under this overused term. Since the 1960s and 1970s, the counter-public has been applied to actions of new social movements (NSM) (such as student, peace or environment movements), as well as to the structures and aims of alternative media (e.g. alternative press, free radio stations, open channels). Currently, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), media activists projects and, more recently, blogs, social networking sites and other participatory Internet-based media are leading the discussion of counter-public spheres. From a communication and media studies perspective, Krotz’s (1998: 653, translation J.W.) definition of counter-publics provides a good starting point: “Counter-public sphere means a specific public that is set against a hegemonic public sphere centred around a specific social discourse or point of view”. Krotz indicates NSMs and the alternative press as the primary medium of counter-public spheres. The formation of counter-public spheres, however, can be found even much earlier. Early examples of existing counter-public practices can be observed in the leaflets of Protestant reformers in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Publications and media of the worker’s movement at the end of the nineteenth century also provide a salient example. A specific social and historical context of counter-public spheres in the modern sense can, however, be identified through the NSMs and associated alternative media of the late 1960s and early 1970s (Atton 2002). Although these movements should not be seen as the first collective actors of social counter-public spheres, they are still the first non-established political actors whose actions were oriented according to mass media logic.7 Further proof draw from the

7

Right-wing extremist or real-socialist ‘counter-public spheres’ can only be considered with regard to structural aspects of public spheres, since both alternative and movement media can be found here (e.g. Atton 2006; Bokor 2005). The varying forms of this kind of counter-public spheres, nevertheless, do not respond to the normative context of counter-public spheres in the sense of emancipative strategies that serve to strengthen democracy (for more detail see Wimmer 2007), neither from the content nor in the practice.

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term counter-public sphere itself, which comes from the student movement and its language.8 After the institutionalization of NSMs and alternative media during the 1980s, and after a decrease in academic interest, the phenomenon of counterpublic spheres has once again begun to attract attention. From an activist point of view, this increasing interest can be explained by three interconnected contemporary social processes. Firstly, political and economical change manifests itself within the context of increasing globalization and increased criticism of globalization (e.g. Castells 1996, 1997a, 1997b; Wimmer 2003). Secondly, social change, which is to be understood as the process of the reflexive modernization, offers new possibilities for progressive (political) collective actors (e.g. Beck et al. 1994). The crisis of the (dominant) public sphere, therefore, enhances critical voices within the political public sphere, but also allows for non-established political actors such as NGOs and NSMs to take over central functions within political processes; these can be understood as the processes of subpolitics (Beck 1986). Thirdly, rapid media technology change manifests itself within new information and communication technology (ICT)9 and its increased potential (e.g. Downey/ Fenton 2003; Palczewski 2001; Plake et al. 2001). Dominant models of the public sphere, therefore, allocate the role of counter-publicity to civic society, in general, and, more specifically, to NSMs, new media and NGOs.10 Most empirical research reduces phenomena of counter-public spheres to these institutions – understood as expanded aspects of social and communicative actions. From an analytical point of view, however, this does not suffice since the concept of counter-public spheres cannot be reduced to certain persons, places or topics. In fact, the emergence of counter-public spheres is more complex: “[…] [C]ounterpublics as discursive entities emerge in a multiple public sphere through constellation of persons, places and topics” (Asen 2000: 430). Indeed, the term ‘counter-public sphere’ like the term ‘public sphere’ has to be seen not as monolithic but as multidimensional; both terms refer to the micro, meso and macro levels of public communication (Gerhards/Neidhardt

8

Gilcher-Holtey (2002: 316) postulates that the concept of counter-publicity heavily shaped the political culture in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s especially in Germany. The latter has to be put into perspective as the term counter-culture does play a role as a label for American movements. It refers, however, to counterpublicity in a broad sense.

9

Online communication, which predominately takes place with help of the Internet, only represents one element; it, however, can be seen as the most relevant element concerning society.

10 For more detail see Wimmer 2007.

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1990; Habermas 1992: 452-53; Ferree et al. 2002) while also referring to the functional and subjective aspects of the phenomena at the same time (for more detail see Wimmer 2007).11 From a structural perspective the term refers to three forms of publics (see figure 1). Firstly, it defines critical publics that perceive their positions as marginal to society. By means of alternative media and political campaigns, they are targeting the coverage of the established mass media in order to enforce their political standing and perception, which specifically is the alternative public sphere. In this case, a distinction can be made between alternative media with a broader audience and with, therefore, a greater agenda setting power – e.g. the German newspaper as alternative media opinion leaders – and those with a narrower public reach such as local open channels, which function as alternative follow-up media. At the organisational meso-level, counterpublic spheres refer to collective and, above all, political processes of learning and experience within alternative organizational structures, which are themselves located within the broad field of civil society. NSMs and their movement media provide the relevant examples of participatory public spheres. On the micro-level, media activism is observed. This refers to interactions and interpersonal communication of various forms, which are primarily individual media interventions located in the realm of new media and alternative communication practice. The boundaries between the various levels of public communication are very blurry and contingent on case-specific contexts. This holds true, in particular, for public spheres in the form of NSMs. Movement publicity primarily constitutes the mass media perception, representation and, thus, the public effect of the NSM. In turn, the perception of and response to an alternative public sphere by the established public sphere provides for the internal mobilisation and stabilisation of the NSM (see section 1). This process usually happens through the construction of a shared frame of interpretation, which enables the NSM not only to legitimate their actions but also to justify their protest against society (e.g. Snow/Benford 1988; McAdam 1994). NSMs are communicative systems, whose existence and continuity are ensured, primarily in the framework of protest campaigns, by the media-related fusion of movement actors, collective identity and mass media publicity (e.g. Roth 1991; Rucht 1994).12

11 For this reason, we chose rather to use the plural form of counter-public spheres. 12 Thompson (1995) calls these processes identity policy, which mostly deals with the visibility of the own position in the mass media, see fundamentally Castells 1996, 1997a.

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alternative opinion

alternative public sphere

alternative follow-up movementdimedia

selection

participatory public spheres

public spheres within movements

selection

medial interventions

media activism

alternative communication practices

Figure 1: Objective and social dimensions of counter-public spheres.

The Political Potential of Digital Counter-Public Spheres Since the turn of the millennium, it has been only natural for established, as well as non-established, political actors to be present online (e.g. Resnick 1998).13 The Internet has helped to realize the idea of a decentralized communication network, maintained by civil society and understood as a medium that provides for self-organization. Critical counter-public spheres can no longer be conceptualized without these new technical possibilities (e.g. Andretta et al. 2003, Kahn/Kellner 2004). Moreover, counter-public spheres have their organisational basis predominately through their digital communication, which often takes place online. New online applications such as mailing lists, community networks, video conferences, virtual communities, wikis, podcasts, or 13 Representatives of civil society had long been pioneers in using new media for political concerns. However, even in this field one remarks the increasing institutionalization and commercialization (see in general Hill/Hughes 1998), e.g. the history of community networks (Dahlberg 2004; Lovink/Riemens 2004).

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blogs are increasingly used for work and organization. These applications differ fundamentally from classic mass and organizational media. New features include the link up of communication content (hypertextuality) and the compatibility with a variety of other media applications (multimediality). In addition, content can be generated and reworked by certain counter-public spheres as well as by individual recipients (interactivity). Within web campaigning activities, these abstract characteristics correspond to specific applications:14 Logos on websites can, for example, point out that the owner of the website sympathizes with certain political campaigns. Furthermore, ‘disclosure’ websites can be produced to point out a factual or fictional unethical action of a person or organization, expose relevant material and, possibly, call for protest. Thus, online media are not only used for dispersing information, but also for coordinating and communicating actions. Through a snowball effect, electronic chain letters, for example, can reach an audience as large or larger than an offline protest activity. Other examples include hackers who reprogram source code,15 or virtual sit-ins and online strikes that aim to crash websites by straining them with an overflow of simultaneous visits. From an activist perspective these actions are also understood as a form of “electronic civil disobedience” (Wray 1999).16 New media do not only have a supporting function for concrete political campaigns, online activities are to be seen as indistinguishable from offline-activities (Berman/Mulligan 2003). Cronauer (2004) points out this synergy in her analysis of mailing lists that are set up in the framework of protest campaigns. Online activities can include: (1) the sending of articles to the mailing list (e.g. the forwarding of online information, the supply and forwarding of newspaper articles, the participation in discussions or the announcement of group activities), (2) the setup of online spaces (e.g. websites or other mailing lists) to support the goals and activities of a group, (3) the forwarding and spreading of information from this mailing list, e.g. to other mailing lists or other persons and (4) the initiation or participation in email campaigns and online petitions. Offline activities are comprised of, among others, (1) the participation in letter or telephone campaigns, (2) the participation in events or

14 See in more detail Bieber 1999; Berman/Mulligan 2003; Earl 2006. 15 A prominent example is the software flood net which was developed by an American group of artists called Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) (Wray 1999). This software allows the automation of virtual sit-ins. Participants connect to flood net which is activated during a pronounced time. The software leads the online user to a particular website and the reload command is executed automatically every couple of seconds which strains the targeted website (Schneider 2002). 16

For an example of electronic civil disobedience as campaign tactics see Kneip’s discussion of the Deportation Class Campaign in this volume.

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group meetings or (3) the acceptance of certain duties like planning the protest type and protest activities. Digital applications not only represent means of decreasing distance but also of speeding up communication. Theoretically, they also inherit the potential of an almost unlimited expansion coupled with interactivity (cyberspace) while connecting internal and external target groups of political actors (connectivity). In general, Internet applications can offer several functions for the constitution of counter-public spheres (table 1): Function Articulation Emancipation/Identification Information/Communication

Mobilization

Organization Protest Subversion

Selected Authors o Ludwig 1998; McDorman 2001; Scholl 2005 o Ludwig 1998; McDorman 2001 o Autonome A.F.R.I.K.A. Gruppe 2002; Hamm/Zaiser 2000; Keck/Sikkink 1998; Rucht 2004 o Couldry/Curran 2003; Garcia/Lovink 1999; Keck/Sikkink 1998; McDorman 2001; Rucht 2004 o Keck/Sikkink 1998; Smith 2001; Wall 2002; Warkentin 2001 o Bieber 2001; van de Donk et al. 2004; Scott/Street 2002 o Autonome A.F.R.I.K.A. Gruppe 2002; Lovink 2004

Table 1: Functions of Internet applications relevant to counter-public spheres.

Castells (1997b: 362) recognizes that Internet applications have the potential for a far reaching mobilization: “It appears that it is in the realm of symbolic politics, and in the development of issue-oriented mobilization by groups and individuals outside the mainstream political system that the new electronic communication may have the most dramatic effects”. The world became aware of this for the first time during the protests held at the World Trade Organization (WTO) conference in Seattle in December 1999. Due to their particular features Internet applications used for the protests can be understood predominately as instruments of transnational organization and communication; these tools were indispensable for preparing and carrying out such a protest (e.g. Downey/Fenton 2003; Wall 2002). To transfer political protest from the real world into cyberspace simultaneously changes a local event into a global one. Protest action, however, is predominately directed towards military, po-

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litical and economic issues and, often, against the increasing commercialization of the Internet. Political activism on the Internet intends to make the audience uncertain in order to provoke thought (Lovink 2004). In the face of present power relations, this activism also aims to reallocate power resources. Publicly effective examples are projects such as The Yes Men, Reclaim the Streets, or RTMark.17 Although these groups have been in most cases active since the 1980s, it was only since the wide-spread use of computer-based communication (CMC) that as a practice such movements have accelerated and proliferated. The many forms of activism are too diverse to refer to the media activism of the Internet (e.g. see the listings in Harding 1997; Lubbers 2002; McKay 1998; Meikle 2002). Online media activism cannot be understood as a movement with a collective identity that could be described empirically. Instead it is more productive to conceptualize it as a project, which is dependent upon the perspective of the spectator, strives for radical democracy (e.g. Carroll/Hackett, 2006), for net criticism (e.g. Lovink 2004) or to become a communication guerrilla (e.g. Autonome A.F.R.I.K.A. Gruppe 2002). An example of an ideal activist type, with regard to the basic participatory aspect of Internet-based activism, is One World TV (tv.oneworld.net). Within the context of this independent Internet project, a public space was created to allow film journalists and producers, who have little access to mass media, to send their work and productions. The different video clips are linked thematically in order to create a loose interactive network. In this manner, participants of this project are able to not only communicate but also to exchange ideas via their productions. Beyond these types of protest, which strive for subversion and collaboration, particular Internet applications facilitate the articulation of individual and collective counter-culture actors. Several online formats, which adapt and continue the functions of earlier alternative media, came into existence at the end of the 1990s. Alternative online media have seemingly overcome the loss of essential social meaning that defined alternative press during the 1980s (e.g. Atton 2002; Holtz-Bacha 1999: 345-346). While these peer-to-peer networks do not replace the functions of traditional journalism, they are able to amend journalistic functions, such as issue-orientation and service style information dissemination, in a critical and profitable fashion. Several media types can be distinguished, which, as a matter of course, inherit overlapping characteristics in relation to their functions:

17 These mostly subversive forms of protests are due to the resulting images and events more attractive for media reporting than any other form of media activism (e.g. www.sueddeutsche.de/computer/bildstrecke/298/135039/p0).

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-

Alternative sources of information are media that present and archive independent information permanently in a context of free use and collaboration (e.g. the free online encyclopaedia Wikipedia).

-

Alternative news services are media that offer up-to-date, independent information in a collaborative context (e.g. the news and press agency Wikinews or Infoshops, which are examples inspired by the anarchist tradition, e.g. Atton 2003).

-

Alternative platforms for publication and discourse include media that publish controversial information and, thus, create the foundation for leading alternative discourses (e.g. the independent online portal indymedia, e.g. Platon/Deuze 2003,18 discussion listings such as nettime, e.g. Lovink 2004, or media watchdogs such as BildBlog.de).

In alternative media, however, the number of active participating users is relatively small relative to the traditional mass media and the wider population. As a result, it remains to be seen if the ‘blogosphere’ is a temporary phenomenon: It could disappear like any trend or it could become an established part of counter-public spheres (e.g. Welch 2003). New media has not, however, revived the critical and agenda setting function for their respective counter-public sphere, but some explorative case studies do show a degree of successful political offline/online campaigns (e.g. Almeida/Lichbach 2003; van den Bulck/Bedoyan 2004; Owens/Palmer 2003; Song 2007) and the emergence of emancipating online spaces, evident in discourses found in mailing lists (Siapera 2004; Wagner 1998; Zhang 2004). Other than direct attempts to influence public opinions, there are also indirect structural influences observable in the adoption of information from campaigning activities by established journalism.19 From a journalist’s point of view, online media becomes particularly attractive and authentic when dealing with the increasing competition and the pressure of keeping sources current. Online counter-public spheres and their issue-orientated campaigning also seem to offer additional information during

18 The first of the Independent Media Centers (IMCs), abbreviated indymedia, was founded in 1999 for the Anti-WTO Protests in Seattle (USA) in order to create an information platform for as many people as possible that could be used and installed by activists themselves. indymedia stands for an emancipatory use of media representing a form of net activism. The platform not only introduces online blockages but also contains information to interconnect activists (Mauruschat/Wimmer 2007). Applications used by indymedia are discussion fora, e-mail listings and open posting. 19 Weichler (1987) is among others the first to point out these processes from an empirical perspective and subsumes them within the label ‘learning aptitude of bourgeois mass media’ (see also Harcup 2005).

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times of crisis when journalistic enquiries are prevented by censorship and other obstacles (e.g. war reporting or political crises).20 In the context of the Internet, the encroachment of established media alongside the existence of an alternative media practice must also be recognized. Thus, non hierarchical and interactive structures of counter-public online discussions (many-to-many) and the identity producing (virtual) communities of counter-public forums (community media) can already be found with slight variations and in many instances within the online content of mainstream mass media. The break up of mono-directional communication is used here, however, to strengthen the relationship between customer and product. From a theoretical perspective, it can be concluded that new Internet applications influence counter-public spheres and their relation to the public sphere on all levels of public communication. On a micro-level, Internet applications are integrated into the political everyday life of media activists. On a meso-level, they are used both in internal and external communication as part of participatory public spheres (e.g. in the form of web campaigning). On a macro-level, these applications change the public sphere itself. From an ‘enthusiastic’ perspective of the power of new media, some assume that the dividing line between public and counter-public spheres is shifting (e.g. Plake et al. 2001: 145). From a methodological perspective, it is often neglected in the empirical analysis that a connection is emerging between different strands of public communication through web campaigning. Due, possibly, to pragmatic research constraints, recent analyses often focus on one of the levels (micro, meso, or macro-level) of public communication. Similarly, they often only focus upon either the offline or online dimension of campaigning. Comparative studies, particularly those investigating online and office synergy, are still rare (e.g. Baringhorst et al. 2007; Foot/Schneider 2006). In earlier studies, the focus lay with merely the content and form of web campaigns. Explanative research questions are seldom empirically considered. Examples include the analysis of the realization and the effects of web campaigning or the dynamic communicative relationship with the established public sphere of the mass media. Ideally, future studies should aim to delineate the goals of web campaigning of counter-public spheres. Each goal associated with counter-public spheres has a certain form of action, organization and intervention:

20 A good example is the press coverage of the G8-Summit in Genoa 2001 and the relatively high media resonance of Attac. This is due to the fact that journalists attached great importance to authentic, independent, and local based information and that Attac employed new forms of digitalized communication media (web page, SMS, email, etc.), see Fröhlich and Wimmer 2007.

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-

Exertion of influence on the content and the news selection of established mass media,

-

Critical observation of established media coverage,

-

Organization of independent, democratic and participatory ways of communication, in order to strengthen marginalized publics as well as to open up new ways of communication independent of state and economic influence, and

-

Exertion of influence on the relationship between mass media and their audience – this is to be achieved by raising the audience’s level of critical awareness of media, e.g. through pedagogical or subversive measures (Hackett 2000: 70-71).

Critical Conclusions Many authors suggest that new media is leading towards a greater social relevance of counter-public spheres. It was often claimed in the late 1990s that the potential of new media, especially the usage of Internet for actors of the counter-public spheres should be analyzed empirically. This dimension seems to be, as briefly shown above, relatively well researched. Counter-public spheres can benefit from the participative structures of Internet uses in many ways: from the direct dialogue between sender and receiver, national and international interconnectedness, co-operation and co-ordination of campaigning activities, as well as the emergence of genuine alternative subcultures. The interconnectedness of movement participants and the emergence of a mutual, collective identity as central goals of counter-publicity have also been shown empirically (e.g. Andretta et al. 2003; Gillett 2003; Siapera 2004). In addition to direct attempts to influence public opinion through campaigning activities, counter-public spheres also indirectly influence opinion, one example includes the absorption of alternative communication practice into journalism. With respect to wider society, however, counter-public spheres and their movements have until recently only been marginal communication processes that run parallel to mainstream public communication.21 The increasing interconnectedness within web campaigning, however, does not automatically result in a stronger participation of the individual activists in the collective ac21 There are indeed numerous critical publics like NGOs, protest parties etc., but they are not per se constituting counter-public spheres in the sense of the previously outlined normative concepts of democracy, media and public sphere, see in general Wimmer 2007: 153-242.

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tions (e.g. O’Donnell 2001), as the obstacles, barriers and limitations to use CMC are still present. Through his analysis of a British alternative information centre, Atton (2003) provides examples of the various legal, economical, and organizational limitations for participatory public spheres. Areas of autonomous communication can neither be easily established offline nor online. The autonomy of such critical public spheres is also constantly being threatened by, for example, competition with commercial organizations or by rigid legal specifications. Apart from analytical descriptions of the processes of impact and appropriation involved in counter-public spheres, their normative functions must also be considered. From the point of view of critical theory, the ongoing embedding of the public sphere into structures of power is problematic. The audience is passive in the political communication and opinion making process, which is controlled mostly by elites. Online counter-public spheres enjoy a corrective role in relation to established politics and could potentially provide participatory innovations. This democratic potential can be also seen in empirical case studies – e.g. in the social solidarity initialized through counterpublic spheres, in the participatory inclusion in the typically exclusive production system of mass media and also the proliferation of alternative media practice with specific emphasis on the local level (e.g. Asen/Brouwer 2001; Dahlberg/Siapera 2007). As our understanding of new media and its potential grows, the danger of overloading and abuse does as well. Activists are no longer aware of the exact nature of the public sphere which they address through their permanent campaigning (e.g. Bennett 2004). Good examples of this negative potential are the protests against the World Economics Forum (WEF) 2003 in Davos. Activists from the Oltner Bündnis publicly criticized not only the established institutions but also their own inconsistencies on their homepage.22 This was, from the activists’ point of view, partially accepted as an exercised form of democracy. From an analytical point of view, studies have yet to determine how the outlined forms of digital counter-public spheres and their campaigning really influence the dominant public sphere and the behaviour of the established political actors like governments and parties (= macro dimension) (e.g. Siapera 2004). Such investigation must extend beyond terms of measuring mass media resonance triggered by successful campaigning and inter-media agenda setting. In this sense, Downey and Fenton (2003: 199-200) justifiably observe: “The relationship of new media, counter-public spheres and the public sphere may become central to questions of democracy and legitimacy in coming years”. 22 The former homepage (www.oltnerbuendnis.ch) could afterwards be bought as a free domain.

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Also it is plausible to assume that dominant mass media and established political actors benefit from the properties of new media (e.g. possibilities of research, reaction publication and presentation). This leads, however, to their increased influence on public agenda and a growing resistance against influence of counter-public spheres (e.g. Downing 2001). The new media have amplifying effects like the growing publicity of non-established political actors such as NSM and their campaigning. There have, however, also been unintended negative effects such as the digital divide, which strengthens existing asymmetries within the public sphere, or the encroaching commercialization of the Internet (e.g. Bennett 2003).23

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23 Rucht (2005: 11) reminds to “synthesize” both the positive and the negative dimensions of new media in the empirical research.

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Gitlin, T. (1980) The Whole World is Watching. Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Graber, D.A. et al. (2002) ‘The Internet and Politics. Emerging Perspectives’, in M.E. Price and H.F. Nissenbaum (eds) Academy and the Internet. Digital Formations, Vol. 12, New York, NY et al.: Peter Lang, 90-119. Habermas, J. (1992) Faktizität und Geltung. Beiträge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des demokratischen Rechtstaats, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Hackett, R.A. (2000) ‘Taking Back the Media. Notes on the Potential for a Communicative Democracy Movement’, Studies in Political Economy, 63: 6186. Hamm, M. and Zaiser, M. (2000) ‘com.une.farce und indymedia.uk – zwei Modi oppositioneller Netznutzung’, Argument, 238: 755-764. Harcup, T. (2005) ‘‘I’m doing this to change the world”: Journalism in Alternative and Mainstream Media’, Journalism Studies, 6: 361-374. Harding, T. (1997) The Video Activist Handbook, London: Pluto Press. Hill, K. and Hughes, J. (1998) Cyperpolitics. Citizen Activism in the Age of the Internet, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Holtz-Bacha, C. (1999) ‘Alternative Presse’, in J. Wilke (ed.) Mediengeschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn: Böhlau, 330-349. Kahn, R. and Kellner, D. (2004) ‘New Nedia and Internet Activism. From the “Battle of Seattle” to Blogging’, New Media & Society, 6: 87-95. Keck, M.E. and Sikkink, K. (1998) Activists Beyond Borders. Advocacy Networks in International Politics, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Krotz, F. (1998) ‘Stichwort Gegenöffentlichkeit’, in O. Jarren et al. (eds) Politische Kommunikation in der demokratischen Gesellschaft. Ein Handbuch mit Lexikonteil, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 653. Lovink, G. (2004) Dark fiber. Auf den Spuren einer kritischen Internetkultur, Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Lovink, G. and Riemens, P. (2004) ‘A Polder Model in Cyberspace. Amsterdam Public Digital Culture’, in D. Schuler and P. Day (eds) Shaping the Network Society. The New Role of Civil Society in Cyberspace, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 111-135. Lubbers, E. (ed.) (2002) Battling Big Business. Countering Greenwash, Infiltration, and Other Forms of Corporate Bullying, Foxhole: Green Books. Ludwig, J. (1998) ‘Öffentlichkeitswandel durch “Gegenöffentlichkeit”? Zur Bedeutung computervermittelter Kommunikation für gesellschaftliche

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Emanzipationsprozesse’, in E. Prommer and G. Vowe (eds) Computervermittelte Kommunikation. Öffentlichkeit im Wandel, Constance: UVK, 177-209. Mauruschat, A. and Wimmer, J. (2007) ‘Indymedia.org – a People’s CNN’, in H. Geisenberger (ed.) Und jetzt? Politik, Protest und Propaganda, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp., 312-323. McAdam, D. (1994) ‘Taktiken von Protestbewegungen. Das “Framing” der amerikanischen Bürgerrechtsbewegung’, in F. Neidhardt (ed.) Öffentlichkeit, öffentliche Meinung, soziale Bewegung, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 375392. McDorman, T.F. (2001) ‘Crafting a Virtual Counterpublic. Right-to-Die Advocates on the Internet’, in R. Asen and D.C. Brouwer (eds) Counterpublics and the State, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 187-210. McKay, G. (ed.) (1998) DiY Culture. Party and Protest in Nineties Britain, London: Verso. Meikle, G. (2002) Future Active. Media Activism and the Internet, Sydney: Pluto. O’Donnell, S. (2001) ‘Analysing the Internet and the Public Sphere. The Case of Womenslink’, Javnost – the Public, 8: 39-58. Owens, L. and Palmer, L.P. (2003) ‘Making the News. Anarchist Counter Public Relations on the World Wide Web’, Critical Studies in Media Communication, 20: 335-361. Oy, G. (2002) ‘Die Nutzung neuer Medien durch internationale Protestnetzwerke’, Forschungsjournal Neue Soziale Bewegungen, 15: 68-79. Palczewski, C.H. (2001) ‘Cyber-Movements, New Social Movements, and Counter-Publics’, in R. Asen and D.C. Brouwer (eds) Counterpublics and the State, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 161-186. Plake, K. et al. (2001) Öffentlichkeit und Gegenöffentlichkeit im Internet. Politische Potenziale der Medienentwicklung, Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Platon, S. and Deuze, M. (2003) ‘Indymedia Journalism. A Radical Way of Making, Selecting and Sharing News?’, Journalism, 4: 336-355. Resnick, D. (1998) ‘Politics on the Internet. The Normalization of Cyberspace in the Politics of Cyberspace’, in C. Toulouse and T.W. Luke (eds) The Politics of Cyberspace, New York, NY/London: Routledge, 48-68. Röttger, U. (ed.) (2006) PR-Kampagnen. Über die Inszenierung von Öffentlichkeit, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Roth, R. (1991) ‘Kommunikationsstrukturen und Vernetzungen in neuen sozialen Bewegungen’, in R. Roth and D. Rucht (eds) Neue soziale Bewegungen

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in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 261-279. Rucht, D. (2005) ‘Cyberprotest – Möglichkeiten und Grenzen netzgestützter Proteste’, paper presented at the conference ‘Von neuen Öffentlichkeiten zur heimlichen Medienrevolution – Welche Chancen hat eine kritische Internetkultur?’, Wiesbaden 2005. ——— (2004) ‘The Quadruple “A”. Media Strategies of Protest Movements since the 1960s’, in W. van de Donk et al. (eds) Cyberprotest. New Media, Citizens and Social Movements, New York, NY/London: Routledge, 29-56. ——— (1994) ‘Öffentlichkeit als Mobilisierungsfaktor für soziale Bewegungen’, in F. Neidhardt (ed.) Öffentlichkeit, öffentliche Meinung, soziale Bewegungen. Sonderheft 1994 der KZfSS, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Schneider, F. (2002) ‘Virtual Sabotage’, in E. Lubbers (ed.) Battling Big Business. Countering Greenwash, Infiltration, and other Forms of Corporate Bullying, Foxhole: Green Books, 177-180. Scholl, A. (2005) ‘Vom Dissens zur Dissidenz. Die Bedeutung alternativer Gegenöffentlichkeit für die Gesellschaft’, unpublished teaching thesis, University of Münster. Scott, A. and Street, J. (2002) ‘E-Protest. Neue Formen politischer Agitation – neue Politik? Das Internet als Instrument des Globalisierungsprotests’, Sozialwissenschaftliche Informationen, 31: 63-73. Siapera, E. (2004) ‘Asylum Politics, the Internet and the Public Sphere. The Case of UK Refugee Support Groups Online’, Javnost – the Public, 11: 499519. Smith, J. (2001) ‘Globalizing Resistance. The Battle of Seattle and the Future of Social Movements’, Mobilization, 6: 1-20. Snow, D.A. and Benford, R.D. (1988) ‘Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant Mobilization’, in B. Klandermans et al. (eds) From Structure to Action. International Social Movement Research, London: JAI, 197-217. Song, Y. (2007) ‘Internet News Media and Issue Development: A Case Study on the Roles of Independent Online News Services as Agenda-Builders for Anti-US Protests in South Korea’, New Media & Society, 9: 71-92. Thompson, J. (1995) The Media and Modernity. A Social Theory of the Media, Cambridge: Polity Press. van de Donk, W et al. (eds) (2004) Cyberprotest. New Media, Citizens and Social Movements, New York, NY/London: Routledge.

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van den Bulck, H. and Bedoyan, I. (2004) ‘The Movement against Neo-Liberal Globalisation and the Media. Friends or Enemies? A Case Study’, paper presented to the ICA-Conference, New Orleans 2004. Wagner, R. (1998) Community Networks in den USA – von der Counterculture zum Mainstream? Münster: Lit. Wall, M.A. (2002) ‘The Battle in Seattle. How Non-Governmental Organizations used Websites in their Challenge to the WTO’, in E. Gilboa (ed.) Media and Conflict. Framing Issues, Making Policy and Shaping Opinions, Ardsley, NY: Transnational Press, 25-43. Warkentin, C. (2001) Reshaping World Politics. NGOs, the Internet, and Global Civil Society, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Weichler, K. (1987) Die anderen Medien. Theorie und Praxis alternativer Kommunikation, Berlin: Vistas. Welch, Matt (2003) ‘Emerging Alternatives. Blogworld. The New Amateurs Journalists Weigh In’, Columbia Journalism Review. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 1 June 2008). Wimmer, J. (2007) (Gegen-)Öffentlichkeit in der Mediengesellschaft. Analyse eines medialen Spannungsfelds, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. ——— (2003) ‘Identität der Gegenöffentlichkeit. Proteste gegen die Liberalisierung des Welthandels’, in C. Winter et al. (eds) Medienidentitäten. Identität im Kontext von Globalisierung und Medienkultur, Köln: von Halem, 362-375. Wray, S. (1999) ‘On Electronic Civil Disobedience’, Peace Review, 11: 107-111. Zhang, W. (2004) ‘Promoting Subaltern Public Discourses. An Online Discussion Group and its Interaction with the Offline World’, paper presented to the ICA-Conference, New Orleans 2004.

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Forms of Digital Resistance. The Internet and the Constitution of a Transnational Public Sphere Introduction Since its beginnings, the Internet has made possible the development of specialized cultures and communities as well as the growth of pre-existing social and cultural groups (Winter/Eckert 1990; Eckert et al. 1991). Recently alternative political and cultural perspectives, which have come from social and cultural practices online, have gained particular significance. Due to its technical possibilities, the Internet offers a radical means of production, distribution and organization of media, which are linked to the experimental politics of the alternative press, independent radio stations and other forms of activist media. At the same time the significance of alternative media and the views that they express can only be understood in the social and cultural context to which they are a response and in which they are produced and received (Grossberg 1992; Downing et al. 2001). On the one hand, alternative media stand in opposition to the products of the dominant media, because they express different viewpoints, for example by standing up for social changes. On the other hand, they are not as a rule organized or operated in line with capitalist business models. For example the fanzines produced by (young) fans – as well as other fan practices in general – are not for profit; in actual fact they explicitly reject this aim (Winter 1995). Of course this also applies to politically motivated alternative media, at times described in recent discussions as citizens’ media (Rodriguez 2001) because they are based on open access, volunteering and non-profit. In addition, they stand for diversity, plurality and progressive social change. Thus, many activists see the Internet as a tool to create their own political campaigning space which is supposed to be the basis for a better future. In this way they actively create counter public spheres. In particular, the social web, which is based on Web 2.0, creates the conditions for new digital tactics. These aim for a radical democratization of knowledge and the pluralization of voices, views and sources. Reality is thereby defined and framed in many ways which are new and different from the dominant media. Linked to this is the hope of a democratization of global society (Boler 2008), which grows into the concept of a transnational public sphere (Winter forthcoming).

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After a short theoretical examination of the relationship between everyday life, culture and media we will examine the alternative dimensions of the Internet in more detail. Firstly, we will look at the use of the Internet in new social movements and communities that support democratic globalization. Then we will discuss the creation of new spaces through the deployment of tactical media and the possibilities of electronic resistance and campaigning. After that we will analyse the significance of the Internet for (young) fan communities which can be regarded as they significantly contribute to the development of (transnational) counter public spheres. To do this, we will examine above all the role of e-zines, which can lay the foundations for transnational alliances. This chapter concludes by questioning the transnational public sphere.

Cultural Studies, Internet, and Alternative Media Above all, it was the development of Cultural Studies in the 1960s in the United Kingdom (UK) that made the reception and appropriation of media in various cultural and social contexts into an important research topic. Its study of youth subculture, the reception of television and fan culture show that the uses of the media can have aspects which are both subversive as well as socially successful, productive and creative (Winter 1995). These aspects develop into disassociation from or into opposition to the dominant culture and its power structures. The reception and appropriation of television series can, thus, at times be understood as resistance against hegemonic structures of meaning (Fiske 1989; Winter 2001) if for example socially defined roles, forms of identity or expectations of what is normal are subversively undermined, parodied or rejected. Cultural Studies is interested in the everyday changes of meaning, attitude and what form values take, in the development of productive and creative potential of the Lebenswelt (lifeworld), in the critique of power relations, in moments of self empowerment which might pass quickly but can still be significant and influential. Clearly the question remains among these rather optimistic versions of popular culture, if and to what extent cultural and social changes, which go beyond the moment of reception and appropriation, follow on from the empowering acts of media reception in which there is a struggle for meaning as well as pleasure and in which a sense of self develops. The creative everyday practices which deal with the media can also be limited in their effects to helping those actively involved to cope better or to more easily bear the banality of everyday life. This they do by distancing themselves for a while from limiting expectations, by behaving tactically in the structures of power or by making small flights of fancy.

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Methodologically, Cultural Studies oppose deterministic concepts as its media research reveals (Winter 2001). They build on the idea that as a development is taking shape, the final outcome remains unpredictable (Hall 1986; Grossberg 1992). In Cultural Studies there are no guarantees. Alliances and effects emerge out of connections and are consequently contingent, not determinate. From this perspective, technology and media are closely connected with social and cultural issues, but they are not limited to this. Tight demarcations are impractical (Menser/Aronowitz 1996). In some respects technology builds the culture and the dominant discourse in twenty-first century. Technology and media are therefore conceived as social active, hybrid forms, which assemble connections, while they are simultaneously shaped by abstract powers (Wise 1997: 57). In technological form and function, material as well as socially constructed restrictions are inscribed (ibid.: 58). Hence, in Cultural Studies, we do not research digital media, which directly change culture. Media are not understood as causative forces, but are rather a priori interpreted as being based on lifestyles, as contextual expressions, as tools or assemblages, which open up spaces for agency (Slack/Wise 2006: 154). The view is to focus on how things happen and in which ways they are performed. Cultural Studies always emerges in the middle of things, within a certain set of surroundings – historical, temporal, geographic, ethnic, sexual, technological – that is, in a milieu. Cultural Studies relate to this milieu by way of the construction of a problematic. (Menser/ Aronowitz 1996: 17) Following Start Hall (1986), technology/media can be comprehended as expressions. This means that the connections that constitute a technology and the practices through which they are expressed have to be investigated. For instance the embattled history of the Internet shows to a lesser extent a linear evolution than an asynchronous configuration of contingent processes (Hand/Sandywell 2002). There is not a singular, monolithic form of the Internet. Rather it is made up of a number of basic related effects. It depends specifically on analyzing social conflicts and historical configurations, in which digital practices assume varied forms. Referring to Deleuze and Guattari (1983), Wise (1997) distinguishes between two forms of agency to avoid deterministic readings. The first is termed technology and is embodied. The second form, language, is not embodied. Technology and language are connected to one another and assume one another. The social space is therefore the result of this connection. It emerges out of a specific, contingent relationship between language and technology. Cyberspace is frequently understood as one level in the process of democracy. Free citi-

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zens, who are controlling machines using language, are exploring cyberspace, trying to achieve their rights and aspiring to social change. In this place, the linguistic agency is posed beyond the technical. In this process, new media are often regarded as ‘immaterial’, as an immaterial empire of information. Attention, however, should also been concentrated on the fact that technology and, respectively, media act absolutely materially (Slack/Wise 2006: 154). Not only is social space steeped in communication technology, its material nature, their nexuses and alliances are exerting influence on communication, which should be investigated. Thus, on the one hand ideas are embodied in digital media and on the other hand they make substantial demands on the users. A virtual community is made up of a network of material procedures and practices. Certainly in diverse subcultures in cyberspace examples occur of how the actual body is repressed by the users and respectively disregarded in favour of digital worlds. In Cultural Studies, the question of agency gains central importance, as it means in this context that one’s acts are controlled by more than free will. Agency goes together with the opportunity to effect those processes, which continuously change reality and through which power is wielded (Grossberg 1992). This also reveals the ‘conjunctural’ aspect of Cultural Studies. The potential of agency within new media has to be placed in context. This is why in a social space like the Internet, the expression of the technology has to be examined with the form of the language as Wise (1997) sets out. This should assist the concept of assemblage (agencement) by Deleuze and Guattari (1983) to capture phenomenon of emergence, of heterogeneity and of escapism. It is intended to be anti-structural and is exemplified via the concept of desiring machines. An assemblage does not have essence, but rather produces qualitative differences. Thus the following questions arise: What kind of interconnections and recursions develop? How is digital technology used and how do people talk and reflect about them? (Eckert et al. 1991; Wise 1997: 73). Which interconnections by machines are formed, if language, desire, and technology come together? Furthermore, McKenzie Wark (2005) writes in his impressive Hacker Manifesto about the emancipatoric possibilities of the cyber society in the 21st century. In order to develop its virtual nature, he calls for an end to the commercialization and ownership of information, which for example establishes copyright: “We are the hackers of abstraction. We produce new concepts, new perceptions, new sensations, we en-hack them out of raw data” (Wark 2005: 002). The hackers are working in the field of the new virtual means of expressing the actual. Wark sees in these forms of revolt a transforming potential growing, which resolutely controverts the concepts of indifference and homogeneity of

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the global information culture, though this is merely a development of the original position. The ‘class’ of hackers overcomes artificial restraints caused by a lack of essentials, which for example might be caused by copyrighting. This happens through the development of new forms of expression and a subversive and alternative practice of everyday life. On account of this, the hackers are, according to Michael Hardt’s and Toni Negri’s Empire (2001), an example of new forms of virtual work, which is cooperative and full of productive energy. In summary, I would like to adhere to the context of new works in Cultural Studies that outline the global information culture as an important issue. For this approach, which is based on social and cultural contexts, we cross the works of Lash (2002) wherein those subjects, objects, and technology are determined on a level of immanence. There are no aims or reasons from beyond and hierarchies or ontological differences do not exist. Instrumental perspectives are going to be deconstructed. Digital technologies are understood as “contingent articulations of asynchrony elements, which potentiate different operations (meanings, metaphors, acts) and amplify the field of cultural practices” (Hand/Sandywell 2002: 213). From this anti-essentialist perspective, which opposes euphoria as well as pessimism but which points out critical emancipatory views (Kellner 1995), one can see the outline of the current social transformations as the modified opportunities of agency. This should be made clear by the following discussion, which shows the role of alternative media in the Internet within the development of a transnational public sphere. Actors conducting political campaigns via alternative media amongst which we include the media protest groups, activists, social movements, subcultures but sometimes also fans and hobbyists, are understood from the start as channels of resistance. These question explicitly, deliberately and with commitment the hegemonic structures and issue challenges in a symbolic battle for meaning (Hebdige 1979; Kellner 1995; Atton 2004). They are neither subjected to the laws of market logic nor dependent on the state. They operate in the field of constituent (transnational) civil society (Beck 2002). Nick Couldry (2000) points out that alternative media allow a community of citizens to be involved in a democratic practice which is based on dialogue, far-reaching control of symbolic resources and representations of reality as well as on openness. Thus a new research field is revealed in the area of Cultural Studies that on the one hand examines (digital) media cultures within social movements and alternative communities, on the other hand investigates how these cultures are created by communications in communities and movements (Atton 2004: 3f). According to James Carey (1989), a founder of American Cultural Studies, communication is understood as culture and culture as communication.

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In order to be able to use and develop the communicative potential of alternative digital media, diverse media competences, which comprise technical and cultural skills are certainly necessary. The American media pedagogue and cultural theorist, Douglas Kellner (1995) therefore calls for a wider cultural understanding, which comprises new media and which should contribute to the promotion of multiple competencies in particular amongst young people and socially disadvantaged groups. Thus, it should lead to an empowerment of individuals and groups as they learn to competently and effectively employ ICT. In this way, they can portray their problems and interests, which are often not represented in the traditional media. Next, we will illustrate this process through the example of new social movements.

Internet, Globalization, and New Social Movements Globalization, which shapes our present, is a disputed process, as demonstrated, for example, by the protests against the meeting of World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle in 1999. These were organized and coordinated using digital media. The neoliberal view of globalization, which is spread by a transnational network of politicians, economic leaders and scientists, is increasingly opposed by the alternative, democratic view which is built on co-operation, inclusion, transparency and participation (Smith 2008). Amongst other things, this view criticizes the fact that the global economy undermines democratic institutions and that power is concentrated in the hands of a small number of countries and corporations. On the one hand, democratic globalization counts on groups and movements of civil society, on the other it depends on independent (non-commercial) media organizations and on Internet sites. A very good example of alternative media is the creation of the Independent Media Centre (indymedia/IMC), a collective, egalitarian, and non-hierarchical network of activists who, using reports, photos, and films, question, criticize, and offer alternative perspectives to the representations of reality that appear in the dominant media. Their views are committed to democratic globalization. With all this in mind they try, for example, to raise public awareness of the consequences of global warming and, thereby, to put pressure on politicians and governments.1 The Internet becomes a performance area. Actions are performed by being expressed. In this way digital technologies also make it possi-

1

The example of indymedia is covered by Mattoni in this volume with regard to a grass¬roots campaign and the question of ICT-supported decentred publics and po¬litical institutions is discussed by Mosca/Santucci with regard to e-petitions.

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ble for smaller and less organized networks to set out themes, to develop alternative views and to give them their own independent meaning. Thus, it is above all about changing problems, dangers, and risks, which have long prevailed and often become chronic, urgent, and pressing concerns and must be dealt with. This change is made possible by creating media awareness of the problems. For this, social movements, for example protest events such as demonstrations, employ public spectacles or online campaigns. As a rule, commercial media, which rely on a culture of consumerism (Sklair 1998), rarely do report these protests, which can often have an anti-capitalist nature (Scholz 2008). The new social movements compare human rights and democracy, which should apply universally, against the logic of consumerism, which strengthens and maintains the neoliberal network. The web-based IMC task, then, is to report on political activism and global campaigns. They bring together local work with global debate, where the global context is crucial for the perception of the movement. As a next step, single campaigns can be used to form transnational coalitions. In addition, these coalitions should help activists to gain and improve skills and competences in the production of media and in electronic communication. IMCs are committed to the principle of open publishing and try to create autonomous online zones (Meikle 2002: 92). With that, they take up the tradition of fanzines and the DIY culture (do-it-yourself) formed by young people (ibid.: 97). This culture linked green radicalism with direct political action, new musical sounds and experiences. The IMCs succeed in showing a different and, above all, a more complex picture of social movements than the mainstream media. They also succeed in framing them with greater differentiation and diversity. The new social movements, therefore, use the Internet in their network of active relationships, which are based on communicative as well as interactive practices, and on negotiation and decision-making processes (Melucchi 1996). In addition, the practices of indymedia aim to democratize journalism because everyone is called to work as a journalist and they are given access to the technical capabilities for this. Furthermore, the practices of traditional journalists and their positivist concepts of objectivity and impartiality are radically questioned. In contrast to this, the alternative online journalism presents an ethic committed to the community and this is partial, involved, and connective (Atton 2004: 37). Thus, in its socially contextual and self-reflective aims it fundamentally questions traditional journalism.

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Tactical Media and Social Software A further example, which I would like to explore and which is linked to the use of the Internet in social movements, is the concept of the tactical media which are often used for grassroots campaigning (see for example Mattoni in this volume) and articulate dissident positions through artistic practices and doit-yourself media (Lovink 2004). Based on Michel de Certeaus (1988), tactics rely on the opportunities that appear in the spaces and times organized by strategies. These times and spaces are distinguished by heterogeneity, a spirit of invention, artistic skill and the combination of opportunities. He writes: In contrast to the strategies […] I describe tactics as a calculated action, set by the lack of having something of one’s own […] The tactic has only a place separate from normality […] Without a doubt this non-place makes mobility possible – but always dependent on the circumstances of the time. This mobility allows it to quickly grab the opportunities which the moment offers. It must be alert to use the gaps which appear in particular situations in the surveillance by the power of the owners. It poaches from this and keeps surprises in store. (de Certeau 1988: 89) Different to political action, tactics therefore do not necessarily have future aims nor a clearly identifiable opponent. Thus they are also not based on the collective identity of a social movement. Rather, they represent points of resistance, as defined by Foucault (1987), in their relationship with power. Socially constructed spaces produce tactical media. In these spaces, by means of communicative resources, there is an evolving exchange of ideas and imaginative powers, of discourses, and subjectivities, which are at least temporarily disobedient and resistant. They can also be understood as contact zones as shown by Alessandra Renzi (2008). Therefore the meeting of artists and activists on a mailing list can lead to new tactical media projects. Geert Lovink (2004: 232) states that “[t]actical media are never perfect, they are always to be understood as developing, in performance and pragmatically, involved in a continuous process, analysing the conditions of the channels with which they work”. In this context, Temporary Media Labs should also be referred to. These are arranged at art exhibitions such as Documenta but also in other areas in order to initiate and promote transnational cooperation as well as to contribute to a media empowering of the user. They create a space for experiments and negotiations. Furthermore, tactical media enable the formation of new subjectivities and new forms of criticism as the work of the Critical Art Ensemble (1996) for electronic resistance illustrates. Thus, they direct for example electronic civil

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disobedience or celebrate the utopian possibilities of plagiarism in the age of the Internet.

Internet and Fan Communities Less spectacular than the tactical media activists but nonetheless of great significance are the (young) fan communities and their social worlds, which have grown or are just developing online. Research to date has shown that, contrary to wide spread prejudice, fans – and this even applies to young fans – are active and creative consumers who want to transform their received knowledge into their own productions of texts, films or art (Winter 1995: 199-211, Winter 1999). Thus, it is possible to differentiate between different forms of fan production, between semiotic, expressive, and textual productivity (Fiske 1992). In the counter public sphere of fans, fanzines, and newsletters have great significance. On the basis of textual productivity, these fanzines and newsletters establish communication beyond the local area and also facilitate the coordination of fan activities. They are made by ‘competent’ fans for fans. Their articles, which are based on detailed and specialized knowledge, judge, criticize, and celebrate their respective cult objects such as television series, science fiction films, or progressive rock. For fans, the production and circulation of new and alternative meanings are, thus, linked with enjoyment and can affect a sense of community. In this way fan cultures can develop counter discourses and challenge constructions of power. The e-zine, the Internet edition of the fanzine, makes it on one hand easier to access information because fanzines are now available worldwide. On the other hand, the creation of communities by fans, based on their specialized interests and their shared knowledge, becomes more achievable. E-zines contribute to the reproduction and the expansion of minority specializations and tastes, to which mainstream media give little or no attention. In addition, the Internet improves requirements for fans to translate the knowledge they have gained into joint projects. It is this knowledge which also determines their status in their social world. Fans value, for example, e-zine encyclopaedias, to which they can bring their knowledge as enthusiasts, collectors and experts. Therefore there are webpages developed for this purpose. A good example of this is the Gibraltar Encyclopaedia of Progressive Rock (www.gepr.net), in which every entry is written by fans. Their declared aim is not only to include known groups but also to describe discoveries in this field. Many artists even have different entries with the result that a variety of commentaries and critiques are available, which conventional rock encyclopaedias cannot keep pace with (Atton 2004: 149).

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Here we must consider that as a rule fans are self-taught, that their knowledge comes not from formal education but rather from passionate engagement and a lifelong interest. If their knowledge is circulated within fan communities, this raises their reputation and their (popular) cultural capital. Ideally fans on the Internet become engrossed in a democratic discussion, celebrating the object of their desire. This was also possible in fan communities in the past (Winter 1995: 127) but the Internet helps to improve this form of communication and to make it easier.

Conclusion We have shown that the Internet allows for the articulation of various alternative voices, positions and perspectives. It can a platform of marginalized individuals or groups but also aesthetic communities such as fans or social movements, which fight for a new democratic space. The examples of tactical media practices show that new opportunities for participants also develop to fight for spaces for freedom and to question traditional ideas of copyright and creativity by fighting for a digital commons, for a free culture (Lessig 2004) which must be protected from the state and the economy. It has become clear that on the Internet there are creative resistance practices as defined by Cultural Studies. As a rule, however, their beginnings, perspectives and aims are not limited to the Internet. Therefore, at the sociological level it seems problematic to only emphazise the virtual world and to speak of an online socialization or an online Vergesellschaftung (Jäckel/Mai 2005). The alternative online practices illustrate that the internet can be used in various and complex ways. There is not one Internet but rather various forms of articulation which originate offline. The future will show whether, alongside the already existing counter-public sphere, a functioning transnational public sphere will form where all individuals and groups can participate worldwide. We will also see what role the Internet can play in this (Winter forthcoming). Can political web campaigns for example help develop a transnational public sphere in which emancipatory political opportunities are developed and which reveals a counter force to the neoliberal organized world economy (Fraser 2007)? The hope of democratic and social transformation in the 21st century remains closely linked to the new digital practices like web campaigning. In the context of Cultural Studies, it is about tracing these changes in the habits of everyday life and its social and cultural practices (Winter 2001). Translated by Andrew Terrington and Elisabeth Niederer

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References Atton, C. (2004) An Alternative Internet. Radical Media, Politics and Creativity, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Beck, U. (2002) Macht und Gegenmacht im globalen Zeitalter. Neue weltpolitische Ökonomie, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Boler, M. (2008) ‘Introduction’, in M. Boler (ed.) Digital Media and Democracy. Tactics in Hard Times, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1-50. Carey, J. (1989) Communication as Culture, London et al.: Unwin Hyman. Couldry, N. (2000) Inside Culture, Re-imagining the Method of Cultural Studies, London: Sage. Critical Art Ensemble (1996) Electronic Disobedience and Other Unpopular Ideas, New York, NY: Autonomedia. de Certeau, M. (1988) Kunst des Handelns, Berlin: Merve Verlag. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1983) Anti-Oedipus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Downing, J.D.H. et al. (2001) Radical Media. Rebellious Communication and Social Movements, Thousand Oaks, CA et al.: Sage. Eckert, R. et al. (1991) Auf digitalen Pfaden. Die Kulturen von Hackern, Programmierern, Crackern und Spielern, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Fiske, J. (1992) ‘The Cultural Economy of Fandom’, in L.A. Lewis (ed.) The Adoring Audience. Fan Culture and Popular Media, London/New York, NY: Routledge. ——— (1989) Understanding Popular Culture, Boston, MA et al.: Unwin Hyman. Foucault, M. (1987) ‘Das Subjekt und die Macht’, in H. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow (eds) Michel Foucault. Jenseits von Strukturalismus und Hermeneutik, Frankfurt a.M.: Syndikat. Fraser, N. (2007) ‘Transnationalising the Public Sphere. On the Legitimacy and Efficacy of Public Opinion in a Post-Westphalian World’, Theory, Culture & Society, 24: 7-30. Grossberg, L. (1992) We Gotta Get Out of This Place. Popular Conservatism and Postmodern Culture, New York, NY/London: Routledge. Hall, S. (1986) ‘On Postmodernism and Articulation: An Interview with Stuart Hall by Lawrence Grossberg’, Journal of Communication Inquiry, 10: 45-60. Hand, M. and Sandywell, B. (2002) ‘E-Topia as Cosmopolis or Citadel: On the Democratizing and De-Democratizing Logics of the Internet, or, Toward

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a Critique of the New Technological Fetishism’, Theory, Culture & Society, 19: 197-225. Hardt, M. and Negri, T. (2001) Empire, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hebdige, D. (1979) Subculture. The Meaning of Style, London/New York, NY: Methuen. Jäckel, M. and Mai, M. (eds) (2005) Online-Vergesellschaftung? Mediensoziologische Perspektiven auf neue Kommunikationstechnologien, Wiesbaden: Opladen. Kellner, D. (1995) Media Culture, London/New York, NY: Routledge. Lash, S. (2002) Critique of Information, London et al.: Sage. Lessig, L. (2004) Free Culture, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Lovink, G. (2004) Dark Fiber. Auf den Spuren einer kritischen Internetkultur, Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Meikle, G. (2002) Future Active. Media Activism and the Internet, New York NY/London: Routledge. Melucchi, A. (1996) Challenging Codes. Collective Action in the Information Age, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Menser, M. and Aronowitz, S. (1996) ‘On Cultural Studies, Science, and Technology’, in S. Aronowitz et al. (eds) Technoscience and Cyberculture, London et al.: Routledge, 7-30. Renzi, A. (2008) ‘The Space of Tactical Media’, in M. Boler (ed.) Digital Media and Democracy. Tactics in Hard Times, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 71100. Rodriguez, C. (2001) Fissures in the Mediascape. An International Study of Citizens’ Media, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Scholz, T. (2008) ‘Where the Activism is’, in M. Boler (ed.) Digital Media and Democracy. Tactics in Hard Times, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 355-366. Sklair, L. (1998) ‘Social Movements and Global Capitalism’, in F. Jameson and M. Miyoshi (eds) The Cultures of Globalization, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 291-311. Slack, J. and Wise, M.J. (2006) ‘Cultural Studies and Communication Technologies’, in L.H. Lievrouw and S. Livingstone (eds), The Handbook of New Media, Updated Edition, London et al.: Sage: 141-162. Smith, J. (2008) Social Movements for Global Democracy, Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.

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Wark, M. (2005) A Hacker Manifesto, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Winter, R. (forthcoming) Widerstand im Netz. Zur Herausbildung einer transnationalen Öffentlichkeit durch netzbasierte Kommunikation, Bielefeld: transcript. ——— (2001) Die Kunst des Eigensinns. Cultural Studies als Kritik der Macht, Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft. ——— (1999) ‘The Search for Lost Fear: The Social World of Horror Fan in Terms of Symbolic Interactionism and Cultural Studies’, in N.K. Denzin (ed.) Cultural Studies. A Research Annual, Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 277298. ——— (1995) Der produktive Zuschauer. Medienaneignung als kultureller und ästhetischer Prozess, München/Köln: Herbert von Halem. Winter, R. and Eckert, R. (1990) Mediengeschichte und kulturelle Differenzierung. Zur Herausbildung von Wahlnachbarschaften, Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Wise, M.J. (1997) Exploring Technology and Social Space, Thousand Oaks, CA et al.: Sage.

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Appropriation of the Web

Sarah Zielmann/Ulrike Röttger

Characteristics and Developments of Political Party Web Campaigns in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States between 1997 and 2007 Introduction: Results of the Latest Research on Political Web Campaigning In communication studies, it is a common assumption that, nowadays, politics is realized principally through the media. This was preceded by processes of mediatization in modern societies. For example in spring 2008, citizens all over the world have been fed daily with news related to the pre-elections in the United States (US) via (inter)national media. In this context, the great importance of the (positive) presence of the candidates in different media – including the Internet – can be observed. This does not only apply to political actors in the United States, but also in respect of the run-up for elections, for instance, in France in 2007 (Benoit 2007). In actual fact, reference to any kind of organization of the central systems of government in existing research results, not surprisingly, document the great importance of communication activities, particularly in the form of public relations (PR) (Adam et al. 2005: 78). It is the task, then, of all the persons providing PR services for political actors, e.g. intramural PR experts of party organizations and external party PR service providers, to ‘handle’ the mass media or to create their own media in order to manage the information and communication processes with the relevant publics. What exactly does this imply? To begin with, the official obligation of political actors is to translate an idea into public policy, that is to say politics is the production and implementation of general obligatory decisions based on social interactions on how to shape society (Donges/Jarren 2001: 420; Marcinkowski 1998: 165). Political actors, like political parties, aim at different publics to pass on information on behalf of their own interests, which means they are doing so in order to explain their own ideas and to convince people of relevance and importance of those decisions. Though it has to be stated that political parties in Western democracies differ with regard to their office seeking, policy seeking or vote seeking orientation, online and offline PR campaigns are among the most important devices relating to a) prestige advertising, b) attracting new members, and most notably c) the run-up to the elections.

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We are not fully aware, however, of the status quo in all countries equally: Australia, Finland,1 Germany, the United Kingdom (UK), and the US provide the most comprehensive data concerning web campaigning (Gibson/Römmele 2004: 38). Asia also plays a certain role in this research area. It could also be stated that the bulk of scientific attention has been limited to political parties in Europe and Asia and to election candidates in the US (Lusoli/Ward 2005: 73), though this is mainly due to the different electoral systems. Apart from the previously mentioned examples, other European countries are actually largely neglected in research. Indeed, there is hardly any information aside from a few case studies, which concentrate on a single election cycle in a single country.2 Most studies on the use of the Internet by political parties analyze a specific election in a given nation. It is evident, however, that political parties and single political candidates have been expanding their Internet use over recent years. Though their presence is of great importance in practice, little efforts have been made to analyze it systematically and comparatively (Gibson/Römmele 2005). Even though we find comparative studies, there are too many methods for analyzing a new web campaign, which means that even when referring to reference studies, new analysis is not conducted in an exact replicated manner. In addition, it has to be taken into consideration that there is relatively little attention paid to party Internet use that factors in party-specific characteristics such as major and minor parties, their length of time since their establishment, and whether or not they have a charismatic leader and so on (Gibson et al. 2003a). It is interesting, however, that existing research shows a general pattern in a number of nations stating that left-wing mainstream parties emerge as initiators for web campaigns, the other parties follow in domino fashion (Gibson et al. 2003b: 167). For all intents and purposes, one usually finds a content analysis of the party websites, while complimentary interview data or analysis of offline media coverage of web campaigns is seldom used (for a rare example see Gibson et al. 2003c).

Approach of a Comparing Literature Review As a start of our contribution, we present a definition of political PR campaigns, which is established in communication studies. Based on this definition, we draw on those studies that are theoretically and/or empirically concerned with online political party PR campaigns. As we focus upon this defini1

For a scientific report worth reading see Carlson/Djupsund 2001.

2

E.g. Newill 2001, who adds an Italian case study or Yannas/Lappas 2005, who research into web campaigning in the Greek municipal elections.

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tion, we will not be able to incorporate a large number of scientific publications concentrating on comparable aspects. For instance, it is repeatedly mentioned that in democracies there is a professionalization of electoral campaigning, meaning that an international convergence of techniques and styles has occurred along with the use of external experts. With regard to the role of external campaign professionals in election campaigns of the digital age, there is empirical evidence that the institutional limitations of political parties require a “bevy of outside vendors” (Farrell et al. 2001: 12) to fill the gap. This does not apply only to the US, but also to Western European democracies (Plasser 2001).3 At the same time, we find the position that politics on the Internet is solely an extension of offline politics. There is a great deal of empirical evidence to support both assumptions, obviously depending on the methodological design and more importantly on the examined political and media systems (Strandberg 2008: 223-224; Margolis et al. 1999). Regardless of the diversity of studies conducted, the available material allows us to answer the question stated below in an exemplary manner. The overall research question is, what are the stressed similarities and the distinguished differences with regard to party Internet use for political public relations campaigns in different countries over the past ten years (1997-2007)? In answering this question, we will have a look at the presumed development of this usage. We believe there are no original Internet campaigns in any country. The web campaigns are more probably always an accessory to the offline contents of the parties, that is to say they are not used as a strategic tool in order to achieve a certain aim. Nevertheless, they actually should be more than just an addition to offline components. Having outgrown the early stage of trial and error on the web, these campaigns now employ specific characteristics only provided by new media, such as interactive elements, to complement the offline campaign. Creating an online campaign should always mean an additional benefit for both the politicians and the Internet users. We are concentrating on more than one country. It proves to be an interesting facet to both the comparison of different national practices and in examination of the evolution of online campaigning in several countries over time. We want to consider scientific findings relating to the euphoric upbeat of the Internet age from the beginning, when it was an often heard argument that e-politics enables more transparency and facilitates a diversified participation in the political process, until present day activities.

3

For a broader discussion of processes of (de-)professionalization see the introductory chapter of Baringhorst in this volume.

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So, this contribution aims to report on state of the art web campaigning for political PR campaigns in selected countries over a time spread of ten years. We discuss how related research traces the evolutionary changes from a) the US, because this country is mostly described as first-mover in matters pertaining to new technologies. From former studies and from our own analysis concerning the use of new technologies (Zielmann/Röttger forthcoming) through examination of CEO blogs, we observe b) UK as an early adopter. In contrast to the US and UK, c) Germany is a country where one focuses less on political actors and more on political organizations (Abromeit/Stoiber 2006); also Germany is often described as a tardy imitator with respect to new technologies. Finally, d) until now France has not substantially been a focus of communication studies. From our own research on CEO blogs, we see France as technology-enthusiastic, and we hope to find evidence for its actual role in terms of political web campaigning. Within these four countries, we will trace the process of political web campaigning in different political and media systems. Each process influences the feasible advantages of its usage, such as fundraising rules, decreasing advertising spending or promoting single candidates instead of whole parties. In order to pinpoint similarities and differences in the usage of web campaigning in these four countries over a time period of ten years, we accumulated material primarily in the form of professional articles, in anthologies, journals, and scientific treatments. Related to online activities in France, however, newspapers are the most valuable source. We gathered all the information through desk-based research, using meta-search engines of the most important libraries, supplemented by a general online research.4 In short, we will endeavor to give a description of the evolution of webbased campaigns from the perspective of political parties in different countries and partly from the perspective of the respective users, as this is also important for further considerations. We will also point out resultant requirements for PR research in order to describe and analyze these mutating PR activities and identify the new necessities for political PR practitioners. In the next section, we clarify important terms and definitions and summarize the basic results of our analysis. In the following section, we present our literature findings pertaining to the four countries. The final section recapitulates our outcomes and elucidates potential for further scientific research.

4

All studies utilized are cited and listed in the references.

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Definition of Political Party PR Web Campaigns and General Findings At this juncture an important disambiguation is necessary: we understand political party PR web campaigns as staged, issue-specific, and temporary strategies aiming to get public attention. They make use of differing tools, commercial, and marketing specific instruments, as well as classic PR methods. Communication takes place predominantly online (Röttger 2006: 9-10). At the same time, it must be emphasized that a web campaign has to be more than only an online component. An online campaign is more than simply providing a website with the usual information on the history of the party, one’s own biography and a few previously disseminated press releases. There must be mediumspecific features, e.g. networking opportunities in the form of interactive elements, including, for instance, chat rooms between politicians and voters. Above all, there have to be self-contained online elements, which basically refer to particular new media features that are more than simply putting offline content online.

Disappointing Normative Findings Academic discussion concerning the relationship of politics and media still concentrates on the traditional mass media, excluding the Internet and its new interactive possibilities, which are particularly suitable for the political process. It is expressed repeatedly, however, that online tools could render a contribution to deliberative democracy (Meyer/Bieber 2007) by allowing the discussing of political ideas with the electorate, rather than just feeding people with information in the manner of the conventional mass media. This thought takes into consideration that the stability of pluralistic democracies is strengthened through the articulation of several interests. In this manner, all important societal expectations and needs are aired in public, which, in turn, empowers processes of political problem solving. The Internet, in particular, is believed to enable many (new) members of society to articulate their interests and, therefore, to participate in the whole political process, not only on the day of elections (Kamps 1999; Marschall 1997). This early euphoric point of view has been sobered, as empirical findings substantiate the significance of elites, even with respects of the use of new media (Gerhards/Schäfer 2007; Schmidt 2006a: 140; Schmidt 2000: 266-267; Gabriel/Brettschneider 1998: 287). It is more palpable to claim that the Internet thus far does not enable unprivileged individuals or groups. Those who are seeking or, more importantly, distributing online information are either part of

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an organized group or have higher education. This parallels barriers to the mass media: A person already gathering information from television and newspapers is more likely to, in addition, consume online news. The character of cyberspace, therefore, is more likely to foster an online electoral environment that replicates the offline world (Margolis et al. 1997).

New Position and Therefore New Communication Challenges for Parties It is stressed repeatedly that party organizations have become less important (Carlson/Djupsund 2001; Plasser 2001; Farrell et al. 2001), meaning that the central role of political parties (as campaign promoters) themselves is thrown into question. In the wake of the transition to the post-modern stage of electioneering, single party members are looking for new possibilities for electoral mobilization. It is argued, furthermore, that another reason for the decline in party support by former members and voters is the trend of catch-all party strategies. This takes into account their primary focus on electoral success (not necessarily meaning that promises have to be held, which applies most strongly for the public opinion in France) and vague ideological statements in order to attract many people in today’s pluralistic, fragmented modern media societies. In summation, there are plenty of new challenges for parties; these have to be solved primarily via communication. It comes as no surprise that parties tend to view the Internet as a fitting instrument to be used by individual political actors to target their messages to specific voter groups. Certainly political actors seek to ‘get people back’ by several mechanisms and political parties search for new channels to talk to people, for instance via grassroots campaigning and grassroots journalism (Fischer 2006; Gillmor 2006; Wielhouwer 2006). The Internet offers them one possibility to mould information in an individual fashion, but also to inform them through elements of PR campaigns. It has to be taken into consideration, however, that there is not equal access to the Internet. For example, it is more difficult to reach people on a lower income or those who are less educated, and Internet communication is more likely to reach men than women. At the same time, the Internet is a great tool to connect with younger people (Schulz 2008: 188-189; Hans-Bredow-Institut 2006: 161), not necessarily, however, with regard to political communication.5 Therefore, it is questionable as to whether or not online campaigns can attract the attention of young people, thus being a great tool against their 5

Winter in this volume deals with the non-institutionalized online activism of young people from a cultural studies perspective.

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disenchantment with politics (Bennett 2008). We do also know from empirical studies that users do not necessarily trust information from the Internet, especially if it is not journalistically based. There are many sites found only by one’s own efforts, making it doubtful that Internet users in general are going to select the narrow online performances of a political party (Rössler 2003: 514515).

Further Basic Research Results Moreover, European studies discussing themes of political communication usually concentrate on election campaigns (mostly looking at one country only, though a few comparative studies have come forward, e.g. Gibson/Römmele 2004; Gibson et al. 2003c). This research is often labelled as analysis of political marketing (Kuhn 2007; Karp/Zolleis 2005), meaning the following: […] the application of marketing principles and procedures in political campaigns by various individuals and organizations. The procedures involved include the analysis, development, execution, and management of strategic campaigns by (various political actors) that seek to drive public opinion, […] win elections, and pass legislation and referenda in response to the needs and wants of selected people and groups in society. (Newman/Perloff 2004: 18) On the one hand, this research focus on election campaigns is simply a result of the scientific tradition. On the other hand, it enables researchers to spot specific characteristics in a condensed time spam (Holtz-Bacha 2004: 468-469). In this manner, political action during the off-election time is neglected. Furthermore, the description of temporary events does not pay attention to changes of politics and its communication processes (Sarcinelli 2005: 23). Given this research desideratum, we can actually only refer to available studies zooming in on elections. At least it can be stated that elections lie at the heart of the relationship between parties and democracies, as parties present themselves at elections and try to place their best candidate for public office (Farrel/Webb 2000: 3). Studies of how parties use the Internet during elections have primarily focused on ordinary party websites (Gibson/McAllister 2006: 243; Trammell et al. 2006; Schweitzer 2005a and 2005b; Gibson et al. 2003a, Wicks/Souley 2003). When analyzing elections, web campaigning is more or less reduced to scrutiny of party websites, the resulting unsurprising conclusion is that the higher the office being sought, the more likely a campaign is to have a supporting website (D’Alessio 1997). This is criticized due to the fact that there

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might be more sites connected in parallel, for example during the elections in Germany on the part of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 2002 (Boelter/Cecere 2003). There may be other online activities conducted by minor and fringe parties, being ignored by these research designs. Nevertheless, empirical findings do carry weight when considering that Internet users do not necessarily exploit the actively sought reports about political issues and candidates to decide for whom they will vote (except for two studies stressing the impact on voters, see Rainie et al. 2005 as well as Farnsworth/Owen 2004). Regardless of these disenchanting results, the development of online activities presses ahead; obviously it is worth the effort to engage with people also via this medium. Why is that? As we have already stated, political parties try to ‘defend’ their own interests, though needing to explicitly focus on societal needs. They are dependent, therefore, on PR, and the PR practitioners’ commissioned work is to legitimate party actions and decisions. This includes gaining attention and credibility via the Internet, among other media. Finally, these efforts are made in the hope that the target groups will side with the party, follow and support its ideas. Political party PR, thus, can be defined as the management of information and communication processes with external (and internal) publics in order to guarantee and eventually enlarge the scope of party activity (see also Donges 2006: 108). The Internet allows saying everything directly, without, for instance, considering editorial agendas of the mass media beforehand. It is also argued that the Internet could equalize the electoral playing field, as smaller and fringe parties are able to reach a larger audience at low costs, thus increasing opportunities for non-established parties. Major parties, however, usually dispose of larger budgets, thus being able to guide voters to their websites by advertising the URL in all of their offline content. Above all, they can afford more highly skilled web managers and receive wider media coverage both offline and on the Web (Lusoli/Ward 2005: 76; Gibson et al. 2003c: 50).

The Internet as an Arena for Political Party PR Campaigns in Single Countries Internet First-Mover: United States As a first result, we can confirm our thesis: US parties are the cutting edge Internet campaigners. In 1995, fewer than fifteen percent of American adults had access to the Internet. By 2001 that proportion was up to fifty percent, in 2003 up to sixty percent and in 2007 up to seventy percent. In 2003, however, less than twenty percent of those online belonged to the group of online politi-

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cal news consumers. Finally, the year 2004 was a year of breakthrough for the role of the Internet in politics, as it became clearly a significant source of political information in that year. More than one-third of the population used the Internet for political purposes, this is nearly two-thirds of online Americans (Foot/Schneider 2006: 11; Rainie et al. 2005; Miniwatts Marketing Group undated c). It should also be noted that more than two-thirds of politically engaged online users sent or received emails related to political campaigns (Rice 2004: 38) and that the web has become a major source of political news. Now the Internet has caught up with newspapers, at least as a source of information for those who have got broadband connections at home (Rainie et al. 2005: ii; Fox 2004: 25). The Internet and related emerging technologies have had, and still have, a strong impact on presidential campaigns. Meanwhile, the Internet is also prominently used in the run-up to elections for lesser public offices. As early as 1998, the third-party candidate Jesse Ventura (with little party structure) used the Internet to present his messages. In the beginning, he did not have more than a constantly growing email list. In this manner, however, he won a lot of young voters who also supported him financially. The first reported use of the Internet in elections came as early as the 1992 US Presidential race, when the staff of Bill Clinton placed the texts of a few speeches and some personal information about Clinton on a University gopher server, resulting in further publication of the material in Usenet newsgroups (Chadwick 2006: 151; Gibson/McAllister 2006: 244). The US can claim the first-mover status in more aspects related to the use of new media for political motives: Hillary Clinton was the first political actor announcing her candidacy, not at a press conference, but on the Internet. Four years ago, Howard Dean was the first presidential candidate using blogs, afterwards being imitated by many other politicians, with a special emphasis on using this tool for fundraising activities and to give political information a human touch (Moorstedt 2008; Schmidt 2006a: 141; Schmidt 2006b: 234; Rice 2004: 2). In the past ten years, campaign blogging has become a national and international trend. During the candidacies of John McCain and later Al Gore against George W. Bush, it was proven that the success in raising money via the Internet was not only a special feature associated with Dean, but also able to be applied by others. The lack of money to use other media, obviously played a role in the US several times and finally enabled candidates to take a place in the media and to record votes. In addition, candidates’ grassroots supporters have created their own blogs, devoting their time and energy to promote their favorite or to blog against the opponent, respectively. Nevertheless, it has to be admitted that early online activities, for example in the election cycle 1996, were rather static: candidates had elaborated web-

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sites, but they mostly just put offline content online. As a consequence, there was a lack of interactivity, which would have been a chance to really use new tools provided by the new medium. Since the 1996 presidential campaigns, campaign websites have become vital integrated tools. This is drawn from facts such as the shift of the Internet to the forefront of fundraising sources and using blogs with the electorate (Williams et al. 2005). Interestingly, there were generally few negative strategies in 1996, around one-third of political actors used negative elements against their opponents. This trend of few negative strategies continued through 1998. In 2000, ‘going negative’ became a common online strategy, directly mirroring those on television in 2002 (Chadwick 2006: 153-156). As a first important difference between the offline age and the online age, it can be stated that the e-campaign in the election cycle of the year 2000 led to a new source of financial support and had an impact on grassroots activities. Thus it was able to spread messages to a wider audience. In reference to the latter, it is also obvious that centralization or coordination does not seem of great importance, until now. Little is known about the resulting problems, such as contradictory messages from volunteers or well meant messages that still have a negative effect on the reputation of a political actor or a party. At the same time, the great advantages for web campaigns are the small budgets needed and the ease of reaching target audiences (Magniant 1998: 35). The aforementioned example of the Dean campaign utilized more tools in order to raise money through supporters. The Dean team created its own online networking community that connected people, the Deanlink. This became a grassroots tool attracting about 10,000 people in a two week period. Users, who established profiles for Deanlink also solicited friends and others to join the network (Rice 2004: 33-34). This is worth mentioning, as it addresses the challenge of local organization, by providing a system within which local supporters can organize themselves. US party websites provide more varied campaign support than, for instance, those of UK parties. Another expected finding is that US presidential websites aim to win support for the individual, rather than for his or her party as a whole. Some site visitors cannot even recognize for which party the candidate is standing (Gibson et al. 2003c: 61). This is mainly due to the orientation towards candidates instead of political parties in the US. The most important improvement developed through web campaigns may be the common device to sign up as a volunteer, to act as an E-supporter. It is the task of such a person to convince undecided voters by sending them personal messages on behalf of their favourite candidate. Besides canvassing in favour of a special candidate, it primarily mobilizes more volunteers and raises additional money, especially by dint of blogs. Against the background of new

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loosely connected bonds and electorate’s sceptical attitudes of parties, this seems to be of high value.

Europeans Entering the Stage: United Kingdom and Germany In the UK, Internet usage rates increased from less than thirty percent in 2000 to nearly two thirds in 2007 (Miniwatts Marketing Group undated b; Office for National Statistics 2007). In contrary to the US, the political system of the UK and Germany can be described as party government: political decisions are mainly prepared in a party and political leaders do not have a chance to be elected without their party’s full support (Abromeit/Stoiber 2006: 159, 188). The multiparty systems in these two European countries with strong party organization differ to a great extent from the political system in the US (Albrecht et al. 2007: 509). In Eastern Germany, however, (traditional) parties do have problems gaining support; many people fear parties not able or willing to solve their problems. This aspect has not been an issue in the ongoing research regarding political party web campaigns. As early as 1997, the British elections were claimed to be Internet elections: parties started to experiment with the new technology to engage with voters (Gibson 2003). In Germany, parties and their candidates have also established an online presence during federal elections. In the UK, as of 2001, the number of people who owned a mobile phone was greater than those who had access to the Internet. A strategy was implemented to send short messages as part of an innovative campaign instead of providing information online (Chadwick 2006: 160-161). Over the course of 1997 to 2001 and 2005, however, clear patterns in the use of web campaigning can be pointed out: In 1997, the main parties in the UK simply aimed for a presence in cyberspace and nothing more. Though they tried to make the URL public on advertisements via other tools, their activities were not very fruitful. The Labour Party site received as little as 1,000 hits a week, where those who hit the site found sparse amounts of new information compared to what they had already learned offline. In 2001, the Internet was more integrated into the overall campaign, as ideas from the US Presidential campaign were quickly adapted by the British campaign team. Parties also spent more money on their web campaigns, amongst others expenses were allocated for newly paid web designers, thus further adapting to the needs of the Internet. Interactivity did not really fulfil its tasks: people were invited to email questions, which were responded too slowly from the point of view of its senders. Weak attempts were made to get the attention of Internet users towards a certain issue when only a few e-bulle-

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tins and email circuits were sent out. The greatest challenge remained the difficulty of getting voters to visit the respective websites. By the 2005 campaign, the three main parties increased their online efforts, e.g. they all employed e-campaign managers and blogs were used for the first time. Information provision, however, remained the focus, rather than using all the possible tools of the new medium. Email was, however, more widely used. Already prominent service elements like the tax calculator were used again. A rise of use from the electorate was also observable, yet it still did not reach one-fifth of people searching for electoral information and less than five percent of those who were visiting a party website. Taking these numbers into consideration, it seems to be the right choice that the parties used the Internet only as a sideline to the traditional campaign (for this process see Stanyer 2005). In Germany, access to the Internet can be compared to UK nowadays: Ten years ago less than ten percent of the population were online, in 2000 nearly 30 percent used the Internet. In 2003, more than half of the adults over fourteen years old had access to the Internet and, in 2007, over sixty percent of the people were able to go online (van Eimeren/Frees 2007). This numbers are likely to have already increased again. In Germany, web campaigning simply meant having a website in the beginning, which was during the elections to the Bundestag in 1998 (Hebecker 2002: 48). In addition, it was even disadvantageous at times, for instance if the site was not being updated fast enough (Clemens 1999: 155-156). Four years later, intensification was observable, however, this was still an experimental stage when parties were primarily trying to adapt American concepts such as negative campaigning, while evading certain possibilities such as voter targeting. In some ways, parties seemed to interpret the Internet as a playground for the downstream organizations, which were supposed to ‘test’ elements such as negative campaigning with a margin of safety from the party headquarters (ibid.). According to another appraisement an integrated web campaigning could be witnessed in 2002 (Boelter/Cecere 2003: 367; Scholz 2003; see also Gellner/Strohmeier 2002). One could say that there was an evident shift from planning if campaigns should be online, towards planning how to perform this online. It was all about managing issues online, commenting debates, responding to verbal attacks just in time and mobilizing people. Online activities were supposed to be not a supplement, but an augmentation to the offline world. One major party decided to accompany the television debate by a synchronized online offer (spd-extra.de), still available as an archive. In addition, it was not all about feeding information via newsletters or simply by placing information online, but interactive elements like chats also played a role. Interestingly, not all major parties succeeded in promoting their online activities.

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Actually, only one party achieved a cross media platform merchandising (Boelter/Cecere 2002: 372). Altogether it was emphasized that it was and is important to draw attention from the mass media towards online content, as not enough people recognize the online offer without this support. Some further conclusions seem to be extremely optimistic: it is stated that a party was able to gather great ideas for their election, drawn from Internet users (ibid.: 381). Though it would have been difficult to do so systematically, to achieve a sustained success and difficult to understand whether these ideas were of common interest at all. In Germany, blogs are not a tool to collect money, but the blogs of prominent political actors get high attention, irregardless of changes to the author’s activity and, thus, the blog content. Nevertheless, party blogs still do not provoke strong participation by Internet users, as only very few comments are made (Albrecht et al. 2007: 516-517). Entertainment elements have, overall, become important in online campaigning, but special analysis of the impact of politainment still needs to be done.

An Exceptional, Yet Unacquainted Position: France France is not a country in which a specific political party plays a major role. It is more important to be a student of the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA), the cadre institution of higher education of the elite than to belong to one of the manifold, loose party organizations (Abromeit/Stoiber 2006: 105; 168-172). It can be assumed that not the party but candidate web campaigns have come to the fore, though it has to be stated that France is still a ‘blind spot’ on the scientific map of candidate web campaigns. This results, certainly, from the humble development of communication studies in this country, as well as emphasis less on social sciences and more on humanities (Averbeck 2008), which itself is probably the result of the language skills of German and English speaking scientists. Taking into account that fourteen percent of the French population had Internet access in 2000 and more than half of the population goes online in 2008 (Miniwatts Marketing Group undated a), it would be worth looking more closely at France. Evidence from journalistic articles with regard to the impact of the web presence of political actors and their supporters in France is worth reading, though it is also stated, “for much of the campaign, the camps of Sarkozy and his rival Ségolène Royal, were testing and playing with the system” (Carvajal 2007). During the run-up for the 2007 elections, all four major candidates in France opened virtual headquarters in Second Life, an interactive forum that allows ‘inhabitants’ to engage in political discourse online. The

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French politicians entered a new field, where neither the US, nor the British or German politicians had looked at before. This online engagement was due to the French Internet campaign strategists. They admitted that it was only possible to address a small number of technologically savvy voters; however it was supposed to be a chance to reach these undecided voters and above all generate the media interest surrounding the virtual headquarters (Moore 2007; Bieber 2007). Besides the information from an American journalist and a German scholar writing a journalistic article, more information can be found in the traditional mass media than in scientific publications. Another new feature – at least used from the party of Nicolas Sarkozy, was Google Adwords, through which the party paid for a few dozen search words. If one of them was entered into the search engine of Google by an Internet user, this person was automatically led to the party’s site (Dambeck 2006). Finally, it should be pointed out that the differences in the political and media systems indicate a peculiar use of the Internet by French politicians, as well as by French Internet users. The young entrepreneur Loïc Le Meur (born 1972) is one of Europe’s best-known bloggers who often writes about political issues. He invited Nicolas Sarkozy to his blog (www.loiclemeur.com) in order to produce a podcast interview with him (Matlack 2005). Shortly afterwards, he was appointed to the Internet campaigning team of Sarkozy. Blogging is a special phenomenon in France, “as the French distinguish themselves, both statistically and anecdotally, ahead of Germans, Britons and even Americans in their obsession with the personal and public journals of the Internet age. Sixty percent of French Internet users visited a blog in May, ahead of Britain with forty percent and little more than a third in the United States” (Crampton 2006). The journalist Crampton also cites a French politician, saying, “you cannot be elected president of France without a blog” (ibid., see also Initiative pro Dialog 2007: 24). Not at all surprisingly, political blogs of both politicians and Internet users did play an important role during the last elections, however they never really encouraged online dialogue, rather the web was a tool for proclamations (ibid.: 27).

Subsumption of National Characteristics Against the background of party web campaign activities in the US, European parties have been making tentative, rather than rapid steps into cyberspace. For many years it was most striking that European parties did not attempt to do any completely new things. Times have changed, however, and we are able to witness a formerly unknown diligence in web campaigning outside of the US. The French parties have created their own avatars (which is the name of

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the inhabitants in Second Life) and German parties have developed alternative platforms to discuss the television debate. There is not, however, a single original online campaign or public relations activity, which started online to then continue and be completed offline – at least there is no mention of this in the literature. Furthermore, techniques for creating interactivity are only partially employed, thus the online presence is often nothing more than an electronic brochure (Carlson/Djupsund 2001: 84). Evidence of the use of outside PR agencies and PR consultants for web campaigns is fragmentary, as is evidence concerning their employment by political actors. In the beginning of the Internet age, none of the parties made use of them in Germany, and today they do not totally stick to using in-house staff, but simply stated that Internet experts do play a role. We also know of an increasing demand of such expertise in UK, including even purchasing of members of Bill Clinton’s team in the run-up to the 1997 general election (Farrell/Webb 2000: 19). We have also heard a few names of those external experts working for the political actors in France in the mass media. It would be interesting to learn more, not just about the numbers, but also about their exact functions and their influence on political decisions in the context of online activities. New themes can hardly be found in web campaigns in comparison to offline campaigns, as they are always linked to each other. Admittedly new actors connected with these campaigns have to be mentioned again: grassroots activists and people engaging for political actors on the Internet, who probable would not support parties with the same dedication offline. There are not really any benefits for small parties, rather the evolution of web campaigning seems to be a disadvantage for them, as costly expertise is needed to go online. It is also important that mass media pay more attention to the big players online, just as they do offline. Of course, there are counter-arguments stating that when adding up figures (printing costs for posters, advertising folders, etc.) it becomes cheaper using the Internet to reach quite a few people. It would be necessary, however, that more people were technically enabled and willing to search for party information online. Right now, there is just not a big enough audience on the Internet looking for political news. This means that the Internet has to be an additional instrument, which has to be used more professionally, also indicating the necessity on the part of political parties to invest time and money in their Internet activities. Finally, one non-cash benefit can be assessed: party stalwarts can already get a variety of information via the Internet, increasing at least the quantity of material being presented and enabling them to select specific information easily.

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Prospects and Perils for Political Actors and Researchers Ten years ago, the Internet played a minor role in politics, if any at all. Today, political actors who do not use it during elections are not up to speed. Above all, web campaigning has developed new forms of grassroots activism and fundraising. In particular, both are more important in the US than in the European countries, certainly by virtue of the different political systems with their different regulations for collecting and spending money. It would not be possible, however, for any political actor to run future campaigns solely in the cyberspace, instead web campaigns are confined to be a supplementary tool (Schön/Faas 2005: 326-327). Most notably this is unlikely to change until constituents have better access to the Internet and the aptitude for making use of it politically. Becoming media savvy is not only an individual challenge, but could and should be fostered by politicians. Internet access and its use by regular constituents can be interpreted as a sign of progress and more than sixty percent of the American, German, French, and British people are regularly online. This also means, however, that many of them are not online. It might be one solution that states all over the world provide more high-speed Internet access at no charge in public facilities, even if they do not know that people are utilizing it and frequently searching for political information. Campaign communication has become more malleable in sense of targeting different groups of recipients, as it is easier to develop more targeted debates online than offline. But right now, political party web campaigns are not addressing new circles of voters, as Internet users are already among the most politically well-informed and the most interested voters. Parties have been constantly increasing the sophistication of their web campaigns. Nevertheless, the Internet is mainly used as a tool for informing highly interested voters and supporters of their own party rather than providing new mechanisms for interactions with them. Providing online information during elections does not give a party an innovative certificate, it is the standard. The often heard argument that the Internet is a low-cost medium that allows two-way communication (amongst others Rice 2004: 4; Bennett 2003) has to be adjusted to the increased time and effort necessary to really use it properly for clients’ own aims in communicating with target groups. Being able to activate grassroots supporters is a mixed blessing: their activities have to be coordinated, too, in order to control the central message. Finally, it can be stated that developments in web campaigning are not occurring in vacuums; accordingly, the environment has a crucial impact on it. Among other things, the electoral system influences the use of the Internet. While online fundraising has become prominent and important in the US, it is

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more or less absent in many European countries, surely because of the national campaign finance rules and the state funding for parties.

Consequences for Further Research Further research should take into account the distinguishing features of each country in order to explain differences, such as a candidate-oriented election versus a party-oriented election, legal financial bindings of party activities, the degree of commercialization of the media system and so on. In our opinion, it would be worthwhile to add case studies from countries that have been thus far neglected in research. It would, however, be promising to conduct more studies comparing different countries together with obligatory relevant parameters of the different political and media systems as a conceptual perspective. This would result in conducting studies sensitive to systems instead of predominantly adding one description after the other. Furthermore, it might be helpful to keep in mind that political action always takes place in institutional contexts (Sarcinelli 2007: 54) and therefore researchers must use theories that enable them to understand structures and processes as institutionalized elements. For instance the Institutional Theory (for a good summary see Lammers/Barbour 2006) states that the expectations of the relevant publics have a strong impact on organizational structures (and as a consequence the organizational output). Applying this assumption to political parties, one could say that they orient all their communication activities towards a) their members and b) specific people most likely to vote them, and certainly also adjust their Internet activities according to these idiosyncratic expectations. As parties usually spy on the activities of other competing parties (with regard to new communicating technologies they follow new trends from the US), they are most likely to imitate them, often consolidating developments like web campaigns because they are believed to be expected by the electorate, and obviously a party believed to be a precursor of the campaign will make use of it. There are two important questions, not systematically analyzed thus far. Firstly, what impact does the online presence of political parties have on voters? This is meant not only in terms of polls and voting. It includes whether or not web campaigns render a contribution to newly identifying with a party (over a longer period of time) as well as being willing to start some kind of grassroots activities for political issues or candidates, such as posting your own video. Secondly, it would be very interesting to understand the parties’ motives for presenting themselves online.

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Finally, it seems to be important to have a self-critical look at our definition of political PR campaigns on the Internet, as we pointed out communication takes place predominantly online. Existing studies, however do not compare offline and online activities, but usually focus on one or the other. Therefore we have little knowledge about the real proportion of (and the interrelations between) online and offline campaigns. This would be another highly interesting facet to be included in further research.

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Websites zur Europawahl 2004’, in C. Holtz-Bacha (ed.) Europawahl 2004. Die Massenmedien im Europawahlkampf, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 123-153. Stanyer, J. (2005) ‘Political Parties, the Internet and the 2005 General Election: From Web Presence to E-Campaigning?’, Journal of Marketing Management, 21: 1049-1065. Strandberg, K. (2008) ‘Online Electoral Competition in Different Settings. A Comparative Meta-Analysis of Research on Party Websites and Online Electoral Competition’, Party Politics, 14: 223-244. Trammell, K.D. et al. (2006) ‘Evolution of Online Campaigning: Increasing Interactivity in Candidate Web Sites and Blogs Through Text and Technical Features’, Mass Communication & Society, 9: 21-44. van Eimeren, B. and Frees, B. (2007) ‘Internetnutzung zwischen Pragmatismus und YouTube-Euphorie’, Media Perspektiven. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 7 October 2008). Wicks, R.H. and Souley, B. (2003) ‘Going Negative. Candidate Usage of Internet Web Sites During the Presidential Campaign’, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 80: 128-144. Wielhouwer, P.W. (2006) ‘Grassroots Mobilization’, in S.C. Craig (ed.) The Electoral Challenge: Theory Meets Practice, Washington D.C.: CQ Press, 163182. Williams, A.P. et al. (2005) ‘Blogging and Hyperlinking: Use of the Web to Enhance Viability during the 2004 US Campaign’, Journalism Studies, 6: 177186. Yannas, P. and Lappas, G. (2005) ‘Web Campaign in the 2002 Greek Municipal Elections’, Journal of Political Marketing, 4: 33-50. Zielmann, S. and Röttger, U. (forthcoming) ‘Personalisierung als organisatorische Kommunikationsstrategie? Entwicklung von CEO-Blogs in Deutschland, Frankreich, Italien und Großbritannien’, in M. Eisenegger and S. Wehmeier (eds) Personalisierung der Organisationskommunikation, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

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Virtualized Campaigning for Europe: Towards Reinvigoration of European Public Sphere(s)? Open Dialogue as a New Paradigm in EU Communication While the European Commission (EC) pursued arcane politics for a long time, it has changed its approach during the last decades towards open dialogue in order to invigorate a European public sphere (Brüggemann 2005; Gramberger 1997). Since the discussion of the Maastricht Treaty, the European Union’s (EU) self-description has been characterized by a lack of European public sphere (Tumber 1995: 512). It is said that a European public space would counteract EU democratic shortcomings, such as deficiencies in representation, transparency and accountability. Since that time, there have been repeated calls to develop a European public space, e.g. in the Declaration of Laeken, in which heads of European governments search for initiatives to develop a European public sphere (European Council 2001). The most outstanding policy document in this context is the White Paper on European Governance demanding to close gaps between the EU and its citizens through public debate. In this document, the EC also links the potential emergence of identity processes to a European public sphere: “[p]roviding more information and more effective communication are a pre-condition for generating a sense of belonging to Europe” (Commission of the European Communities 2001: 11). Furthermore, in this document, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are said to “have an important role” (ibid.) in communicating more actively with the general public on European issues. After the French and Dutch rejection of the European Constitution in May and June 2005 respectively, the EC has increased emphasis on the need to develop a European public sphere and, thus, establish a link between European politics and European citizens. The initiative Plan-D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate, published in October 2005, can be seen as an EC effort to “reinvigorate European democracy and help the emergence of a European public sphere, where citizens are given the information and the tools to actively participate in the decision making process and gain ownership of the European project” (Commission of the European Communities 2005: 2-3). Currently, and also in the context of Plan-D, the EC actively promotes the Internet as a democratic communication tool of involvement, participation and dialogue. Hence, the EU has formally recognized its democratic deficiencies and, among other solutions, has suggested the use of the Internet as key to

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solving related problems. This recognition is further expressed by the launch of various web campaigns, understood as a tool for fostering democracy (Commission of the European Communities 2007: 5). At this juncture it is obvious that the interrelations between European integration, participation and public sphere are forming the starting point of this chapter. In general, causal links are established in two different ways: Gerhards (2002: 154) argues that democratic deficit of the EU generates a deficit of a European public sphere and, conversely, the argument is brought forward that a European public sphere could resolve the democratic deficit (Habermas 2001). In this chapter, no causal claims will be made; rather it is assumed that there is a relationship between public sphere(s) and a democratic European process. In the reviewed literature, deliberation is a consistent focus with regard to the democratic potential of the Internet for a (European) public sphere. For instance, Splichal (2006: 703) argues that the Internet may be a better space for deliberation since it enables participants to “[…] detach themselves from the subjective personal conditions of their judgments and reflect on issues from a universal standpoint”. Drawing from Kant, Splichal refers to this as a strong public sphere. In contrast to Splichal, Young (1996) argues more generally in her critique of deliberative theorists that the deliberative framework does not have to be rejected but expanded in order to understand differences of culture and social perspective as resources for reaching understanding, rather than divisions. In her view, people have not reached an understanding when they have transcended what differentiates them, resulting in mutual identification through shared meanings, beliefs or principles. Understanding in the framework of what she has coined communicative democracy means, rather, understanding another social or cultural location through which people situate their interest or experience in a wider context. This results in a more comprehensive account of social relations and consequences of action. Young’s theoretical approach also includes non-rational acts of communicative expression, involved in this process of situating oneself. Young underlines the positive effects of rhetoric in achieving such a connection, since “[h]umour, wordplay, images, and figures of speech embody and color the arguments, making the discussion pull on thought through desire” (ibid.: 127-8). Corresponding with Young’s view, it is assumed that communication within (web) campaigns comprises also emotional and affective forms of communication which might be able to contribute to a more comprehensive account of the involved users and, given the transnational context, also to overcome language barriers.1

1

For a cultural studies research perspective see Winter in this volume.

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Against this backdrop, the chapter is driven by two interrelated questions. Firstly, how is the actual use of the Internet connected to the aforementioned change in approach by the EU towards open dialogue with regard to web campaigning? Secondly, in what ways do the EU web campaigns contribute to virtualized public sphere(s) in Europe and offer a space of public discussion about European politics? These two questions are approached by, firstly, conceptualizing a notion of web campaigns that takes into account the interrelations of practices, structures and technology and, secondly, by exemplifying the online activities of the campaign European Year 2007 of Equal Opportunities for All (EY 2007) which was conducted by the EC. The analysis of the EY 2007 aims to examine to what extent open dialogue and participation are actually pursued on the Internet. This analysis also seeks, thirdly, to discuss political web campaigning against the backdrop of the findings. In doing so, this chapter addresses the current research deficit. Research on a virtualized European public sphere is in its fledgling stages: Machill et al.’s (2006) and Seethaler’s (2006) meta-analyses of studies and articles published in scientific journals find, respectively, that new media are not at all or only rarely considered in European public sphere research (for exceptions see Loitz 2001; Mattoni in this volume; Niesyto 2007; Mosca/Santucci in this volume; Shahin/Neuhold 2007; Smith 2007; Wodak/Wright 2006; Zimmermann et al. 2004). As already noted in this volume by Baringhorst, political communication research has, furthermore, not given much attention thus far to campaigning efforts of government institutions on the web. This is illustrated by the vast amount of literature focusing on e-campaigning by parliaments and/or party organizations (e.g. Chen et al. 2007; Coleman 2006; Gibson/Ward 2003; Lusoli/Jankowski 2005; Maier/Tenscher 2006).

Web Campaigns: ‘Reproducers’ and ‘Reshapers’ Before I turn to the analysis of the empirical example, theoretical consideration of the term web campaigning calls for further elaboration given the interactive potential of the Internet. In general, campaigns are defined as communicative strategies that show staged and theatrical elements. They are thematically restricted, temporally restricted and strive to generate and attract public attention. Campaigns, thereby, implement a set of different communication tools and techniques: advertising, marketing and classical public relations (Röttger 2006: 9-10). In order to fulfil the selection criteria to be included within the media system, campaigns have to tell a clear, simplistic narrative with ‘one voice’. Campaign work calls for catchy slogans, visualizations and reduced complexity in order to connect with the lifeworlds of groups and people that

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the campaign would like to mobilize. In terms of political campaigning, central political actors face the challenge to not only communicate with specific target groups but also to potentially address all citizens. Although at the outset of campaign work, it should be mentioned that different groups of addressees can be distinguished. Beyond these requirements, in the case of transnational campaigning, different geographical levels (local, national, transnational) must be covered and an issue that might be able to evoke resonance across cultures must be communicated. In the literature two criteria are identified for successful transnational issues: “1) issues involving bodily harm to vulnerable individuals, especially when there is a short and clear causal chain (or) story assigning responsibility; and 2) issues involving legal equality of opportunity” (Keck/Sikkink 1998: 27). While protest actors generally choose conflict campaigns in order to make their claims visible on the public agenda, it can be assumed that governmental actors such as the EU conduct consensus campaigns and solidarity campaigns that fulfil the aforementioned criteria. In this context, consensus campaigns consider solidarity to be an end in itself, in order to build legitimacy and to stabilize the existing regime (Trenz 2002: 96-97). The central question remains how these governmental consensus campaigns appropriate the Internet. Taking the notion of web campaigns as sociotechnical networks as a starting point, it can be assumed that features of consensus and solidarity campaigning are not only reproduced on the Internet but are also reshaped as “[…] technologies are both functional implements of human practice and mediating artefacts that intervene in and reshape practices” (Foot/Schneider 2006: 15). By adopting self-organizing technologies, such is my hypothesis, the previously outlined practices might be reshaped. The EY 2007 is examined qualitatively in order to find out in which ways these campaigns might change their practices.

European Year of Equal Opportunities for All (EY) As noted above the specific case of the EU campaign EY 2007 was chosen in order to assess the political web campaigning conducted by European executive bodies. This campaign has been selected primarily for three reasons. Firstly, it is integrated in EUROPA website of the EU, which was “set to evolve into an inter-active platform for information, feedback and debate, linking parallel networks across the Union” (Commission of the European Communities 2001: 11). Secondly, contrary to the online futurum forum established to enhance public debate during the constitutional discussions (Wodak/Wright 2006), the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All, as a chain of awareness-raising campaigns, forms a continuous effort. The EY was estab-

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lished first in 1983 and has been repeated annually with a different thematic focus (European Parliament undated). Thirdly, the EY represents a common effort by EU institutions as annual topics are suggested by the EC and, then, decided through a co-decision procedure by the European Parliament and the Council. The EY 2007 runs parallel to the five year pan-European information campaign For Diversity. Against Discrimination2 and was launched in order to raise awareness of EU citizens’ rights to enjoy equal treatment irrespective of sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion, disability, age, and sexual orientation. On the organizational level, a decentralized approach spread the numerous campaign activities across national, regional, and local levels of twenty-seven participating member states. At a national level, activities were identified and implemented by the National Implementing Bodies, which were themselves designated by participating countries. Decentralization was also pursued through inclusion of civil society actors and so called key stakeholders such as the Confederation of European Business in activities organized on the different levels during the EY 2007. Overall, there have been many activities such as conferences, summits, a truck tour, discussions, competitions, and so forth. To focus on the research questions and assess the virtualized campaign activities conducted by the European executive bodies themselves, the following analysis looks exclusively at the online activities at the European level. These activities are, namely, information provision on websites, websites of the photo and film contests, the YouTube video3 and its comments.

Methodology Despite a few attempts (Hine 2005; Mann/Stewart 2000), the reviewed literature does not present a coherent methodological framework for website analysis. Relatively new technological developments such as YouTube or MySpace offer new methodological challenges. Given this research desideratum, I draw on different methods in order to consider the multimedia characteristics of the World Wide Web. Hence methodologically, the campaign analysis draws firstly from the distinction of (a) analysis orientated towards services and content offered on the websites and (b) analysis orientated towards the actual use of the online offers (Rössler/Wirth 2001).

2

This campaign was run by the EC from 2003-2007. The website of this campaign is available at: www.stop-discrimination.info.

3

The websites as well as the video have been created on an operational level by the contracted Germany-based agency Media Consulta.

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(a)

Within the first strand, the analysis refers to critical discourse analysis (Wodak 2004) in order to examine the campaign’s set messages to asses how and with what intentions the EC used the campaign website (equality2007.europa.eu)4 for the establishment of a transnational public space. In doing so, a semi-structured expert interview with the EU coordinator of the campaign was conducted.5 This interview serves as a backup for the empirical results gained through discourse analysis and/or serves a corrective function. In the context of transnational campaigns visual codes are particularly important due to the fact that actors can not necessarily rely on a shared language. Analysis will, therefore, also consider visual artefacts communicated within the campaign.

(b)

With regard to the second strand, analysis of visual artefacts will be applied to selected pictures of the campaign’s EU Diversity Contest (www.eudiversity.com) and European Photo Competition for Diversity (photocom petition.stop-discrimination.info) in which young people and students were specifically asked “[…] to get involved by getting creative” (DiverseCity 2007b).6

While the EU campaign coordinator’s interview provides contextual information about the campaign’s discursive elements set by professionals, the analysis of the user created visual content is restricted due to a lack of access to producers. Given the limited data, I am aware that the analysis employing the documentary method (Bohnsack 2006) can only be preliminary as the interpretation cannot rely on contextual data such as the cultural and social background, the media competence of the producer and the origin of the picture. These are necessary factors to understand the visual language of young people’s visual artefacts (Niesyto 2006). Though employing the documentary method developed by Bohnsack, I do not support the underlying thesis saying that interpretations can be derived exclusively from the immanent and documentary meaning of the visual artefacts. For this reason the interpretations provided in this chapter have to be regarded as only tentative. In the context of the analysis which is orientated towards the actual use of the online offers the ninety-one comments of the campaign’s YouTube video (EUtube European Commission 2007) are examined by employing critical discourse analysis to assess the users’ perceptions of the campaign’s message. 4

All quoted websites were accessed on 18 May 2008.

5

Interview with Catherine Magnant on 18 March 2008 conducted by Johanna Niesyto.

6

Note that the analysis is restricted to the winner pictures given the length of this article.

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In general, discourse analysis is said to treat technology as a blind spot. Although by employing the critical discourse analysis of Wodak and Wright (2006), the interrelations between the design of a website or a feature and the development of a semiotic genre are brought into consideration. Given the scope of this chapter’s task, I am aware that this qualitative analysis will only provide initial answers that have to be proved by future qualitative, quantitative, and longitudinal analysis of EU web campaigning, relying also on backend data, user interviews and hyperlink network analysis.

The Campaign Website Overall, the information provision function dominates the campaign website equality2007.europa.eu. Information provision as a basis for the formation of a European online public space is also underscored by the European campaign’s coordinator: We needed every country to be able to know what other countries were doing, for this purpose the website was offered in twenty-two languages. […] Also, a main purpose of the website was to give access to the different stakeholders as well as the groups and people participating in the campaigns such as schools and the public in general. Further, the website served as a truly European platform, where all the different nationalities could have been brought together.7 The following qualitative analysis draws from Wodak and Weiss’ (2005: 129) heuristic model, distinguishing between the following three dimensions of European public sphere discourse: ideational (making meaning of Europe), geographical (drawing borders) and organizational (organizing Europe). Interestingly enough, first and foremost the campaign addresses the ideational dimension. In doing so, existing patterns of inequality, experienced by certain groups and communities in Europe such as the Roma, are framed as a problem. Next to this, the topos of ongoing growing diversity, which is said to be rooted for instance in the EU’s ageing population or its increasing multi-ethnicity, is depicted as a challenge for a non-discriminatory European society (2007 – European Year of Equal Opportunities for All undated b). As a solution, the campaign promotes already enacted anti-discrimination legislation,8 7

Interview with Catherine Magnant.

8

Namely the Racial Equality Directive and the Employment Framework Directive both following article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty, which prohibits discrimination on grounds of nationality, and both being enacted in 2000. Next to it is information

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which is said to be “one of the most extensive in the world” (ibid.), but has recognized, in practice, that equal rights and enacted laws alone will not ensure equal opportunities for all. In line with this, the campaign aims mainly at promoting values such as respect in order to support the fight against discrimination. It strives to “[…] raise awareness among the public and the people concerned to the importance of eradicating clichés, stereotypes and violence, and promoting good relations among all members of society, particularly young people” (ibid.). Hence, the campaign calls for “a change in behaviour and mentality” (ibid.). At this point it becomes clear that the campaign also strives to mobilize in terms of the organizational dimension: every individual is said to be able to make a contribution to a just society based on solidarity. Citizens and groups in Europe are called to participate in an open debate “on the meaning of diversity in contemporary Europe and ways of valuing differences in society” (ibid.). At this juncture, the campaign’s organizer states that photos, videos, etc. were regarded as primary and effective mobilization tools.9

Figure 1: Campaign logo (2007 – European Year of Equal Opportunities for All undated a).

The campaign’s logo shows, on the pre-iconographic level (Bohnsack 2006), three abstract upper parts of a body. The bodies have different colours, one is orange, one is pink and one is blue and covered with yellow stars forming a circle. The blue body in the middle is bigger compared to the others and does not have arms, while the other bodies stretch their arms out to the left and right. The writing, which also contains the campaign’s name, is inserted in the logo in black letters. On the iconographic level, the generalized communicative knowledge is that that the yellow stars on the dark blue background represent the European flag and the outstretched arms might indicate hugging. On the level of the reflective interpretation, the planimetric composition is dominated by three abstract upper bodies, though the one presenting the European flag is emphaabout the Framework strategy for non-discrimination and equal opportunities for all introduced in June 2005. 9

Interview with Catherine Magnant.

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sized by the fact that the planimetrical centre is located on it. Placed upon the vertical centre axis of the logo, attention is drawn to the flag. Concerning the perspective projection, no natural perspective is chosen for the abstract bodies are one-dimensional. The overlapping of the bodies, however, makes them appear in a common artificial space with the left orange body appearing in the middle ground, the one with the flag in the background and the pink body in the foreground. Each body is shown in a frontal perspective with no differences in height. The scenic choreography reveals that no subject is especially positioned as all have the same height. The iconological-iconic interpretation can draw the conclusion that the message of solidarity and diversity is communicated in a compressed manner through the rather abstract logo, which focuses on the people. While the different colours signify diversity, the stylized insinuation of hugging or reaching with the arms for the neighbour symbolizes solidarity based upon the common European space represented in the logo’s planimetric centre. Overall, the analysis shows that the EY 2007 promotes ideological claims in favour of comprehensive humanitarian goals or universalistic values, which support the integration of diverse parties and an activation of collective solidarity characteristic for solidarity campaigns. At the same time, the campaign praises “benefits of diversity both for European societies and individuals” (2007 – European Year of Equal Opportunities for All undated a). In this manner, as a discursive element, the campaign contributes to the overall discourse of Europe and parallels the findings of the Research Centre Discourse-Politics-Identity, which examined the construction of Europe as a discourse: Wodak and Weiss find that this discourse is dominated by the view that “there is one ‘culture’ that is determined by many cultures. According to this view, Europe is unified by common goals and values, by a particular model of society, and by economic and legal agreements” (Wodak/Weiss 2005: 121). Thereby the campaign’s message of diversity even applies pluralism, not only to cultures, but also to social roles. Alongside allocating equal rights, in the legal sense, to every member of European society and the promotion of solidarity, the campaign tries to unite a pluralistic society. With regard to the transnational dimension, the EY 2007 fulfils the criteria for successful transnational issues, as established by by Keck and Sikkink (1998), because the campaign promotes awareness of an issue, namely discrimination, which involves (bodily) harm to individuals and groups and tells a clear causal story assigning responsibility to the EU institutions, as well as to every European citizen, although it lacks an explanation why young people are specifically addressed. The analysis reveals, furthermore, that mobilization has been sought primarily through information provision; interactive features to open up participation have not been offered. This lack of interactivity is justified by limited resources:

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One question we discussed was whether to have a chat function or not. But unfortunately we did not have the manpower a chat function requires. […] To put it bluntly, we did not have the capacity to have an interactive website.10 Nevertheless the campaign sought to integrate interactive elements through the so-called microsites for creative competitions and YouTube videos. Therefore, the crucial question approached in the following by the examination of participation on campaign websites is: To what extent and in which ways netizens have contributed to the campaign’s aesthetic language, have been integrated through self-articulation and have performed online deliberation?

User-Generated Visual Artefacts The first creative competition, called The European Photo Competition for Diversity, was supported by both the EY 2007 and the campaign For Diversity. Against Discrimination. It ran in all twenty-seven EU member states and invited photography, art and design students to send in their photo designs latest until 31 July 2007. The goal was to present their view on the campaign’s main issue. The competition tried to mobilize by promising that the visual artefacts would be published on posters and flyers in order to convey the campaign’s messages to a young audience and through the incentive that the thirty-five best entries would be part of a travelling exhibition across Europe. Financial incentives were also given, €3,000 for the winner and €3,000 for the winner’s university or school, €2,000 for the second place and €1,000 for the third placed entry. The best photos were selected by a jury of photographers, young artists, and experts in the fields of design and communication, who judged the contributions according to their creativity, contextual understanding of the anti-discrimination campaign, as well as universal European appeal (European Photo Competition for Diversity undated b). Beyond information provision about the competition, the website invited users to register themselves online and to upload their entry11 together with their personal data, institutional affiliation, the picture title, and an explanation of the design approach in no more than 150 words. One additional menu item presents thirty-four visual entries of participants together with the photo titles, the names of the creators, and their institutional affiliations. Users’ statements in form of the requested explanation, however, were not published online, so that context information con-

10 Interview with Catherine Magnant. 11 Postal entry was also offered.

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cerning the self-interpretation is restricted. The competition winner’s picture is analyzed below in order to exemplify the user’s understanding of the campaign’s message.

Figure 2: (European Photo Competition for Diversity undated a).

The black-and-white shot by Krzysztof Goluch, Czech Republic/Poland,12 entitled Disabled – remains of the day shows in the fore and middle ground, on the pre-iconographic level, the back view of a rather elderly man sitting in a wheelchair revealing his face in a rear-view mirror and casting shadow to his right. The wheelchair is placed in the right half of the picture and stands still on dark grey concrete. The picture does not show any signs of movement since the white man in his light coat sits motionless in the wheelchair. In the background, one can see steep stone stairs filling two-thirds of the picture. The stairs are not completely visible as they continue outside the frame. On the iconographic level, the only generalized communicative knowledge given is that the creative photography student has sent this picture to the campaign’s competition. Therefore the motive of the disabled person’s motionlessness may be grounded in his need for help, whether in sense of a barrier-free environment and/or in the sense of help by other persons in order to cope with the stairs. Given the broader context of the campaign, the solitude of the handicapped

12 The Institute of Creative Photography is based in the Czech Republic. Because also Poland is indicated it can be assumed the author’s origin is Poland.

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man in the public environment of a street or square mirrors an everyday situation of discrimination. On the level of the reflective interpretation, the planimetric composition is dominated by the grey concrete and stone environment and, in particular, by the stairs which stretch forward towards the image plane across the total picture from the left to the right. This effect is reinforced by the fact that the planimetric centre (the image’s centre) is located on the stairs. Further the disabled man is situated next to the planimetric centre, as well as next to the vertical central axis, thus dividing the picture in two halves. One half is filled with the man sitting in his wheelchair while the other half remains empty. With these divisions, the vertical central axis gains importance for the scenic choreography, in particular the rear-view mirror with the elderly man’s face is placed right next to this axis. With regard to perspective projection, the picture is composed of a central perspective. The image’s creator has situated the vanishing point of the man in the wheelchair outside of the picture sitting above the man. Through this choice the picture gains a special focus, as both the producer and the picture’s recipients approach the displayed situation from a worm’s-eye view, which effects the scenic choreography. The latter reveals the central importance of the elderly person being directly situated in front of the stairs. The iconological-iconic interpretation can, thus, conclude that by choosing the worm’s-eye view both the producer as well as the recipient take up the role of a distanced outside observer. This perspective also contributes to the visual dominance of the stairs and allows the disabled person to appear bigger. The central focus on the person in his social identity of being old and disabled is also emphasized by the vertical centre axis, which highlights the rear-view mirror and reveals the personal identity of the handicapped person. Since he looks down, the impression emerges that he concedes to his inability to climb the stairs. Because no one else except the man is in the picture, this pure and simple helplessness finds its roots in discrimination, the main message contained in the picture. A similar conclusion is also drawn by the jury’s judgement: At first glance, the winning photograph evokes a feeling of deep solitude and helplessness. It is this rawness and emptiness which draws the viewer to the image. While depicting facets of discrimination such as age and disability, the stark, black and white photograph has a lasting impact on the viewer on both a visual and an emotional level. The photo generates reflection while sending a simple yet powerful message: it encourages those who look at it to speak out and stand up against discrimination (ibid.).

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In all, the competition’s slogan “your view, your perspective, your photo” underlines that the winner’s photo, as an individual contribution, pays attention to a certain aspect of discrimination, namely the exclusion of disabled and/or old people which itself depicts the lack of equality and highlights the potential differences between the photographed subject and the outside observer. Against it, other photos did not focus on (non-)equality but on diversity in a positive manner, in the sense of enriching society.

Figure 3: YouTube video “What does equality mean to you?” (EUtube European Commission 2007).

The second creative competition which was again conducted by both EU campaigns was launched with a thirty second advertisement spot on MTV13 in order to appeal to young people and to invite them to enter photos and videos on the theme of equality and diversity with a deadline of 8 December 2007. The advertisement not only addressed professional young people, in contrast to the previous competition, but was also launched in the EUtube channel on YouTube in October 2007. The advertisement opens with a face of a Muslim woman wearing a black headscarf. Her forehead, eyes, nose, and mouth change rapidly and show a tripartite face with people of different origins, religion, ages, sexual orientation and (dis)abilities. In the last sequence of the spot, young people are shown creating artworks and a voiceover invites them to submit photos or films. Throughout the film, a female voiceover speaks the following text accompanied by a lively melody:

13 This collaboration with MTV was proposed by the consultancy agency Media Consulta (Interview with Catherine Magnant).

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We are all different and all equal. If we work together, we can try and make equality a reality. For the chance to win a fantastic trip to a European city of your choice, join us at EUdiversity.com and show us what equality means to you! (EUtube European Commission 2007) This competition tried to mobilize participants through the incentive of winning a €4,000 trip for two people to a European city of their choice and through the chance for publication in an awareness raising initiative. The winner was decided by users’ online votes. As part of the competition, a website employing the moniker DiverseCity was set up. Here, young people were invited to enter the competition but could also independently create an online identity and become part of a virtual town without having to join the competition (see details of the website in figure 4).

Figure 4: DiverseCity (DiverseCity 2007c).

Online identities were created by selecting an icon and personality traits (e.g. “I like to cook with my friends”) from a given list. As you see in figure 4, online identities are completed with the following contextual information: name, gender, age, and hometown. These personal details appear by clicking on the icons. The identities that join the competition provide this information in their speech balloons. By clicking within these speech balloons on an icon, their artwork, e.g. a film or a photo, is presented. The icons, together with the contextual information, illustrate diversity concerning personality traits, nationality,

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age and with regard to the artworks also concerning different perspectives on diversity and equality. Although these options are rather limited, users not joining the competition could only choose between preset answers and their own perspective messages could only be expressed by submitting a visual artefact: “If it represents your views on equality, we want to see it. Think about what benefits diversity brings, what equality really means and help people understand that they don’t have to suffer discrimination alone” (DiverseCity 2007b). The example of the winner’s picture is examined in the following.

Figure 5: “We taste different but we are equal” (DiverseCity 2007a).

The winning picture designed by Elena Bezborodova and Alina Vologzhanin from Limerick shows, on the pre-iconographic level, nine different sized and coloured apples on a white background, on seven apples are stickers. Some of them even have several stickers. The writing “we grew on different places we taste different but we are equal” is inserted in the picture in black letters. On the iconographic level, the generalized communicative knowledge provided states that apples grow in different places around the world, such as Asia, North America and Europe, but also that they are sold all across the world. On the iconographic level, the stickers, furthermore, indicate different European flags such as the Italian or the Spanish flag pointing to the fact that some apples come from Europe and also grow in different European countries, while the origin of other apples is hidden. Given the broader context of the campaign, the different origins mirror diversity through the example of a commonly

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known object, the apple. On the level of reflective interpretation, the planimetric composition is dominated by the red and green apples. This is emphasized by the fact that the planimetric centre is located on one apple. With it, the vertical and horizontal central axes draw the viewer’s attention to the apples. Concerning the perspective projection, no consistent perspective is chosen by the producers since no technique is employed to differentiate depth and placement of the apples, such as height, which would identify that the apples are sharing a common space. Against it, every apple is shown from a frontal perspective, but also showing different sides, and the apples seem to be photographed independently from each other. That is why the picture does not show a natural sequence but seems to be created by the use of postproduction. In this way, the apples were assembled in an artificial symbolic space. The scenic choreography, which looks at the arrangements of the subjects and objects towards each other, reveals that no object is specially positioned: the distances between the apples appear to be the same. Against this backdrop, the formal analysis of the iconological-iconic interpretation can come to the conclusion that the picture deals mainly with the issues equality and diversity. In line with the campaign’s message, these two issues are not communicated as opposing contradictory ends. The picture tries, rather, in a playful manner to merge these concepts in the metaphor of an apple. The metaphorical character of the picture is revealed by the given text, identifying the apples with an eventual European community of people forming a ‘we’. While the abstract notion of diversity is exemplified through the different forms, colours, and angles of the apple, by the national flags and the notion of ‘different places’, the notion of equality remains abstract. It is only displaced by the symmetry of the image composition and by the very nature of an apple and a human being respectively. In particular, the artificial creation of the (symmetrical) symbolical space points out the hidden layers of equality in terms of values such as human dignity. Other contributions did not show this professionalism and abstractness, containing instead photo collages of the people’s private pictures or showing conceived scenes or situations in (moving) pictures that focused on special aspects of diversity such as sexual orientation or ethnic origin. As an interim conclusion, it can be suggested that the DiverseCity displayed rather individualistic support of the campaign message. Both contests gave participants the chance to express their views as well as to contribute to the aesthetic language of the message through the publication of submitted visual artefacts online and inclusion of selected pieces in campaign promotion across Europe. While the winner’s black-and-white shot from the first competition addressed the problem of discrimination by exemplifying certain aspects of being disabled and/or elderly, the winner’s picture of the second competition highlights the positive effects of diversity by introducing the apple as metaphor

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and by using strong colours. By attaching some national flags, this picture also denotes a European context, whereas the black-and-white winning photograph addresses a rather universal context. Both pictures, though, can be interpreted as positive judgements on the campaigns’ universal claim “Equality for All” and “For Diversity. Against Discrimination” respectively.

Comments on the YouTube Video According to campaign’s coordinator, these positive judgements reflect the general trend: “Regarding online and offline response to the campaign, we did not have much controversial or critical judgement. The response covered, rather, reports on what was happening”14. In contrast, the overall rating of the campaign advertisement on YouTube with three out of five potential stars suggests a rather ambivalent perception, although it is slightly positive. In total, the video entitled “What does equality mean to you?” had 67,285 views and has been commented on ninety-one times at the time of the analysis (EUtube European Commission 2007). Since the YouTube commenting function allows chronological but not thematic ordering, every video is accompanied by no more than one thread. In line with Wodak and Wright’s (2006) assumption that semiotic fields are also generated by the design of a website or an interactive feature, the aforementioned quantitative analysis reveals that deliberation, in a Habermasian sense, might be restricted by the design and principles of YouTube. Out of the ninety-one comments, fifty-one users commented only one time, eleven people two times, two participants three times and four users used this function four times. Therefore the chance of ongoing deliberation in terms of negotiation and compromise is small, rather it can be expected that single comments refer to the video or to previous comments. Furthermore, the quantitative analysis finds that English is the dominating language: eightyseven comments are in English whereas only five comments are made in a language other than English (Bulgarian, French, Italian, German). Since the video itself, the title as well as the channel description, are in English, one can argue that this lack of language diversity is influenced by the language choice of the video’s producers, namely the EC. The following qualitative analysis draws also from Wodak and Weiss’ (2005: 129) heuristic model, which distinguishes the following three dimensions of the European discourse: ideational, geographical and organizational. Given the video’s title, the discursive topic equality in the EU is frequently addressed and used as a major claim to which the topic diversity is subordinated. 14 Interview with Catherine Magnant.

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Within this ideational dimension users refer to aspects purposely conceived and illustrated in the video, such as sexual orientation or religion. In particular, the woman dressed with a black headscarf and appearing at the very beginning of the video evokes different comments and opinions over a long time span. While some comments express surprise, other comments imply anger towards Muslims’ behaviour and/or attitudes: wuchteck: If my wife goes e.g. to Saudia Arabia she has to cover her head. But somebody with a bourka is allowed to wear this terrible thing, totally opposed to our cultural heritage. In many Muslim countries Christians are not allowed to follow their religion and it is forbidden by law to convert to another religion. But here Muslims have all rights. So (in their homelands) they want us to obey their rules, their culture (ibid.). This opinion evoked the response below, which attempts to transfer the concern for equality onto the concept of religious freedom, then refers to a metalevel of identifying equality as a Western idea: capslock86: That is what makes the western world different. So instead of following pathetic religious traditions, support equality (ibid.). In a similar way, aspects of social and economic equality, as well as equality between people of different ethnic origins and of sexual orientations, are discussed. Beyond opinion exchanges about conceived subjects within this ideational dimension, there is a more abstract discussion emerging about whether people are equals and about what a European is. Discussion of these sorts call into question the campaign’s messages: elvoord: There is a difference between fighting negative discrimination and not defining what a european is. Does it make you scream if I say the Europeans are in majority white… european? I see quite a lot of videos on this channel, that are very perpendicular to the [building] of a European nation. Euamerican: No. THIS makes me scream!!! Again, this has nothing to do with the domina[nt] physical characteristic of “Europeans!” This has to do with treating people as equal based on the virtue of being a human beings, not if they are of a physical characteristic of European (have fair skin). This again, based on the European value of inherent human dignity of every person, no matter what ‘race’ he/she might be. Yes, we are all equals!

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Europeanpatriot: we are NOT equal. What kind of bullshit is this? European Patriots are not left-wing. ‘Political correctness’ will kill the European dream! Even the world-renowned biologist Dr. James Watson (DNA pioneer and Nobel Laureate) argues that we are in fact not all ‘equal’. […] We are in no way all ‘equal’. That is left-wing bullshit! mariofrendo0: we are all humans. That’s what makes us equal – the right to live. Euamerican: What [you] are actually talking about is human physical diversity. This has nothing to do with human beings treated as equals in society based on the inherent human dignity of every human being (a European value)! Your are mixing up race (as defined by biologists) and culture […] (ibid.). This extract of comments reveals argumentative moments between different positions. Due to the fact, however, that most commentators express their opinion only once, compromise or consensus are never achieved. The use of exclamation marks, capital letters and negative words such as “bullshit” emotionalize the conversation even while rational argumentation is being simultaneously employed, e.g. by referring to scientific findings. It is noteworthy that Europeanpatriot’s view represents a minor claim. Against this claim, though discussing equality also as problem, the underlying European values are said to consist of “human dignity”, “fair treatment” and “peace”. Furthermore, expressions such as “EU guarantees my rights” can be regarded as a positive attitude towards the EU. Expressions such as “I Love EU” or “EU 4EVER” (ibid.) are also rather affirmative statements that do not give reasons or motives to highlight the individual positions. Moreover, the above quoted discussion between wuchtek and capslock86 shows that Europe as a discourse is also constructed with regard to the discursive geographical dimension (drawing borders) since in wuchtek’s comment, in particular, Europe is demarcated from the Arabic world, while the second comment attaches this characteristic to the Western world in general. One also finds that no further elaboration of statements demanding “UK OUT OF THE EU!!!” or discussing the possible integration of Turkey. Interestingly, some comments discuss the (non-)existence of a demarcation from an ideational overlap with the US. YugoMix, alluding to the diversity in the video, states “this seems more a video about america than Europe” (ibid.). The two following entries reciprocate and draw an implicit distinction between the EU and the US, e.g. through saying “it seem u never lived in the USA and in the EU” (ibid.). Given the lack of deliberation and justification one may claim that

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such expressions, alongside the affirmative examples given above, indicate a certain self-understanding of the EU, which in the user’s view does not need further explanation as it is probably seen as a common interpretation. Interviews with the commentators could help to elaborate the underlying attitudes and motifs. The discursive organizational dimension of the campaign is also addressed by commentators. With regard to anti-discrimination legislation, some users complain about having different situations in different countries, e.g. Bulgaria. Replying to these complaints, three users see the solution in a common policy but consider it to be an utopia as “each member has its own policy and political interest” (ibid.). Furthermore, the topic of equality is linked to having the same rights to decide upon the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum: “Not very equal that Ireland is the only nation to be given the right to reject your constitution!!” (ibid.). Here, the mentioning of “your constitution” indicates that this entry is written by a non-EU citizen. Another example of connecting the campaign’s message to the organizational dimension is the constructed link between equality and European language politics. Two of the five non-English comments criticize the use of the English language as letting the message of campaign video to ring hollow. The two French- and Italian-speaking commentators plead for a neutral language used as the official communication of EU institutions (ibid.). The statements of these users overlap with a discourse fragment that is outside of the three dimensions proposed by Wodak and Weiss, which have paralleled the campaign’s agenda. Criticizing the campaign video and, thus, judging the way the EC’s attempts to establish a virtualized European public space can be regarded as a meta-level discourse strand. At this juncture, some frame the campaign advertisement as propaganda. The following quote illustrates such a stance: “I am proud european and I like basic ideas of EU. But propaganda like this makes me sick” (ibid.). Further campaign efforts are seen as inefficient: “If they’re doing such a ‘great job’, why does nobody I kno[w] anything about their efforts? The EU are doing here what they do with everything else: talking the talk and making absolutely no difference at all” (ibid.). At the same time others express positive judgements, e.g. “nice video” or “good design” (ibid.). To sum up, the previous analysis shows that rational deliberative moments are rare. The communication consists, rather, of judgmental comments that regularly refer to each other and are characterized by an informal, (self-)expressive use of language. Yet, these findings indicate that this virtualized online space indeed gathers different views of EU and non-EU citizens. Moreover, users set the campaign’s video into the context of a wider discourse by bridging to ideational, geographical and organizational dimensions. In doing so, re-

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contextualization in the sense of altering one topic “[…] in order to adapt them to new interlocutors/arguments/situations” (Wodak/Wright 2006: 255) is applied within one communicative space. This recontextualization also applies to the video’s title/question “What does equality mean to you?” (EUtube European Commission 2007), which is answered by a multifaceted communication which extends to the meta-level of challenging the campaign’s approach to establish a European virtualized public space.

Towards Reinvigoration? According to Gibson et al. the term reinvigoration draws attention to the Internet’s restructuring potential: [i]f developed properly, the communication technologies could sit at the core of a reinvigorated representative institution that could truly listen and, thus, re-engage the public (Coleman 1999a, b). Rather than just modernizing internal practices, this would provide more opportunities for the public to participate in the political system and would reconnect representative organizations with the public. (Gibson et al. 2004: 7) The analysis revealed that the change of EU approach towards open dialogue was not realized in the online activities of the EY 2007 campaign to its full extent, as the campaign website showed a lack of interactive features. Here, a dialogue between the EC and EU citizens, as well as communicative exchange among citizens was not achieved through the campaign website. Re-engagement of the public was sought, however, through two creative virtualized contests addressing the aesthetic dimension of the campaign. The visual analysis of the winner’s picture showed that the campaign’s message was taken over and translated in the photographer’s visual language. Most notably the photo design student’s picture manages to transfer the campaign’s message to a conceived situation of everyday discrimination. At the same time, the winning photo of the second contest produced an abstract visual and linguistic metaphor for the intertwined concepts of diversity and equality promoted by the campaign. In contrast, the campaign video launched on YouTube evoked adhoc statements, which showed very few moments of deliberation. The linking of different discourse dimensions was achieved by the YouTube commentators, who contributed to a more comprehensive and also critical account of what equality in (European) society means. Interestingly, the current European Year 2008, the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, established an English forum on its website and offers a multilingual forum section within the initiative Debate

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Europe. At first glance, however, EY 2007 contributions to the aesthetic language of the campaign ‘from below’ seem to indicate a change of campaigning practices through the appropriation of the Internet. In order to systematically answer the question, in what ways governmental solidarity campaigns are ‘reshaped’, Baringhorst’s (1998) elaboration of protest solidarity campaigns is transferred to campaigns initiated by governmental actors. As the chosen case of EY 2007 adopts non-institutional forms of transnational campaigning such as the mobilizing of civil society actors and individuals through universalistic, humanitarian appeals (Keck/Sikkink 1998), Baringhorst’s reflections can be applied to the governmental context. According to Baringhorst, solidarity campaigns are characterized by: -

an emphasis on aesthetic forms of communication to the end of mediatization;

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withdrawal of political actors in favour of media experts, journalists and celebrities;

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displacement of polarizing political or ideological claims in favour of comprehensive humanitarian goals or universalistic values which support an integration of diverse parties

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and an activation of collective solidarity potentials through affective-emotional appeals to a sense of community (Baringhorst 1998).

Given the findings of the analysis, the following ‘reshaped’ characteristics are identified which have to be proven in further comparative qualitative and quantitative analysis: -

an emphasis on aesthetic forms of communication to the end of transnationalization by encouraging netizens to contribute to the campaign’s aesthetic language;

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(partial) withdrawal of political actors in favour of the individual citizens to communicate their own positive judgements on the campaign’s universalistic claim in order to foster solidarity and to support the governmental activities;

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displacement of polarizing political or ideological claims in favour of comprehensive humanitarian goals or universalistic values which support an integration of diverse parties through self-articulation by these very parties

-

and an activation of collective solidarity potentials through affective-emotional appeals to a sense of community (being also supported by online deliberation).

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Hence, solidarity campaigns on the Internet are not supposed to change their characteristics totally, rather it is assumed that web campaigns will be open channels in favour of individual netizens. This brings the second question to the forefront: in what ways do EU web campaigns contribute to a virtualized public sphere in Europe? Since the chapter has focused on European online activities, no conclusion can be drawn concerning the domestic ‘Europeanized’ communication campaign spaces. With regard to the efforts on the European level, the campaign website gathered information on the campaign from different countries and published videos, flyers from offline assemblies in which, for example, young people expressed their view on equality. In doing so, the campaign website connected different online and offline domestic spaces and, thus, created a European campaign platform. Though the campaign coordinator states: Language is one of the biggest challenges of European campaigning. You have to speak right to people. And for that your really need people on the national level knowing how to address adequately. […] Political culture is another important factor in this context.15 This problem is also encountered on the analyzed YouTube page, which is dominated by the use of the English language.16 In contrast user-generated visual artefacts open vistas of an aesthetic communication across borders. Etymologically the word aisthesis is derived from the Greek verb aisthanomai meaning feeling, sensually perceiving but also experiencing and understanding. According to this, aesthetic comprises cognitive and emotional aspects of perception. Following this, one may argue that the EY 2007 creates a transnational space beyond language barriers. Hence, on the one hand the user generated visual artefacts and the virtual DiverseCity may contribute to, in Young’s (1996) sense, an understanding of another social or cultural location through which people situate their interest or experience. On the other hand, it can be argued with regard to the analyzed visual artefacts that the way of portraying equality and diversity is deeply influenced by the frames set by the campaign communication. As the etymological roots of the word aisthesis further show, visual artefacts and communication is characterized by a high degree of complexity rendering processes of understanding rather difficult. In opposition to this, the YouTube comments are characterized by calling the campaign’s discursive argumentation into question and/or enlarging them. 15 Interview with Catherine Magnant. 16 The problem of language barriers within transnational campaigning is discussed in more detail by Hodkinson in this volume.

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In conclusion, (counter-)discourses of constructing a public sphere in Europe from lifeworld perspectives might be found, rather, on the Internet on virtual platforms such as YouTube, which are not launched by political institutions themselves but which, at least for the moment, are commercial public spaces.

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Loitz, T. (2001) Europäische Öffentlichlichkeit dank Internet? Politische Offentlichkeitsarbeit am Beispiel der Europäischen Kommission, Berlin: Lit-Verlag. Lusoli, W. and Jankowski, N.W. (eds) (2005) ‘The World Wide Web and the 2004 European Parliament Election’, Special Issue, Information Polity, 10. Machill, M. et al. (2006) ‘Europa-Themen in Europas Medien – die Debatte um die europäische Öffentlichkeit. Eine Metaanalyse medieninhaltsanalytischer Studien’, in W.R. Langenbucher and M. Latzer (eds) Europäische Öffentlichkeit und medialer Wandel, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 132-155. Maier, M. and Tenscher, J. (eds) (2006) Campaigning in Europe – Campaigning for Europe, Berlin: Lit-Verlag. Mann, C. and Stewart, F. (2000) Internet Communication and Qualitative Research: A Handbook for Researching Online, London: Sage. Niesyto, H. (2006) ‘Bildverstehen als mehrdimensionaler Prozess. Vergleichende Auswertung von Bildinterpretationen und methodische Reflexion’, in W. Marotzki and H. Niesyto (eds) Bildinterpretation und Bildverstehen. Methodische Ansätze aus sozialwissenschaftlicher, kunst- und medienpädagogischer Perspektive, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 253-286. Niesyto, J. (2007) Europäische Öffentlichkeit @ Internet: Politische Öffentlichkeitsarbeit am Beispiel des Internetportals der EU, Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller. Rössler, P. and Wirth, W, (2001) ‘Inhaltsanalysen im World Wide Web’, in W. Wirth and E. Lauf (eds) Inhaltsanalyse: Perspektiven, Probleme; Potentiale, Köln: Halem, 280-302. Röttger, U. (2006) ‘Campaigns (f)or a better world?’, in U. Röttger (ed.) PRKampagnen. Über die Inszenierung von Öffentlichkeit, 3rd ed., Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 9-26. Seethaler, J. (2006) ‘Entwicklung und Stand der kommunikationswissenschaftlichen Forschung zur europäischen Öffentlichkeit. Eine Analyse der Beiträge in vier europäischen Fachzeitschriften 1989-2004’, in W.R. Langenbucher and M. Latzer (eds) Europäische Öffentlichkeit und medialer Wandel, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 244-260. Shahin, J. and Neuhold, C. (2007) ‘Connecting Europe: the Use of New Information and Communication Technologies within European Parliament Standing Committees’, The journal of legislative studies, 13: 388-402. Smith, A. (2007) ‘European Commissioners and the Prospects of a European Public Sphere: Information, Representation and Legitimacy’, in J.E. Fossum and P. Schlesinger (eds) The European Union and the Public Sphere. A

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Petitioning Online. The Role of E-Petitions in Web Campaigning Web Campaigns and E-Petitions: An Introduction Studies on web campaigning tend to focus on electoral campaigns and the role of the Internet in influencing electoral behaviour. A growing field of study, however, refers to political campaigning on the web by civil society. Research on this topic outlines new opportunities created by information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the Internet for transnational communication and the emergence of a web based global civil society (Bennett 2003; Naughton 2001; Castells et al. 2006). Parallel to these new opportunities, new limitations of the Internet are further highlighted in examination of resourcepoor groups (Mosca 2007). In this chapter, we will focus our attention on the initiators of web campaigns, namely civil society organizations, such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and individual citizens.1 With the aim of illustrating a different dimension of Internet politics, our discussion and analysis will consider e-petitioning activities, which are less often addressed in studies concerned with web campaigning. In fact, while e-petitions have become an important instrument in web campaigning, until now they attracted little attention by scholars. This research will endeavour to fill this gap in the literature by presenting and discussing some recent e-petitions that have been used as part of wider web campaigns. Before proceeding, it is worth mentioning that the practice of petitioning goes back hundreds of years with its roots in the Anglo-Saxon world. In England, the first known petition dates back to 1215, when the Magna Charta gave barons the right to address complaints to the Crown. Many authors (among them Higginson 1986; Zaeske 2003) also stressed the important role played by petitions in the American anti-slavery movement. As Davenport et al. (2001: 1

Although the authors share responsibility for the whole chapter, Lorenzo Mosca wrote the sections about conceptual and methodological challenges, citizens’ involvement in the EU policy making, the use of the Internet by European institutions, and conclusion. Daria Santucci wrote the introduction, the sections about the EP Committee on petitions (PETI), and the role of e-petitions in European web campaigning. The empirical material on e-petitions has been collected by Daria Santucci for her PhD thesis at the University of Torino. We wish to thank the editors of this book for useful comments on a previous draft of this chapter.

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18) note, “in many countries around the world, citizens have used petitions to make their feelings known about issues that concern them”. With the spread of the Internet and ICTs in Europe and worldwide, a new practice of applying Internet technologies to petitions has recently developed. This has led to the implementation of appropriate technical components, like websites displaying the texts of initiatives to Internet audiences, tools to support campaigns, verify signatures and submit petitions to the officials who certify them (Baer 2001). It is important, however, to stress the dual nature of petitions as bottom practices to intervene in the political process on the one side and as opportunities set up by institutions to enhance citizens’ participation on the other. This research is based on a definition of online petitioning that includes any petition consisting of the delivery of a claim or a recommendation to an institutional addressee, who is legally identified as responsible for petitions or not, using: a) informal e-petitioning channels selected from the bottom-up, and b) formal e-petitioning channels provided top-down. Concerning the former, it has been noted how e-petitions are part of a broader set of mobilization opportunities provided by the Internet, among them websites, information portals, mail, guest books, newsletters, online surveys, mailing lists, discussion boards, chats, wikis, blogs, cyber-protest tools, and online protest campaigns (Hanfling 2006: 44). Concerning the latter, we will discuss petitions as a means used by institutions to enhance civic engagement by putting them in a wider context. In fact, local, national and international institutions (particularly, the EU) are actively promoting a plethora of e-participation tools, which include epetitions. Today citizens have, at least formally, more instruments to interact with the institutions, to make their voice heard and, eventually, to take part in the policy making process. Many national institutions across Europe provide citizens tools to submit e-petitions. The Scottish Parliament has been the first one to allow e-petitioning in Europe: after a trial period, in 2004 the e-petitioner (epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk) was officially launched. In 2005, two British local authorities, the Royal Borough of Kingston (epetitions.kingston.gov.uk) and Bristol City Council (www.bristol.gov.uk/item/epetition), developed a new e-petitioning system. During the same year, the British Prime Minister’s Office decided to implement its own tool for submitting online petitions (petitions.pm.gov.uk), which was launched in November 2006. More recently tools to submit online petitions were set up in continental Europe by the Romanian Parliament (www.cdep.ro/relatii_publice/site2.petitie), the German Bundestag (www.bundestag.de/ ausschuesse/a02/onlinepet), and fourteen Norwegian municipalities (einitiativ.hive. no/Lorenskog). After a brief discussion of conceptual and methodological challenges derived from the study of e-petitions as part of web campaigning, we will consider the broad spectrum of opportunities for citizens’ involvement in EU

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policy making, showing how this terrain is yet to be explored and far from being institutionalized. We will then look at how the EU employed computermediated communication (CMC) in order to involve citizens in its policy making and as a way to address its democratic deficit. We will also focus on epetitions as a specific means to intervene in the EU democratic process. Subsequently, we will discuss the functioning of the European Parliament’s Committee on petitions (PETI) and its evolution over time, with a focus on its online activities. In the following section we will present four emblematic campaigns, which employed e-petitions to address European institutions, including the PETI. For the sake of analysis, the selected e-petitions case studies provide key empirical insights that may help to evaluate how e-petitions are used as part of web campaigns. The last section of this chapter will conclude with a discussion of some common features that have emerged from this research in the relation to e-petitions and web campaigning in Europe.

Conceptual and Methodological Challenges in Studying E-Petitions as Part of Web Campaigning In this research we have been confronted with some conceptual and methodological problems. The first problem to be addressed concerns the definition of web campaigns. In social movement literature, campaigns have been defined as “a thematically, socially, and temporally interconnected series of interactions that, from the viewpoint of the carriers of the campaign, are geared to a specific goal” (della Porta/Rucht 2002: 3). In this sense, campaigns have been considered as something in between social movement networks and individual activities (ibid.). Web campaigns would then be sets of interactions mostly (but not exclusively) taking place online with a tangible and pragmatic goal, set out within a defined and limited temporal frame, and involving adherents, allies and opponents of a particular target. Thus, web campaigning activities involve and mobilize a set of actors for or against a specific target. As Bennett (2003) noted, in comparison with traditional campaigns, web campaigns tend to be ideologically thin, more protracted, less centrally controlled, and more difficult to turn on and off. With this working definition of web campaigns, the second problem consists of selecting the number and range of web campaigns studied. This research has chosen to narrow down the analysis by considering only web campaigns carried out through e-petitions. Nonetheless, web campaigns related to e-petitions can vary greatly depending on their initiators, their targets, their territorial scope, their outcomes, etc. The decision was then taken to further restrict our focus by just selecting those web campaigns which employ e-peti-

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tions directed towards one specific target: the European Union (EU). This choice provides focus upon a particular form of web campaigning that implies a relation between individuals and institutions at the European level. Furthermore, considerable attention is paid to the committee of the European Parliament (EP), the only representative institution of the EU and the only body officially in charge of receiving petitions at the European level. The analysis draws from an extensive study on e-petitioning, which focused on twenty case studies,2 selected on the basis of their relevance to search engines in predefined queries (Santucci 2008). The research is based on analysis of petition’s websites, administration of a questionnaire and in-depth interviews with the promoters. Building on the results of this research, we will discuss the relation between e-petitioning and web campaigning, focusing on four specific case studies that we consider particularly relevant. These were selected, from amongst all the e-petitions analysed in the research, on the basis of a typology crossing two different dimensions (see table 1): the type of promoter (either individual or organization) and the territorial scope of the action (either international from the beginning or moving from the national to the international level in the course of the web campaign). The two dimensions have been chosen considering two important streams of literature dealing with dynamics of contention: the first one is based on the work of scholars of international relations studying the role of advocacy networks in domestic and international politics (Keck/Sikkink 1998; Sikkink 2005); the second one is grounded on the debate raised by resource mobilization theory underlining the role played by social movement organizations in mobilizing resources (McCarthy/Zald 1973).

2

The e-petitions analysed range from ‘mass’ petitions (i.e. the Oneseat campaign for the abolition of EP meetings in Strasbourg and the REACH petition on chemicals and health) to less supported ones (i.e. the petition for more appropriate replies by the EP Committee on petitions). They vary from initiatives concerning the local level (i.e. a petition on problems connected with the proposal for a new high-speed rail connection between Torino and Lyon), the national level (i.e. Petition on UK Life Insurance Regulation in relation to Equitable Life) and the European level (i.e. Petition for a European Parliament Initiative on European citizenship). For a comprehensive list see Santucci (2008).

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Territorial scope of the action

Promoter Individual

Organization

Genuinely International Level

Oneseat

ControlArms

From the National to the International Level

Mobile phone recharge costs

REACH

Table 1: A typology of web campaigns developed through e-petitions.

The typology gives rise to four different idealtypes of web campaigns developed through e-petitions. The first idealtype refers to web campaigns promoted by individuals and initiated directly at the international level. Illustrating this idealtype, we selected the Oneseat campaign aiming at reducing the activities of the EP to a single venue. The second idealtype refers to web campaigns initiated directly at the international level where organizations played an important role as promoters. Illustrating this idealtype, we selected the ControlArms campaign calling for an international, legally-binding Arms Trade Treaty to reduce the suffering caused by weapons transfers. The third idealtype concerns web campaigns initiated by an individual at the national level, which then shifted to the international one. This idealtype is exemplified by the campaign to abolish recharge costs of mobile phones in Italy. The fourth idealtype regards a web campaign initiated by civil society organizations at the national level and then moved to the international one. The case study illustrating this idealtype is the web campaign’s attempt to increase levels of restrictions concerning the Regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH). The decision to focus on these web campaigns developed through e-petitions is related to our interest in the democratic deficit of the EU and the democratic legitimization of European institutions. E-petitions can be seen as one of the multitude of opportunities available to European citizens in order to participate in the EU policy process. Citizens seem to be positively oriented towards this instrument. Petitions are considered by Europeans as the best way to make their voices heard in Europe (15 percent), second only to the electoral vote (56 percent) but considered more important than political parties (13 percent) and participation in popular events (10 percent) (Eurobarometer 2006).

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Citizens’ Involvement in the EU Policy Making Over the last decades, institutional opportunities to open the ‘black box’ of EU policy making to the intervention of civil society actors have grown significantly. Like other comparable institutions, European ones are always seeking reliable information in order to elaborate policies and design them according to the needs of the population affected by such decisions. As EU institutions are, however, extremely resource-poor in terms of expertise, “the power which comes from being able to gather, process, and disseminate reliable information may open more doors in Brussels than in any other mayor political capital” (ibid.: 97). Due to the first-hand information NGOs gather through their every-day activity, they can exert an important leverage over EU institutions providing expertise in exchange for influence. Even though still significantly limited (Geyer 2001), the role of non-state actors has been recognized through the ‘civil dialogue’ between European institutions and ‘interested parties’. Civil dialogue has, however, been described through the metaphor of ‘patchwork’, in order to stress the diversity of consultation practices that range from informal lobbying to structured dialogue (Fazi/Smith 2006). This situation tends to favour those groups that are well-funded and able to set up a physical presence in Brussels, opening their offices close to those of European institutions. In contrast, however, EU institutions tend to employ selective strategies when dealing with NGOs, only including a tiny minority of organized interests in their consultations (van Schendelen 2002). Single individuals have even less opportunity to intervene in the EU policy making process. The EP is, in fact, the only directly elected institution since 1979. While direct election has been introduced in order to make the EU closer to its citizens, electoral turnout in EP elections steadily decreased from 63.3 percent in 1979 to less than 50 percent in 2004. This decline of participation in European elections has been interpreted as an indication of the EU democratic deficit. Causes of a limited and decreasing legitimacy of the EU are multiple, including the lack of a European ‘demos’ or of a ‘thick’ collective identity, the lack of a common political space, the lack of a common language and of Europe-wide media of political communication, the lack of a political infrastructure of Europe-wide political parties, the absence of Europe-wide political competition, the low political salience of elections to the European Parliament, the limits of EP competencies, and hence the lack of parliamentary or electoral accountability for European acts of government. (Scharpf 2007: 5-6).

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This preoccupation with the democratic deficit of the EU pushes institutions towards recognizing the potential beneficial effects of other democratic models (i.e. participatory and deliberative) to complement representative democracy. The first explicit recognition of citizens’ participation by the EU was made in the White Paper on European Governance, wherein this value was included among five principles underpinning good governance (openness, participation, accountability, effectiveness and coherence). Participation was considered important as it was said to “create more confidence in the end result and in the Institutions which deliver policies” (European Commission 2001: 10). After the rejection of the European Constitution in French and Dutch national referenda in June 2005, the European Commission (EC) launched the Plan-D (Democracy, Dialogue and Debate). This must also be understood with the context of common worries related to the process of enlargement towards Eastern Europe and, consequently, the decline in terms of trust and a relatively less positive image of the European Union (Eurobarometer 2005: 101). This plan intended to open a ‘period of reflection’ based on a broad and intensive debate about the future of the EU. In the stated aims of the EC, the Plan-D is part of “a long-term plan to reinvigorate European democracy and help the emergence of a European public, where citizens are given the information and the tools to actively participate in the decision making process and gain ownership of the European project” (European Commission 2005: 2-3). The main objectives of the Plan-D consist of restoring public confidence in the European Union by stimulating a more accurate communication of its activities, targeting specific audiences (i.e. minorities and young people), engaging mass media in the debate, creating a new consensus on the European project through a long term commitment, moving from listening towards further involvement of citizens who “must have the right to have their voices heard” (ibid.: 4). Through these aims, the EC directly addresses the need to promote active citizenship under the subsection on ‘Promoting citizens’ participation in the democratic process’. The intentions of the Commission state that this would be achieved with different strategies such as promoting more effective consultation, supporting European citizens’ projects, increasing openness and transparency, increasing voter participation in European elections and national referenda on European issues. More recently, the Treaty of Lisbon (European Communities 2007) implied moving from abstract declarations to more binding provisions. The text states that “The institutions shall, by appropriate means, give citizens and representative associations the opportunity to make known and publicly exchange their views in all areas of Union action” (article 8b, 1). The treaty also recognizes citizens must be granted the possibility to influence EU’s agenda as confirmed by certain conditions: “Not less than one million citizens who are nationals of

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a significant number of Member States may take the initiative of inviting the European Commission, within the framework of its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties” (article 8b, 4). While during the past decade participatory and deliberative democracy has been considered by EU institutions as a way to counteract the democratic deficit by complementing representative forms of democracy, only recently have concrete efforts to involve citizens in EU policy making been developed, mostly through the use of CMC.

Use of the Internet by European Institutions to Widen Citizens’ Participation As a direct consequence of the Plan-D, the Commission activated the Debate Europe website (europa.eu/debateeurope), a forum to gauge public opinion focusing on the main challenges currently facing Europe: climate change and energy, future of Europe, intercultural dialogue. Related to the Debate Europe website is EU tube (www.youtube.com/eutube), which is an official presence of the European Commission on YouTube, allowing users to upload audiovisual files related to EU issues.3 A significant recent development has been the creation of a single point of access to EU institutions, through the creation of the website Your voice in Europe (YViE, ec.europa.eu/yourvoice, see European Commission undated), which has been developed as an output of the Interactive Policy Making (IPM) initiative. The IPM was designed to allow citizens playing an active role in the European policy making process (both ex ante and ex post) making it more transparent, comprehensive and effective. Through YViE, one can access debates (such as the Debate Europe website quoted above) and chats on current EU affairs with European Commissioners. What is unclear is if and how information gathered through these online forums has an impact on the EU policy making. A recent analysis of a random sample of discussion postings on YViE found that experts tended to dominate the discussion while the impact on actual policies remains unclear (Winkler/Kozeluh 2005). This evidence seems to confirm similar studies which show that while public authorities are expected to react formally to the outcomes of public discussions “in many cases participants have been disappointed by the lack of feedback” from elected representatives (Smith 2005: 93). Besides providing opportunities to intervene in debates and chats, the YViE website opens consultations on 3

Niesyto’s qualitative analysis in this volume illustrates the affective aspects of the appropriation of YouTube in EU campaigning.

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virtually all policy fields in which the EU is engaged. Consultations, however, have been done by the EU since the beginning of the 2000s, before the activation of YViE. This website, in fact, brings together all European consultations on one website, providing links to consultative processes promoted by the single Directorate Generals (DG). It has to be noted that this common gateway to EU consultations certainly represents an improvement compared to the fragmentation prevalent earlier. However, there has not been any attempt to systematize the way information is collected and provided. This makes the instrument less useful than it could be, especially if one wants to focus on past consultations. For example, the time frame is not always clear as it should be, target groups are often defined differently, and some links are not available anymore. If we consider all consultations undertaken by the EU in the past decade, we can notice interesting trends (see Table 2). Firstly, the EU developed a great number of consultations in a wide variety of policy fields. In some cases, full reports concerning the outcome of the consultation process are available. Secondly, we notice that the number of consultations increased constantly over time in the period 2000-2006 while we can observe a slight decrease in 2007.4 Thirdly, consultations are distributed differently across different policy fields. There are some policy domains concerning external activities of the EU (i.e. foreign and security policy, humanitarian aid) that do not employ this type of instrument. Issues at the core of EU agenda such as enterprise and internal markets (which have historically represented the drivers of EU integration) as well as the environment (which recently gained a great relevance at the EU level) are the policy fields displaying the greater number of consultations. Above average are issues related to information society, competition, food safety, public health, justice and home affairs, and transport. Well below average we find such diverse fields as regional policy, agriculture and fishery, external relations, culture and education, development, employment and social affairs, trade, and trans-European networks.

4

Data on 2008 are still uncompleted as this research was developed at the end of April 2008.

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General & institutional affairs Agriculture Audiovisual/ Information society Budget* Competition Consumers Culture/ Education/Sport/ Youth Customs Development Economic affairs* Employment & social affairs/ Equal opportunities Energy Enlargement* Enterprise Environment External relations Fisheries & aquaculture Food safety Foreign & security policy Humanitarian aid Internal market Justice & home affairs Public health Regional policy Research & technology Taxation Trade Trans-European networks Transport Total

Open (08)

Closed 04 05

02

03

0

0001 3

1

0

1

1 3

0 0

0 0

1 6

2 0 0

0 2 0

0 3 0

0 4 2

0 0 1

3 3 3 0 3

Total 06

07

08

1

2

3

1

12

1 11

1 8

3 13

0 6

2 0

9 47

0 4 0

6 1 0

4 0 0

21 1 0

12 3 5

2 0 1

47 14 6

0 0 0

0 0 1

2 0 2

3 1 1

0 0 1

0 2 2

0 0 0

5 7 10

0 12 2 0 1

0 15 2 0 0

0 13 10 0 1

2 9 9 2 0

4 16 15 2 1

5 11 13 1 0

3 10 15 0 3

2 6 6 0 1

19 95 75 5 10

0 0

10 0

5 0

1 0

1 0

4 0

7 0

4 0

0 0

32 0

0 1 1

0 1 0

0 8 0

0 9 6

0 19 11

0 10 9

0 19 7

0 11 5

0 3 0

0 81 39

1 0 1

2 0 0

0 0 0

1 3 2

3 1 4

3 1 1

7 1 2

10 0 4

6 2 0

33 8 14

1 0 0

0 0 0

0 0 0

5 2 2

3 3 1

1 3 1

3 0 1

4 1 0

0 0 0

17 9 5

1 30

0 34

1 35

3 70

4 96

7 97

7 12 5

9 11 2

5 37

37 636

Table 2: Consultations undertaken by the EU since 2000 (European Commission undated). * Data not available because of broken link.

While table 2 gives us information on the number of consultations undertaken by the EU across different policy fields in the last decade, table 3 presents the same information focusing, however, on the type of consultations. In order to

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make data more understandable and to overcome problems of inconsistency in labelling target groups, we distinguished between open consultations and restricted ones. What one immediately notices is that less than one-third of the consultations (30.5 percent) are open to the general public. This could be explained by the fact that sometimes issues under discussion are very technical and require specific expertise and experience in the field. Regardless, some discussions only address specific stakeholders (i.e. unions, enterprises, etc.). Notwithstanding the total number of consultations, it is interesting to notice that in some policy fields (i.e. general and institutional affairs, information society, competition, consumers, and development) the number of open consultations is greater than those of closed ones. In other cases, closed consultations represent the most important category. If we consider the three policy fields with the highest number of consultation processes discussed above, we notice that while approximately one-third of consultations on the environment and internal markets are open, those concerning enterprise are generally closed. This is not surprising as the environment is nowadays at the top of the EU agenda and also represents a major concern of European citizens. The diverse degree of openness of consultations on internal market policy and enterprise policy is probably related to the fact that the former concerns primarily the free movement of people, goods, services and capital while the latter is primarily concerned with industrial competitiveness. 100% 80% 60%

Restricted* Public

40% 20%

Cu l

Ag r Co icu m ltu p r C tu o etit e re ns io / E um n du e ca rs t De Cu ion ve s t o Em lop ms pl me oy nt m e E nt E ne Ex E nte rgy te nv rp r n i ro ri s al nm e Re e la nt F tio Fo ish ns In Ge od eri e fo n rm e r Saf s a t al ety io Af In n fa te S irs rn oc al ie M ty a P u J rke Re b se Re l us t ar g ic t ic c h io He e & nal a lt Te Po h c h lic no y Ta log Tr xa y an ti sEU T on ne rad tw e Tr or an ks sp TO ort TA L

0%

Figure 1: Types of consultations undertaken by the EU. * Member states, regional and local authorities, stakeholders, NGOs, industrial and academic research community, interested parties, etc.

It must be noted that our assessment of EU consultations is only based on quantitative data and this makes it difficult to do any type of assessment of the

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quality of consultation processes. Still, we see this as a useful exercise to provide a general overview of how the EU is acting to consult citizens. In the following sections, we will contrast this image of consultation with an activity requiring a more active role from part of citizens: web campaigns developed through formal and informal e-petitions. Compared with online consultations, e-petitions sent to the EU represent a step forward in citizen participation. While citizen consultations are based on a set of predefined issues, web campaigns based on e-petitions represent a possibility to introduce ignored issues in the EU agenda. This implies a more active role from part of the citizens.

Submitting Petitions to the EP: The Committee on Petitions (PETI) Before focusing on formal and informal e-petitions practices, it is worth considering how complaints can be submitted to the EU. The right to petition allows citizens to “individually or in association with other citizens or persons” (European Parliament 2008: art. 191) present a complaint directly to the political body of the Union, the EP. The route to manage petitions is foreseen by the EP rules of procedures: according to them, the PETI is responsible for examining citizens’ requests and giving a follow up in the more appropriate way. This committee was created well before a formal legal acknowledgement of the right to petition (in 1992, with the Maastricht Treaty).5 Today, the PETI is headed by a chairman and four vice-chairmen and is composed by fourty MEPs on a voluntary basis. Its main task is to examine whether the petitions fulfil the admissibility conditions. If this is the case, the PETI declares the petition eligible to be examined and decides which measures should be taken. When a petition is considered to be outside the area of activity of the EU, it is declared inadmissible. The PETI is not a judicial body, but a political one: its main mission is to publicize the abuse of citizens’ rights, sensitize the EP and the other European institutions (especially the Ombudsman and the EC) and monitor the progress made by these bodies according to the given suggestions. The PETI regularly consults other parliamentary committees. Moreover, following the principle of subsidiarity, it tends to steer the cases to national or local authorities when 5

In March 1953, the ECSC parliamentary assembly included in its rules of procedure a provision giving individuals the opportunity to send petitions. The concept of ‘right’ to petition was strengthened in 1981 during the general revision of the settlement of the EP. Finally, in 1989, the presidents of the EP, the Council and the Commission signed a cooperation agreement stressing the importance of petitions for the EU (European Parliament 2001, Allen Study).

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these are directly involved in the complaints. In the latter case, the PETI is allowed neither to ignore nor to override the decisions taken by the competent authorities at the national level. A petition directed to the PETI may take the form of a complaint or a request and it may refer to matters of public or private interest. It might contain a personal comment about the application of the European Community legislation, or it might invite the EP to regulate a specific issue. Sending a petition to the EP requires neither any form to fill, nor obligation for formal drafting. The only conditions that the authors must respect are that they mention the name of the promoter as well as its nationality, profession, address, and signature (if several petitioners are supporting the initiative, all signatures have to be presented), and that they write in a clear text. The petition has to be addressed to the president of the EP. Depending on the topic of a petition, the PETI can suggest the petitioner to target other institutions, such as a nonCommunity one (i.e. the European Court of Human Rights) or a national one (i.e. the national Ombudsman or, when present, the national parliament’s committee on petitions). Issues concerning bad administration of EU institutions or bodies have to be sent to the Ombudsman. By the means of an investigation on the submitted petitions, the EP should be able to assess the gaps in legislation and problems related to practical implementation of EU policies and, when necessary, to provide a remedy. If petitions highlight concrete violations committed by member states, the EP should take action to find a solution. The institutionalization of the PETI fits with recent EU activities, discussed earlier, intended to promote e-participation and bidirectional communication with citizens using ICTs: e-petitions are considered as a tool to achieve the twofold aim of improving citizens’ perception of European institutions and increasing their participation. For a few years, European citizens have been given the possibility to submit petitions to the PETI both on paper as well as online.6 In the latter case, this can be done connecting to the EP website (europarl.eu) and filling out a form. The electronic tool provided by the EP allows European citizens wishing to send an online petition to enter personal details, the title, and the text of the complaint. After sending the petition through the web, the promoter receives an email receipt of acknowledgment. Nevertheless, it has to

6

On 11 July 2000, PETI issued an opinion on the implementation of a fully electronic procedure for receiving and registering petitions on a public register. It stated to be in favour of presenting and signing petitions by email or through other electronic means; publishing a list of filled petitions and their summaries on the EP website; signing petitions by email or any other means through the same web page (European Parliament 2001, Allen Study: 160).

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be noticed that all further correspondence between the PETI and the promoter is held through conventional mail. Compared to other existing epetitioner systems quoted in the introduction of this chapter, the one provided by the EP offers citizens fewer opportunities to operate electronically. The promoter can neither enter additional information, nor start collecting signatures online or consulting updates about the petition progress. Shifting towards strong ICTs use in public administrations, in July 2005 the EP developed a system for petitions’ internal management, the so-called e-Petitions, which “functions both as a database and as a management tool providing information about the petitions workflow” (PETI 2006: 7), and is accessible by the members of the PETI as well as the officials of political groups. Its goal consists of “further strengthen[ing] the transparency and effectiveness of the Committee’s activities” (ibid.). As stated in the PETI report by British MEP Michael Cashman on the committee’s deliberations during 2004/2005, petitions arose from 908 in 2000 to 1,032 in 2005. During 2006, Parliament received 1,016 petitions, a slight decrease compared to the previous year (PETI 2007a: 9); the same year, the most active citizens were representatives of countries such as Germany (274 petitions), United Kingdom (177), Spain (127), France (69), Greece (68), Italy (68), and Poland (56). The number of admissible petitions is around two-thirds of the amount; the rest is declared inadmissible, as not related with EU activities (PETI 2007b). Discussing this data, the PETI stressed that better understanding of the function of petitions “is closely connected to the quality of the information available to the general public in Europe about EC legislation, policies and objectives” (PETI 2007a: 6). As it has been noted in one report issued by the PETI, [m]ost of the petitions pointed to difficulties related to the implementation of EC legislation in the fields of environment, social security, recognition of diplomas, and other aspects related to the functioning of the internal market. The most concerned pieces of EU legislation were directive 85/337/EEC as amended by 97/11/EC and 2003/ 35/EC on Environmental Impact Assessment and directive 2003/ 4/EC on public access to environmental information (PETI 2006: 18). Some petitions generated motions by the EC and, consequently, obliged member states to adapt their legislation to European standards. For example, according to the UK Office of the EP (www.europarl.org.uk/publications/petitions/ singlepage.htm), France changed its laws about the recognition of physiotherapist qualifications obtained in other member states; Belgium amended laws on

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VAT taxation; and the Greek authorities had to ensure European citizens the same conditions as Greeks to access museums. Moreover, benefits (such as pensions, family allowances, etc.) obtained by EU immigrant workers are now recognized thanks to petitions. Due to several petitions received in these fields, legislation on animal welfare and environmental protection has also been improved (ibid.).

The Role of E-Petitions in European Web Campaigning While analyzing ‘formal’ petitions addressed to the EP, one cannot ignore the mass of ‘informal’ petitions that are initiated and developed online as part of broader web campaigns by grassroots movements using the support of NGO websites. In fact, while assessing the role of online petitions in the EU, one cannot forget that citizens may send e-petitions to different receivers, or using other electronic tools than the official ones. Several petitions are sent every year by European citizens and groups to other addressees than the PETI: many are the requests, or claims, submitted straight to European Commissioners, or Directorate Generals, or even to the Council Presidency of the EU. These are specific targets that do not have any legal obligation to take a position. As previous research (Santucci 2008) shows, this might happen because citizens are not aware of the existence of the PETI, but also because they do not feel using formal petitions as a strategic or an effective means in order to reach their goals. Several of these e-petitions, however, are sent to both the PETI and other European institutions, using both formal and informal channels. Moreover, since the 1990s a wide range of actors (private individuals, NGOs, international organizations, etc.) have increasingly used epetitions as means of online campaigning. Several NGO or private websites have been designed in order to promote political initiatives. PetitionOnline.com, which is one of the more popular, recently reached sixty million one-click signatures of support. Keeping in mind the distinction between formal and informal petitions, we will now briefly illustrate four web campaigns where epetitions played a significant role.7 The Oneseat campaign is the e-petition to stop the EP meetings in Strasbourg and create a single venue for the legislative body of the EU in Brussels

7

Data concerning the four web campaigns were retrieved between January and October 2007, through in-depth interviews (mainly carried out via Skype or by phone) with the main promoters. For each campaign one person has been interviewed, with the exception of the ControlArms case where three campaigners were interviewed.

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(www.oneseat.eu), which was launched on May 2006 by the Liberal Member of European Parliament (MEP) Cecilia Malmström. This petition was part of a wider Campaign for Parliamentary Reform supported by almost every political group in the EP. In four months, 1,000,000 electronic signatures were collected. The web campaign gained great media attention by means of both electronic signatures and the direct involvement of MEPs. The promoters worked hard to involve press, TVs and radio journalists, giving them the opportunity to ‘tell a story’. This was achieved by making the web campaign very tangible, i.e. showing journalists all the trucks bringing boxes filled with MEPs documents to Strasbourg. The web campaign became highly visible as it gained relevance in national agendas, thus receiving support in the form of testimonials at the national level (i.e. a Parliament spokesman in Finland, a student union in The Netherlands and a comedian-blogger in Italy). Since it was started by a group of MEPs, the promoters could rely on a great expertise on both the theme of the web campaign and the EU decision making process. As stressed by one of the initiators, the text of the petition symbolically refers to article 47 of the (at that time) proposed Constitution “in order to change the system with the existing means”.8 While recognizing citizens’ right to legislative initiative via petition, the same article (as well as its functional equivalent in the Lisbon Treaty) did not provide concrete indication on how to manage such an input. Despite being a petition born within the Parliament and about the Parliament, it was not addressed only to the EP, but also to the EC and the Council. Nonetheless, according to the campaigner, European institutions are not very open to e-petitions as proved by the fact that the EC simply replied by stating that it could not act on such topic. This negligence could be explained by the fact that European institutions other than the EP have no bodies exclusively devoted to petitions but, more so, by the very sensitive issue at stake (for a discussion see Hein 2006). Whatever the reason, the inactivity of the EC was confirmed by the PETI, which seemed to be knowingly indifferent to the petition. Being genuinely European, the web campaign was based on a website translated in every official language of the European Union. The Internet was crucial to generate a huge mobilization, because, as the petitioner noted, “the website was very easy to access and its name was easy to remember” (ibid.). The mass mobilization was not, however, homogeneous throughout Europe; according to the promoter, the difference lies in the varying interests in the theme for each member state, which was greater in northern European countries.

8

Interview with a political advisor, assistant of a Swedish MEP (30 March 2007).

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The petition for the abolition of mobile phone recharge costs sought to ban expenses to recharge mobile phones in Italy and was launched by an enterprising political science student. The web campaign was started in early April 2006 through an e-petition. Signatures were gathered via the Internet, using the PetitionOnline platform (www.petitiononline.com/costidir/petition.html); the initiative was soon included among the success stories of the website as well as in the e-petitions top ten. Moreover, the promoter set up a campaign website (www.aboliamoli.eu) where supporters could buy t-shirts about the campaign, consult documents, and press releases. At the very beginning, the promoter found journalists’ contacts on the Internet and sought to involve the media. After initial indifference, an online magazine and a local newspaper covered the petition. The web campaign gained high visibility and attracted media coverage from newspapers and television right after the intervention of the popular comedian-blogger Beppe Grillo.9 The e-petition was in fact re-launched on his very popular blog and in a few days signatures raised from 3,000 to 50,000. When 300,000 signatures were reached, the petition was sent to the Directorate General on Competition of the EC. The DG immediately replied, and urged Italian authorities to set up an investigation. In the meantime, the promoter sent the EC a second package of signatures (600,000 on 24 October 2005) and a third one (810,000 on 25 January 2006). On 4 March 2007, the Italian government obliged mobile phone operators to ban the recharge costs. The promoter decided to address the European institutions after unsuccessful pledges submitted to national targets like the Anti-trust Authority, the Communications Regulatory Authority and consumer protection associations. The petition was addressed directly to the EC because the promoter did not know about the existence of the PETI. In this case, the EC replied quickly and ensured an immediate intervention. According to the promoter, Italian institutions “did not respect their institutional duty, while European ones did so.”10 European institutions are, then, considered closer to citizens and receptive to their requests. The Internet made it possible to generate a word of mouth and a real ‘virtual guerrilla’ made of electronic spamming. As the promoter reminds, “we

9

Beppe Grillo is a famous Italian comedian well known for political satire, he also created a very popular blog at the beginning of 2005 (www.beppegrillo.it). According to Technorati, the blog is ranked among the most visited blogs in the world. Grillo’s blog launched some significant campaigns like Clean up the Parliament and Citizen Primaries (see Navarria 2007).

10 Interview with an Italian student in political science from Naples (21 January 2007).

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bombed members of a government commission to avoid the postponement of the national decree” (ibid.). When the issue had become well known in public, the petitioner also threatened to publish the names of politicians opposing the petition on his website. Despite, however, giving an opportunity for visibility, the Internet also exposed the web campaign to more or less unverifiable criticism, with which the promoter had to deal. The Million Faces petition is part of a wider campaign (www.controlarms.org) launched in 2003 by Amnesty International (AI) together with Oxfam and the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA).11 The goal of the campaign, addressed to the United Nations (UN), is to make governments approve and sign the first international treaty to control the transfer of weapons. To achieve this goal, the promoters decided to employ different strategies. In the words of one campaigner, “on the one hand we lobbied governments, and on the other hand we undertook campaigning actions to make people understand the importance the treaty”.12 While the final addressee of the petition is the UN, the promoter considered leaders and parliamentarians, MEPs in particular, an intermediate but privileged target. The EP was selected as the target of specific lobbying activities, but also as the main addressee of the effective Million Faces ‘visual’ petition. Relations with MEPs were easy, given the presence of political activists within the parliament itself: the initiative was promoted by a MEP who had worked before on the treaty promotion for a NGO based in Barcelona. Relations between the promoter and MEPs were the result of a longterm lobbying activity. At the European level, MEPs were involved by the means of the Intergroup for peace initiatives allowing parliamentarians to advance the political debate on the issues of peace and conflict. On 22 and 23 March 2006, the Intergroup decided to become visible within the EU by setting up a stand in the EP where people could be photographed for the ‘visual’ petition. The event was successful, with more than 750 citizens agreed to be photographed. Yet, after the EP took a formal position, over ninety MEPs agreed to be photographed like common people did. The promoter wanted faces of parliamentarians supporting the petition as he was aware that the legal resolution was not enough to gain media coverage. For the same reason, the promoter 11 AI, Oxfam, and IANSA are NGOs equipped with a team of professional campaigners. They can rely on staff with strong expertise both at the central and at the local level. AI (www.amnesty.org) is a worldwide organization campaigning for internationally recognized human rights. Oxfam (www.oxfam.org) is a network of NGOs from three continents working worldwide to fight poverty and injustice. IANSA (www.iansa.org) is a global coordination against gun violence composed of 800 civil society organizations working in 120 countries to stop the proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons (Cukier/Sidel 2006: 225; see also Alcalde 2008). 12 Interview with the AI campaigner responsible for ControlArms (13 July 2007).

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started to participate in ‘mass’ events, such as the World Social Forum, making the campaign highly visible. As a consequence, according to the initiator, the campaign “started to be frequently present in the media and consequently known by the UN and national governments” (ibid.). It should be noted that the promoter is very skilled in relating with EU institutions. He, in fact, has a long history of relationships with the EP, concerning past resolutions and joint activities about the ControlArms campaign. He appears to be extremely willing to mix lobbying activities, which by definition are more ‘private’, with the public visual petition addressed to citizens and MEPs, attracting great media attention. The Internet dimension was very important for the petition – i.e. the ControlArms campaign has its own website – although it was not the only decisive element. As the initiator reminds “on the one hand there is technology, to go quickly forward; on the other hand, there’s creativity” (ibid.). In fact, some people developed strategies to upload pictures by cameras or mobile phones and, when it was not possible, faces were drawn on paper. Beyond mobilization, the Internet allowed the creation of a long-term connection with signatories since the promoters created a database with 600,000 email addresses of people who ‘gave their face’ to the visual petition to be recontacted monthly via an e-newsletter. The website has also been used to collect governments’ support of the campaign: on the ‘Government submission’ section forty-nine communications made by several countries to the UN Secretary-General are published. The REACH petition is a web campaign seeking to ban hazardous chemicals (www.wwf.org.uk/chemicals). This web campaign was initiated on March 2003 by the British section of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), together with the Women Institute and the Co-operative Bank.13 The aim was to intervene in the policy making process when the European directive on chemicals was about to be updated. In order to make their action more effective, the promoters started to collect signatures on a petition. Despite the campaign being initially launched in the UK, the petition, which was supported by more than 88,000 letters, emails and signatures, was then sent to the EP since its aim was to in13 Created in 1961, the WWF UK (www.wwf.org.uk) was the first National Organization in the WWF network. Today, it has offices in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The Women’s Institute (www.womens-institute.co.uk) is the largest voluntary organization for women in the UK, providing them with educational opportunities and the chance to build new skills, to take part in a wide variety of activities, and to campaign on issues that matter to them and their communities. The Co-operative Bank (www.co-operativebank.co.uk) is a customer-owned UK bank with an ethical focus, offering a range of banking services including online banking.

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fluence an EU directive. On 13 December 2006, the EP voted in favour of the compromise proposed by governments of member states. Although there was an improvement in the legislation compared to previous regulations, the campaign’s objectives were only partially achieved: it was agreed that all chemicals that might remain in living organisms have to be replaced whenever possible, some chemicals, however, which can cause cancer or deformities, affect DNA, disrupt the hormonal system or generate other diseases, are still allowed in the market. The promoter of the REACH petition is a professional campaigner: he contacted a large team of experts, including some professionals based in Brussels. As mentioned, the petition was part of a larger campaign, and the signature collection activities were organized in conjunction with other initiatives. Citizens were mobilized primarily through blood tests carried out in the streets of different British cities. These tests showed toxicity in the body of each citizen and, thus, the ‘motivation to act’ appealed to fears, to the fact of seeing harmful and invisible substances inside their own bodies. The promoter also tried to involve politicians in the campaign. In fact, MEPs were subjected to analysis, making the campaign intimate and personal. As the promoter noted, this created “a true empathetic bond between tested people and tested MEPs.”14 Citizens also went to Brussels with their blood tests and asked the EP for more security. Although the campaign searched for “written support” through the petition, it also benefited from further initiatives, requiring a more active participation by citizens than a signature. According to the initiator, “if an action is very easy, and people can make it online, then it remains only an opinion poll. A campaign is very weak if you support something but you don’t act personally” (ibid.). Blood tests and bio-monitoring activities, the promoter says, helped by “giving the petitions a face”. This attracted media attention all along the campaign, since they “could go into city centres, see ambulances and film people while blood testing”, as stated by the initiator. Journalists were also subjected to testing, together with some British television celebrities. As the promoter reminds, “until then, chemicals were considered only from an economical and industrial point of view; we presented it from another perspective, letting grandmothers and their children talk” (ibid.). The petition was considered by its initiator as a secondary element of a broader campaign. He notes that “if we would have done only a petition, without creating a larger campaign, I think this wouldn’t have worked. A petition alone cannot create the changes you want” (ibid.). The petition was pro14 Interview with the former WWF-UK campaigner responsible for REACH (7 September 2007).

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moted electronically through the website of the UK branch of WWF. This was certainly a strong means to disseminate information and gathering online signatures. Most of the signatures, however, were collected offline.

Conclusion What we stressed in this chapter is that European institutions are seriously concerned with their democratic deficit and in order to face it they have started experimenting with other democratic models based on participatory and deliberative principles. ICTs have, indeed, offered the opportunity to broaden participation at the European level. Diverse instruments have been put in place to strengthen the way Europeans experience and sense their supranational citizenship: from discussion forums on topics at the top of the EU agenda, to consultations on a wide range of policy fields, to the possibility to submit petitions (both online and offline). Concerning the latter, we have described how a special committee within the EP has been created. We also observed, however, that petitions addressing European institutions are not forwarded solely via this ‘formal’ channel set up ‘from above’ but also initiated spontaneously ‘from below’ as part of wider web campaigns and directed to different targets through ‘informal’ channels using the support of non-governmental websites. Exemplary of the different types of e-petitions targeting the EU, we selected and illustrated four web campaigns varying in terms of the type of initiator (either individual or organized) and the territorial level of the action (either genuinely international or shifting from the domestic to the international level). Even if our results are only illustrative and could not be generalized, some interesting similarities and differences emerge from our research. Firstly, analysed campaigns tend to adopt a variegated repertoire of action, mixing discrete talks behind close doors (lobbying) with visible performances in the public sphere. Direct pressure is exerted on decision makers, but media coverage is also actively sought through very creative and inventive means ranging from visual petitions, showing a face behind an electronic signature (ControlArms campaign), to blood tests to raise awareness and public discussion (REACH campaign) and through the direct involvement of testimonials (Oneseat campaign and the mobile phone recharge costs campaign). In many cases, MEPs were directly involved in such mobilizations, opening channels and providing concrete informal opportunities for interaction between citizens and European institutions. Secondly, among the strategic options available for civil society, campaigners at the EU level seem to prefer the ‘logic of numbers’ (creating a critical mass supporting their claims) and the ‘logic of bearing witness’ (in-

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volving well known people to discuss the very cause of the problem) than the ‘logic of damage’ based on performing disruptive actions to attract media attention (della Porta/Diani 2006: 171-176). With regard to the logic of numbers, interviews generally recognized that signatures on a petition are not sufficient to gain enough attention and specify that e-petitions represent only a component of wider web campaigning initiatives. The online dimension is recognized as relatively important but normally developed parallel to other offline activities. Our study also confirmed the important role of organizations in mobilizing discontent and transforming it into action. When individuals initiate web campaigns, we notice that promoters had to mobilize additional resources, as in the case of the Italian petition where the role of alternative media (Grillo’s blog) has been extremely relevant. The role of alternative media in this case is reminiscent of the famous but inherently different web campaign against Nike sweatshops initiated by Jonah Peretti, a graduate of the MIT Media Lab, which created a short circuit between different types of media, subsequently forcing Nike to take action and repair its damaged image (Peretti/Micheletti 2003). Concerning another web campaign initiated by Oneseat, it is worth noticing that it was promoted by a ‘special’ type of individuals (MEPs) with direct access to European institutions and related resources (media access, institutional support, etc.). When the domestic political opportunity structure is closed or national institutions are not perceived as having the power to intervene on a topic, a ‘scale shift’ takes place in order to move claims from one level to another (Tarrow 2005: 32). Such scale shifts were evident in those campaigns that started at the national level, such as REACH and mobile phone recharge costs campaigns. With respect to the web campaign for the abolition of recharge costs for mobile phones the promoter actively sought to produce a ‘boomerang effect’ (Keck/Sikkink 1998). By pressing EU institutions on the issue of competition, which is vital for the process of European integration, the campaign sought to force domestic institutions to change national legislation. Our analysis of web campaigns has shown the two-fold nature of e-petitions as bottom-up processes spontaneously initiated by civil society, as well as top-down practices promoted by institutions to involve citizens. The analysis of online petitions sent to the EU, including e-petitions sent to the EP Committee on petitions, shows how e-petitioning potentially allows every citizen to communicate with Brussels, connect to other European citizens, and influence the policy making process. Online petitions also have the potential to better bridge the decision making process of some European policies and their implementation at the domestic level. Despite relevant limits in terms of access/accessibility, public interest, effectiveness and expertise already pointed

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out elsewhere (Santucci 2008), web campaigns based on e-petitions remain a tool which allows direct participation about European issues bypassing member states. Beyond the limited exploratory analysis presented in this chapter more research is needed in order to understand which factors determine the variable outcomes of web campaigns.

References Alcalde, J. (2008) ‘Global Institutional Responses to the Peace Movement Demands after the Cold War. A Comparison of Four International NGO Campaigns in the Field of Disarmament and Human Rights’, paper prepared for the conference ‘Peace Movements in the Cold War and Beyond’, London 2008. Baer, W. (2001) ‘Signing Initiative Petitions Online: Possibilities, Problems and Prospects’, paper prepared for The Speaker’s Commission on The California Initiative Process, Los Angeles 2001. Bennett, W.L. (2003) ‘Communicating Global Activism’, Communication & Society, 6: 143-168. Castells, M. et al. (2006) ‘Electronic Communication and Socio-Political Mobilization: A New Form of Civil Society’, in M. Glasius et al. (eds) Global Civil Society 2005/6, London et al.: Sage, 266-285. Cukier, W. and Sidel, V.W. (2006): The Global Gun Epidemic, Westport, CT: Praeger Security International. Davenport, E. et al. (2001) E-Petitioner: A Monitoring and Evaluation Report, report to the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, March 2001. della Porta, D. and Rucht, D. (2002) ‘The Dynamics of Environmental Campaigns’, Mobilization, 7: 1-14. della Porta, D. and Diani, M. (2006) Social Movements. An Introduction, 2nd ed., Malden, MA: Blackwell. Eurobarometer (2006) The Future of Europe Fieldwork February-March 2006, Special Eurobarometer 251/Wave 65.1 – TNS Opinion & Social, May 2006. ——— (2005) Standard Eurobarometer. Public Opinion in the European Union, No. 63. European Commission (2005) The Commission’s Contribution to the Period of Reflection and Beyond: Plan-D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate, COM(2005) 494 final, Brussels 2005.

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——— (2001) European Governance. A white paper, COM(2001) 428 final, Brussels 2001. ——— (undated) Your Voice in Europe. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 13 October 2008). European Communities (eds) (2007): ‘Treaty of Lisbon amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community, signed at Lisbon, 13 December 2007’, Official Journal of the European Union, C 306. European Parliament (2008) Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament, 17th ed. ——— (2001) European Ombudsman and National Ombudsmen or Similar Bodies. Study – 01 March 2001. EP DG IV: Marilia Crespo Allen. Fazi, E. and Smith, J. (2006) Civil Dialogue: Making It Work Better. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 13 October 2008). Geyer, R. (2001) ‘Can European Union Social NGOs Co-Operate to Promote EU Social Policy?’, Journal of Social Policy, 30: 477-493. Hanfling, P. (2006) ‘Development of Democracy in Kazakhstan through eParticipation?’, in DEMO-net (ed.) Mapping eParticipation. White Papers, in conjunction with MCIS 2006, The 7th Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems, Venice, 43-44. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 13 October 2008). Hein, C. (2006) The Polycentric and Opportunistic Capital of Europe, Brussels Studies 2, 1-9. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 13 October 2008). Higginson, S.A. (1986) ‘A Short History of the Right to Petition Government for the Redress of Grievances’, The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 96: 142-166. Keck, M. and Sikkink, K. (1998) Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. MacCarthy, J.D. and Zald, M.N. (1973) The Trend of Social Movements in America: Professionalization and Resource Mobilization, Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press. Mosca, L. (2007) ‘A Double-Faced Medium? The Challenges and Opportunities of the Internet for Social Movements’, Max Weber Programme Working Paper 2007/23. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 13 October 2008). Naughton, J. (2001) ‘Contested Space: The Internet and Global Civil Society’, in H. Anheier et al. (eds) Global Civil Society 2001, Oxford et al.: Oxford Universty Press, 147-168. Navarria, G. (2007) ‘The Role of Blogging in Italy: The Story of Beppegrillo.it’, paper prepared for the ICS Postgraduate Conference ‘Communication Technologies of Empowerment’, Leeds 2007. Peretti, J. and Micheletti, M. (2003) ‘The Nike Sweatshop Email: Political Consumerism, Internet, and Culture Jamming’, in M. Micheletti et al. (eds) Politics, Products, and Markets: Exploring Political Consumerism Past and Present, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press, 127-142. PETI (2007a) Draft Opinion on Revision of the Rules of Procedure regarding the Petitions Process [PE 398.331v01-00, PETI_PA(2007)398331]. ——— (2007b) Report on the Deliberations of the Committee on Petitions during the Parliamentary Year 2006 [PE 390.591 v04-00, A6-0392/2007]. ——— (2006) Report on the Deliberations of the Committee on Petitions during the Parliamentary Year March 2004-December 2005 [PE 370.312 v03-00, A60178/2006]. Santucci, D. (2008) Petitioning Europe. Le petizioni online tra strategie di comunicazione istituzionale e pratiche di cittadinanza nell’Unione europea [Petitioning Europe. Online petitions between institutional communication strategies and citizens’ practices in the European Union], PhD thesis in Political Science, University of Torino. Scharpf, F. (2007) ‘Reflections on Multilevel Legitimacy’, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies Working Paper 3/07. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 13 October 2008). Sikkink, K. (2005) ‘Patterns of Dynamic Multilevel Governance and the Insider-Outsider Coalition’, in D. della Porta and S. Tarrow (eds) Transnational Protest and Global Activism, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 151-173. Smith, G. (2005) Beyond the Ballot. 57 Democratic Innovations from Around the World, London: The Power Inquiry. Tarrow, S. (2005) The New Transnational Activism, Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press. van Schendelen, R. (2002) Machiavelli in Brussels: The Art of Lobbying the EU, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

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Winkler, R. and Kozeluh, U. (2005) ‘Europeans Have a Say: Online Debates and Consultations in the EU’, final report of a study carried out in the framework of the NODE programme of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture, Vienna 2005. Zaeske, S. (2003) Signatures of Citizenship: Petitioning, Antislavery, and Women’s Political Identity, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

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Internet Campaigning across Borders: The Virtual Revival of Labour Internationalism? The worldwide reach of the Zapatistas’ struggle following the Chiapas uprising in January 1994 was the first sign that the Internet was producing what Polanyi (1944) called a double movement: enabling capital to electronically reconstitute class relations on a global scale, while simultaneously facilitating an upsurge in computer-mediated local, national, regional and, crucially, global campaigning and protest. This paradox is particularly acute in the case of organized labour. While the Internet revolution has enabled capital to break free of the historic limits of the nation-state, labour has remained imprisoned within its territorial and political limits, rooted in its relative immobility and anchorage to locality. The consequences for work, workers, and trade unions are now abundantly clear; transnational corporations are restructuring the labour process within a global division of labour that pits workers across the world in competition with each other, devastating their conditions and rights, and undermining the power of the labour movement (Moody 1997). Yet, at the same time, the deterritorialization of capital has been met with a revival of labour internationalism: workers are linking up across borders in high-profile campaigns and even militancy and, significantly, the role of the Internet is seen as crucial to this new period of transborder labour networking (Lee 1997; Hodkinson 2004; Robinson 2008; Waterman 1999). The aim of this chapter is to critically assess the potential of the Internet for campaigning and organizing labour movements across multiple borders by overcoming past and present obstacles to union internationalism.1 The analysis begins with a sketch of the contemporary crisis of national trade unionism under globalization before reviewing the problematic case for a new union internationalism. The second section of this chapter then sets out and discusses the claims and merits of what I have termed net-internationalism (Hodkinson 2004), before a more sober reflection on the timeless limits to international worker solidarity and the new problems posed by Internet campaigning, which forms the third section of this chapter. The conclusion argues that the Internet has provided new and important tools for labour internationalism, but cyberspace cannot provide the political solutions to real world transborder solidarity building.

1

Mattoni in this volume points to the differentiating roles of ICT use at the local and transnational levels of labour related grassroots campaigning.

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Cybercapital, Union Decline, and the Agonies of Internationalism Since the early 1970s, global capitalism has undergone fundamental structural, political, and ideological changes now commonly understood as part of a broader process of globalization, characterized by the growing interconnectedness and interdependence between countries, cultures and economies, and the increasing volume of cross-border flows of goods, services, capital, information, and people. Although sceptics such as Hirst and Thompson (1996) are right to argue that ‘globalization is nothing new’, this stage of capitalist globalization is unique in the unprecedented global mobility of capital, principally through the activities and structures of transnational corporations (TNCs) (see Fox Piven/Cloward 1998; Radice 2000). In contrast to ‘national’ firms who produce domestically for international markets, TNCs coordinate production from “one centre […] across national boundaries” (Cowling/Sugden 1994: 39-40), resulting in a shift away from the integrated corporation towards a network of firms and the increased subcontracting of manufacturing and unskilled peripheral components of the production process. What Newman (2005) calls the three waves of the Internet revolution have been central to the emergence of cybercapital (Dyer-Witheford 2003), enabling corporations to electronically coordinate their global division of labour (first wave), directly coordinate professional activities both within the firm and between individual businesses and their suppliers across the world (second wave), and completely deterritorialize the workplace in real-time across national borders and time zones (third wave). One undisputed impact of cybercapitalism is its devastating impact on work, workers, and organized labour. By the 1990s, the post-war influence of trade unions in their former heartlands of North America and Western Europe “had been replaced by the convergent trajectories of union decline” (Western 1997: 21). While many explanations for this demise have been put forward, the argument here is that globalization has fundamentally transformed the terrain of class struggle by relocating political and economic power away from organized labour and towards capital on a global scale. It has done this through bringing to life an embryonic global labour market characterized by its highly segmented structure and vast inequalities of wealth and power, creating for capital a new supply of labour of comparable efficiency but at different prices, as well as increasing the “diversity of labour regimes” available (Martin 1994: 69). TNCs can thus now engage in what has been called regime shopping across the different industrial relations models that make up the global economy (Streeck 1992). The result is that capital can now orchestrate a competitive ‘divide and rule’ game between governments and workers by threatening to source from or transfer production and jobs to other countries, or to curtail future investments. Furthermore, the deterritorialization of the workplace produces a splin-

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tering effect that breaks down the concrete, face-to-face, shared experience of work and the conditions that lead to the composition of what Hyman (1999: 107) calls “organic solidarity”, which is so vital for unionization and collective worker power.

A New Campaigning Labour Internationalism? In this global labour market, it would appear essential for unions to engage in international cooperation and solidarity with fellow workers in other countries and continents in order to confront and constrain the power of capital mobility and protect global wages, employment, and labour standards. As many writers have argued, “the imperative of global unionism follows from the rationale of unionism itself” (Breitenfellner 1997: 532). Transborder labour campaigning could perform many functions and take diverse forms. The most obvious purpose is to enable workers employed within the same global company or industry but in different national locations to collectively fight for better pay and conditions or union recognition (or against derecognition). Such ‘coordinated solidarity’ would actively challenge the ability of global capital to divide and rule over geographically dispersed employees, and could also encompass transnational labour and union agreements between workers to not accept or seek the relocation of corporate production or employment at the expense of other workers. Transborder campaigning could also support striking or oppressed workers in other countries through a variety of strategies. Several writers have shown how the rise of the global brand has created global consumers who can be targeted in coordinated international trade union campaigns in different countries to embarrass global corporate giants like Nike, Reebok, and The Gap into changing practices by publicizing details of their labour rights abuses (Klein 2000; Ross 1997). Moody (1997: 62-64) argues that although corporations have the financial means to resist strikes or other forms of action, “they are also vulnerable at many points of their cross-border production chains…[l]ocal strikes in key locations [and]…[c]ommon cross-border actions by local actions in different countries can cripple even the largest TNCs in their major markets”. The prospects for labour internationalism are, however, confronted by the reality that despite the great rhetoric of internationalism in the labour movement, which dates back to at least 1864 with the founding of Marx’s International Working Men’s Association (aka the First International), the international labour movement has failed to globalize and reorganize itself in response to previous stages of globalization and the reorganization of capital. Although there are competing explanations of this past, it would appear that internationalism has been historically hamstrung by a combination of factors that have become

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strongly embedded and rigid over time. These comprise the dominating hold of nationalism on trade unions, ideological divisions between and within national labour movements, and what Logue (1980) argued is the grip of institutional structures dominated by the self-interests of a bureaucratic elite who are relatively autonomous from workers’ struggles and accountability. These countervailing forces were especially strong during the Cold War when some national trade union movements played a proactive globalizing role in supporting and facilitating their own governments’ imperialist and colonialist policies (Thomson/Larson 1978). One consequence was that the international union movement split into two rival factions when anti-Communist unions withdrew from the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) to create the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in 1949.2 This not only isolated Eastern unions from West, it also “sharpened divisions between communist and non-communist unions in Western countries” (O’Brien 2000: 537). The ICFTU and WFTU essentially became “transmission belts for the priorities of the interests of US and USSR labor-state alliances” while domestic labour politics of developing countries were increasingly penetrated by Cold War politics through “divisive interventions rather than assistance towards the creation of autonomous unions” (Stevis 1998: 9). Cold War divisions also played a major role in the failed attempts to create World Company Councils (WCCs) and achieve global contract and multinational bargaining during the 1960s and 1970s (ibid.: 13). These and other transnationalizing efforts, however, were not simply frustrated by political divisions, but also by what have been viewed as the ‘inherent’ limits to international labour solidarity. The argument, expressed most forcefully by Haworth and Ramsay (1988), is that while all workers internationally share a similar structural relationship to both capital and to each other as wage labour in the abstract, this common relationship is fragmented by the concrete experience of space and place. There is a “natural asymmetry” at the global level between the “disunity of labour” and the “organic unity of capital” since the “natural solidarity of labour (unlike that of capital) is localized, rooted in concrete labour” (Ramsay 1997: 510). In other words, while capital is inherently expansionist and takes decisions on an international basis and increasingly at the international level, workers’ struggles are, in contrast, necessarily specific, tied to locality, and generally inward-looking. Their thesis was, and remains, problematic for the simple reason that workers do simply 2

In November 2006, the ICFTU merged with another body, the World Confederation of Labour, to create a new global union body, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), representing 168 million workers in 155 countries and territories, with 311 national affiliates. See www.ituc.org.

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not ‘cast off’ the abstract value character of labour-power, which unifies workers as a class when they enter the material world of the factory to perform concrete labour. Instead, their subordination to capital is constituted by both aspects and, thus, their behaviour ultimately depends on the interaction between the experience of abstract and concrete labour. Some authors have focused in particular on the inherent time/space/ resource/linguistic barriers to engaging in international cooperation over vast geographical distances. Ramsay (1997: 523) identified several pertinent concrete obstacles to international action, such as: national institutional variations (law, trade union organization, bargaining structure, customs, culture), trade union reluctance/resistance (ideology/religious divides, jealousy of control, national divisions, rivalry for investment), management opposition (exploit division/avoid comparison, decentralization of human resource management (HRM)), the lack of employee support or interest and the lack of genuine intergovernmental organization support as major explanations for the historic impracticability of internationalism. Waterman (2001) has argued that the problem of resources has contributed to the virtual anonymity of international labour organizations to rank and file members of national trade unions, while Lee (1997) asserts that the difficulties faced trying to organize internationally in the 1960s and 1970s were exacerbated by the sheer cost of travel. Beyond resource issues, Gumbrell-McCormick (2001: 12) argues that the main means of action available to the national trade union – collective bargaining, the institutionalization of conflict, the (threat of) strike, control of the labour process or political pressure through party block votes – simply do not apply at the international trade union level. If the potential for labour to counter global capital is placed in sharp relief by this historical perspective, there is also no doubt that since the end of the Cold War and the onset of neoliberal globalization, a pronounced escalation has occurred in the international activities of trade unions and labour movements. Herod (1998: 163) argues that the opening up of former Communist countries, as well as the ending of state or Soviet control over official trade union movements, has finally enabled trade union and labour movements from both sides of the Iron Curtain to explore cooperation. The end of the Cold War is also seen as having allowed trade unions greater independence from government foreign policy and the freedom to find new priorities that are more conducive to unity and effective international action (Ashwin 2000: 102). Regional trade integration in North America and Europe has been met with cross-border organizing. Campaigns against, first, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and, later, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) (see Barry et al. 1994; Hansen-Kuhn 2003; Moody 1997) have been matched by Euro-wide strikes, the development of a social dialogue between capital, unions

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and the European Commission, and the creation of European Works Councils (EWCs) as a first step towards Euro-wide collective bargaining (Dølvik 2000; Erne 2003). At the inter-governmental level, the founding of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 has sparked an international trade union campaign for a workers’ rights clause in the WTO, and such efforts are held to have contributed to the breakdown of the 1999 Seattle WTO Ministerial Conference (Hodkinson 2005). The activities of Global Union Federations (GUFs) towards TNCs are generally viewed as the most significant institutional development for internationalism in the last decade. The main focus is on their successful push to pressure TNCs to enter into Global Framework Agreements (GFAs) that commit employers to respect minimum labour standards in their global operations, and give unions greater consultation, and information rights with management. There are now over thirty-five GFAs in operation (ICFTU 2004). There has also been a clear upsurge in the amount of organized transborder campaigns that target corporations and their particular structures and strategies (see Frege/Kelly 2004; Greven 2003; Manheim 2001). This revival of labour internationalism(s) is rooted in both necessity with the crisis of national labour organizing in the era of globalization, and possibility with the technological, ideational and structural processes of globalization helping to breaking down previous obstacles and opening up new opportunities for transnational labour activism. Nevertheless, the past ‘divisive interventions’ of national and international unions have not been expunged from the collective memories of developing countries and the domination of international trade union structures by Cold War politics has left them weak “with limited powers and resources” (Stevis 1998: 12). The remainder of this chapter focuses on the possibilities opened up for a new era of international labour, one which is organized by new information and communication technologies (ICTs) and particularly the Internet.

Cybersolidarity? The Net-Internationalism Debate The idea of using computers to link up trade unions across national and industrial borders stretches back at least as far as 1972 in the visionary contribution of Charles Levinson (1972), former general secretary of the then International Chemical Workers’ Federation (ICF). Levinson believed that national unions could be connected up to computerized data banks containing vital information on global firms and employment conditions to help them coordinate bargaining and campaigning. During the 1970s and 1980s, trade unions moved slowly to understand and utilize the new ICTs, but by the mid-1990s, activity took off. In 1997, the labour activist and computer programmer, Eric Lee,

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made a seminal contribution to understanding the role of Internet in reviving labour internationalism. In his book, The Labour Movement and the Internet: The New Internationalism, Lee argued that while not panacea, the Internet was actively solving some of the main problems that beset previous phases of internationalism through its annihilation of the time, space, and cost obstacles to sharing information, organizing action and developing a solidarity culture across national frontiers. To support his argument, Lee set out the myriad benefits of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and showcased more than a decade of online activity by trade unionists, ranging from holding longdistance meetings to organizing international industrial action. In short, Lee argued that the Internet provided the objective means by which the world’s workers could unite (Lee 1997). Since then, the significance of what I have called elsewhere net-internationalism (Hodkinson 2004) has been the subject of growing academic and trade union debate that has stretched far beyond the question of internationalism (Bailey 1999; Martinez Lucio/Walker 2005; Robinson 2008; Walker 2001; Waterman 2001) to encompass almost every aspect and scale of trade union, labour organizing and campaigning, including education (Creanor/Walker 2005; Sawchuk et al. 2002), organizing and recruitment (Diamond/Freeman 2002; Spognardi/Hill Bro 1998), participation and democracy (Greene/Kirton 2003; Greene/Hogan/Grieco 2003), identity and roles (Martinez Lucio/ Walker 2005) and organizational form (Darlington 2000; Shostak 1999; Ward/ Lusoli 2003). Generally speaking, the literature recognizes the enormous potential and already existing benefits of the Internet for internationalism and transborder campaigning. Two related but distinct approaches to net-internationalism can be detected. The majority display an instrumentalist position, falling under Waterman’s (2001: 16) conceptualization of the dominant union approach/use of the Internet as primarily a tool for ‘faster, cheaper, furtherreaching’ communication, presenting new opportunities for organizational efficiency and mobilising trade union action in global campaigns. The second approach is more concerned with the communicative potential of the Internet for creating global worker subjectivities. Waterman is particularly taken with the cultural and discursive possibilities of ‘cyberspace’, a place with “unlimited possibilities for international dialogue, creativity and the invention/discovery/development of new values, new attitudes, new dialogues” (2001: 16). In terms of transborder labour campaigning, we can identify five main benefits that the Internet brings. Foremost is the possibility of what Lee calls a global labour information highway in which news, updates, commentary, and analysis of labour disputes, strikes, and campaigns, complete with images, and sound can circulate via email, on websites or now through Internet radio and TV to millions of trade unionists and workers anywhere in the world with

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online access. In any campaign, information is power and becomes the subject of information warfare. Prior to the Internet, workers engaged in local or national disputes were largely constrained by the speed, reach and cost of print media and telephone/fax, favouring the resources and power networks of the employer. The Internet helps to “speed up the availability of counter-information which can be used to contradict false (or the absence of) reporting in mainstream news services” (Pollack 2000: 2). Online strike or campaign newspapers can be produced and constantly updated for an instant global audience and used to refute management or government propaganda, explain workers’ actions, gain media coverage, and garner international support. Eric Lee has done much to further the cause of labour’s global cyberculture through his pioneering development of the LabourStart website (www.labourstart.org) – the most comprehensive, multilingual, multimedia, and up-to-date global labour news service existing in all forms of media. The main website contains links to global labour news stories (national, regional, and internationalist) collected from mainstream, trade union, and alternative news sources by a network of over 500 volunteer correspondents based on every continent, and directly added to a database. The database then updates the website every fifteen minutes and the news is syndicated to over 700 trade union websites. LabourStart’s homepage has a summary of the latest world’s major union headlines, plus requests for urgent international solidarity action, links to Internet radio and video podcasts. Crucially, LabourStart provides news in nineteen languages – Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, Esperanto, French, German, Italian, Kreyòl, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish, and aims to add more languages all the time through volunteers. This is all accomplished without any real resources other than volunteer labour, donations, and occasional sponsorship. A second benefit of the Internet is the opportunity it brings for crossborder research, organizing and bargaining by national unions (Breitenfellner 1997: 547). Email, web chat, online databases, and video conferencing programmes allow union organizers, negotiators, and rank and file militants to share information, as well to debate and formulate shared strategies and tactics. By globalizing knowledge and analysis of local and national labour conditions, trade unions can be immediately alerted to changes in national collective agreements, negotiations, macroeconomic data, employer strategies, and production techniques as well as labour disputes, strikes and employer/state assaults. Lee (1997: 13, 174-175) argues that this is a “solution to the budgetary problems” faced by the WCCs in 1970s, allowing for the creation of global online company councils in which trade unions representing workers at every scale and node of the TNC network work together. Former General Secretary of the International

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Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), Vic Thorpe (1999: 219-20), claims that this panoply through ICT provides the means for global collective bargaining with TNC employers. Some Global Union Federations are already in the process of constructing such electronic networks within TNCs and across global industries. For example, in 1999, the ICEM established a networked database on Goodyear operations across sixteen countries to assist each other in collective bargaining negotiations and organizing the company’s non-union operations (Herod 2001: 198). Public Services International (PSI) has a multilingual database on privatization and associated multinationals, monitoring takeover and merger activities, financial and political developments and issues of performance, pricing, financing, employment, and political relations, including corruption. The PSI is trying to develop electronic links between databases and information on privatisation between trade union and universities from Brazil, Canada, India, South Africa, and Spain (www.psiru.org). The Internet’s role in creating such ‘networked unionism’ has played a crucial part in the formation of the world’s first global union, Workers Uniting, which comes from the merger of the British union, Unite, and the US-based, United Steelworkers. This links to a third benefit of the Internet for internationalism – the potential for “transborder trade union education […] as part of the union response to economic globalization” (Creanor/Walker 2000: 264). Online distance ‘global’ union education is seen as vital for enabling trade unions to educate, train and skill current and future organizers, campaigners, and negotiators for international action. As Sawchuk et al. (2002: 264) argue, “mobilization is inherently an educational process […] for genuine learning to occur in and for the labour movement it cannot be separated from mobilization, development, and social action”. Transborder online education “offers the promise of overcoming the distance barriers and resource constraints which arise in international education and organization” (ibid.), enabling trade unionists from across the world to meet in virtual educational spaces and understand the nature and comparative experiences of globalization, build up greater familiarity with other national employment systems and TNC strategies, and receive up-to-date training for roles as union representatives in transborder structures such as European Works Councils, multinational collective bargaining and international summit lobbying. Such initiatives are still in their infancy but progress is being made, particularly by the International Federation of Worker Education Associations (IFWEA) and the European Trade Union College (ETUCO), who are developing online and blended learning courses (Creanor/Walker 2000; Salt 2000). Fourth, and fundamental to the critique of international trade unionism set out earlier in the chapter, is the Internet’s potential to undermine oligarchy, open up, increase participation in, and democratize the existing institutional

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structures of labour internationalism, or bypass them altogether. As Carter et al. (2003: 298) argue, “the flow of information is now much harder to retain within institutional boundaries. The communicative possibilities are for more extensive interaction, greater density of communication, sharper visibility and higher levels of transparency”. Through cyberspace, workers from across the world can publicly question the tactics and strategies of international unions, or the international activities of national unions, putting previously non-existent channels of pressure into action on the reputations and legitimacy of ‘official’ global bodies. In other words, the Internet is a great leveller, a medium through which members can participate in international trade union decision making by, first, making large amounts of information available; and second, by providing the technological tools (such as electronic voting and web conferencing) to enable mass involvement across borders. Although a predominantly elite level affair, the Internet’s potential for a ‘global labour dialogue’ was exemplified in the 1999 Conference on Organized Labour in the 21st Century (www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inst/project/net work/index.htm), organized by the International Institute for Labour Studies and the then ICFTU, which provided an online space for debate and discussion between trade unionists and academic experts on the challenges facing trade unions in different regions of the world. The most famous example of the Internet enabling rank and file workers to bypass official international bodies and participate in international solidarity remains the 1995-1998 Liverpool Dockers Strike. This was arguably the first Internet-mediated global strike with the LabourNet website (www.labournet.net/docks2), set up and managed by an activist based in Cambridge, becoming the world face of the Dockers’ struggle (Bailey 1997; Carter et al. 2003). The web empowered the strikers to build a formidable international campaign in spite of the lamentable support, and indeed alleged opposition, from their own union, the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU), and its international federation, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF). The Internet gave voice to the silenced dockers, shut off from official union networks and support, and created what Carter et al. (2003: 301) call a “polyphonic space” that “drew in different voices, with different ideas, that ultimately were to lead to three highly successful actions that shook the shipping world.” Fifth, and most important for the theme of this book, is the role that the Internet can play at the sharp end of transborder campaigning – the organization and execution of global labour solidarity and militancy. The informational tools mentioned at length above provide the means by which trade unionists across the world can jointly organize cross-border or global strikes, campaigns, demonstrations, and actions. Crucial to this, as Davies (2004: 5) argues, is the “asynchronous communication” the Internet brings, that is, conversations in

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which participants can contribute at different times, for example, in an email thread lasting several days, and return to later on due to the automatic record of these exchanges. This is indispensable for activism that moves across continents and time zones. At one level, the Internet offers what Walker (2001: 14) calls the opportunity for “publicity, protest and solidarity action” in which essentially local or national disputes or labour violations are met with international support; or a global cyberstrike or cyberpicket among geographically dispersed employees of the same company. Lee (1997: 184) argues that as every trade union gradually comes online, it will eventually be possible to have what he calls a “global early warning network” on trade union rights whereby through email (or phone or fax if necessary), any news story of a worker or union involved in a sudden and serious violation of their human and labour rights could be posted to every trade unionist in the world instantly asking for their support. The Internet was vital to the success of the Australian Dockers’ dispute with their government in 1998. Within days of the start of the dispute, “the threat of a boycott of Australian shipping emerged […] largely thanks to the web and email” (Lee 2000a: 5). More recently, the Internet has been central to the international labour campaign of unions and NGOs, Play Fair at the Olympics, which has targeted the Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 Olympic Games to highlight the appalling labour abuses across the sportswear industry and the culpability of the major sports brands (www.playfair2008.org). The website features: latest news, background reports, automatically faxed protest letters, downloadable photos, leaflets and posters for local campaigning in five languages. Alternatively, cyberspace itself can become the main battleground of a global labour strike. Both Moody (1997) and Herod (2001) have written about the opportunities that the new globalized, corporate, electronified networks of just-in-time production, distribution, and marketing provide for coordinated international trade unionism at different scales of the world economy. While this has focused on companies’ vulnerability to coordinate cross-border actions at key points of their supply chains, Bailey reminds us that “[c]omputer technology has created the conditions for a global communication network that is essential to the operation of capitalism today” (1999: 1). In other words, international solidarity can exploit the specific vulnerabilities of cybercapital by directly targeting employers and states through sending mass emails of protest often by simply clicking on a specific link on a trade union website that has a specially designed web engine to launch ping or mail bomb attacks against websites that overtax its ‘reload’ function or load memory banks with emails (Cleaver 1999: 17). Two examples, more than a decade apart, show the range of possibilities for cyberactivism. The 1996/1997 the Bridgestone/Firestone dispute with the

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United Steelworkers of America came to an end when ICEM helped the US union launch an international cyberstrike against the tyre corporation by “providing a list of addresses on its website to facilitate the unauthorized occupation of the sites and electronic mailboxes of the company’s management, as well as of those of car makers and distributors, tyre retailers and other bodies with a stake in Bridgestone” (Breitenfellner 1997: 547). On 27 September 2007, trade unionists from across the world took part in what Robinson (2008) calls the first virtual strike when they organized a successful twelve hour online demonstration in support of Italian workers against computer giant IBM in the virtual reality of Second Life, a 3-D cyberworld created by its residents (secondlife.com). Second Life is a ‘digital continent’ in which residents can buy land and develop virtual built environments, and as IBM had invested some $10 million in it, the employees’ union, Rappresentenze Sindicale Unitaria (RSU), worked together with its international federation, Union Network International, to organize a series of actions targeting IBM’s virtual locations in Second Life. Computer-generated figures, representing real protesters in the real world, shouted slogans, beeped horns, waved banners and even gate crashed an online meeting of IBM staff, initially forcing the company to close down some of its locations, and then, as the threat of strike action in the ‘real world’ loomed, forcing the CEO of IBM Italy to resign and the company to resolve the dispute in the workers’ favour (see Robinson 2008; ibmsl protest.blogspot.com). By bringing together all of these different instrumental benefits, we can also see the Internet’s communicative potential for helping to forge a shared global solidarity culture of labour everywhere, helping trade unionists to “transcend their own local and national limitations” and feel “part of a global community based not on language or skin colour, but social class” (Lee 1997: 179). A quick glance at the LabourStart website alone reveals that the Internet has helped to revitalize labour internationalism since the mid-1990s, in terms of both the quantity and quality of information flows, organization, education, participation and militancy. In Britain, nearly all national trade unions have an online presence and there are more than 320 union websites (DMOZ 2008). This pattern is reflected across North America and Western Europe, with more unions coming online all the time across East Asia and the Global South. Importantly, all the international trade union and labour organizations are online and most boast multilingual websites. At the same time, however, we must also recognize that not only is the Internet unable to provide a ‘technological fix’ for the deep seated and complex obstacles to labour internationalism, it is also riddled with inherent problems of its own, and poses new questions and problems for transborder labour campaigning.

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From Digital to Political Divides: The Limits of Deterritorialization The most obvious current weakness of the Internet for labour internationalism is the spatial inequality of access: nearly eighty percent of the global population is estimated to be ‘offline’, with those excluded located disproportionately in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America/Caribbean (Internet World Stats 2008).3 It is very difficult to organize global labour solidarity if the vast majority of workers, and hence trade unionists, actual and potential, are not online; and the strongly racial and gendered nature of this inaccessibility could simply be institutionalizing more social and cultural obstacles to constructing solidarity in the future within the current design and usage of labour networking. Moreover, as Lee (1997: 168) argues, capitalist globalization is “shifting the centre of gravity of the labour movement away from Western Europe and North America, and towards the world’s South […] to create a global labournet without African, Asia and Latin American participation is not only unfair and unjust, it is also pointless”. Looking at the question of access from a longer historical vantage point, however, indicates that this might not prove to be a permanent obstacle. A rapid process of technological catch-up is taking place in the so-called developing world, with usage growth rates of between 406 percent (Asia) and 1177 percent (Middle East) between 2000 and 2008. This would suggest that within a generation, the majority of the world population could be online. Moreover, both the Liverpool Dockers strike and global women’s activism have demonstrated the potential for those ‘connected’ to act as bridges to ‘unconnected’ groups “by repackaging on-line information and sharing it through other communication channels such as print, fax, telephone, radio and theatre” (Farwell et al. 1999: 106). Perhaps a more salient point concerns the enduring problem of translation and interpretation in a multilingual world. The LabourStart project is a perfect example of the language conundrum. As a resource-poor initiative coordinated by one person and reliant on volunteers posting news articles and alerts, its ability to publish news in nineteen different languages (twice as many as in

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Of the 1,463,632,361 people estimated to be Internet users, 3.5 percent are in Africa, 39.5 percent are in Asia, 26.3 percent are in Europe, 2.9 percent are in Middle East, 17 percent are in North America, 9.5 percent are in Latin America/Caribbean, 1.4 percent are in Oceania/Australia. These global percentages, however, hide the all important proportion of people within each region online, which reveals the digital divide in starker terms. The figures are as follows: Africa – 5.3 percent; Asia – 15.3 percent; Europe – 48.1 percent; Middle East – 21.3 percent; North America – 73.6 percent; Latin America/Caribbean – 24.1 percent; Oceania/Australia – 59.5 percent. See Internet World Stats 2008, www.internet worldstats.com/stats.htm.

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2003) shows what can be done with dedication and commitment. Closer inspection reveals, however, that the website’s contents are not simultaneously translated into nineteen languages, but rather these are the languages in which national and regional news stories are posted. The result is that thousands of trade unionists and workers from across the world can log on to LabourStart everyday yet may only be reading news from their own country or region, and not reading the same stories as each other. Such parallel online lives make developing a global solidarity culture and international consciousness extremely difficult. Contrast LabourStart’s language offer with the wealthier yet relatively resource-poor International Trade Union Confederation, which does have its website pages simultaneously translated but only into four languages (English, French, Spanish, Dutch). More generally, the Internet, like the international trade union movement, is dominated by the English language, which places enormous power in the hands of Anglophone trade unionists. Studies show that language barriers cause resentment, personal withdrawal, superficial exchanges and miscommunication (see Marschan-Piekkari et al. 1999). Lee (2008) pins his hopes on automatic ‘machine translation’ via the Internet. There is already an array of free online automatic translation tools available such as such as Google Translate, AltaVista’s Babelfish and Babylon, which “produce a basic, if inaccurate and strangely fractured, translation” (Raley 2003: 292). These have been recently complemented by MeGlobe (meglobe.com), which offers real-time translation of online chat into fifteen different languages, and enables users to correct mistranslations, which in turn teaches the software to become a better translator (see Lee 2008). Machine translation, however, is deeply controversial within the field of linguistics. Critical approaches doubt both the technical possibility of creating “fully automatic, high quality translation” (Bar-Hillel 2003: 45) and the political desirability of trying to universalize, rationalize and functionalize communication with its potential for solidifying the power of cyber-English (see Lockard 1996; Raley 2003: 299). The prospect of just five percent of international labour conversations becoming ‘lost in translation’ holds serious implications for the ability of workers from different language backgrounds to effectively coordinate actions and negotiations across borders. Therefore, transborder activists will have to innovate if they want to communicate. As Law (2003: 243) argues in her study of the transnational cyberactivism of the Migrant Forum in Asia, the language barriers among activists from diverse backgrounds can be partly overcome by the use of photos accompanied by captions in English: “Snapshots of political rallies and regional conferences are now circulated on an ongoing basis to give MFA members an idea of activism beyond their local context”. This use of photojournalism on the LabourNet website was a key feature of the Liverpool Dockers’ successful gar-

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nering of international support, a means of humanizing “disembodied messages from cyberspace […] to make the Dockers living” (LabourNet webmaster Chris Bailey; Carter et al. 2003: 299). Possibly more significant is the development of Babels, the growing international network of activist interpreters and translators at the heart of the global ‘social forum’ process associated with Porto Alegre. Babel activists provide simultaneous and consecutive interpretation and document translation ‘voluntarily’ in political solidarity with social movements who have committed to the World Social Forum Charter of Principles (see the WSF website, www.forumsocialmundial. org.br). For the third European Social Forum (ESF) in October 2004 in London, the Babels database had surpassed 7000 people, representing sixty-three languages. From this network, the London ESF welcomed 500 volunteers from twenty-two countries who in turn enabled some 20,000 participants from more than sixty countries to express themselves in twenty-five different languages over three days (Boéri/Hodkinson 2004). Babels, thus, offers a possible linguistic solution for the international trade union movement and, indeed, for all radical social movements confronting neoliberal globalization. It is a network of largely professional interpreters and translators who want to help overcome language barriers in the construction of alternative globalizations, without being treated as mere ‘free service providers’ for political elites. It is possible that through engaging with this or similar networks, the international union movement can build a political relationship with activist interpreters and translators and channel its scarce resources into developing online simultaneous interpretation of video conferencing, and very rapid translation of emails and web chat discussions (ibid.). There are, however, considerable political and ethical obstacles to such bridge building, principally over the issue of remuneration versus volunteering, and the perceived differences in political outlook between trade unions and more autonomous networks like Babels (see Boéri 2008). There are also considerable weaknesses and constraints faced by Internetmediated and web-based campaigning that are accentuated in the transborder realm. First, the vulnerability of cybercapital to electronic warfare by a global labour movement works both ways and while international actions initially took employers and governments by surprise, they are beginning to turn the tables on activists. Central to this is the new era of Internet surveillance that has been given huge momentum by the so-called war on terror. Governments across the world have awarded the police, the intelligence services and even employers with unprecedented powers to legally monitor and collect information on people underpinned by advances in technology that make surveillance far easier and widespread. There are now countless examples of workers who have been reprimanded and even sacked for browsing websites and using email for personal use and, crucially, trade union work. This highlights the weakness of

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email itself, which Lee (2000b) compares to “sending a postcard […] open to reading by all the computers that pass it along the Internet to its destination.” A serious threat to labour internationalism, in general, is the way in which national security and terrorism are being used as pretexts to monitor, criminalize, and repress social movements across the world. The Internet offers states and global corporations an abundance of unsecured information about what campaigners are planning, and makes the Internet a particularly precarious medium of transnational organizing (see Constanza-Chock 2004). Moreover, corporations and governments are now themselves engaging in ‘netwar’. In 2000, the US publication Narco News Bulletin was shutdown for six days after its email account and website were allegedly ‘mail-bombed’ by the US lawyer-lobbyist firm Akin Gump, allegedly on behalf of the Colombian government and drugs traffickers (Giordano 2000). Such tactics were dramatically escalated in 2004, when US authorities seized two Internet servers in London belonging to the independent media network, indymedia. More than twenty indymedia websites across the world were shut down as a result. As Red Pepper magazine reported at the time, “The most chilling aspect of the seizures was the information blackout that followed. indymedia was unable to discover who had actually seized their servers, who had ordered it, why it had happened, and where the servers had been taken.” The only clue came from an FBI spokesperson who told Agence France Presse that the seizure involved the FBI acting on behalf of the Italian and Swiss authorities. It later emerged that this was under the provisions of a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, “which establishes procedures for countries to assist each other in investigations such as international terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering” (Jones 2004: 29). Second, the Internet cannot wave a magic wand to the ideological and institutional obstacles that have traditionally hampered it. Solving the worker’s digital divide does not in itself overcome the many political divides and the Internet itself can contribute new tensions and problems. It is not just the bitter memories of the Cold War and the divisive interventions of national and international unions in developing countries that continue to present fundamental barriers to internationalism. The everyday experiences of workers in a globalizing economy remain nationalistic, parochial, highly localized and differentiated, and are continually shaped by capitalist ideology and, in particular, the ideology and practice of economic nationalism. In this context, how the Internet can help to produce what Waterman (2001) calls a “global solidarity culture” is difficult to comprehend. As Tarrow (2000: 11, 13) argues, solidarity culture comes from social networks, which provide the “interpersonal trust, the collective identities and the social communication of opportunities that galvanize individuals into collective action.” Such identities are “negotiated among people who know one another, meet frequently, and work together on

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common projects […] identities are dependent on networks” (ibid.). These vital social networks have only been hitherto accessible on a predominantly local or national basis, or within the elite confines of international bureaucracies based in Brussels and Geneva. Translating these processes across borders within and through cyberspace is difficult. For Escobar (1999: 32), a “cultural politics of cyberspace” is best achieved and most effective if there is “an ongoing tacking back and forth between cyberpolitics […] political activism in the physical locations at which the networker sits and lives” (ibid.). O’Malley’s (1998: 22) study of the 1996/1997 Citizens for Local Democracy (C4LD) campaign in Ontario, Canada, recounts how local people were inspired to go to meetings and participate in the campaign after reading about it online, and that members engaged in a constant “breathing in and breathing out” process, continually moving back and forth between real and virtual worlds, creating a community of feelings and shared values. The Internet helped to create a solidarity culture in this and similar cases because of the ability of activists to move in and out of real and virtual activist communities due to their shared geographical proximity, and because it is the same people doing the ‘tacking in and out’. This very interface between cyberspace and the real place of everyday, face-to-face relations enables accountability and embodied human interaction that helps to build the most important foundation for solidarity – trust. In contrast, workers engaging in internationalism cannot move as easily back and forth from web based to real world activism because they do not usually live in the same locality or experience the same working conditions. This shows the downside of deterritorialization. As Capling and Nossal (2001) argue, while the Internet shrinks time and space, it does not make place irrelevant. So while it is well suited to coordinating local actions within a global networked strategy, it cannot bring those disparate activists to a single geographical site where solidarity cultures can properly form. To compound this, global solidarity must form on the basis of workers and trade unions, which are already suffering from a crisis of national solidarity, which are arguably inherently non-internationalist and many of whom harbour deep suspicions of the Internet as a threat to jobs and their way of life. This makes international networks, especially between trade unionists, extremely ephemeral and fragmentary, and whereas this might be a strength for horizontal social movement networks, it might be a weakness for labour internationalism.

Conclusion Objectively, the Internet is providing workers and their organizations with revolutionary new organizational and communicative tools to engage in inter-

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nationalism. Plenty of evidence supports the idea that the Internet is facilitating internationalism through transnational business networks, international discussion/mailing lists, cross-border political appeals for solidarity support and cross-border protest organization. The Internet enables for the first time, in theory, for a qualitative and quantitative shift in inclusivity, representativeness and internationalism in relation to these structures. National trade union and labour groups from different countries can now meet, discuss, debate, dialogue, swap information and stories in cyberspace and in real-time without having to set foot outside their offices and countries when previous means of communication were almost non-existent in relation to this. A top-down process can now become a two-way process. This is not necessarily a shift from verticalism to horizontalism, but it does enable feedback mechanisms that can transform, radically, initial positions and reach consensus. Trade unions and other labour organizations will continue to be the major vehicles for organized labour and, thus, for international solidarity. This inevitably means, however, the retention of a pyramidal, top-down internationalism for the foreseeable future. The Internet can contribute enormously to horizontalizing and radicalizing these ‘dinosaurs’ with online and cyber-organized offline pressure. The Internet, however, must not become fetishized as the virtual solution to real world solidarity building. While more research is needed to understand the effectiveness of Internet-based campaigns, anecdotal evidence from within the labour movement suggests that most web campaigns, like all other types of campaigns, do not result in victory. This might explain why academic and trade union publications on the issue continually refer to struggles that took place in the second half of the 1990s, a period in which Internet-based activism suddenly exploded onto the scene and captured the imagination of many, as well as taking companies and governments completely by surprise. Now in its third wave, the Internet has become a daily reality for over a billion people and as it has grown, labour campaigns have resumed their marginality, arguably failing to innovate and exploit new technologies (see Newman 2005). This reflects the fact that even though the Internet’s technological shortcomings will be largely ironed out over time, the real obstacles to internationalism remain political in nature, dilemmas that the Internet cannot resolve. Arguably the most important is the continued grip of nationalism on the international working class and its organizations. It is estimated that less than one percent of the international trade union movement’s own resources are allocated to international work (ICFTU 2001: para 38). International campaigning is normally a last resort, not an embedded strategy, of labour. This confirms those theories that have identified the absence of a perceived self-interest among workers and trade unions to organize across borders, and the centrality of concrete experience to the shaping of worker consciousness. It also explains the persistence of inter-na-

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tional structures, a ‘lowest-common denominator’ form of decision-making, and the overriding control of international trade unionism by small centralized bureaucracies. Overall, the international trade union movement is at a critical point in its history, strongly anchored to the traditions and ideologies of the past, but compelled to change and renew itself if it is to have a future. The Internet will be a necessary tool in this process.

References Ashwin, S. (2000) ‘International labor solidarity after the Cold War’, in R. Cohen an S.M. Rai, Global Social Movements, London, 101-116. Bailey, C. (1999) ‘The Labour Movement and the Internet’, paper presented at the conference ‘LaborMedia ’99’, Seoul 1999. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 8 August 2008). ——— (1997) ‘Towards a Global Labournet’, paper presented at the conference ‘LaborMedia ’97’, Seoul 1997. Bar-Hillel, Y. (2003) [1960] ‘The Present Status of Automatic Translation of Languages’, in S. Nirenburg et al. (eds) Readings in Machine Translation, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 45-76. Barry, T. et al. (1994) The Great Divide: the Challenge of US-Mexican Relations in the 1990s, New York, NY: Grove Press. Boéri, J. and Hodkinson, S. (2004) ‘Babels and the Politics of Language at the Heart of the Social Forum’, Eurotopia/Guide for Social Transformation in Europe 2. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 6 August 2008). Boéri, J. (2008) ‘A Narrative Account of the Babels vs. Naumann Controversy: Competing Perspectives on Activism in Conference Interpreting’, The Translator 14: 21-50. Breitenfellner, A. (1997) ‘Global Unionism: A Potential Player’, International Labour Review, 136: 531-555. Carter, C. et al. (2003) ‘The Polyphonic Spree: The Case of the Liverpool Dockers’, Industrial Relations Journal 34: 290-304. Cleaver, H. (1999) Computer-Linked Social Movements and the Global Threat to Capitalism, Department of Economics, University of Texas, USA. Constanza-Chock, S. (2004) ‘The Whole World is Watching: Online Surveillance of Social Movement Organizations’, in P. Thomas and Z. Nain (eds)

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Who owns the media? Global trends and local resistances, London: Zed Books, 271-292. Capling, A. and Nossal, K. (2001) ‘Death of Distance or Tyranny of Distance? The Internet, Deterritorialisation, and the Anti-Globalization Movement in Australia’, The Pacific Review 14: 443-465. Cowling, K. and Sugden, R. (1994) Beyond Capitalism: Towards a New World Economic Order, London: Pinter. Creanor, L. and Walker, S. (2005) Trade Union Use of ICT in Support of Learning, London: TUC. Darlington, R. (2000) The Creation of the E-Union: The Use of ICT by British Unions, text of presentation made to an Internet Economy Conference, London 2000. Davies, W. (2004) ‘Trade Union Membership and the Internet: Lessons from Civil Society’, IPPR Digital Society and Media Programme. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 1 August 2008). Diamond, W.J. and Freeman, R.B. (2002) ‘Will Unionism Prosper in Cyberspace? The Promise of the Internet for Employee Organization’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 40: 569-596. DMOZ (2008) ‘Open Directory Project: Trade Unions’. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 6 August 2008). Dølvik, J.E. (2000) ‘Building Regional Structures: The ETUC and the European Industry Federations’, Transfer, 6: 58-77. Dyer-Witheford, N. (2003) ‘Sim Capital: General Intellect, World Market, Species Being, and the Video Game’. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 7 August 2008). Erne, R. (2003) ‘Organised Labour – A Euro-Democratic Social Actor within the (Technocratic) European Competition Policy? A Comparative Analysis of the Conflicting Trade Union Strategies in the ABB-Alstom and Alcan-Pechiney-Algroup Merger Cases’, paper presented at the ‘13. World Congress of the International Industrial Relations Association (IIRA)’, Berlin 2003. Escobar, A. (1999) ‘Gender, Place and Networks: A Political Ecology of Cyberculture’, in W. Harcourt (ed.) Women@Internet: Creating New Cultures in Cyberspace, London: Zed Books, 31-54.

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Farwell, E. et al. (1999) ‘Global Networking for Change: Experiences from the APC Women’s Programme’, in W. Harcourt (ed.) Women@Internet: Creating New Cultures in Cyberspace, London: Zed Books, 102-113. Fox Piven, F. and Cloward, R.A. (1998) ‘Eras of power’, Monthly Review 49: 1123. Frege, C. and Kelly, J.E. (eds) (2004) Varieties of Unionism: Strategies for Union Revitalization in a Globalizing Economy, Oxford/New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Giordano, A (2000) About the Cyber Attack on Narco News. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed December 2000). Greene, A.-M., Hogan, J. and Grieco, M. (2003) ‘Commentary: E-collectivism and Distributed Discourse: New Opportunities for Trade Union Democracy’, Industrial Relations Journal, 34: 282-289. Greene, A.-M. and Kirton, G. (2003) ‘Possibilities for Remote Participation in Trade Unions: Mobilising Women Activists’, Industrial Relations Journal 34: 319-333. Greven, T. (2003) ‘Transnational “Corporate Campaigns”: A Tool for Labour Unions in the Global Economy?’, The International Journal of Comparative Law and Industrial Relations, 19: 495-513. Gumbrell-McCormick, R. (2001) ‘The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions: Structure, Ideology and Capacity to Act’, unpublished Doctoral Thesis, University of Warwick. Hansen-Kuhn, K. (2003) Back to Miami: A History of Citizen’s Events Parallel to the Official FTAA Meetings, Washington, DC: Alliance for Responsible Trade. Haworth, N. and Ramsay, H. (1988) ‘Workers of the World Untied: International Capital and Some Dilemmas in Industrial Democracy’, in R. Southall (ed.) Trade Unions and the New Industrialization of the Third World, London: Zed Books, 306-331. Herod, A. (2001) Labor Geographies: Workers and the Landscapes of Capitalism. New York, NY/London: The Guildford Press. —— (1998) ‘Of Blocs, Flows and Networks: The End of the Cold War, Cyberspace, and the Geo-Economics of Organized Labor at the “Fin de Millénair”’, in A. Herod et al., Unruly World? Globalization, Governance and Geography, London: Routledge, 162-195. Hirst, P. and Thompson, G. (1996) Globalization in Question: The International Economy and the Possibilities of Governance, Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Hodkinson, S. (2005), ‘Is There a New Trade Union Internationalism? The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions’s Response to Globalization, 1996-2002’, LABOUR, Capital & Society, 38: 36-65. —— (2004) ‘Problems@Labour: Towards a New Net-Internationalism?’, in Gibson, R.K. et al. (eds) Electronic Democracy: Mobilisation, Organisation and Participation via New ICTs, London/New York, NY: Routledge, 153-169. Hyman, R. (1999) ‘Imagined Solidarities: Can Trade Unions Resist Globalization?’, in P. Leisink (ed.) Globalization and Labour Relations, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 94-115. ICFTU (2004) ‘Global Union Federation Framework Agreements with Multinational Enterprises’. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 7 August 2008). —— (2001) ‘Global Unions Day of Action – Circular 41 (2001)’, 26 July 2001, Brussels: ICFTU Internet World Stats (2008) ‘Internet Usage Statistics: The Internet Big Picture – World Internet Users and Population Stats’. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 5 August 2008). Jones, D. (2004) ‘Information super-highwaymen’, Red Pepper 125. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 8 August 2008). Klein, N. (2000) No Logo, London: Flamingo. Law, L. (2003) ‘Transnational Cyberpublics: New Political Spaces for Labour Migrants in Asia’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 26: 234-252. Lee, E. (2008) ‘Real-time Online Translation: Breakthrough Technology for Social Change?’. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 8 August 2008). —— (2000a), ‘How the Internet is Changing Unions’, Working USA. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 8 August 2008). —— (2000b), ‘Email Privacy is a Trade Union Issue’. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 8 August 2008). —— (1997) The Labour Movement and the Internet: The New Internationalism. London/Chicago, IL: Pluto Press.

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Levinson, C. (1972) International Trade Unionism, London: Allen & Unwin. Lockard, J. (1996) ‘Resisting Cyber-English’, Bad Subjects. 24, Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 8 August 2008). Logue, J. (1980) Towards a Theory of Trade Union Internationalism, Kent, OH: University of Gothenburg. Manheim, J.B. (2001) The Death of a Thousand Cuts. Corporate Campaigns and the Attack on the Corporation, Mahwah, NJ/London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Marschan-Piekkari, R. et al. (1999) ‘In the Shadow: The Impact of Language on Structure, Power and Communication in the Multinational’, International Business Review 8: 421-440. Martin, A. (1994) ‘Labour, the Keynesian Welfare State, and the Changing International Political Economy’, in R. Stubbs and Underhill, G.R.D. (eds) Political Economy and the Changing Global Order, London: Macmillan, 60-74. Martinez Lucio, M. and Walker, S. (2005) ‘The Networked Union? The Internet as a Challenge to Trade Union Identity and Roles’, Critical Perspectives on International Business, 1: 137-154. Moody, K. (1997) Workers in a Lean World: Unions in the International Economy. London/New York, NY: Verso. Newman, N. (2005) ‘Is Labor Missing the Internet Third Wave’, Working USA, 8: 383-394. O’Brien, R. (2000) ‘Workers and World Order: The Tentative Transformation of the International Union Movement’, Review of International Studies, 26: 533-555. O’Malley, K. (1998) ‘Grassroots in Cyberspace: Community Organizing on the Internet’, Canadian Forum, 76: 21-25. Pollack, A. (2000) Cross-Borders, Cross-Movement Alliances in the Late 1990s. Global Solidarity Dialogue. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 8 August 2008). Polanyi, K. (1944) The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Radice, H. (2000) ‘Responses to Globalization. A Critique of Progressive Nationalism’, New Political Economy, 5: 5-19. Raley, R. (2003) ‘Machine Translation and Global English’, The Yale Journal of Criticism, 16: 291-313.

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Ramsay, H. (1997) ‘Solidarity at Last? International Trade Unionism Approaching the Millennium’, Economic & Industrial Democracy, 18: 503-537. Robinson, B. (2008) ‘Solidarity Across Cyberspace: Internet Campaigning, Labour Activism and the Remaking of Trade Union Internationalism’, Work Organisation, Labour and Globalization, 2: 152-164. Ross, A. (1997) No Sweat: Fashion, Free Trade and the Rights of Garment Worker, London/New York, NY: Verso. Salt, B. (2000) ‘International Study Circles’, Information, Communication and Society, 3: 337-346. Sawchuk, P. et al. (2002) ‘E-Learning and Union Mobilization’, Journal of Distance Education, 17: 80-96. Shostak, A. (1999) CyberUnion: Empowering Labour through Computer Technology. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Spognardi, M. and Hill Bro, R. (1998) ‘Organizing through Cyberspace: Electronic Communications and the National Labour Relations Act’, Employee Relations Law Journal, 23: 141-151. Stevis, D. (1998) ‘International Labor Organizations, 1864-1997: The Weight of History and the Challenges of the Present’, Journal of World-Systems Research, 4: 52-75. Streeck, W. (1992) ‘National Diversity, Regime Competition and Institutional Deadlock’, European Journal of Public Policy, 12: 301-330. Tarrow, S. (2000) Beyond Globalization: Why Creating Transnational Social Movements is So Hard and When is it Most Likely to Happen, Departments of Government and Sociology, Cornell University. Thomson, D. and Larson, R. (1978) Where Were You, Brother? An Account of Trade Union Imperialism, London: War on Want. Thorpe, V. (1999) ‘Global Unionism: The Challenge’, in P. Waterman and R. Munck (eds) Labour Worldwide in the Era of Globalization: Alternative Union Models in the New World Order, London: Macmillan, 216-222. Walker, S. (2001) ‘To Picket Just Click It! Social Netwar and Industrial Conflict in a Global Economy’, research paper in progress, Leeds Metropolitan University. Ward, S. and Lusoli, W. (2003) ‘Dinosaurs in Cyberspace? British Trade Unions and the Internet’, European Journal of Communication, 18: 147-179. Waterman, P. (2001), ‘Trade Union Internationalism in the Age of Seattle’, Antipode, 33: 312-336.

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—— (1999) ‘Labour@Cyberspace: Problems in Creating a Global Solidarity Culture’, Cybersociology 5. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 8 August 2008). Western, B. (1997) Between Class and Market: Postwar Unionization in the Capitalist Democracies, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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Veronika Kneip Political Struggles within the Market Sphere – The Internet as a ‘Weapon’? As processes of economic globalization are regarded to be accompanied by harmful externalities and tremendous social costs, e.g. in the fields of environmental or employment protection, civil society protest is not confined to addressing the role of national governments or transnational political organizations but addresses also the role of corporations as ‘driving forces’ of globalization. Within so-called Anti-Corporate Campaigns single non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or broad coalitions of civil society actors target corporations or industries with the intention of influencing corporate policy or institutional structures. By doing so, these groups primarily direct their attacks at a corporation’s brand image. As the globalizing marketplace is often characterized by converging product qualities, the reputation, and, therein, value of the company itself is not defined by the product but by the image and strength of the brand.1 Credibility has become a key asset because world markets require the trust of consumers as well as the general public. Hence, the starting point for Anti-Corporate Campaigns centres upon not only mobilizing consumers as political actors but also hindering efforts by the corporate marketing campaigns to gain consumer trust. Within this line of attack crucial importance is ascribed to the potential of the Internet. The diffusion of brands and corporate images can largely be connected to product advertising and public relations, which both draw upon mass media. The establishment of the Internet, however, strengthens the position of the consumer by increasing the available avenues for the individual but also for comprehensive and collectively raised claims against corporations: “Digital technology is re-writing the rules of the marketplace. It is democratising the information environment, transforming what Kotler calls the asymmetry between sellers and customers” (Scammell 2003: 120). Furthermore, online technologies may contribute to a corporation’s increased vulnerability to scandalization as protest actors, supported by a wide repertoire of communication tools ranging from protest websites and emails, to chats and blogs, are able to raise their unfiltered voices. On this note, empirical research (e.g. Rose1

In this context the Interbrand Group can be named which developed a system to rate brand values. In their annual survey Best global brands they name 100 global brands with brand values from US$ 65 billion (Coca-Cola) to US$ 3 billion (Hertz) (Interbrand/Business Week 2007: 13-17).

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lieb 2001, 2002; Köhler 2006, 2007) shows that corporate crises can fundamentally be connected to Internet activism. Against the backdrop of these considerations, the Internet appears to be an effective ‘weapon’ for Anti-Corporate Campaigns. While the Internet has already been analyzed as a ‘weapon’ of protest in the sense of hacktivism (e.g. Jordan 2002; Karatzogianni 2004), the following analysis will refer to a broader approach of campaigning politics. Such analysis, however, should not only work from the afore mentioned assumptions of shifting marketplace power relations, but must also consider those tensions stemming from the polarity of general civil society participatory principles and the requirements of strategic campaigning politics. Characteristics of online-media, roughly delineated as multimedia, interactivity, and decentralized organization (e.g. Kamps 1999: 8; van de Donk et al. 2004: 4), correspond with the fundamental nature of social movements within civil society. Interactivity and decentralized organization, specifically, are considered to enable those actors to connect and mobilize flexibly at a transnational scale on a low-cost basis. Moreover, Internet structures are said to contribute to the informal orientation of social movements and to more easily promote the pursuit of grassroots democracy (Castells 2001: 43, 2005: 129-130; Dennis 2007: 19; van de Donk et al. 2004: 4). The Internet is, likewise, regarded as an opportunity structure for participating in non-institutional political processes and networked activism due to the fact that the network metaphor is the explanatory basis of online structures (Niesyto forthcoming; Schönberger 2005). Within this framework, campaigns initiated by civil society actors also appear to adapt to the structural principles of online technology. For example, Blood (2000: 166) refers to the emergence of “a new type of collaborative activism which enables individual groups to remain small, independent, and minimally resourced yet collectively have the impact of an entire movement”. In a similar way Kahn and Kellner (2005: 81-84) cite innovative forms of communication such as blogs, wikis, and social networking portals as having a participatory and democratic potential, as well as being essential tools in the struggle against corporate globalization.2 The diminished control, however, attributed to interactive and decentralized networks comes into conflict with fundamental precepts of campaigning as, for example, outlined by Baringhorst in this volume (23): While the Internet structure supports a more decentralized, egalitarian, and direct civic participation, the success of political campaigning strategies still highly depends on a campaign logic that 2

Impacts of organizational self-understanding on communication flows along vertical and horizontal axes are emphasized by Lindner in this volume.

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requires a more centralist approach to politics, aiming at mass media audiences based on the mobilizing power of large, professionalized organizational actors. As campaigns are based on a balanced interplay of reasoning, mobilization, and action, clearly defined organizational structures and strategic planning are widely assumed to be preconditions of campaign achievements. This holds true also for campaigns initiated by civil society actors as the former chairman of Greenpeace Germany, Thilo Bode, roundly declares, “It is not possible to succeed with a campaign based on majority decisions” (Bieber 2002/2003: 136, translation V.K.). Compared to the restricted institutional political channels, campaigns do offer an important arena in which civil society actors assert their claims. The top-down structures widely ascribed to professional campaigning, however, reveal contradictory implications for the integration of individual activists. The following analysis, as part of the research project Changing Protest and Media Cultures at the University of Siegen,3 focuses on the tension between principles of civil society actors, opportunities provided by Internet technology, and the basic tenets of campaigning politics. From 1995 to 2005, the project identified more than 100 transnational Anti-Corporate Campaigns which are (partially) conducted by German-speaking civil society actors or address German-speaking publics. Ten cases are analyzed in-depth through website analysis as well as qualitative interviews with campaign organizers and representatives of targeted corporations. These are accompanied by online queries with mobilized actors and an analysis of Austrian, German, and Swiss online and offline media. The in-depth case studies are complemented by four studies of Anti-Corporate Campaigns conducted in the United States (US). The comprehensive analysis shows that Internet structures are applied to integrate various groups into widespread campaign networks and to develop bottom-up protest action. Mass media coverage and a visible campaign centre, however, still play a crucial role for many campaigns that, nevertheless, apply online structures to put their strategies into action (Baringhorst et al. 2007). Drawing on these overall results and considering the diverse positions covered in the literature, a systematic approach can be devised and extended to include the adoption of Internet technology as a ‘weapon’ of targeting corporations. Accordingly, the trisection outlined below includes varying levels of openness and control in appropriating the potential of the Internet. Within

3

Detailed information concerning the research project is available at www.protest-cul tures.uni-siegen.de/engl/index.html.

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Anti-Corporate Campaigns, the Internet can be used to attack corporations via: -

Edited information: The Internet is an arena and tool utilized to raise awareness for campaign claims; this includes the preparation and provision of information concerning corporations and their misconduct in a top-down manner.

-

Channelled activism: The Internet serves as a tool to mobilize direct participation so that the basic principles of campaign action are predefined but implementation depends on individual involvement.

-

Scattered collaboration: The use of a bottom-up approach on the Internet enables self-organized micro-activism and to compile as many divergent and autonomous ideas as possible.

This trisection needs to be substantiated by a deeper case analysis in order to explore the interrelation between general campaign approaches and the adoption of the Internet as a ‘weapon’. Are centralized and decentralized campaign approaches related to corresponding expressions on the Internet? Detailed analysis should also investigate the effectiveness of each kind of ‘weapon’ – How do different modes of appropriating the potential of the Internet contribute to campaign goals? In relation to the first question, campaigns which feature divergent approaches can be regarded as crucial cases (e.g. Blatter et al. 2007; Gerring 2007: 115) in order to examine and modify the initial hypothesis of interrelation between campaign approach and Internet use. Furthermore, a synopsis of the online repertoires employed by these campaigns will provide a basis for conclusions concerning their potential and limitations. Three of the aforementioned in-depth case studies from Changing Protest and Media Cultures have been chosen by theoretical sampling. A distinct top-down approach can be found within the campaign Wal-Mart Watch, as a team of full-time campaign employees conducts this campaign. The Campaign to Stop Killer Coke will be cited as an example of a bottom-up approach because it is substantially carried out by a decentralized network of individual activists. The campaign Stop Deportation Class can evidently be seen as a hybrid approach that has been implemented primarily by a small core team of activists but features bottom-up elements. These campaigns will be analyzed with regard to their utilization of the Internet as a ‘weapon’ in targeting corporations. Building from there, the modes of adoption will be reassessed in terms of campaign approaches and effectiveness.

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Wal-Mart Watch – Edited Information? Wal-Mart Watch is an US based campaign that was launched in 2005. It strives to expose Wal-Mart’s lapses of responsibility in terms of labour related and environmental issues, as well as concerns of the corporation’s political influence and trade policy. The campaign has been thus far executed by two organizations both specifically established for this campaign. The Center for Community & Corporate Ethics was founded as a non-profit organization in order to study the impact of large corporations on society. Five Stones is the second organization, which functions as the advocacy arm of the campaign and can take donations that are not deductible for federal income tax purposes (Wal-Mart Watch 2005a). The campaign is financed by various partner organizations, of which the most important is the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The predominant character of the campaign becomes obvious when examining the assignment of campaign responsibilities. The campaign team is comprised of about fourteen people who are currently employed on full time basis and are responsible for taking decisions concerning campaign strategies and activities. Beyond this central campaign team, one outside consultant is in charge of the overall web design.4 The campaign team has rather loose affiliation with a diverse array of local, national, and international organizations. The role of these organizations is limited to “support and compliment” the overall campaign (ibid.). The campaign website is used to achieve the aim of being “a nationwide public education campaign to challenge the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, to become a better employer, neighbour, and corporate citizen” (ibid.). Thus, the campaign website is designed as a complex and elaborately composed research centre. It is built around six issues within which accusations are raised, namely discrimination, health care, environment, labour relations, political influence, community impact, corporate culture, and supply chain. All issues are displayed on particular but identically configured research pages. These pages contain various short texts dealing with different aspects of the issues that are backed up and deepened through references or hyperlinks. For the purpose of substantiation and self-legitimation, the campaign reverts to a certain set of resources consisting of internal and external results. Internal documents comprise:

4

In the beginning of the campaign in 2005 there had been about 30 employees. The information concerning campaign structure and responsibility are based upon an interview with the campaign members Brendan Gaffney (Research) and David Nasssar (Executive Director), conducted by Veronika Kneip and Johanna Niesyto on 4 March 2008.

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-

Fact Sheets of about three pages each, which give a short overview of a certain topic and are arranged like students’ textbooks including listings, catchwords at the margin, and a layout comprised partially of visual material. Topics on the page Supply Chain are, amongst others, “Wal-Mart’s Global Labor Violations” (Wal-Mart Watch 2008a) and “How WalMart’s Massive Imports from China Threaten America’s Food Supply” (Wal-Mart Watch 2008b).

-

In-Depth Papers of about fifteen pages exemplify particular campaign claims from different perspectives. The in-depth issue “Sustaining WalMart” (Wal-Mart Watch 2008c), for example, is available on the Environment page and contains articles concerning environmental impact, labour conditions, and product safety.

-

Reports, which are based on research conducted by campaign professionals, give detailed insight into specific facets of the campaign on about twenty pages. For example, one such report deals with a large employment discrimination class-action suit of a female employee (Wal-Mart Watch 2006), another concerns Wal-Mart’s environmental programmes (Wal-Mart Watch 2007).

As external evidence, the campaign cites: -

Scientific Research Reports to objectify criticism brought up against WalMart through academic expertise. For instance, the accusation of the corporation’s negative impact on community median wages comes along with links to corresponding research results of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley (Wal-Mart Watch 2005b).

-

Surveys of External Civil Society Organizations to clarify that the campaign claims can be observed in diverse social contexts. The issue of discrimination, for example, is substantiated by referring to an industry report of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People which rated Wal-Mart low for its business practices with respect to African Americans (Wal-Mart Watch 2005c).

-

Official Statistics to quantify the experiences of individual employees. Thus, the deficiency of the Wal-Mart health plan is exposed by presenting state rankings of how many people are on public health care, listed by employer. This list mentions Wal-Mart as one of the companies with the most employees enrolled in state-funded health care programs (WalMart Watch 2005d).

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-

Media Reports which document that the campaign is in line with public perception. Accordingly, Wal-Mart’s impact on American manufacturers is illustrated with a compilation of local newspaper reports dealing with the corporation’s price pressure on its national suppliers (Wal-Mart Watch 2005e).

-

Material published by Wal-Mart which is used to confront the position expressed therein or to reveal certain aspects of corporate policy. Here, an internal Wal-Mart document, the “Susan Chambers Memo” (Wal-Mart Watch 2005f) can be named which delivers insight into Wal-Mart’s (insufficient) healthcare measures. Moreover, the campaign refers to extracts of the “Wal-Mart 2006 Associate Benefits Book” (Wal-Mart Watch 2005d) in order to contrast its optimistic projection with the campaign’s more negative estimation.

The resources outlined above are not only integrated into one research page but are often placed within several pages (e.g. Labor Relations and Discrimination). Furthermore, the material is bundled within the sections Publications and Research where it is complemented by earlier studies and reports. All documents are archived, arranged by subject or document type and can be browsed via a search engine. Hence, the Internet plays a crucial role to crosslink information, to place the same material within different contexts, and to satisfy varying needs for in-depth information. Internet technology is also used to tailor information for different target groups. For instance, there are special blogs for elected officials, environmental activists, or religious groups; these are extracted from the overall campaign blog. These groups are also provided with tailored material. For instance, elected officials at the federal, state, and local level are equipped with talking points and model legislations concerning subjects like health care or living wages (Wal-Mart Watch 2005g). Finally, the campaign makes use of multimedia features in order to enhance and customize information. Audio files, slide shows, and interactive maps are examples of such material. The latter gives an overview about WalMart’s global and local involvement in certain regions:

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Figure 1: Wal-Mart issues abroad (Wal-Mart Watch 2005h).

Likewise, the campaign blog, which consists of 268 pages5 with diverse links, pictures, and videos, can be consulted in a multimedia context. Within the blog, supporters are offered the opportunity to express their point of view and collaborate by commenting on the entries. Such multimedia collaboration is also available within the campaign’s YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/user/ walmartwatch). The campaign also employs structured or guided activism: The website advocates letter writing campaigns aimed at local newspapers and petitions such as “Handshake with Sam” (Wal-Mart Watch 2005i), an aspired agreement of shared principles. Although individual activists become more visible through such structured activism, and although co-production within social web applications remains a possibility, the multimedia applications are adopted primarily as another method of providing ‘professional’ material. For instance, the campaign produced two videos for YouTube which criticize WalMart in the playful manner of culture jamming6 by placing the Dark Lord Waldemart in the world of Harry Potter: YouTube is something that is enormously popular. […] We did this series of videos on Harry Potter generated really into Wal-Mart. We love doing that; we want to do more of it. I don’t know exactly how

5

Accessed 20 March 2008.

6

“Culture jamming is the most flamboyant and contentious of discursive political consumerist activities. […] Culture jamming aims at co-opting, hacking, mocking, and re-contextualizing corporate messages to discuss the problematic nature of consumer society and to encourage consumers to rethink their consumption practices” (Micheletti 2004: 14-15).

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many hits we got on that video but it was over a million. So we work with our partners, technology consultants […] usually try to tie in with pop culture to expand our audience to young people which determines relevance.7 Although the campaign does not aim to exclude local or individual protest, the Internet is not considered predominantly to be a means of direct mobilization or collaboration. Rather, Wal-Mart Watch strives to enable and initiate further action, as a result of the campaign’s informative and educational role but not as key part of the campaign: “The more information we give people the more able they are to take campaigns on their own” (ibid.). Measuring the website against the campaign’s goal of raising public awareness,8 the approximate count of 3,000 visitors per day9 can be regarded as an indication of its efficacy. In terms of public awareness, mass media coverage is crucially important to the campaign and has been attained by various newspaper reports and even television broadcasts. The website helps to further pursue this goal through the online Media Center, which contains press releases, a media archive, and further resources for press representatives (Wal-Mart Watch 2005j). When evaluating the Internet as a ‘weapon’ within the campaign mission to “to persuade Wal-Mart to assume its leadership role as America’s largest corporation and enact positive change” (Wal-Mart Watch 2005a), moves by the corporation towards a more active communication policy, as well as towards efforts in terms of environmental and health care issues are telling. As the communication initiatives have been implemented via Internet communication (e.g. the website www.walmartfacts.com) it can be assumed that Wal-Mart perceives the Internet as an effective tool of influencing public opinion – for or against the corporation. The highly contentious question remains however, as to whether or not the measures taken by Wal-Mart indicate ‘real’ change, though the campaign describes them as a first success: “To date, we have made remarkable progress in getting Wal-Mart to respond to a wide array of concerns about its business practices. […] It has taken some promising first steps on a long road toward creating a more environment friendly business” (ibid.).

7

Interview with Brendan Gaffney and David Nasssar conducted by Veronika Kneip and Johanna Niesyto on 4 March 2008. The videos are available on www.youtube.com /watch?v=no0WqYWdH74 and www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuEAJFn MIjk.

8

“We see our role as that of doorkeepers. Our role is to hammer the company every day so that the door opens just a little bit and then other people walk through” (ibid.).

9

Website Statistics of March 2008 provided by Brendan Gaffney.

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Regardless of whether the changes in corporate policy indicate substantial proceedings in transparency and corporate responsibility, it can be claimed that Internet technology is an indispensable factor within an educational and research based approach of challenging corporations. It permits the establishment of a library, which is globally accessible and tailored to diverse audiences and demands. Thus, the Internet can be adopted by centrally organized campaigns seeking to utilize professional and monetary resources in order to operate strategically within public spheres.

Campaign Stop Deportation Class – Channelled Activism? The campaign Stop Deportation Class has been founded by the German network organization Kein Mensch ist illegal (No human being is illegal), which is composed of a diverse array of human rights organizations, church-related groups, refugee groups, artists, and other individuals. Kein Mensch ist illegal is committed to preventing the exclusion and deportation of immigrants who do not have residence permits. In 2000, the campaign Stop Deportation Class was launched to stop the involvement of the German Airline Lufthansa in deportations of asylum seekers. Lufthansa sells a large portion of the approximated 30,000 ‘deportee tickets’ issued annually in Germany. Their involvement is described as a “deadly business” by the campaign organizers (Initiative Libertad! 2007: 11). The tone of this accusation is derived from an incident that occurred in May 1999 when the Sudanese refugee Aamir Ageeb died as members of the German border police tried to immobilize him during his deportation flight (Medosch 2003: 293). The initial actions of the campaign were devised at Lufthansa’s annual general meeting in 2000, the first German online demonstration was planned for the following year in collaboration with the German leftist organization advocating freedom of political prisoners worldwide, Initiative Libertad!. This was to be both an online and offline protest, planned by a core team of (volunteer) campaign organizers but in its execution it looped back towards and depended upon a general bottom-up approach. More specifically, the suggestion of the online demonstration was discussed at a national meeting of Kein Mensch ist illegal and membership of the core team was in principle free to all interested individuals.10 The online demonstration represents one mode of channelled activism as it took place with the support of individual activists but was structurally specified 10 The information concerning campaign structures and responsibilities are based upon an interview with Hans-Peter Kartenberg, spokesperson of the Initiative Libertad!, conducted by Veronika Kneip on 2 March 2008.

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by the campaign organizers. The demonstration aimed at delimiting the capability of the Lufthansa website which was just being expanded to become an important platform of e-business for the corporation. It was designed as a new kind of mass protest, which adapted established forms of street protest “to the ‘virtual urban space’ of the Internet” (Autonome A.F.R.I.K.A. Gruppe et al. 2005: 1). Not unlike traditional demonstrations or sit-ins in front of corporate headquarters, it was regarded as an articulate critique that would disturb the routines of Lufthansa’s business activity for a defined period. The campaign organizers emphasize in their campaign report that the online demonstration was not planned as a general blockade but as a virtual sit-in or a kind of electronic voting (Initiative Libertad! 2007: 9, 64). Consequently, the campaign did not focus on interfering with the corporate website in the most technically effective method available, but instead chose a method which itself demonstrated the core goal of mobilizing as many supporters as possible. The specific intention was for the protest to be performed by a multitude of individual reload requests and not by few computer experts: […] some political computer activists asked: ‘Why do you protest that way? Wouldn’t it be easier to hack the Lufthansa website?’ But that was a point where we responded that it wasn’t our concern to hack that website. Any hacker or anybody who is computer literate can do that. We wanted to create a broad public sphere, a broad participation, and everybody should be able to get involved. Not everybody has got the technical skills to hack a website but everybody is able to call the Lufthansa website from any web-enabled computer – and that was our concern.11 Against that backdrop, the Internet was not only adopted as a protest space but also as a place to mobilize in the run-up to the online demonstration. The mass support they hoped to generate was significantly aided by the snowball effect of email advertising (Initiative Libertad! 2007: 69). Furthermore, calls for action were published on various websites in the name of supporters who were already mobilized and, in turn, sought to spread the campaign message and encourage others to join. The most prominent supporter was Ricardo Dominguez, cofounder of the Electronic Disturbance Theatre (EDT), a group of artists and cyber activists engaged in developing the theory and practice of electronic civil disobedience. Amongst others, the group developed a program called Flood Net in order to support cyber activism (especially that of the Zapatista network) by ‘flooding’ an opponent’s website with requests. Dominguez joined 11 Interview with Hans-Peter Kartenberg, spokesperson of the Initiative Libertad!, conducted by Veronika Kneip on 2 March 2008, translation V.K.

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the campaign Stop Deportation Class for a round trip across Germany and used his own website – a vital platform for online activists around the world – to call for participation in the online demonstration against Lufthansa (ibid.: 24; Interview with Hans-Peter Kartenberg). This offered a transnational dimension to mobilization as campaign material was published in several languages on the established activist website go.to/online-demo. The possibility of transnational action is generally regarded as a main advantage of online activism by the campaign organizers: Another advantage of an online demonstration is that it is possible to participate internationally. […] Thus, there is the opportunity to gain a huge number of supporters. No one would take a plane from the US to demonstrate in Frankfurt – with the Internet it becomes possible (ibid.). Despite the mentioned focus on mobilizing ‘human’ participation, the campaign provided software support in the tradition of the EDT’s Flood Net in order to automate and accelerate the reload requests on the Lufthansa website. A Java script was developed and spread via the website go.to/online-demo and several mirror websites two days before the online demonstration which was scheduled to coincide with the Annual General Meeting of Lufthansa on 20 June 2001. To ensure the character of a democratic action and a human rather than a technical performance, the functionality of the software was subject to strict criteria: -

no data should be destroyed

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the software should not infiltrate computers or be installed on computers without the knowledge of its legitimate user

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the software should only initiate requests which could have been initiated by an ordinary browser

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the software should only be operating within the defined period of the demonstration (20 June 2001, 10-12am) (Initiative Libertad! 2007: 66, 7273).

That way, the requests executed by a certain computer or IP address could still be understood as representative of the individual participant although the software enhanced the effectiveness of each activist’s action. Besides, the software was of great importance for the campaign organizers to estimate the number of participants. The number of downloads, which amounted to more than 10,000, served as an approximation of attendance and thus as a reference

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for the demonstration’s success (ibid.: 78).12 Measuring participation, however, is only one challenge of channelled online activism in comparison to the corresponding forms of traditional protest: During a street protest, the participants directly experience the presence of the protesting multitude. In the context of virtual protest, the existence of this multitude must be mediated: a crucial task of the protesting community is to create a space for its mediated selfrepresentation (Autonome A.F.R.I.K.A. Gruppe et al. 2005: 4). In the case of the Stop Deportation Class campaign, Internet technology was applied in two different ways to visualize the process and success of protest action, as well as to create a sense of community and enable exchange of the participants. With regard to the first aspect the campaign referred to the Independent Media Center or indymedia website where the performance of the Lufthansa website was illustrated:

Figure 2: Performance of the Lufthansa website during the online demonstration (Initiative Libertad! 2001).

Regarding the second aspect the online journal com.une.farce supported the campaign by installing a chat room on its website. Participants of the online demonstration could shape protest action personally and share their impressions and points of view during the period of action (Initiative Libertad! 2007: 58). Nevertheless, it has to be stated – and is also concluded by the campaign organizers themselves – that the measures taken to enhance community aspects of online activism cannot replace the experience of mass protest on the streets (ibid.: 80). Besides the chat room, which can be regarded as an expression of self-organization, the campaign arranged an electronic mailing list in order to involve

12 Lufthansa later referred to about 13,000 requests of different IP addresses within the period in question which the campaign actors regard as a validation of their estimation (ibid.).

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the suggestions of individual activists concerning the online demonstration, while it also included edited aspects of information. The campaign, thus, not only established the website go.to/online-demo, but also created campaign pages on the websites of the organizations involved by providing background material concerning the campaign issues. Internet use by Stop Deportation Class, therefore, was not restricted to channelled activism, but rather synchronized participation around the online demonstration as its key task. The demonstration can be regarded as an essential method of using the Internet as a ‘weapon’ against Lufthansa, although the impact of the online demonstration remains contested. Whereas the campaign organizers asserted multiple constraints on the website’s accessibility, the corporation declared that it had been hardly interfered with during the attack (Medosch 2003: 296). Although the success of Anti-Corporate Campaigns is often subject to conflicting interpretations, these subsequent interpretations particularly shape online activism due to the missing dimension of immediate experience. Despite these constraints, channelled online activism features important qualities as a ‘weapon’ within Anti-Corporate Campaigns. The Internet allows for, in particular, mobilization of mass participation on a transnational scale, but it also allows for the establishment of an arena for innovative forms of low-threshold activism, which may provide a potential foundation for raising political awareness.

Campaign to Stop Killer Coke – Scattered Collaboration? Initiated in 2002 by the US union activist Ray Rogers13 and members of the Colombian union Sinaltrainal, the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke blames Coca-Cola for the murders of union members in the 1990s, ongoing pressure against unions in Coca-Cola’s Colombian bottling plants, and alleged collaboration with Colombian paramilitary groups: “We need your help to stop a gruesome cycle of murders, kidnappings and torture of SINALTRAINAL (National Union of Food Industry Workers) union leaders and organizers involved in daily lifeand-death struggles at Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia” (Campaign to Stop Killer Coke undated). Officially, the campaign is waged by Corporate Campaign Inc., an organization founded and lead by Rogers in order to represent union demands from corporations. Despite this institutional approach Corporate Campaign Inc. can be described as resource weak and is nearly exclusively sustained by Rogers. Campaign to Stop Killer Coke is the largest project of the organization but, as Rogers 13 Ray Rogers has been waging campaigns targeting corporations since the 1970s when he was institutionally integrated into US based unions.

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admits, it is “a volunteer campaign.”14 It is financed by the proceeds of other projects, Roger’s private means, as well as by donations. Alongside Rogers there are three more people working for the campaign from the headquarters in New York. The campaign nevertheless demonstrates presence on local, national, and international levels, largely due to a bottom-up approach of campaigning based on autonomous protest action and minimal control on the part of the headquarters. Campaign claims are picked up and advanced by autonomously organized groups but also by individual activists. In this manner the union activists of Sinaltrainal promote their position independently of Ray Rogers.15 They autonomously established contact with various unions and social movement organizations in Europe and initiated diverse protest action, many of which have been visualized and archived via the Internet. For instance, members of Sinaltrainal took a major part in a non-governmental tribunal in 2006 dealing with the involvement of transnational corporations with the paramilitary forces in Colombia. The tribunal was broadcast by kanalB, an Internet forum devoted to video activism, and is still available on the website tribunal.colombia.kanalB.org.16 Protest websites have also been established as a result of cooperation between Sinaltrainal and LabourNet in Germany (www.labournet.de/internationales/co/co cacola) as well as the network Rete Boicottaggio Coca-Cola in Italy (www.nococa cola.info). These sites are understood by their organizers to be part of a larger campaign targeting Coca-Cola. Similarly, student groups are an important factor in organizing protest targeting Coca-Cola’s role in Colombia. Based on student unions or associations like United Students Against Sweatshops, protest action aims to deter universities from renewing contracts with Coca-Cola. These contracts concern issues spanning from the installation of vending machines on campuses to marketing partnerships like the sponsorship of sport teams. Student groups make use of the Internet for online petitions directed at the university administration (e.g. in the case of the University of Iowa on www.petitiononline.com/UISAS/petition .html) or to share information about the campaign (e.g. on the website of United Students Against Sweatshops17). In contrast to these institutionally embedded groups, campaigning is performed by micro-activists who become visible on various online platforms. 14 Interview conducted by Veronika Kneip and Johanna Niesyto on 7 March 2008. 15 In any case, dialogue between Rogers and Sinaltrainal is dependent on intermediaries as Rogers does not speak Spanish and the union activists do not speak English. 16 Accessed 20 March 2008. 17 www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org//index.php?option=com_content&task= view&id=19&Itemid=71.

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Ray Rogers, for example, referred during interviewing to articles written by supporters and published on information portals such as Wikipedia and indymedia. For him these articles reflect the bottom-up character of the campaign: “The beautiful thing is: A good campaign is one where nobody controls everything and nobody is trying to take credit for everything. It’s a movement of WEs.”18 In addition, the grassroots character of the campaign becomes notably apparent on social platforms the likes of YouTube and Facebook. On YouTube about fifty videos19 of various national origins can be found bearing the campaign phrase Killer Coke in their description. Many of these are amateur works and take a very personal point of view. One video from UK, titled “My Killer Coke Campaign Video”, ends with the appeal “If you agree with me and many other people – Join the Killer Coke Campaign today” (Decimateddreams12 2007 on YouTube). Similarly, the campaign slogan is adapted in order to mobilize support within different national contexts: A German video, for example, calls for a boycott on “Killer Cola” (Bsnam 2007 on YouTube).20 On Facebook, there are approximately fifty groups dedicated to the issue of Killer Coke, the largest of which (Coke, the Killer Cola) has 1,491 members.21 Although this group was not established by Ray Rogers or his team, the text used for the group description on Facebook used text from a letter of Ray Rogers and two members of Sinaltrainal. This had been published earlier on the About Us page on the campaign website. The cited examples of micro activism illustrate that individual protest occurs relatively autonomously across social platforms. While campaign organizers do not channel these individual protests they can anyhow be understood as an integral force of the wider campaign. Within both group organized and individually conducted protest, the Internet holds the potential to spread campaign claims across diverse channels. The role of the Internet as a ‘weapon’ becomes obvious with regard to the bundling of the widespread protest. Here, the Internet is used to visualize collaboration, as well as to channel activism by publishing calls, while maintaining a composed and collected central source of information. Although protest action of groups or individuals is conducted autonomously, Ray Rogers and the website killercoke.org are widely considered to be the primary campaign contact point by the activists themselves. Hence, many videos, or comments on You18 Interview with Ray Rogers, conducted by Veronika Kneip and Johanna Niesyto on 7 March 2008. 19 Accessed 20 March 2008. 20 This is different from English speaking countries as the term ‘Coke’ is uncommon in German-speaking countries. 21 Accessed 1 April 2008; as registration is needed to view groups at Facebook the URL is not given here.

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Tube, or Facebook refer to the website just as the activists keep Rogers informed about their projects: “A lot of things come up, little things, songs, and everything. They send it to us, the new stuff and everything and they show us what they did or say ‘would you mind if we did this’ and we say ‘go ahead’.”22 The pervasive support for killercoke.org as the underpinning of diverse activist endeavours can be ascribed to Roger’s policy of welcoming heterogeneous input. He encourages that protest action follows individual priorities and grows from self-organization, but he also actively integrates information from the protest field into the website. Thus, there are separate pages for union and student activism as well as pages documenting local protest action in different countries or containing a multitude of Anti-Coke Art designed by activists. Furthermore, the newsletter, which is sent by email and archived on the website, gives an account of recent activities and appeals for reports about projects on Coca-Cola: Please send photos, reports of events, and if you are in a school, union or organization that has banned Coke products, please send us the resolution or a description of how the decision was made. We would like the Campaign website to be up-to-date and to share the information via our newsletter. (Campaign to Stop Killer Coke 2007) Another important way to visualize protest is the integration of videos broadcasted via YouTube or MySpace into the campaign website. In this manner killercoke.org not only links to elaborated videos like those of artist Matt Beard or journalist Mark Thomas, but equally to amateur videos like the ones mentioned above. Remarkably, ideas in conflict with or divergent from Rogers’ interpretation of the campaign are intentionally included. For instance Rogers is convinced that an individually performed boycott (in contrast to the strategy of ‘cutting out’ markets through university boycotts) does not contribute to the campaign’s success.23 Nevertheless, calls for individual boycotts are spread via the embedded videos as well as through articles on the campaign website.

22 Interview with Ray Rogers, conducted by Veronika Kneip and Johanna Niesyto on 7 March 2008. 23 “You don’t organize an effective boycott by saying to people ‘boycott a product’. You will never win a boycott that way. The only way you can do it is you have to cut the markets out – May that be a whole chain of stores, may that be college or university campuses, may that be a labour union hall. You have to cut it out so that there is no Coke they can go and buy. […] Some students call for boycott. That’s fine; I support everybody that calls for a boycott. I got unions resolutions, all the members calling for a boycott, and I report on that” (Interview with Ray Rogers, conducted by Veronika Kneip and Johanna Niesyto on 7 March 2008).

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Against this backdrop it can be noted that for the campaign adopting the Internet as a tool for scattered collaboration outweighs its use as a tool of centralized information: The campaign does not obtain its strength from the consistency of protest pages but rather from their heterogeneity and plurality. Likewise, the Internet is only secondarily a tool for channelling activism. On the website killercoke.org, autonomous protest groups and individual comments across social platforms call for the signature of petitions and moreover for a boycott of Coka-Cola. The Internet itself, however, is not appropriated as the primary site of direct attack. Furthermore, Internet technology is adopted to broaden the campaign in terms of content, integrating it across an issue-network that brings Coca-Cola into disrepute from divergent perspectives and sources. Crucially, the broader issue-network comprises other violations concerning human rights, environmental, and health related issues. The network provides information concerning the rights related violations connected to the corporation’s operations in India and environmental concerns related to water shortages or the pollution of groundwater. Health related issues presented across the issuenetwork explore themes such as nutrition and deceptive advertising. Protest on Coca-Cola’s activities in India is to some extent institutionally embedded in the campaign, for student groups are often committed to the Colombian and the Indian case. Conversely, Ray Rogers has published comments and articles on issues from the broader network. These issues are addressed outside the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke but nevertheless outlined on the campaign website. Environmental and health care issues are, thus, included through external expert reports, an exemplary case study is presented by the International Environmental Law Research Centre in Switzerland (Koonan 2007). This study focuses on a bottling plant in an Indian Village and can be accessed from the News section of killercoke.org. Further networking is apparent as different issues are connected through reciprocal references. For instance, killercoke.org links to various articles of the online journal BeverageDaily.com dealing with benzene findings in soft drinks. The journal in turn picks up the issue of human rights abuse in an article based on a Ray Rogers interview (Mercer 2006). These interconnections throughout the issue-network enhance the single claims of different actors, for the claims are integrated into a more universal context of common interests. Thus, the issue-network allows for strategic information positioning, which, nevertheless, is essentially different from the edited mode of campaigning observed with Wal-Mart Watch. Overall, campaign claims can be found on various platforms despite the campaign’s lack of financial resources. Although the campaign initiators them-

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selves are not very experienced in using Internet technology,24 the campaign features a wide range of online activism stemming from its successful integration of heterogeneous actors. These actors, in turn, spread the campaign claims in diverse national and transnational contexts. By examining changes to corporate policy, parallels between the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke and the campaign Wal-Mart Watch can be identified despite their different approaches. Like WalMart, Coca-Cola has been sensitized to human rights issues and emphasizes the corporation’s commitment to workers’ rights to third-party representation or union membership. For the purpose of communicating the corporate position, the website www.cokefacts.com has been established to deal with Coca-Cola’s operations in Colombia and India. Positions and utterances from both sides, however, stay confrontational: Protest actors and corporation criticize the validity of their opponent’s positions. On the basis of these analogies and differences, it appears fruitful to gain further insight from a synopsis of the three cases and to extract conclusions concerning the effectiveness of the Internet as a ‘weapon’ within Anti-Corporate Campaigns.

The Internet as a ‘Weapon’ of Information, Attack, and Collaboration Taking up the questions concerning the systematization of Internet adoption as a ‘weapon’ within Anti-Corporate Campaigns, the following considerations will, firstly, address the effectiveness of each kind of ‘weapon’. Secondly, these considerations will reflect upon the interrelation between a campaign’s level of central organization and its mode of appropriating the Internet. Regarding the effectiveness of the Internet, one must consider the aforementioned difference between using the Internet as a forum to publish edited information and using it as an arena in which scattered collaborations are networked and available. In the case of the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, campaign perspectives are heterogeneous, including diffuse political positions many of which extend to a confrontational attitude towards the company. This is in juxtaposition to the observed indications of reconciliation that emerge within the digital library of Wal-Mart Watch. The rational argumentation and research focus of Wal-Mart Watch is contrary to the more subjective and emotional comments of many micro activists involved in the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke. Using the Internet as a ‘weapon’ of edited information may lead to a more 24 For instance, Rogers says of himself: “I don’t even know how to use it; I don’t even know how to type. I sent an email once or twice but I can’t tell you how” (Interview with Ray Rogers).

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consistent line of reasoning. The Internet’s potential to support a centrally composed and structured library and database particularly contributes to the transparency and progression of discourses. Hence, it may not only serve as a ‘weapon’, but also as a tool of discourse convergence and conflict de-escalation. The described system of presenting information puts supporters in a more passive role and keeps them out of the campaign’s strategic centre. Accordingly, adopting Internet technology in order to provide information in a strategically structured manner expresses protest through expertise. This stems from the assumption that civil society actors gain authority from their role as experts in certain fields. The force of their arguments against state or corporate interests is drawn from this expertise (e.g. Gebauer 2001: 107-108). In contrast, appropriating the Internet as a ‘weapon’ of scattered collaboration strives to raise a multitude of diverse voices, which become the essence of the campaign itself. As the website functions as a reservoir of mixed arguments, the mass of information becomes more complex and is sometimes impenetrable. The abundance of information and plethora of sources, however, is regarded as an expression of plurality and grassroots democracy. This mode of adopting the Internet may complicate the dialogue with the addressed corporation due to the diverse and potentially conflicting claims of actors involved. On the other hand, this kind of ‘weapon’ draws its strength from the multiplicity of voices. The diffuse nature of the protest makes its scale and potential for unfettered proliferation difficult for the Corporation to grasp, thus, forcing a reaction on their part. Overall, using the Internet as a ‘weapon’ of scattered collaboration is effected primarily by participatory ideals. The Internet, therefore, is adopted in line with the principle that online technology enables grassroots activism, suggested for example by van de Donk et al. (2004) or Kahn and Kellner (2005). As mentioned earlier, the channelled activism mode faces several potential limitations brought about by striving simultaneously for a multitude of voices and a high degree of control. Innovative forms of online protest may mobilize beyond the borders of the nation-state and even contribute to political consciousness of formerly inactive citizens (e.g. Lusoli/Ward 2006: 76). Furthermore, such campaigns may reach a diversity of publics because they are not only designed to attain certain aims on the Internet, but also to raise the awareness of the mass media. In contrast, channelled online activism does not primarily benefit from the creativity of individual action but from the cumulative power of a focused action. More than other forms of activism, channelled activism is dependent on mass participation. In addition, the question of legal responsibility has to be raised. Using the Internet as a ‘weapon’ of a concentrated direct attack runs the risk of being sued by the targeted corporation, even though national law is mostly unclear with regard to the field of diffuse

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transnational online activism (Clark/Themudo 2006: 54). For example, Lufthansa sued the organizers of the online demonstration and although they were dismissed in May 2006, the long trial was a major challenge for the civil society organizations involved (Initiative Libertad! 2007: 9, 16). On a whole, the adoption of the Internet as a ‘weapon’ within Anti-Corporate Campaigns is multifaceted and contributes in different ways to the overall campaign goals introduced by Baringhorst in this volume. Aside from the goal of causing changes in corporate policy, outlined above,25 public awareness and credibility remain key objectives. By appropriating the Internet within Anti-Corporate Campaigns, public awareness can be achieved through committed research that is brought to light with concerted presentation. This strategy, however, would likely rely on substantial financial resources. Public awareness can also be attained through the innovative character of a protest event or its high number of participants leading to further word-of-mouth circulation on social platforms. Likewise, credibility can be generated through the expert role of the campaign organizers but also through the empowerment of individual activism. This applies to both the channelled and self-organized mode. This argumentation leads back to the tension between top-down and bottom-up structures, begging the examination of the appropriate level of centralization or decentralization for each mode of appropriating the Internet. Indeed, the three cases support the systematization of Internet adoption, insofar as a more central campaign approach coincided with a more controlled use of the Internet as a ‘weapon’. According to the campaign approaches the Internet serves primarily as a ‘weapon’ of information, direct attack, or collaboration within the analyzed campaigns thus contributing to their organizers’ roles as experts, mobilizers, and networkers. Although this result cannot be generalized on the basis of the case studies,26 the interrelation between campaign approach and the adoption of the Internet as a ‘weapon’ can be ascertained. It becomes apparent, however, that the analyzed campaigns do account for the problems which accompany their approach and have taken measures to integrate the contradictory priorities of openness and control. Wal-Mart Watch and Stop Killer Coke both include channelled activism via petitions, which suggests that a hybrid form of channelled activism is suitable for both centralized and decentralized campaigns. The importance of self-organization within more centralized campaigns becomes manifest by the integration of a chat room and 25 A more detailed examination of corporate reaction to Anti-Corporate Campaigns can be found in Kneip (forthcoming). 26 This has important implications for hybrid campaign approaches; further research is needed due to varying conditions and forms of centrality.

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a mailing list in the case of the campaign Stop Deportation Class, as well as by additional grassroots activism and activities on social platforms in the case of Wal-Mart Watch. On the other hand, Ray Rogers as a ‘charismatic leader’ of the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke induces a centrality to the campaign despite its overall bottom-up approach. The multitude of website references reporting on Coca-Cola and its critics also shows that the campaign does not hesitate from seeking self-affirmation via mass media. In summation, centralized campaign organization does offer partial inclusion and openness through the introduction of website applications, as an avenue for individual input. Widespread campaigns, on the other hand, can be fragmented but also gain the characteristics of a focused campaign if they employ the bundling function of websites to aggregate scattered sources. Delving further into diversified Internet use could be useful for future research to detect compound or multiplatform Internet strategies which might contribute to integrative and consistent campaigns. Moreover, research is needed on the possible aggregating and organizational role of the Internet. Such possibilities could widen theoretical perspectives that are presently focused on either positive impacts of pluralization (e.g. Dahlgren 2005) or negative impacts of audience fragmentation (e.g. Sunstein 2001, 2007).

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Kahn, R. and Kellner, D. (2005) ‘Oppositional Politics and the Internet. A Critical/Reconstructive Approach’, Cultural Politics: an International Journal, 1: 75-100. Kamps, K. (1999) ‘Perspektiven elektronischer Demokratie’, in K. Kamps (ed.) Elektronische Demokratie? Perspektiven politischer Partizipation, Opladen/Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 7-18. Karatzogianni, A. (2004) ‘The Politics of “Cyberconflict”’, Politics, 24: 46-55. Kneip, V. (forthcoming) ‘Corporate Reaction to Anti-Corporate Protest – Multinational Corporations and Anti-Corporate Campaigns’, in K. Fahlenbrach et al. (eds) The ‘Establishment’ Responds – Power and Protest During and After the Cold War. Köhler, T. (2007) ‘Netzaktivismus. Herausforderung für die Unternehmenskommunikation’, in S. Baringhorst et al. (eds) Politik mit dem Einkaufswagen. Unternehmen und Konsumenten als Bürger in der globalen Mediengesellschaft, Bielefeld: transcript, 245-267. ——— (2006) Krisen-PR im Internet. Nutzungsmöglichkeiten, Einflussfaktoren und Problemfelder, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Koonan, Sujith (2007) Legal Implications of Plachimada. A Case Study. IELRC Working Paper. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008). Lusoli, W. and Ward, S. (2006) ‘Hunting Protestors. Mobilisation, Participation and Protest Online in the Countryside Alliance’, in S. Oates et al. (eds) The Internet and Politics. Citizens, Voters and Activists, London/New York, NY: Routledge, 59-80. Medosch, A. (2003) ‘Demonstrieren in der virtuellen Republik’, in C. SchulzkiHaddouti (ed.) Bürgerrechte im Netz, Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 261-306. Mercer, Chris (2006) Coca-Cola Facing Storm on Human Rights. BeverageDaily.com. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008). Micheletti, M. (2004) ‘Just Clothes? Discursive Political Consumerism and Political Participation’, paper presented to the European Consortium for Political Research, Workshop ‘Emerging Repertoires of Political Action. Toward a Systematic Study of Postconventional Forms of Participation’, Uppsala 2004. Niesyto, Johanna (forthcoming) ‘Digitalised Anti-Corporate Campaigns: Towards a New Era of Transnational Protest?’ in H. Kouki and E. Romanos

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(eds) Re-Visiting Protest: New Approaches to Social Mobilization in Europe Since 1945, ?: New York, NY: Berghahn Books. Roselieb, F. (2002) ‘New Crisis Communications? – Krisenkommunikation und Issues Management in der New Economy’, in F. Roselieb (ed.) Die Krise managen. 5 wertsteigernde Strategien für die Internetwirtschaft, Frankfurt a.M.: F.A.Z.-Institut für Management-, Markt und Medieninformationen, 104146. ——— (2001) Krisenkommunikation im Internet – Fallbeispiele und Empfehlungen, Kiel: Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel, 541. Scammell, M. (2003) ‘Citizen Consumers. Towards a New Marketing of Politics?’, in J. Corner and D. Pels (eds) Media and the Restyling of Politics, London: Sage, 117-136. Schönberger, K. (2005) Die Netzkommunikation von NGOs und zivilgesellschaftlichen Organisationen. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed March 18 2006). Sunstein, C. (2007) Republic.com 2.0, Princeton: Princeton University Press. ——— (2001) Republic.com, Princeton: Princeton University Press. van de Donk, W. et al. (2004) ‘Introduction. Social Movements and ICTs’, in W. van de Donk et al. (eds) Cyberprotest. New Media, Citizens and Social Movements London/New York: Routledge, 1-25. Wal-Mart Watch (2008a) Wal-Mart’s Global Labor Violations. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008). ——— (2008b) How Wal-Mart’s Massive Imports from China Threaten America’s Food Supply. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008). ——— (2008c) Sustaining Wal-Mart. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008). ——— (2007) It’s Not Easy Being Green: The Truth about Wal-Mart’s Environmental Makeover. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008). ——— (2006) Betty v. Goliath. A History of Dukes v. Wal-Mart. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008).

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——— (2005a) About Wal-Mart Watch. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008). ——— (2005b) Wal-Mart’s Negative Impact on Local Communities. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008). ——— (2005c) Issues – Discrimination. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008). ——— (2005d) Issues – Health Care. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008). ——— (2005e) Issues – Supplier Relationships. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008). ——— (2005f) Reviewing and Revising Wal-Mart’s Benefits Strategy. Memorandum to the Board of Directors by Susan Chambers. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008). ——— (2005g) Resources for Elected Officials. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008). ——— (2005h) International Action. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008). ——— (2005i) The Moral Responsibilities of Wal-Mart. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008). ——— (2005j) Media Center. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 March 2008).

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Organization, Mobilization, and Identity: National and Transnational Grassroots Campaigns between Face-toFace and Computer-Mediated Communication This chapter1 deals with the employment of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by activist groups in the Euro Mayday Parade (EMP), a grassroots protest campaign that culminated with a parade occurring on May 1. The intended outcome of the campaign was the creation and diffusion of an alternative system of meaning related to labour flexibility in Italy, where the EMP occurred for the first time in 2001, as well as in other European countries. The EMP could be considered a protest campaign in the sense that it is “a thematically, socially, and temporally interconnected series of interactions that, from the viewpoint of the carriers of the campaign, are geared to a specific goal” (della Porta/Rucht 2002: 3).2 Since the use of ICTs proved to be crucial in the EMP, it could be considered a particular kind of protest campaign, namely a web campaign. This term refers to an emerging empirical phenomenon that offers new options for both institutional and non-institutional political actors to manage, develop, spread their own political campaigns and establish connections to their offline campaign activities (Baringhorst in this volume). As observed with the EMP, the development of the protest campaign on the Internet does not mean that institutional and non-institutional political actors tend to abandon other, more traditional, communication tools. On the contrary, the parallel use of both online and offline means of communication establishes these protest campaigns as a hub through which disparate publics interconnect. These interconnections occur across a broad range of mediated and non-mediated interactions between social actors (Kneip/Niesyto 2007: 18-19). From this starting point, this chapter compares the use of faceto-face interaction (FTF) with the use of computer-mediated communication 1

I wish to thank all the activists interviewed for this piece of research for sharing their narratives, interpretations and memories with me. I am also grateful to Johanna Niesyto and Veronika Kneip for their useful advice. Finally, I thank Christian Fuchs, Brian D. Loader, Niels Ole Finneman, Celina Raffl, Lea Sgier, and Cristina Flesher Fominaya for comments on a previous version of this chapter.

2

Throughout the chapter, the acronym EMP refers to the protest campaign in its entirety, the term parade refers to the very parade on May 1, and the expression EMP social movement network or simply social movement network refers to the network of activist groups and individuals that organize and sustain the protest campaign.

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(CMC) by activist groups involved in the EMP. This research will apply different analytical categories to explore the meanings acquired through the linkages between FTF and CMC in grassroots protest campaigns.3 The chapter will begin by discussing the analytical categories used to investigate the data and will also present the case study and the methods accordingly. The primary results of the empirical analysis will be presented with a focus on both the national and transnational stages of the EMP. This will take into account the use of ICTs at the protest organization level as well as at the level of collective identity construction. Finally, in the conclusion, the principal findings of the empirical investigation will be presented and a set of refined hypotheses will be proposed for future investigation.

Analytical Categories At the EMP it is possible to observe numerous combinations of “media practices” (Couldry 2004: 392), understood here as social practices that people perform towards the media, including the use of ICTs, which played a relevant role at different levels of the protest campaign. This is in line with what literature, broadly assesses about social movements and ICTs, which flourished in the last decade: ICTs are extremely powerful and crucial resources for contemporary social movements (e.g. van de Donk et al. 2004; Bennett 2003; Castells 2001). To unpack this statement, the paragraph will single out three dimensions that are particularly relevant when studying social movements’ use of ICTs. The three dimensions will be used, in turn, to propose three pairs of analytical dimensions, which will then be applied to the case study as the investigation.

Instrumental and Symbolic Level In the literature, the significance of ICTs for social movements is gauged by examining the achievement of movement goals through ICT use. In other words, ICTs are considered tools of social movements, which are used in or3

Grassroots protest campaigns are those protest campaigns that are initiated and sustained by a coalition of activist groups that are not supported by institutional political actors such as political parties, traditional trade unions, NGOs and national or transnational associations. Grassroots protest campaigns, instead, are initiated and sustained by a coalition of activist groups, such as political collectives, social centres, and radical trade unions, that have loose organization structures, are deeply rooted at the local level, and lack material resources.

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der to perform many of their protest activities. Following from this assumption, Garrett (2006: 203) singles out three main thematic areas for investigation: mobilizing structures, political opportunities, framing processes. This chapter will concentrate on a traditional area of research in social movement studies: mobilizing structures. Of particular interest are those activities managed by social movements before and beyond presenting themselves to broader publics at their protest events. Specific attention will be devoted to organizational processes and identification processes, which run parallel to two relevant goals of protest activity. Organizational processes are linked to goals broadly seen as instrumental to the movement itself, including tasks such as the concrete organization of protest events or the actual coordination of protest campaigns. At this level, the impact of ICTs on protest organization is widely recognized by social movement scholars, who consider them a crucial resource that sustains and transforms grassroots political participation and collective action (Freschi 2003). The network infrastructure behind the Internet, in particular, provides a peculiar organizational pattern to social movements (Castells 2001: 135-136) in which various nodes, such as individuals, activist groups, and even other social movement networks, can be connected in a non-hierarchical and fluid way. Due to the relatively low costs of ICTs, those social movement networks, lacking material resources, gain a powerful tool to coordinate their offline collective actions. Among ICTs, the rise of the Internet in particular has founded a unique environment, cyberspace, where activists can perform new kinds of collective action that fall under the labels cyber-protests and hacktivism (see Jordan 2002; Jordan/Taylor 2004). Identification processes are linked largely to symbolic goals, such as tasks like collective identity formation and the construction of system of meaning. At the symbolic level, the role of ICTs is still debated among social movement scholars. The existence of a shared collective identity is essential for the construction and maintenance of social movement networks and mobilizations (della Porta/Diani 2006; Melucci 1996). When considering the relevance of ICTs at the symbolic level, many authors ask whether or not ICTs positively contribute to the development of shared collective identities, and if so, how and to what extent. While some suggest that the online environment can forge collective identities, they still assert that it is no substitute for FTF interactions among activists (Diani 2000: 397). Other scholars speculate that the online environment “fosters pluralist, open identities” (della Porta/Mosca 2005: 180) among activists, which then experience more fluid, temporary collective identities when associating themselves with different activist groups and protest campaigns. The analytical categories, instrumental and symbolic, will be used

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to investigate the data of use of ICTs as mobilizing structures in social movement processes.

National and Transnational Level The importance of ICTs for social movements, in relation to mobilizing structures, could be investigated with respect to the geographical and territorial level where protest activity is rooted. The transnational level of mobilization, in particular, has been extensively studied by considering the relationship between ICTs and processes of transnationalization in contemporary social movements. While, at the end of the 1990s, the question had been whether ICTs and the Internet, in particular, could promote the diffusion of protests across countries (Tarrow 1998; Ayres 1999), in the recent years, many scholars actually underlined the relevant role of ICTs in the development of transnational social movements (Bennett 2003; Castells 2001). In a similar vein, some authors suggest that ICTs play an important role specifically in transnational, issue-focused protest campaigns (van de Donk et al. 2004: 18). The interest in ICTs and transnational social movements does, however, overshadow the role that ICTs may have in campaigns managed by national social movement networks. Even such nationally managed initiatives play an important role at the transnational level. Literature on social movements lacks comparisons between the national and transnational level of mobilizations with regard to the use of ICTs. Therefore, the second dimension considered is the geographical, territorial level of protest activity and the two analytical categories to be used to investigate the data are the transnational and national level of mobilization.

ICTs as Challenge and Opportunity In relation to mobilizing structures and the geographical scales of collective action, the importance of ICTs for social movements could be further discussed by focusing more generally on the role played by ICTs in protest activity. While most literature assesses the positive role of ICTs, determining the negative impact of ICTs on social movements is largely missing from many investigations (Garrett 2006). Only a few authors openly address this issue (see for instance Pickerill 2003), which deserves further theoretical assessment. A fruitful approach along these lines is adopted by Mosca (2007), who speaks about the Internet as providing opportunities and challenges for social movements and provides a tentative categorization with regard to external and internal social movement communication. The challenges and opportunities

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linked to ICT-based mobilization processes are therefore discussed by employing this perspective from Mosca (2007). The analytical categories proposed are just abstract tools for investigation and, as such, condense much more complex empirical phenomena: do activist groups combine FTF and CMC in different ways according to the goal, mobilization structures (instrumental/symbolic) or the territorial scale (national/transnational)? Also, do challenges and opportunities arise from the use of ICTs change according to the goal for which mobilization structures are used (instrumental/symbolic) and according to the territorial level where protest campaigns occur (national/transnational)? These are, in short, the research questions used to investigate the empirical occurrence of a protest campaign, which is in this case the EMP.

Case Study and Methods The EMP case study is particularly relevant as it offers the opportunity to compare two stages of the same protest campaign: the local/national one, from 2001 to 2003, and the national/transnational one, from 2004 to 2006. This comparison is possible because of the shift in geographical scale (Tilly/Tarrow 2007: 95) that transformed the protest event from a national protest campaign to a transnational one. Originally, the parade was a local protest event in Italy. It occurred for the first time in Milan on 1 May 2001 and its name was Mayday Parade (MP). In the following years, the demonstration grew exponentially: according to the organizers, protest participants in Milan, which were about 5,000 in 2001, became about 100,000 six years later in 2006. In 2004, the parade changed its name into EMP and Spanish activist groups organized it in Barcelona, while smaller protest events occurred also in Dublin, Helsinki and Palermo. Furthermore, in November 2004 many activist groups that struggled against work insecurity in different countries joined the EMP network, after a transnational meeting, proposed and organized by Italian activist groups that took place in London at the Beyond ESF forum.4 From that very year onwards, a fluid transnational network of activist groups sustained the protest campaign, which occurred in many European cities.5 This fluid transnational network also extended itself to include other activist groups based in non-European countries, for example in Tokyo, Japan in 2008. In 4

The Wombles organized this forum at the Middlesex University during the European Social Forum (ESF) in London.

5

In 2005, the EMP occurred in nineteen European cities extending to twenty-two in 2006.

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brief, mechanisms of brokerage and coordinated action, connected a number of activist groups rooted in different European countries to mobilize on the same issue in a coordinated way (see ibid.: 31). The diffusion of the campaign was also fostered through a shift within the identification process, wherein an Italian campaign shifted towards a transnational and European level. The repertoire of protest and campaign activities, namely the parade, and the issue addressed by activists, namely precarity, underwent a process of symbolic diffusion.6 At the meso-level of interactions among activist groups, this also implied the need of a political translation of the alternative system of meaning about lack of work security (Doerr/Mattoni 2007). In fact, to create and sustain the EMP at the transnational level required the formation of a shared collective identity in which activists could recognize themselves and people could decide to participate in the parade. The EMP still currently takes place in various European cities, upon which this chapter focuses. Therefore, the social movement network, which supports the protest campaign, and organizes the parade, still exists nowadays. That said, the time span chosen to analyze the protest campaign goes from 2001 to 2003, when the protest campaign focused mostly at the Italian national level, and from 2004 to 2006, when the protest campaign became transnational. Less systematic observations and data gathering, which have been integrated into this research, were conducted for the EMP in 2007 and 2008. The empirical investigation is based on a ‘data triangulation’ approach (Denzin 1975) and has focused on three different data sets. The online environment of the Internet has been a crucial resource to collect the first two data sets, which consist of documents generated by social movements. More precisely, the first data set comprises documents such as messages posted in mailing lists or on websites directly managed by social movements.7 The second data set is made up by media texts that social movements produced with regard to the protest campaign.8 The living experience of activists has also, however, been a valu6

The meaning of the expression precarity will be explained below in the paragraph devoted to identification processes at the national level. Here, it is sufficient to say that this term refers to job insecurity and is central in the alternative system of meaning that activists created about labour market flexibility.

7

The resulting data set contains email messages that activists posted in two mailing lists, namely Precog (from 2003 to 2006) and Euromayday (from 2004 to 2006) and webpages of ad hoc activists’ websites, namely the EMP (from 2004 to 2006) and the Chainworkers Crew (from 2001 to 2006).

8

The resulting data set contains online articles and media texts, which activists posted on three independent informational websites, namely indymedia Italy (from 2001 to 2006), Global Project (from 2003 to 2006), and NGVision (from 2003 to 2006).

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able means to collect perceptions, considerations and narratives about media practices in the context of the EMP. The interviewees were not social movements’ spokespersons, a definition that is highly contested among activists involved in the EMP. Rather, they were or had been very active in the organization of the MP in Milan and many of them, though not all, were also involved in the transnational level of the EMP. The process of activists selection followed a snowball sampling strategy, according to which an initial small group of activists was selected that responded to the criteria singled out above, and then suggested other potential interviewees (Weiss 1994). Twenty-three interviewees, fifteen males and eight females, comprise the resulting sample.9 The third data set, therefore, includes transcripts of semi-structured interviews that focused on various kinds of media practices that activists developed and performed in the context of the EMP. All three data sets have been analyzed using the computer-assisted qualitative analysis Atlas.ti. Overall, the investigation has followed the analytical categories scheme proposed in the paragraph above.

Analysis: The (Euro) Mayday Parade and ICTs Mobilizing Structures and Territorial Level: Organizational Processes at the National Level The data analysis shows that at the very beginning of the protest campaign, a small number of activists, who recognized themselves as amongst a narrow range of activist groups, managed the organization of the protest campaign through FTF interactions in the form of small scale preparatory meetings in Milan. As a consequence, the parade planning and execution went on in a nonhierarchical way among few activists, whose collective decisions about the form and content of the parade sprung from small informal assemblies. These 9

In detail, two interviewees were older than fifty years, three older than forty and younger than fifty, seven older than thirty and younger than forty, eight older than twenty and younger than thirty, three younger than twenty. Among them, there were fourteen people employed with a fixed-term contract, four people employed with an open-ended contract, one unemployed, two university students and two high school students. Among those employed through a fixed-term contract, three people worked in the knowledge sector (research, teaching), six in the information and communication sector, two in the service sector (shops, restaurants), and three in the cultural-political sector. Those employed through an open-ended contract were all older than forty years: three of them worked in the political sector, precisely trade unions, and the remaining one in the communication and information sector.

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activist groups were then tacitly accepted by other activist groups that decided to join the MP on 1 May. They were three: a group of auto-organized casual workers, the Chainworkers Crew (CW),10 activists belonging to the social centre named the Bulk11 and the local section of the Confederazione Unitaria di Base (CUB),12 a radical trade union, initiated the Mayday Parade in 2001. These activists thought about a parade, rather than a traditional demonstration, to be joined by every other activist group that were interested in the contentious issue of work insecurity. During this stage, previous linkages between activists in Milan and activists from other Italian cities were very important in order to bolster participation. For instance, activists of the Strike social centre, based in Rome, went to the MP in 2003 because they were acquainted with some of the MP organizers who lived in Milan. These personal ties had been previously constructed and then reinforced through FTF interactions during other contexts of protest, such as transnational mobilizations against the G8 and World Trade Organization (WTO) summits in Europe. Though not openly stressed by the interviewees, informal contacts among various activist groups were mainly possible through direct FTF interactions during informal and small-scale meetings in movements’ settings, as well as indirect mediated interactions occurring through private phone calls and email messages. These channels of communication sustained the fluid and underground network of activists that organized the MP. The data analysis also shows, however, that CMC acquired greater importance as the protest campaign evolved and increased in the number of activist groups who took part in its organization. Indeed, as the years went by, more 10 The CW, born in 1999, immediately created its own webzine in order to promote “… media and mall activism for awareness-building and unionization of precarious workers” (Chainworkers Crew undated). For a more detailed history of the CW and its approach to political struggles against economic precarity see Chainworkers Crew (2001). 11 The Deposito Bulk was a social centre born in Milan from 1997 to 2006. Social centre, ‘centri sociali’ in Italian, are abandoned buildings, frequently owned by the State, that are occupied by groups of people in order to have a space to promote underground cultures and offer auto-organized services to the neighbourhood where they are located. In some cases, social centres are also spaces in which activists live. 12 A large group of workers who did not recognize themselves in traditional trade unions founded the CUB in 1992. Radical trade unions in Italy “[…] emerged during the 1990s from a series of labour mobilizations. In their forms of action, organizational formulas and discourses, they differed from the three traditional, confederate trade unions – the leftwing CGIL, the Catholic CISL and the UIL – not only in their critique of neo-liberal reforms, but also in their emphasis on direct action, participative democracy and ‘class identity’” (della Porta/Mosca 2007: 6).

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and more activist groups decided to participate in the organization of the MP and the underground network of activists gained diffuse visibility in the milieu of social movements. During a national assembly concerning the existence and resistance of Italian social centres, in November 2003, the MP began to be sustained by a national social movement network. The related national mailing list, named Precog, was also established.13 The existence of an informal network of activist groups contributed to enlarging the decision-making process related to MP organization, as Mirko14 explained: The idea was that the Mayday actually became a national date and, hence, that involved different realities not only in the ‘street moment’, but also in the preparatory, elaboration, and launch moment. This worked; it was able to do two or three national assemblies in one year that defined the most catching keywords of the year. Therefore, the MP organizational stage developed in a more public way at the level of direct, FTF interactions. National preparatory meetings were the moment in which to write down a common call for action, to define the aspects of precarity to be emphasized during the parade and to decide the float order for the Milan parade. Many among the interviewees also pointed out that Precog mailing list was a crucial space for the organization of the MP, since through the mailing list many activists from all other Italy were collectively discussing suggestions, ideas and proposal about the parade. The opportunity to use CMC was also very important at the level of local activist groups, which organized their participation to the parade through their own, smaller mailing lists that supported collective writing of documents, as Mara15 remembered: I wrote a draft, then I posted it into the [mailing] list and there it was: read, corrected and revised. Everyone could work on it, so actually the production [of leaflets] was quite collective, by starting from a draft, and official declarations were produced collectively as well. 13 Precog is the combination of the terms precari, that is precarious people, and cognitari, that stands for cognitive workers. However, it also evokes the precog characters in the movie Minority Report that were able to transform their mental visions into concrete images. 14 Mirko was an activist involved in the CW and also a temporary worker employed in the cultural and education sector. The interview took place in his flat in Milan on 21 December 2006. As here, all quotations have been translated by the author and the interviewees’ names are fictional. 15 Mara was an activist involved in the Deposito Bulk and also a temporary worker employed in the education sector. The interview took place in Milan on 27 December 2006.

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Another important resource in the organization of the parade was the independent informational website indymedia Italy, which was the national node of the worldwide network of Independent Media Centres established in Seattle immediately before the anti-WTO demonstrations in 1999 (Morris 2004) and was established in Italy in 2001. Activist groups used indymedia Italy to publish leaflets, official declarations and calls for action in order to launch the parade and to spread basic information about how to join the parade through special trains from all over Italy.16 Accordingly, the number of articles on indymedia Italy increased when the social movement network that sustained the MP enlarged. The number was specifically higher in 2003 and 2004, when the organizers more openly conceived the MP as a national protest campaign where participation was open to all Italian activist groups struggling against precarity.17 Many activists thought that this form of communication was also a form of organization, in the sense that the availability of particular information, such as the place where and the time at which a special train to join the MP could be caught, might lead an activist group or even non-organized precarious workers to participate in the parade. This is clear in the account given by Mara of the MP launch: The MP launch always took place, to a larger extent, first of all on indymedia. Then we did press conferences, we did all that is expected to be done, but the big launch was on indymedia, that reached a mass of people in Italy, absolutely impressive. […] And then there was the opportunity, through the mechanism according to which everybody may write on indymedia, for each micro-group, from the really autonomous micro-group to the more organized collectives, to post on indymedia and to communicate what they would have done. So, sometimes, they wrote on indymedia ‘yes, we will organize a truck as well’ and you did not even know who they were. In many ways, the organization of the MP was partially decentralized and left to the initiative of local activist groups. Other than some simple guidelines set out for participating in the parade such as the construction of trucks possibly equipped with a sound system, activist groups who were more involved in the MP organization did not require a continuous presence at preparatory assemblies or discussions in mailing lists. This decentralized and fluid form of organization was well supported by indymedia Italy, which was based on an open 16 Apart from this relvance for organizing and mobilizing, Wimmer in this volume refers to indymedia’s importance also for the macro-level of counter-public spheres. 17 Number of articles related to the MP posted on indymedia Italy, time frame from 1 April to 31 May: two in 2001; ten in 2002; nineteen in 2003; seventy-two in 2004.

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publishing platform, granted anonymity, was free from censorship, and allowed the use of movements’ mailing lists. The decision to use indymedia Italy was also connected to the overlapping presence, among the social movement network sustaining the MP, of activists who also belonged to the group of people who managed indymedia Italy. In sum, both FTF and CMC sustained the preparatory stages of the parade and, hence, gave a twofold space of interaction where the offline and online realm fruitfully intertwined (see Hamm 2006). The organizational level of the parade, therefore, was enriched by online media practices, such as activists signalling their participation in the MP via the indymedia website. This result complements previous analysis that focused on two transnational protest events based in Italy, the Genoa anti-G8 demonstrations in 2001 and the Florence European Social Forum in 2002. Based on data collected through websites, mailing lists and questionnaires, this empirical investigation outlines that the repertoire of contention is enriched by online protests to which activists participate while continuing to demonstrate, picket, and boycott offline (della Porta/Mosca 2005: 26).

Mobilizing Structures and Territorial Level: The Organizational Process at the Transnational Level At the transnational level of the EMP, activist groups maintained an online and offline decentralized organizational structure similar to that of the MP. Transnational meetings, in which FTF interactions between activists of different European countries took place mainly in English, were the moment in which important decisions were taken collectively. The first transnational meeting, which took place in 2004 in London at the aforementioned BeyondESF forum, is exemplary of this process. In this context, activists collectively wrote down the so-called Middlesex Declaration, which was a call for action in order to construct a transnational network of activist groups that were involved in struggles against precarity. The common presence in the same physical place gave the opportunity to Italian activist groups, which organized the MP at the national level, to propose and discuss the idea of the precarity social problem to a broader audience of activist groups belonging to different countries and political traditions. In the next months, two transnational preparatory meetings took place in Paris and Berlin in order to organize the EMP in 2005 and two transnational preparatory meetings took place in Hamburg and Milan in order to organize the EMP in 2006. Though FTF interactions during these assemblies were important and fruitful according to activists, they also considered the use of ICTs, and CMC

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in particular, extremely relevant as it sustained the continuity of discussion among dispersed activist groups during the time span between one preparatory meeting and another. Indeed, immediately after the first transnational meeting in London, Italian activist groups established a common mailing list and website, both named Euromayday. In particular, activists used the Euromayday mailing list all year long, though the messages peaked in the months immediately before and in the weeks immediately after the parade:18 March, April and May. Mara suggested one of the reasons why activists considered the Euromayday mailing list so important: First of all, Euromayday is, from the very beginning, a European [mailing] list that continues to work. Obviously, you cannot afford a monthly meeting at the European level, because it became a far too substantial waste of energy. The [mailing] list is active and continues to work and there all the cues that are developed during the year are published, for instance information about everything that happens. There is the opportunity for information exchange. Without any or few institutional political actors involved in it, the EMP was clearly sustained by a transnational social movement network based on the participation of activist groups. Individuals and collectives across this network contributed to the common knowledge and experience from previous protest activities within their local and national territorial levels. In other words, the EMP relied on participatory resources (Diani 2000: 392) and lacked the necessary material resources to organize regular preparatory meetings at the transnational level, as had happened within more structured and institutionalized social movements events, like international meetings of the European Social Forum (Doerr forthcoming) or the European Clean Clothes Campaign’s (Niesyto forthcoming). Furthermore, the Euromayday mailing list was complementary to the transnational preparatory meeting as it offered an arena within which activist groups discussed the organization of these preparatory meetings. Such processes are clearly illustrated in the following email extract related to the transnational preparatory meeting to be held in Hamburg, on 22-23 October 2005:

18 For instance, in 2006, the messages were distributed as following: fifteen in January; sixty-eight in February; ninety-eight in March; 155 in April, seventy-one in May, twenty-eight in June; six in July; forty-two in August; thirty-three in September; twenty-one in October; twenty-one in November; and eight in December. In the other years, the messages distribution followed a similar pattern, with an intensification of mailing list traffic in March, April and May.

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So what do you want to discuss at the meeting? There have been two or three suggestions on this list, and we have taken note of them. Are there any additional proposals regarding workshops, themes, debates, and the overall structure of the meeting?19 Many activists posted informal accounts of transnational preparatory meetings to the Euromayday mailing list. Finally, activist groups often collectively discussed calls for action, posters and other common declarations of the EMP in the Euromayday mailing list. These discussions were used as a real political working space, where collective action frames slowly emerged or shifted. Activists, therefore, used CMC to foster the exchange of information and, at the same time, to reinforce mutual trust among activist groups. Groups were also able to confirm their interest in struggles against precarity by organizing local, national protest events related to this social problem and, then, publicly and visibly rendering their initiatives within the Euromayday mailing list. Here it is worth noting that particularly in 2007, the Euromayday mailing list functioned as a substitute for transnational preparatory meetings, which did not take place in the months before the parade. On this occasion, activist groups from different European countries used the Euromayday mailing list to signal whether or not they were organizing the parade, to jointly discuss the common call for action and to coordinate the protest campaign. This is the only example in which CMC temporary substituted direct FTF interactions during preparatory stages. The Euromayday website played a very different role: Activists intended it to be a place in which to publish the relevant materials to launch the parade, from the call for action to high quality resolution posters, and to bring together all the national websites related to the EMP. This allowed each activist group to use the same media texts to promote the parade and, thus, to have a relatively homogeneous protest aesthetic for the simultaneous protest events in a number of countries. In a sense, the EMP website easily supported and, at the same time, reflected a model of organization based on coordinated autonomy at the transnational level. Franco20 explained how this worked; he began with the example of his own activist group: With regard to the Euro Mayday there were coordination meetings, there were [mailing] lists for common discussion, no more than this […] but, since there was the dynamics of a multitude, new technologies were not used in the sense of ‘let’s organize the Euro

19 Email posted to the Euromayday mailing list on 19 September 2005. 20 Franco was an activist of the Casa Loca social centre. The interview took place on 24 January 2007 in Milan.

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Mayday’, but ‘let’s organize the many pieces that then contribute to the Euro Mayday’. And, thus, each single collective, I’m sure, had its own mailing list, they saw each other’s websites, they exchanged each other’s images, they listened to the audio accounts about what happened in other cities and, maybe, they also downloaded each other’s documents. In short, the use of ICTs contributed to sustaining a balance between the high degree of autonomy, which nationally based activist groups maintained in the organization of their own EMP, and the construction of a common image able to underscore the existence of a transnational social movement network struggling against precarity at the European level.

Mobilizing Structures and Territorial Level: Identification Processes at the National Level At the symbolic level, the MP played a central role in the construction of a national social movement network struggling against precarity. Data analysis illustrates, however, that ICTs were not the primary tool that activist groups used in order to achieve this goal. Before discussing this finding, it is worth examining why the construction of a collective identity was considered so important and why activist groups dedicated a considerable amount of attention and effort to the identification processes behind it. In Italy, the MP intertwined with the broader context of struggles against work insecurity in Italy. Besides their differences, all these protest events wanted to make the same social problem visible in a country where the flexibility political mantra (Beck 2000: 3) was pushed by the primary institutional political and economic actors, both left wing and right wing. In such a context, many activist groups, from all over Italy, began to link deregulated labour flexibility, also supported by major legislative changes, with the emerging high degree of work insecurity.21 They considered it a social problem that they framed as precarity, which contributed highly to the emergence of relatively new kinds of workers, that they framed as precarious workers or simply precarious. Therefore, from this point of view the MP wanted to give a collective name,

21 According to Gallino (2007: 63-71) four main legislative measures were responsible for increasing work insecurity in Italy. The intergovernmental agreement in 1993, the Law 24 June 1997, no. 197, commonly named the Treu Packet, the Legislative Decree 6 September 2001, no. 368, and the Law 14 February 2003, no. 23. Nowadays, the Italian labour market is one of the main flexible markets in Europe with about 40 different kinds of fixed-term contracts (Fumagalli 2007: 28).

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and thus a collective identity, to the various social and political subjects already struggling against precarity. Activists intended the MP to be a contentious political action able to render visible their alternative system of meaning with regard to labour flexibility. In line with this, they wanted to overcome differences among precarious workers, often isolated from each other due to the existence and application of a number of fixed-term contracts, sometimes even within the same workplace. They, therefore, attempted to construct a pluralistic social subject, able to represent itself at the public level without any political mediation at the institutional level. From 2002, activists used the expression precariato sociale.22 It focused on the general living and working conditions experienced by a wide range of people who did not see the fulfilment of their (new) social rights due to precarity (Chainworkers Crew 2002). Already that year, activists openly linked the precariato sociale to the global justice movement, as the call for action stated: The global movement of Seattle and Porto Alegre, Genoa and Florence, which nowadays is opposed to the Iraqi war, contributed to the emergence and diffusion in Europe of a new political subject […]. This new political subject is the social precariat. […] The precariat is to postfordism as the proletariat was to fordism: precarious people are the social group produced by the neoliberal transformation of economy. (Mayday Network 2003) In such a process of identification, ICTs seem to play a less important role than in the organization of the MP. Activists used mailing lists to exchange social movement documents that contributed to the construction of precarious workers’ collective identity, such as calls for action. It seemed that among those activist groups more involved in the organization of the MP, however, the process of identification was linked more substantially to other kinds of media practices. The most relevant example in this direction was the development of a particular kind of radical media that activists named the media sociali. The most famous among them was San Precario,23 the protector saint of all precarious workers. It is a small holy picture invented in 2004 by activists involved in the CW and quite immediately spread within and beyond the national social movement network that organized the parade. 22 The expression could be translated as social precariat. 23 Other examples of media sociali are the false Anglo-Nippon fashion stylist, Serpica Naro, and the nineteen sticker cards representing super-heroic precarious workers, the Imbattibili, both invented in 2005. To know more about the media sociali see (Tarì/Vanni 2005; Vanni 2007; Mattoni 2008).

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Figure 1: The San Precario small holy picture (www.sanprecario.info).24

Through a sophisticated subversion of the Italian Catholic tradition, San Precario contributed to the construction of a common imagery among precarious workers (Tarì/Vanni 2005: 27). Many activist groups that participated in the MP used it, at times readapted, in other contentious political action against precarity in Italy (Mattoni 2008) and also in other European countries (Doerr/Mattoni 2007: 21-24). The moment to distribute media sociali was crucial in activating the identification process, as Miriam25 explained: Everyone to whom I gave the small holy picture had not only an amused look, but also recognition in his or her eyes. It happens to have the same reaction of an out-and-out marxist-leninist militant as well as persons outside any kind of political logic. In short, though the media sociali like San Precario were distributed and partially constructed through ICTs, they seemed endowed with more potential in FTF

24 All the images reproduced in this chapter are licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. Its terms are available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/. 25 Miriam was an activist participating to the CW and she was also a precarious worker at the time of her interview. The interview took place in Milan on 25 January 2007.

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interactions, when activists distributed them among other activists, protesters and even ordinary people who simply watched at a protest event.

Mobilizing Structures and Territorial Level: The Identification Process at the Transnational Level Similar to the national level, at the transnational level the construction of a collective protest and campaign identity was crucial. In contrast to the national level however, data analysis shows that the use of ICTs played a more significant role in identification processes at the transnational level. That said, at the very beginning of this stage of the protest campaign, FTF interactions contributed to the construction of a collective identity. In 2004, activists involved in the EMP redefined the precariato sociale as European: they added the prefix Euro to the name of the parade, which thus became EMP, and they framed precarity as a social problem affecting millions of people all over Europe. The posters of the parade exemplified this shift: they were written using a mix of languages – French, Italian, Spanish, and English – and claimed “European social rights” (Euromayday Network 2004).

Figure 2: The EMP posters in 2004 and 2005 (www.chain workers.org/MAYDAY/ index.html).

As previously mentioned, the forum Beyond ESF was the arena within which Italian activists launched the proposal to work on a transnational social movement network that would be able to mobilize people against precarity at the European level. They supported this attempt through the diffusion of a radical fanzine at the same meeting. It was the ad hoc issue of the Greenpepper Magazine, prepared in advance thanks to the contribution of Italian activists, who wrote

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about the meaning of precarity. Linkages, therefore, among Italian activist groups were constructed through the development of the national social movement network. This network sustained the reinforcing process of the MP organization and the collaboration with the Greenpepper Magazine, a traditional radical media, which provided reflections about precarity in the Italian context of struggle. As a second step, Italian activist groups diffused the articles, whose aim was to explain the meanings of precarity and its potential to mobilize people in other European countries and at the transnational level through FTF interactions with other activist groups gathered at a movement meeting. This mechanism of diffusion was the first step in the construction of the transnational social movement network, which organized the EMP in many European countries in the following years. The shared collective identity was, however, a process not exclusively developed by the organization of the EMP alone. On the contrary, activists developed many media practices to further develop and maintain a common understanding of the EMP. These media practices highly relied on ICTs. From this point of view, the official website of the parade was more than an organizational tool to distribute the same campaign material to all activist groups that would like to organize the EMP in their own country. Rather, the existence of a virtual space, which gathered websites of the activist groups involved in the parade organization, reinforced the idea of the common belonging to the same transnational social movement network, as they shared the same physical space only during preparatory meetings. This tendency developed more and more over the next years and in 2008 the EMP was supported by a website on which there was also an interactive space devoted to the so-called mega-blog. Here, each activist group involved in the protest campaign could post its own article about precarity in general and the EMP in particular. The result was a virtual space that contained written texts, videos and other materials in different languages posted by a number of activist groups connected to the transnational social movement network that organized the protest campaign. Moreover, in both 2004 and 2005, the EMP took place also within the cyberspace: the official website of the parade hosted a net-parade joined by thousands and thousands of people that constructed their personalized avatar and claimed their own personal slogans against precarity. Molleindustria, a website specialized in political videogames, invented it to reinforce the idea of a shared collective identity both at the national and transnational level, as Guido26 pointed out: 26 Guido was an activist involved in the Molleindustria website. He was a temporary worker employed in the information and communication sector. The interview took place in Milan on 18 December 2006.

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To some extent, there was the need to give visibility to this identity, to this new class that is not a class, and the virtual demonstration had to be a collective representation, a multicoloured mosaic that would be able to give an aesthetic visibility as well. It was a collective representation. Activists stressed more the European dimension in 2005, when virtual floats of the net-parade were also linked to websites of activist groups involved in the transnational social movement network that sustained the EMP. The net-parade highlighted one of the main features of the EMP. Unlike demonstrations against the WTO, EU, or G8 summits, and even the ESF, were activist groups and individuals from a number of countries met and temporary participated in the same contentious political action in the same physical space, the EMP culminated in a common day of struggle, 1 May, in a number of cities all over Europe. While the time and the kind of action were more or less the same, the physical space was different. Activist groups involved in the EMP seem to partially overcome the lack of a common space for contentious political action through the use of ICTs. Besides the net-parade, activists used the Euromayday mailing list not only as an organizational tool: after the EMP had occurred, activists posted a number of accounts, related to the parade in various countries, made up by written texts and pictures. In this way, each activist group could see what happened in the other EMPs and reinforce their idea of belonging to the same transnational social movement network and participating in the same protest campaign. A similar version of this media practice also occurred during the preparatory meeting in Hamburg, where activist groups devoted the first session of the assembly to mutual explanations related to what happened before and during the previous EMP. In doing so, some activist groups were also supported by their own media texts, frequently videos, to impart a more lively representation of the EMP. In these cases, digital cameras and basic knowledge about how to cut or rearrange the recorded material were important resources in order to create documents that could integrate FTF interactions between activist groups. Probably, the most sophisticated attempt in this direction was the creation of the EMP live radio broadcasting that an Italian activist group, namely the Global Project, organized in 2004 and 2005. From Milan, the city in which the biggest Italian EMP occurred, activists connected to the other European cities in which the EMP was taking place, interviewed them about what was going on and immediately retransmitted these accounts to a variety of audiences. In 2004, when the most important parades took place in Milan and Barcelona,

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activists established a direct connection between the two cities during the live radio broadcasting, as Paolo27 remembered: We had a radio studio connected to the parade through an ISDN connection and so a live broadcast in the strictest sense. While conducting [the radio program], we alternated with those in Spain, in Barcelona. We had a series of correspondents within the parade and hence a series of mobile phones to call. You did the correspondence, you listened to the correspondent, he or she talked [about the parade] or did interviews [from within the parade] and then you talked [about the parade], framed what arrived within the parade and proposed some songs that were coherent with the parade. The sharing of narratives related to the EMP in various European cities was a powerful tool in order to create a feeling of belonging to a common European space of struggle against precarity within the transnational social movement network behind the EMP. Though temporary, since it was linked to the occurrence of a specific protest campaign, activist groups intended the live radio broadcast as something more than the mere alternative coverage of the parade, as this Spanish activist from Barcelona pointed out during the radio program, immediately before the EMP began: We will do radio links with the parade in Milan, because we want to be present not only in Barcelona, but also in Milan. The Mayday opportunity also offers us a moment of construction of Europe from below. So, we feel ourselves in Milan now and I hope that also you will experience the day [of struggle] in Barcelona as yours. (Global Project 2004) The Global Project website highlighted the same concept in 2005, when the number of European cities involved in the EMP increased and hence the live radio coverage was even more articulate than in the previous year: “[T]his is our first experiment to establish a continuous contact with the European groups working on precarity and migration. Connect our fights and connect our discourse to construct Europe, this is our project” (Global Project 2005). The re-appropriation of the European space by people who had not been involved in the making of the European Union at the institutional level was hence obtained, according to activists, through the participation in common

27 Paolo was an activist of the Cantiere social centre in Milan and was also involved in Global Project. He was a temporary worker employed in the cultural sector. The interview took place in Milan on 27 January 2007.

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days of struggle and through the reinforcement of the linkages between activists and protesters that participated in them. The live representation of the EMP in radio programs, video materials, pictures, and written texts and its subsequent diffusion through mainly CMC sustained the maintenance of the shared collective identity constructed within the transnational social movement network behind the EMP, even though the very moment of the parade did not physically gather all activist groups involved in it.

Opportunities and Challenges of ICTs: At the National Level The previous sections implicitly underlined the opportunities that the use of ICTs opened at the national level of the MP, especially concerning their instrumental use: in particular mailing lists facilitated organizational processes and discussions; on the local level mailing lists were also the space of collective writing of common documents; indymedia Italy, furthermore, played an important role with regard to processes of organizing and mobilizing. CMC reinforced previous contacts established through FTF. In all, the decentralized character of the ICTs used in the campaign fitted well with the grassroots character of the MP. Analysis of the interviews transcripts, however, gives a more nuanced perception of ICTs by the interviewees, who underlined that ICTs were also a challenge for the social movement network, mainly in relation to the organizational level of the protest campaign: in particular, the translation of conflicts internal to the social movement network that promoted the MP in the online realm and the creation of potential exclusion of particular kinds of precarious workers due to the use of ICTs as a means to organize the parade. The growth of activist groups that participated in the organization of the MP and the parallel growth of people that joined the parade on 1 May also brought internal tensions especially due to the difficult acceptance of more structured and sometimes even institutionalized activist groups. Many among the interviewees spoke about tense relationships during preparatory meetings, especially in 2004. Moreover, some physical encounters between activists occurred in 2005, on 1 May in Milan during the parade. Internal clashes were also visible within the independent informational website indymedia Italy, which then revealed its ambivalence to the protest activity. Indeed, many of the interviewees considered the independent informational website as a precious resource in order to be informed about mobilizations and other political actions that activist groups all around Italy promoted at the local and national level. This is with regard to other kinds of protest campaigns that focused on other contentious issues as well. However, the same interviewees also stressed the misuse

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of indymedia Italy in recent years: they did not blame the communicative tool per se, but rather the way in which some of its potentialities, such as the open publishing system and the lack of censorship, turned into negative aspects. Mario28 summarized this shared opinion in a few words: Indymedia was born as an expression of free communication, not controlled and so on. And then, I don’t know in other cities, but at least in Milan it became like the toilet wall. In the sense that everyone wrote an insult directed towards someone else and then had replies about the insult at stake. From this point of view, maybe some means are more mature than those who use them. The point that Mario underlined was also recognized by those activists working at the indymedia Italy, which temporary closed on 2006 also due to problems in managing the newswire section of the website, where users posted insults or inappropriate messages (Indymedia Italy 2006). Internal quarrels within social movements’ networks are not a novelty and they could happen for many reasons reaching from the definition of the collective action frame, a mechanism that has been defined as frame disputes (Benford 1993), to the concrete composition of the demonstration. Here, what happened was the partial reproduction of offline, internal social movements’ tensions within the online environment, creating a high level of informational noise within a space originally intended to be a place where everyone could give its own contribution in order to overcome mainstream media biases about social movements and protest activities. Another problem linked to the use of ICTs as a resource to organize the MP was the creation of a new kind of inequalities among precarious workers. In fact, some of the interviewees considered ICTs in general and the Internet in particular, as the crucial tool that enabled the exponential growth of the parade. Here, the stress is on the strengths of a positive, viral communication through the web able to diffuse the MP call for action in many different social movement families and to a vast number of precarious workers. On the contrary, some of the interviewees underlined that CMC could exclude some precarious workers, as Andrea29 explained:

28 Mario was an activist linked to the social centre Deposito Bulk and also a member of the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC). The interview took place in Milan on 19 December 2006. 29 Andrea was a radical trade unionist and a member of the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC). At the moment of the interview he was employed in the Provincia of Milan. The interview took place in Milan on 25 January 2007.

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It is clear that if you wanted to bring some workers employed in the local public administration to Mayday, you could not think to bring them because there was the Internet, because maybe they used Internet for work only, so you had to produce a leaflet. These interview extracts suggests that activists did not renounce to use more traditional kinds of radical media, as leaflets are, to promote the MP among certain categories of precarious workers who used the Internet, and thus CMC, as a tool to perform certain working activities. Moreover, also FTF interactions among precarious workers were considered important channels through which information about the MP could flow, as Giacomo30 highlighted: In several firms Internet cannot be used. But those who give a look at the website or read email at home, then could print these materials and bring them, let know them to colleagues. Therefore, from this point of view there is the multiplication of occasions, opportunities to reach workers. Here, it is even clearer that activists frequently conceived the ICTs directly in connection with other channels of through which communication passed and thus organization was realized. In this particular case, a message that is circulated in the online environment, an article posted on a website or a text spread via email, could assume a more material form, a printed text, and then enter the offline realm of FTF interactions among precarious workers. In other words, there seemed to be a twofold level of organization characterized by the use of two different means of communication. Among those activist groups that took part to the MP organization in a more direct way, the use of ICTs and CMC was not only accepted, but also considered extremely useful. Among those precarious workers who were possibly sympathetic with the collective action frame of the parade, but who were not directly involved in its organization, however, the use of more traditional radical media, like leaflets, diffused through FTF interaction was considered more effective than the use of CMC. Radical trade unionists emphasized the existence of this twofold level of organization and communication more openly than other interviewees did. This does not mean that other activist groups employed CMC alone to organize and promote the parade. On the contrary, the more or less regular occurrence of preparatory meetings and the creation of posters and postcards were signals that the social movement network behind the MP expressed a complex combination of media practices that, at its organizational level, mixed 30 Giacomo was a radical trade unionist of the CUB. The interview took place in Milan on 26 January 2007.

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in a variety of manners new and traditional media, the micro and the mesolevel of communication. This also seemed to be the result of the coexistence, within the same social movement network, of various activist groups, each of them expressing a preference and, hence, developing more a particular communication performance in order to organize the MP.

Opportunities and Challenges of ICTs: At the Transnational Level On the one hand, with regard to opportunities, the analysis revealed that also at the transnational level mailing lists served the important function both to prepare meetings and to continue work. Moreover, the website was used in order to spread a shared aesthetic language. Opportunities concerning the identification process seem to be greater at the transnational level, for instance the net parade provided a symbolic space for identity construction. On the other hand the use of ICTs seems to imply limits that are less evident at the national level. Activists did not emphasize, while speaking of the EMP, the presence of strong quarrels and conflicts within the transnational social movement network. In case of particular cases of frame disputes, like the one related to the recognition of Europe as the reference political space where struggles against precarity should be rooted, only limited discussions went on in the Euromayday mailing list that did not create a real noise in the information flow. Rather, they contributed to enrich the internal debate of the transnational social movement network and hence the identification process beyond national borders. This happened with the discussion about the possibility to organize a Mondo Mayday Parade in 2007.31 In this regard, it is worth noting that the European level of struggles and hence the related collective identity were highly contested within the transnational social movement network sustaining the EMP. On the one side, Europe was considered a common and fruitful space of struggle recognizing the European Union as a political institution to which protests and claims should be addressed. On the other side, some activist groups refused to consider the European space as a field of struggle and stressed more their connections with the global justice movement as a whole. Moreover, internal conflicts at the national level, like the one occurred in Italy in 2005, remained quite invisible at the transnational level both in the online and offline realm. In 2006, however, some Italian activist groups decided to join the EMP in Paris instead of the one in Milan. Among others, activists involved in Global Project participated in the French parade. As a result, 31 See the discussion in the Euromayday mailinglist in August 2006.

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the live radio broadcasting was no longer organized and the Global Project website focused on the EMP in Paris without mentioning the one in Milan, with about 100,000 participants. Therefore, internal conflicts at the national level had a rather significant impact on the transnational independent coverage of the protest campaign that imparted a partial representation of it. In sum, the use of ICTs at the transnational level seemed to be heavily dependent on what happened at the national level of activist groups involved in the EMP and this could turn into a weak point on the level of identification process for the entire transnational social movement network. Another interesting aspect is, on the contrary, the risk of the EMP overrepresentation within the online realm. Guido32 explained this concept speaking about transnational level of the parade: In Europe, other Maydays were to some extent always little and marginal, but anyway […] the fact of doing a demonstration with the same keywords, with the same graphic style and with a network of little websites informatically homogeneous, to some extent amplified the thing. In other words, the presence of quite advanced technical and communicative skills within the transnational social movement network, also due to the presence of activists employed in the information and communication sector, might contribute to depict the EMP as a protest campaign that was managed and participated by a more rooted transnational social movement network than it actually was. To some extent, the extensive use of ICTs both in the organizational and identification process could have contributed to hide the lack of effective participation to the EMP at the transnational level. While in Italy, 100,000 people participated in the parade and a large number of activist groups contributed to its organization, the same was not true in other countries where the EMP occurred. This suggests taking into consideration the individual identity of activists involved in the protest campaign and their role within it. Among the Italian activist groups, the CW proved to have a rather developed knowledge related to ICTs and particular communicative skills. Indeed, many activists involved in it had or have been employed, mainly as precarious workers, in the information and communication sector. Therefore, they used the same knowledge employed within their workplaces also at the level of contentious political actions, such as the EMP. This was certainly a strong

32 Guido was an activist involved in the Molleindustria website. He was a temporary worker employed in the information and communication sector. The interview took place in Milan on 18 December 2006.

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point, which could also open a reflection about new kinds of immaterial resources that particular kinds of precarious workers detain (Mattoni forthcoming). As Guido pointed out, however, the development and use of these immaterial skills related to ICTs could hide the actual weight that transnational social movement networks have in terms of participation and diffusion.

Conclusion The chapter has analyzed the role of FTF interactions and CMC in two relevant protest activities that usually occur in the backstage of social movement networks: the instrumental level of protest event organization and the symbolic level of collective identity construction. The chapter has taken into consideration these two aspects during both the national stage of the MP and the transnational stage of the EMP, hence comparing the use of FTF interactions and CMC within two different territorial contexts. By doing so, it has highlighted the way in which activists actually employed ICTs within a broader set of media practices and in relation to FTF interactions. In sum, at both the transnational and national level of the protest campaign, ICTs played an important role with regard to the organizational process in which they intertwine, and not substitute, with FTF interactions. Therefore, the offline and online realms are important environments where organizing of the parade and where different kinds of media practices occur. In particular, the analysis has shown that activist groups first considered the need for a shift at the national and then transnational level of mobilization. To do this, they helped themselves to achieve this goal using ICTs among other communication tools. Moreover, ICTs and among them the Internet infrastructure did not shape the organizational pattern of the protest campaign, which was, from the very beginning, characterized by a strongly coordinated autonomy of activist groups involved in it, as exemplified by the relatively loose requirements in order to participate in the MP and the EMP. Therefore, in this particular case:

1

Both at the national and transnational level, ICTs strongly contribute to the organization of the protest campaign, though they do not predetermine an upward scale shift nor do they predetermine its organizational pattern.

That is to say that the logic behind collective action is not changed by ICTs and, in particular, by the Internet infrastructure. Rather, choices made by activist groups – such as to connect national struggles in a country to those happening in another country or to maintain a loose coordination within the

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social movement network – may match some of the potentialities offered by the Internet. This result is in contrast with the findings of Lance W. Bennett (2004: 136), who underlines that the internet can be subordinated to organizational patterns in established, institutional political actors, but that “the fluid network of global issue activism enables the internet to become an organizational force shaping both the relations among organizations and, in some cases, the organizations themselves”. This difference in findings is probably due to the very organizational structure of the social movement network sustaining the EMP, which is conceived, from the very beginning, as an open and loosely coordinated network of activist groups, individuals, and non-institutional political actors. Therefore, the case study here is different from the organizations devoted to global activism like the ones considered by Bennett. From this, it is possible to speculate that the Internet has a minimum shortterm impact both on very rigid organizational patterns, like the ones of political parties, and on very loose organizational patterns, like the ones represented by the EMP. A similar finding is the one of Atton (2002: 102) when dealing with alternative media managed by social movements that focus on direct actions. The author argues that “we see the alternative media of new social movements reflecting the organizational and social structures of the direct-action movement they document”. Obviously, this hypothesis deserves further empirical research, especially in relation to the recent development of social web applications. Regarding the symbolic level of the collective identification process, ICTs act in a different way at the national and transnational level. More precisely:

2

at the national level of the protest campaign, ICTs play a marginal role with regard to the identification process in which FTF interactions at the meso-level of activist groups and at the micro-level of activists seem to play a more crucial role.

3

at the transnational level of the protest campaign, ICTs play a crucial role with regard to the identification process in which they intertwine with FTF interactions, that are less present than at the national level due to lack of material resources.

Here, the extensive use of ICTs in a varied range of media practices, from the establishment of a common website to the sharing of videos on the protest campaign, may have another meaning that goes beyond the mere lack of material resources. The lack of proximity among activist groups from various European countries, in fact, does not only imply that they are separated by physical distances. Rather, there are also political, cultural, social and economic distances that characterize the daily live of activist groups in their own countries. As a result, the meaning of the precarity and its condition becomes multi-

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faceted. While at the Italian national level activist groups start from common external conditions, such as the same legislative interventions and the same welfare state system, this is not true at the transnational level of the protest campaign. In the EMP, activist groups partially overcame this lack of proximity, understood in its broader and inclusive sense, by referring to the common belonging to the global justice movement. However, this did not seem to be enough and then all the potentialities offered by ICTs were extensively exploited in order to create a dense exchange of narratives, meanings, and interpretations about the precarity condition. This constituted the necessary common ground upon which the social movement network that sustained the EMP was constructed and maintained over the years. At the same time, this was also the way in which proximity in its broad sense was reached before and beyond proximity in its stricter sense, that is at the physical level. Finally, it has been possible to observe that ICTs, and among them especially the Internet, constitute a challenge for social movements. As Mosca (2007: 19) underlines with regard to internal communication in social movement networks, the internet may also create new “power inequalities” that in turn lead to new forms of exclusions as noted above. This chapter offers further insights with regard to ICTs as challenges to face, since it compares their use at different geographical, territorial levels (national and transnational) and for different purposes related to mobilizing structures (instrumental and symbolic). As a result, the following tentative conclusion can be drawn from the data analysis:

4

the Internet might constitute challenges that are different at the national level, where they affect more the organizational process of the protest campaign, and at the transnational level, where they affect more the identification process of the protest campaign.

These results are certainly linked to the EMP case study. Activist groups involved in the protest campaign stressed, however, the fact that they were part of the broader global justice movement and actually they participated in many protest events which were linked to them. These activist groups participated in the global justice movement as both single activist groups, such as in the ESFs or in the anti-WTO, G8 and EU summits demonstrations, and transnational social movement networks, such as in the last anti-G8 summit demonstrations in Heiligendamm, Germany, in 2007. Therefore, though these results could not be generalized as such, they might be the basis for a set of hypotheses that could be further explored. This could be done by taking into consideration other national and transnational social movement networked campaigns, acting in the context of the global justice movement, and by possibly looking at both the national and transnational level of the same protest campaign.

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References Atton, C. (2002) Alternative Media, London: Sage. Ayres, J.M. (1999) ‘From the Streets to the Internet: The Cyber-Diffusion of Contention’, The ANNALS of the American Academiy of Political and Social Science, 566: 132-143. Beck, U. (2000) The Brave New World of Work, Cambridge: Polity Press. Benford, R.D. (1993) ‘Frame Disputes within the Nuclear Disarmament Movement’, Social Forces, 71: 677-701. Bennett, W.L. (2004) ‘Communicating Global Activism: Some Strenghts and Vulnerabilities of Networked Politics’ in W. van de Donk et al. (eds) Cyberprotest: New Media, New Citizens and Social Movements, London: Routledge. ——— (2003) ‘New Media Power: The Internet and Global Activism’, in N. Couldry and J. Curran (eds) Contesting Media Power: Alternative Media in a Networked World, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Castells, M. (2001) The Internet Galaxy. Reflections on the Internet, Business and Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chainworkers Crew (2002) Primo Maggio 2002: MayDay, MayDay! MayDay Parade. La flessibilità non ci ha piegato, muoviamo il sindacato sul precariato. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 7 February 2004). ——— (2001) ChainWorkers. Lavorare nelle cattedrali del consumo, Rome: DeriveApprodi. ——— (undated) Chi siamo. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 1 February 2008). Couldry, N. (2004) ‘Theorising Media as Practice’, Social Semiotics, 14: 115-132. della Porta, D. and Diani, M. (2006) Social Movements: An Introduction, 2nd ed., Oxford/Malden, MA: Blackwell. della Porta, D. and Mosca, L. (2007) ‘In Movimento: “Contamination” in Action and the Italian Global Justice Movement, Global Networks, 7: 1-27. ——— (2005) ‘Global-Net for Global Movements? A Network of Networks for a Movement of Movements’, Journal of Public Policy, 25: 165-190. della Porta, D. and Rucht, D. (2002) ‘The Dynamics of Environmental Campaigns’, Mobilization, 7: 1-14. Denzin, N.K. (1975) The Research Act: A Theorical Introduction to Sociological Methods, Chicago: Aldine.

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Diani, M. (2000) ‘Social Movement Networks Virtual and Real’, Information, Communication & Society, 3: 386-491. Doerr, N. (forthcoming) ‘The European Social Forum Process between “Rooted Cosmopolitan” and European Experiments with Democracy’, in S. Teune (ed.) Transnational Challengers, Oxford/New York, NY: Berghahn Books. Doerr, N. and Mattoni, A. (2007) ‘The Euromayday Parade against Precarity: Cross National Diffusion and Transformation of the European Space “from below”’, paper presented at 8th Annual Conference of the European Sociological Association, Glasgow 2007. Euromayday Network (2004) Euromayday. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 20 February 2007). Freschi, A.C. (2003) ‘Dalla rete delle reti al movimento dei movimenti. Gli hacker e l’altra comunicazione’ in D. della Porta and Lorenzo Mosca (eds) Globalizzazione e movimenti sociali, Rome: Manifestolibri, 49-75. Fumagalli, A. (2007) ‘Precarietà’ in Transform! Italia (ed.) Parole di una nuova politica, Rome: XL Edizioni, 27-34. Gallino, L. (2007) Il lavoro non è una merce. Contro la flessibilità, Rome: Laterza. Garrett, R.K. (2006) ‘Protest in an information society’, Information, Communication & Society, 9: 202-224. Global Project (2005) EuroMayDay Trip 2005 – 2nd Stop. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 30 May 2005). ——— (2004) Mayday Mayday – Il precariato si ribella. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 17 April 2006). Hamm, M. (2006) ‘Proteste im hybriden Kommunikationsraum. Zur Mediennutzung sozialer Bewegungen’, Forschungsjournal Neue Soziale Bewegungen, 20: 77-90. Indymedia Italy (2006) Indymedia Italia. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 15 January 2007). Jordan, T. (2002) Activism! Direct Action, Hacktivism and the Future of Society, London: Reaktion Books. Jordan, T. and Taylor, P.A. (2004) Hacktivism and Cyberwars, London: Routledge.

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Kneip, V. and Niesyto, J. (2007) ‘Interconnectivity in the ‘Public of Publics’ – the Example of Anti-Corporate Campaigns’, paper presented at the conference ‘Changing Politics through Digital Networks: The Role of ICTs in the Formation of New Social and Political Actors and Actions’, Florence 2007. Mattoni, A. (forthcoming) ‘Tra consenso e conflitto. Pratiche mediali nei movimenti italiani contro la precarietà del lavoro’, Partecipazione e Conflitto, 1: 97-122. ——— (2008) ‘Serpica Naro and the others. The media sociali experience in Italian precarious workers struggles’, Portal, 5. Mayday Network (2003) Mayday003. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 7 February 2004). Melucci, A. (1996) Challenging Codes: Collective Action in the Information Age, Cambridge/New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Morris, D. (2004) ‘Globalization and Media Democracy: The Case of Indymedia’, in D. Shuler and P. Day (eds) Shaping the Network Society: The New Role of Civil Society in Cyberspace, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 325-352. Mosca, L. (2007) ‘A Double-Faced Medium? The Challenges and Opportunities of the Internet for Social Movements’, EUI Working Papers MWP 23. Niesyto, J. (forthcoming) ‘Digitalized Anti-Corporate Campaigns: Towards a New Era of Transnational Protest?’, in: H. Kouki and E. Romanos (eds) Re-Visiting Protest: New Approaches to Social Mobilization in Europe Since 1945, New York, NY: Berghahn Books. Pickerill, J. (2003) Cyberprotest: Environmental Activism Online, Manchester/New York, NY: Manchester University Press. Tarì, M. and Vanni, I. (2005) ‘On the Life and Deeds of San Precario, Patron Saint of Precarious Workers and Lives’, Fibreculture. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 18 October 2008). Tarrow, S. (1998) Power in Movement, 2nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tilly, C. and Tarrow, S. (2007) Contentious Politics, Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. van de Donk, W. et al. (2004) ‘Introduction: Social Movements and ICTs’, in W. van de Donk et al. (eds) Cyberprotest: New Media, Citizens, and Social Movements, London/New York, NY: Routledge, 1-25.

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Vanni, I. (2007) ‘How to do Things with Words and Images: Gli Imbattibili’, in M. Stochetti and J. Sumalia-Sappanen (eds) Images and Communities. The Visual Construction of the Social, Helsinki: University of Helsinki Press. Weiss, R.S. (1994) Learning from Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies, New York, NY: Free Press.

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Subsumption and Outlook

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Communication and Campaign Strategies of Intermediary Organizations – A Comparative Analysis Since the second half of the 1990s, nearly every political organization in advanced liberal democracies uses the Internet and other new information and communication technologies (ICTs) for its communication purposes. Beyond this unsurprising observation, analysis of Internet-based strategies and campaigns in different organizations reveals that both similarities and considerable differences exist in the way the broad range of ICT applications available to political actors are selected and eventually implemented. Essentially, every political group operates at least one website, uses email for numerous communication purposes and picks up even the latest trends such as blogs once they are widely considered to be ‘cutting edge’. While adhering to the established trends in communication technology and the more or less successful attempts to thereby create a modern image, organizations do not only follow specific approaches in the adoption of ICT according to their communication needs. They put these technologies into action differently, which therein applies different degrees of sophistication and complexity, transmits different qualities and quantities of information, and provides their supporters with different participation opportunities. This chapter aims at contributing to a better understanding of these selection processes and of the strategic choices made by political intermediaries. What are the underlying factors that drive and influence the processes of technology selection and the design of political online communication strategies of political intermediaries? Can specific usage patterns, strategic approaches and campaign activities be associated with certain characteristics of intermediaries? The analysis will be guided by two main research questions: To what extent do the structural (offline) characteristics of organizations influence their online communication strategies and the respective campaign activities? With regard to Internet-based communication strategies, how can the identified differences and similarities be explained, and what do these results imply regarding the interplay between ICT, politics, and democracy? For this purpose, a set of cases covering a broad range of organizations – three political parties1 and five interest groups – has been selected for em1

For a review of literature on internet-based party campaigning from a comparative perspective with regard to the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the Unites States see Zielmann/Röttger in this volume.

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pirical analysis. The eight organizations differ significantly with regard to their ideological position, their social basis, their organizational structure and their preferred methods of campaigning. It can be expected that these cases display a wide range of communication strategies and campaign styles. Thus far, most empirical studies on the use of Internet-based applications by political intermediaries have followed a rather narrow approach, focusing on the ‘front-end’ of the publicly accessible websites. As a result, these studies operationalized patterns of technology adoption by using straightforward indicators such as the existence or non-existence of certain web-based features (e.g. Norris 2003). In order to grasp, however, the underlying rationale, strategy and institutional connectivity of application patterns, a holistic approach seems more appropriate. To this end, this empirical analysis will not only focus on the Internet-based communication applications used by the organizations, but will also relate these to key offline characteristics. This contextualization of communication strategies is based on the central assumption of a strong linkage between offline structures and online expressions (Stegbauer 2001). It will be argued that the specific nature of this relationship is largely determined by fundamental ideological orientations – operationalized as normative views of democracy – held by political actors. This chapter consists of three sections. In the first section, the research design and methodological approach will be briefly outlined. This conceptual section is followed by an empirical analysis of the Internet-based communication strategies of eight Canadian parties and interest groups. The third section presents an explanation for the observed differences in the selection and usage of ICTs by different political actors. To that end, a heuristic model that systematically links the empirically identified modes of political online communication to basic models of democracy is developed and the primary results of the empirical analysis will subsequently be applied to the model.

Approach and Methodology Intermediaries as Objects of Investigation Intermediary organizations such as political parties and interest groups are appropriate objects for investigation to examine the relationship between structural characteristics of political actors and their utilization of ICTs for communication and campaigning. Since intermediaries are, in particular, located between social life worlds and the centre of political decision making, they provide for important communication channels and, thus, fulfil

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fundamental functions of social integration, articulation and aggregation of interests (Streeck 1987; Bashevkin 1996; Maloney/Jordan 1997). Hence, the effects of and responses to the often diagnosed motivation and legitimacy crises in Western democracies (Habermas 1977: 106; MacGrew 1997; Skocpol/Fiorina 1999b; Norris 2002) can be directly observed in political parties and interest groups. The analysis of political intermediaries generally provides crucial and relevant insight into the transformative and democratic potentials of ICT (Lindner 2005). Due to the high degree of variation in terms of organizational, ideological, and strategic features within a common macropolitical context, political intermediaries provide a particularly fruitful research object for this investigation. Canada was chosen as the setting for the empirical analysis primarily due to the country’s impressive innovativeness in the area of ICT (Kleinsteuber 1993: 106; 1999). In addition, compared to the United States (US), transferring empirical findings from Canada to European contexts is less problematic: Canada’s political institutions – particularly the Westminster system of parliamentary government – are firmly based on British heritage (Lindner/Schultze 2005a: 109) and contrary to the largely unchallenged dominance of liberal values in the ‘one ideology-society’ of the US (Lindner/Schultze 2005b: 649), Canadian political culture has also incorporated important imprints of European-style conservatism and socialism (Lipset 1990). The case selection was guided by the method of difference in order to both increase the variation of Internet-based communication strategies and to cover a broader range of institutional arrangements and ideological orientations. The following eight organizations were selected for in-depth analyses.2

Political Parties -

Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance (or Canadian Alliance, CA): This opposition party had its political and organizational roots in Canada’s western provinces.3 The ideological foundation of the Canadian Alliance is

2

The empirical analysis was carried out between September 2002 and April 2004. Apart from using qualitative methods for the website content analyses, fourty-four interviews (mostly face-to-face) with representatives of the selected organizations were conducted. The information base was complemented with internal documents provided by the organizations. The detailed results of the case studies are published in Lindner (2007).

3

The Canadian Alliance emerged from its predecessor, the Reform Party, in 2000. Four years later, the Alliance merged with the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada to become the Conservative Party of Canada. In February 2006, the Conservatives formed a minority government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

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best characterised by right wing populism. With its platform, a combination of neo-liberal economics, pronounced social conservatism and a rejection of collective rights (Laycock 2002), the party has positioned itself outside mainstream politics of central Canada. An additional distinguishing characteristic was the party’s plebiscitary, populist and market approach to the democratic process. During the 1990s, the CA’s predecessor experimented with instruments such as cable television call-in shows, internal referenda, and telephone polls (Barney 1996). Organizationally, the party was marked by the contradictions of strong grassroots rhetoric and a tendency towards autocratic dominance of the party leaders. -

Liberal Party of Canada: The Liberals clearly have been Canada’s dominant political party during the 20th century, and most of the federal governments since the 1890s were led by liberal Prime Ministers. Ideologically, the party has its roots in classic liberalism of British origin. As a ‘middle-of-the-road’ party, the Liberals’ political orientations have a high degree of overlap with the values of (central) Canadian society at large. The party’s longstanding success was largely based on its brokerage style politics, which enabled the catch-all party to build coalitions of support across Canada’s numerous ethnic-cultural, regional and economic cleavages (Lindner/Schultze 2005a).

-

New Democratic Party (NDP): Since 1935, the New Democrats and their predecessor were continuously represented in the House of Commons. All the same, the NDP was never able to move beyond third place in the federal party system. The party is the main political representative of social-democratic values in Canada and, as such, the NDP holds strong organizational ties with the labour movement. In many ways, the New Democrats followed the European model of a mass party organization instead of the traditional Canadian cadre type of organization represented by the Liberals or the Conservatives (Carty et al. 2000). In an attempt to broaden its electoral base, the NDP has, in recent decades, incorporated numerous ‘progressive’ or new left issues such as disarmament or environmental protection.

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Interest Groups4 -

Campaign Life Coalition (CLC): The CLC is the chief political lobby organization of the Canadian anti-abortion movement. The group is mainly rooted in the Catholic milieu, but enjoys significant support in many Protestant churches as well. Ideologically, the CLC is placed rightof-centre and is largely in accordance with the social conservatism as it was represented by the Canadian Alliance. The anti-abortion movement and its political wing combine typical features of single-issue groups and political fundamentalism: Its moral absolutism is largely immune to open dialogue and, as a result, the movement will not settle for any compromise on its central issue, abortion. Organizationally, the CLC is extremely well connected with other anti-abortion groups in the world, particularly with its US role models. Connections, however, reaching beyond this close-knit network are negligible.

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National Automobile, Aerospace, Transportation and General Workers Union of Canada (or Canadian Auto Workers, CAW): The CAW is one of Canada’s largest and most prominent trade unions. In contrast to many other unions in North America, particularly in the US, the CAW does not only strive to represent workers’ interests at the workplace and during bargaining, but also actively participates in broader political debates concerning society at large. As a consequence, the CAW is engaged in numerous networks and issue-driven coalitions composed of ‘progressive’ movements and interest groups.

-

Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA): With regard to the protection of civil rights, the CCLA is one of Canada’s oldest and highest profile interest groups. Ideologically, the non-governmental organization (NGO) adheres to classic liberal-utilitarian values spelled out by authors such as John Stuart Mill. The highly professional CCLA primarily pursues its goals in court, through media coverage and appearance in public hearings of governmental bodies. Hence, the active participation of its supporters in campaigns and organizational life is rather insignificant.

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Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB): The CFIB belongs to the four largest and most influential business interest organizations in Canada. Its mission is to lobby government and the public on behalf of small and medium sized businesses. Politically, the business association promotes

4

In this chapter, the term interest group also includes intermediary organizations such as trade unions and NGOs.

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the free enterprise system and, consequently, stands for deregulation and low levels of government interventionism. The CFIB’s internal structures are quite unique for an organization based on membership: the supporters are not granted any formal rights to vote for representative bodies. Instead, the executive board claims to base its decisions on the regularly held non-binding membership ballots. -

Council of Canadians: The Council is a NGO dedicated to the promotion and protection of a specific set of ‘progressive’ Canadian values. The citizens’ group was formed in opposition to neo-conservative continentalization policies of the 1980s. Since its early years, the Council has been politically active in numerous policy areas, including the defence of social welfare systems, international solidarity and environmental protection. Organizationally, the Council has deliberately chosen not to follow the Greenpeace model of increased professionalization. Instead, the grassroots activists, who are organized in chapters throughout the country, carry out the bulk of the campaign work. Moreover, the Council strives to increase the involvement of its activists in internal debates and decision making processes.

These eight intermediary organizations represent a sample of the most important types of organizational models. The selected political parties include a leader-dominated populist party (CA), a cadre party (Liberals) and a mass party (NDP); and the interest groups cover examples of a solipsistic single-issue group (CLC), a trade union with a strong political profile (CAW), a business association (CFIB), a professionalized citizens’ group (CCLA) and a grassroots organization (Council of Canadians).

Patterns of Information Transmission and Modes of Communication Patterns of Information Transmission Political intermediaries may choose from a large repertoire of ICT applications. Aside from adopting a specific mix of applications for their communication purposes, the parties and interest groups can use these technologies to achieve different objectives. Thus, if online communications, in general, and online campaign activities of political actors, in particular, are to be better understood, focusing on the ‘front end’ of the publicly accessible websites can merely be an analytical vantage point. Most Internet-based ICTs can be put to use quite differently. For instance, email is endowed with broad communicative capacity,

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ranging from one-to-one to one-to-many communication (Burnett/Marshall 2003: 56). One and the same application may also enable different degrees of interactivity (van Dijk 1999: 12). In order to capture these different communicative characteristics, an alternative approach is required to take into account qualitative features such as power relations between the participants and different degrees of interactivity. To this end, a classification of the main patterns of information transmission will be applied. This concept, which was developed by the communication scientists Bordewijk and Kaam (1982) and modified by others (Rafaeli 1988; Williams et al. 1988; Jensen 2002; van Selm et al. 2002), is based on a qualitative hierarchy of four main patterns of information transmission. Through usage of such classification, a very broad range of ICT applications can be assessed, firstly, for the degree of interactivity and, secondly, for the extent to which the communication process is being controlled by the participants. The four main patterns of information transmission are defined as follows:5 -

Allocution is a one-directional pattern of information transmission distributed by a central sender. This centre controls the disseminated information in terms of content, time, speed and carrier technology. In the area of digital network technologies, static information supplied on websites falls into this category.

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Consultation is a transmission pattern characterised by information that is centrally produced and controlled. The decisions about information selection, the time of its retrieval and the form of its utilization, however, are chiefly in the hands of the local participants (e.g. subscribing to email newsletters).

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Registration is characterised by the collection, processing and storage of information by a centre; the information, however, is made available by local participants. The centre controls the scope of issues, timeframe, and carrier technology, whereas the local participants decide which kind of information – if any at all – may be registered. Conventional manifestations of this pattern are questionnaires, ballots, or observations. Digital networks offer numerous applications to register information such as online voting, online membership forms, or even surveillance systems.

-

Conversation (or dialogue) is defined as a communication pattern in which both the generation of information and its distribution are largely controlled by the decentred units. Content, time, and speed of the

5

Based on Jensen (1999), van Dijk (2000: 45), and van Selm et al. (2002: 192).

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information exchanges are largely designated by the local participants, while the carrier technology is usually chosen by a central entity. Traditional examples of conversation are public gatherings and debates as well as variations of informal information exchanges. The digital equivalents are online discussion groups, bulletin board systems, Internet relay chats, or groupware systems. In the context of political communication and new ICTs, allocution and consultation primarily refer to the supply of information. Registration potentially contributes to the decision making processes, and conversation is essentially about deliberation.

Vertical and Horizontal Dimensions of Communication Theoretically, all four patterns of information transmission allow for communication along the vertical and the horizontal dimension. Nonetheless, allocution, consultation, and registration take place primarily in the vertical dimension of communication, whereas conversation predominantly features along the horizontal axis. An example for conversation in the vertical communication dimension could be a debate between representatives of government and members of civil society. Likewise, in some cases the patterns of allocution, consultation, and registration can be performed horizontally. These instances seem, however, to be rather uncommon. In any case, this general openness for different usage of ICT applications stresses the necessity for empirical assessment of the respective communication situation within which these transmission patterns are being applied. This classification scheme assists in the analysis party and interest group use of Internet-based applications. Due to the configuration of information transmission patterns and the preferred dimensions of communication revealed by each case study, it can be expected that the preferred approach to communication is an indication of a more general approach to communication reflected by an intermediary’s campaign strategies (e.g. the role of grassroots activism, the degree and scope of professionalization). Important analytical insights are gained by comparing the respective presence of the four information transmission patterns and, on a higher level of abstraction, the relative strength of the vertical and horizontal dimension of communication in different organizations. Arguably, the dominance of vertical, mainly top-down communication is indicative of a communication strategy aiming at strengthening the position of organizational elites who conduct professional but non-participatory campaigns, whereas a high number of opportunities for members, activists, and supporters to express themselves in the horizontal dimension suggests that the

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organization emphasises processes of collective decision making. In essence, the relative strength of the vertical and the horizontal dimension of communication relates to the relative importance of efficiency and integration.

Communication and Campaign Strategies of Political Intermediaries: Empirical Results Across the eight cases, patterns of information transmission and the dimensions of communication were analysed in order to gain a comprehensive view of communication and campaign strategies. This was accomplished primarily through a combination of qualitative methods. The empirical data was generated from content analyses of the organizations’ internet and intranet sites, internal documents, strategy papers, and in-depth interviews with officials, activists and members. With regard to the four main patterns of information transmission, the empirical analysis of intermediary organizations revealed the following: (1) Given the comparatively low costs associated with allocution, this information transmission pattern, as expected, overwhelmingly dominated the communication activities of all eight cases. Significant differences between the organizations were observed, however, regarding the type and scope of information offered to the users. The political parties, generally, presented rather shallow policy-related information; substantial background information was hard to find. Only the NDP was observed to provide substantial and significant documents, but only in a few select policy areas. The general observation of superficial information offerings among the political parties also applied to the CCLA and the CFIB. The CLC, the CAW and the Council of Canadians, however, presented comparatively large amounts of significant policy-related information. In the latter three cases, delivering large amounts of background information was an integral element of these interest groups’ issue-driven campaigns and their attempts to found their respective counter-publics. (2) With regard to the consultation transmission pattern, only minor variations between the eight cases could be observed. In all cases, there were channels to establish contact with representatives of the organizations either by web interface or email; in most organizations, however, users could only reach staff members. Exceptions were observed with the CAW and the CA. In both organizations, users’ messages were actually received by high-level representatives.

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(3) From the perspective of democratic theory, the registration transmission pattern covers both simple and more sophisticated applications. The possibility to become a member of an organization online was offered in all cases except the CAW. The demand for this service was most pronounced among the three parties, whereas traditional offline recruitment channels dominated among the interest groups. An explanation for the considerable difference between the two categories may be the comparatively ephemeral and short-lived nature of Canadian party membership and its largely instrumental character during leadership contests. The registration information transmission pattern can also be used to facilitate decision making processes. Most of the organizations, however, refrained from offering applications to this end. The right-wing populist party occasionally used non-binding online polls as an element of the party’s ‘market research’. Generally, the CA was strongly in favour of combining plebiscitary procedures with ICT, but, due to massive internal problems during the period under review, the party had to refrain from seriously implementing any of these ambitious plans: But the party website really ought to have some kind of voting. The members would love that. And I have no doubt that when we have our caucus website, we will have some kind of voting possibilities [and] give the people a chance to register their views. The reason why this has not been taken up has to do with the internal problems the party was grappling with during the last few years.6 The CFIB offered its members the opportunity to participate online in non-binding periodic membership ballots. The only legally binding online vote during the review period was carried out by the NDP during the leadership race of January 2003. The NDP members could choose between mail-in ballots, voting at the conference site, or online-voting. Other online participation channels were made available as well. With the exceptions of the Liberals and the CFIB, all organizations offered the opportunity for their supporters to sign e-petitions. The online participation rates (measured in the number of signatures acquired) in these cases, however, were consistently and by far lower than the conventional paper petitions offered during the same time period. Attempts to mobilise supporters to participate in voluntary political activities and campaigns via the Internet were only undertaken by the Liberal Party and the NDP. The Lib-

6

Interview CA, Leader of the Opposition Office.

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erals’ participation offers were limited to the short election campaign periods, similarly as the NDP’s web campaigners. In addition, the New Democrats also actively promoted their thematic or campaign oriented advocacy teams on the party’s website. The rationale was to attract grassroots activists who are motivated mainly by specific political issues. (4) Empirical analysis of the organizations’ patterns of information transmission clearly showed that the technological opportunities to offer and facilitate dialogue between participants was hardly ever used. For instance, the bulk of email-based information transmissions, both within the organizations as well as with external partners, primarily fulfilled administrative and coordination functions. The comparatively infrequent communications dealing explicitly with policy issues were usually dealt with in highly formalised procedures involving professional communication departments. Instead of open dialogue on policy, which may develop over several sequences of exchange, the official communications were based principally on standardized responses. Nevertheless, incoming emails do have the potential to indirectly influence the organizations’ policy debates and decision making processes. If the statements dealing with a particular issue reach a sufficient volume, they may become indicators for the opinions and attitudes of an organization’s social base or constituency: [T]he PMO [Prime Minister’s Office, R.L.] regularly asks us how many emails we receive on certain issues. Like say on the Kyoto Protocol. So they ask what kind of responses we are getting. It is funny, on that issue we are getting about fourty-five to fifty-five percent against Kyoto. And that is quite amazing, because when you read the newspapers, you get the impression of at least ninety percent opposing the issue.7 All three political parties and to some extent the CAW and the Council of Canadians provided interesting examples for the pattern conversation in the horizontal communication dimension. A number of examples suggest that the specific features of digital ICTs can be conducive to the processes of self-organizing groups within organizations. The communication technologies enabled like-minded members, who had been previously dispersed, to efficiently connect and develop common positions on policies or strategies and, consequently, to influence the organization’s decision making processes:

7

Interview Liberal Party of Canada, Communication Department.

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I remember ten to fifteen years ago, you would talk to a few riding presidents that you knew personally. Today, if I had an issue that I wanted to make some statement – which I have – I have set up my own mailing list on my computer of all the riding presidents in Ontario. So I can immediately say to them: ‘I’m not happy with this’. And I think that this has had a tremendous impact on the party over the last couple of years. […] So presidents now have the ability to communicate quickly with other presidents to build support, to alert. […] We are now able to strategize, communicate, someone would say ‘this is what we hear, this is what they will lay on us at our meeting’, and we could therefore strategize around that, and do it quickly and do it right up to the last minute before going off to the meeting.8 The cases of the Liberals and the New Democrats highlight the importance of intermediate organizational structures between headquarters and membership as additional vantage points for the processes of interest articulation and aggregation. In those parties and interest groups with a fairly low degree of organizational and functional differentiation, such as the CA or the CFIB, similar examples of self-organizing sub-groups were not observed. ICT applications such as discussion boards, list serves or chats, which are predestined to be used for conversation, have been made available only occasionally during the period of analysis. Among the political parties, only the NDP offered a discussion forum. This internal forum, however, did not seem to bring forth any broader impact on the party’s policy debates. The CAW and the Council of Canadians also offered a number of list serve applications to their members and supporters. The function of these, however, was primarily to coordinate daily business and organizational aspects of ongoing campaigns. An exemplary case is the Flying Squads, a rather loosely organized labour activist network with informal ties to the CAW. This network was managed principally through Internet-based communication, but discussions and subsequent decision making processes for political strategies were still the remit of face-to-face meetings. The Internet was primarily used for campaign coordination and information dissemination: We have used the email pretty effectively in some of our own struggles within the union. For example, when the Bay workers, which are retail workers […], had problems on their picket line and some people were crossing the line during their strike last year, the word went out very quickly through the list serve and soon reached the neighbouring plant. An entire day shift […] went down to the picket line. […] 8

Interview Liberal Party of Canada, Constituency Association Ottawa-Vanier.

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There are many stories like that to organize rapidly, using email to help.9 Both the CAW and the Council of Canadians started to plan and implement new ICT systems with the objective to improve internal networking and to better integrate local associations. One of the main goals of the interest groups, as it is exemplified by the following statement of a Council representative, was to facilitate internal debates by increasing the participation of the rank and file members: We want to […] build a place where the chapter activists can begin to develop collective strategy and develop a sense of being part of a broader community. Our chapter activists never really get much opportunity to interconnect. We have regional meetings where they gather, we have the general meeting once a year, but not everyone can go to that, so we are using the intranet as a means to build a ‘chapter activists only’ area.10 The Council of Canadians, in particular, invested considerable effort in designing an ICT network architecture with the explicit intention to counteract oligarchic tendencies within the organization. To summarize, the Internet-based communication of all eight cases is overwhelmingly dominated by the allocution pattern, characterised by a high degree of content control by a central distributor. It was generally observed that the quantitative importance of an information transmission pattern declined with the growth of its interactive characteristics. Accordingly, the exciting possibilities of modern ICT to enable and facilitate dialogues remained largely ignored. The eight cases illustrate, particularly, similarities in the dominance of the allocution information traffic pattern. There is also an overall reluctance to offer more ICT applications that could potentially contribute to feeding additional views and perspectives into internal policy debates and facilitate deliberation. Noteworthy differences between the organizations emerged with regard to their communication and campaign strategies. These differences become particularly relevant when considering the relative importance of vertical and horizontal communication exchange for each organization. The CA, the CFIB and, to a lesser extent, the CLC focused nearly exclusively on direct, top-down communication between headquarters and the individual members. Communi-

9

Interview CAW, National Office.

10 Interview Council of Canadians, National Office.

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cation opportunities along the horizontal dimension were not offered at all or only to a negligible extent. The Liberals were also predominantly occupied with communication along the vertical axis, but due to the party’s different organizational structure, autonomous horizontal communication was also observed. Judging from the communication flows within the CCLA, this organization could also be added to the list of those groups focusing on the vertical communication dimension. As the CCLA has invested very few resources in its communication strategy in the first place, it seems justified to view this organization as a deviating case. The CAW, the Council of Canadians and, although not quite as obvious, the NDP can be found on the opposite side of this vertical-horizontal continuum. These groups were engaged in activities intended to revitalize and strengthen the internal life of their organizations. Apart from providing more substantial policy information, these groups also sought to encourage horizontal information exchange, debate and interaction among their members.11 How can the observed differences in the communication strategies between the different political organizations be explained? What are the factors that influence the selection of Internet-based applications? In the following section, the relationship between ideological orientations and communication strategies of political actors will be examined.

Explaining the Use of ICT: The Role of Democratic Orientations Information and communication are at the core of any political process, and democracy can be viewed as a specific manner of communication between and among the ruled and the rulers. It can be expected that the way political

11 For example, the CLC leadership concentrated on informing the supporters about upcoming events and campaign activities – such as the annual marches for life www.campaignlifecoalition.com/events/Marchforlife/2008/ or the life chains www.campaignlife coalition.com/lifechain2008.html – and the effective promotion of these public events. Opportunities for the grassroots members to actually debate and influence the campaign agenda, which was predefined by the organization’s elites, were never offered in the context of the anti-abortion group’s online strategy. By contrast, the Council of Canadians is developing its Citizens’ Agenda, which is a response to the perceived dominance of corporate interests in Canadian public discourse and politics, explicitly by involving activists at the local and regional level. Participants in this long-term campaign are encouraged to both help to construct the Citizens’ Agenda’s policy and to design and organize the corresponding events (Council of Canadians 2001). ICT plays an important role in this process by providing effective means to exchange information and ideas between the numerous activist groups across the country.

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communication is organized is related to the quality of democracy (Pal 1998: 106). Thus, it seems justified to associate the different approaches to online communication, which have been outlined above, to basic concepts and views of democracy. For this purpose, a heuristic model will be presented that posits a positive relationship between certain models of democracy and the vertical and horizontal dimensions of communication. In order to do so, the appropriate models of democracy will be derived first from democratic theory and literature.

Models of Democracy The upsurge of Internet-based communication during the 1990s generated an impressive amount of literature dealing with the democratic potential of new digital network media. Nevertheless, the proliferation of research in the field of digital democracy brought about both bright and dark predictions of a future transformed by ICTs, but did not succeed in establishing a sound and discrete conceptual status within general democratic theory (Lindner 2004: 394). Thus, understanding the ideological underpinnings of reflections concerned with democratic potentials of ICT while drawing on well established typologies of democratic theory seems to be a more suitable approach than applying often cited conceptual hybrids such as teledemocracy, electronic democracy, or cyberdemocracy. Political science has developed numerous typologies of normative democratic theories (Held 1996; Macpherson 1983; Schmidt 2000). However, if historical contexts and constitutional developments are set aside in favour of a higher level of abstraction, the broad array of normative views of democracy can be traced back to three main models of democracy: the liberal, the republican, and the deliberative model (Habermas 1992; Held 1996: 157-291; Schultze 2004: 125).12 The three models are based on different understandings of the conditio humana, different ethical norms, different methods of gaining legitimacy and establishing an ideal equilibrium between individualism and collectivism. For the purpose of developing a manageable heuristic model, the three main models of democracy will be employed.

12 The models will not be portrayed in detail as it can be assumed that their basic elements and fundamental principles are generally known to the readers. Nonetheless, it should be noted that the definitions and labels of the models are not coherently applied in the literature. Particularly in the Anglo-American context, the republican model is often called participatory (Hagen 1997; Cunningham 2002), communitarian (Dahlberg 2001) or plebiscitary (Barber 1998).

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Heuristic Model Drawing on Habermas (1992), van Dijk (2000), and Hoff et al. (2000b), the following two-dimensional heuristic model was developed in order to link fundamental views of democracy with certain modes of communication. The basic concepts of democracy are mapped on a two-dimensional space. One dimension differentiates between different modes of democratic decision making, illustrating the degree of representative versus direct decision making procedures. The other dimension embraces two elements concurrently. Firstly, the chief aim of democratic governance is indicated. On this continuum, the objectives of efficient versus inclusive decision making are represented. Secondly, the prevailing mode of communication – vertical versus horizontal communication – is indicated. From a communication perspective, these two elements are closely related: efficient governance tends to emphasise information exchange in the vertical dimension, whereas decision making procedures intending to reach a high degree of inclusiveness put particular weight on horizontal information exchange. This model presents the central objective of democratic governance to one side, with the broad communicative capacity of ICT on the other, merged into a joint analytical dimension. The concurrence of these two elements helps to systematically link and eventually operationalize the empirically identified patterns of political online communication with the respective democratic models (see Figure 1). The foundational types of democracy displayed in Figure 1 are the three main models of democracy as defined by Habermas (1992). With regard to the basic normative alignments, every concept of democracy is predominantly rooted in one of these three main models. Other related models or variants such as pluralist, elitist, libertarian or participatory democracy can be grouped around these three models according to their position with regard to the preferred mode of decision making and the objective of democratic governance.

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Mode of Decision Making Representative

Direct

Inclusive/ Participatory

Democratic Governance/Communication Mode

Horizontal

Republican

Pluralistic

Deliberative

Associational

Liberal Efficient/

Elitist

Libertarian/Populist

Vertical

Figure 1: Models of Democracy and Modes of Communication.

The main objective of the heuristic model is to provide orientation for the empirical analysis of ICT application patterns for political communication. The dominance of a particular mode of information exchange should be indicative of the underlying democratic values of the organization offering those applications. For instance, if a political party or interest group uses ICT for plebiscitary decision making and aims at improving information exchange among its members and followers, it can be assumed that the organization is following a participatory model of democracy. If an organization puts special emphasis on plebiscitary elements, but combines them with ICT applications designed to facilitate communication in the vertical dimension (or between the organization’s elite on the one side and the rank-and-file on the other), an individualistic or libertarian model of democracy seems most likely. When the results of empirical analysis of organization’s preferred communication modes (see previous section) are applied to the heuristic model, the underlying assumption of a strong positive relationship between fundamental political values – represented by a favoured model of democracy – and specific communication modes is largely confirmed. This can be illustrated with some examples: The CA, known for its affinity to right-wing populism and plebiscitary decision making (Barney/Laycock 1999; Laycock 2002), primarily offered ICT applications to its members and supporters in the vertical communication dimension. Arguably, one of the objectives of the party’s communication strat-

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egy was to strengthen the influence of hierarchy and control within the party. Similarly, the CFIB, following an organizational model of a company rather than that of an interest group, concentrated its communication efforts within the vertical dimension. In terms of the small business association’s favoured type of democracy, a strong tendency towards the elitist model can be assumed. In contrast, the democratic values championed by the CAW, the NDP and the Council of Canadians are located in the deliberative and republican camps (Gindin 1995; Campbell/Christian 1996: 128). Accordingly, within the communication strategies of these organizations, the horizontal mode of communication played a significant role.

Interplay of Fundamental Democratic Orientations and ICT Adoption How can the close relationship between different visions of democracy and certain communication modes, as it is conceived by the heuristic model, be explained? It can be assumed that fundamental orientations, which are reflected by views of democracy, strongly shape political actors’ decisions to select, configure, and implement an ICT application. Theories that postulate the social construction of technological artifacts (Bijker 1995; Pinch/Bijker 1997; Scolve 1995; Sholle 2002) emphasize a high degree of interpretative flexibility. This characterizes the initial processes of attaching symbolic-semiotic meaning to technologies before the artefacts receive their ultimate meaning in the processes of stabilization and closure (Bijker 1995; Hoff 2000: 14; Degele 2002: 101). The large arena available for interpretations has been strongly shaped, particularly during the early phases of technological adoption, by the normative values, ideology, and interests. This is a reflection of different assessments of new media’s role in politics and society. The expected risks, chances and potential associated with ICT in politics seem to be shaped or at least strongly influenced by normative concepts held by the political actors (Barber 1998: 585; van Dijk/Hacker 2000: 209). Thus, in order to better understand the processes of selecting and adopting ICT for political communication, it is valuable to know which model of democracy shapes the organization. Although the focus was primarily on the effects of technology on participation, Christopher Arterton arrived at a conclusion along similar lines after he had analyzed thirteen different teledemocracy projects in the 1980s: […] the largest differences in the nature, the role, and the effectiveness of political participation were rooted not in technological capacity but in the models of participation that project initiators carried in

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their heads. Essentially, what I had taken to be an examination of the capabilities of different technologies proved to be an exercise in evaluating a number of institutional arrangements or contexts in which citizens participate politically. (Arterton 1987: 26)

Conclusions The result of applying the empirically ascertained communication modes and the democratic visions of the intermediaries to the heuristic presented in this chapter suggests that the underlying assumptions of the model are correct. The positive correlation between a preferred democratic model and certain online communication practices was clearly confirmed by the case studies selected for analysis. These findings support the notion that ideological orientations are a significant factor in the process of adopting, configuring, and using new communication technologies for political purposes. Of course, this is not to deny other decisive factors, such as interests, the availability of resources, path dependencies, and political competition, which shape the communication strategies, campaigns, and ICT application patterns of political intermediaries. By incorporating the ideological-normative dimension, however, the probability of technological determinism with regard to expectations about future adoption processes can be reduced. The amazement – and in many instances outright disappointment – about the highly selective and often narrow use of the communication possibilities made available by ICT, frequently expressed by observers, sometimes stems from a simplistic understanding of political actors’ logic of action. The likelihood for an ICT application to be taken up and put to use for political communication purposes will increase if its perceived characteristics and the ascribed symbolic-semiotic meanings are highly complementary with a political actor’s fundamental political values, cognitive maps, and strategic logic. Further research will be needed in order to examine to what extent the observed linkage between democratic views and communication practices can be verified for different political and cultural contexts and to what degree other factors such as organizational structure or the availability of political power exert influence. This heuristic model also, however, currently features a few blind spots. The challenge is to develop a better theoretical understanding of the causalities between ideology, the process of ICT adoption by collective actors and preferred communication modes.

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References Arterton, F.C. (1987) Teledemocracy: Can Technology Protect Democracy?, Newbury Park, CA et al.: Sage. Barber, B.R. (1998/1999) ‘Three Scenarios for the Future of Technology and Strong Democracy’, Political Science Quarterly, 113: 573-589. Barney, D. (1996) ‘Push-Button Populism: The Reform Party and the Real World of Teledemocracy’, Canadian Journal of Communications, 21: 381-413. Barney, D.D. and Laycock, D. (1999) ‘Right-Populists and Plebiscitary Politics in Canada’, Party Politics, 5: 317-339. Bashevkin, S.B. (1996) ‘Interest Groups and Social Movements’, in L. LeDuc et al. (eds) Comparing Democracies. Elections and Voting in Global Perspective, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 134-159. Bijker, W.E. (1995) Of Bicycles, Bakelites and Bulbs: Towards a Theory of Sociotechnological Change, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bordewijk, J.L. and van Kaam, B. (1982) Allocutie. Enkele Gedachten over Communicatievrijheid in een Bekabled Land, Baarn: Bosch/Keuning. Burnett, R. and Marshall, P.D. (2003) Web Theory. An Introduction, London et al.: Routledge. Campbell, C. and Christian, W. (1996) Parties, Leaders, and Ideologies in Canada, Toronto et al.: McGraw-Hill Ryerson. Carty, K.R. et al. (2000) Rebuilding Canadian Party Politics, Vancouver et al.: UBC Press. Council of Canadians (2001) A Citizens’ Agenda. Online. Available HTTP:

(accessed 14 October 2008 ). Cunningham, F. (2002) Theories of Democracy: A Critical Introduction, London et al.: Routledge. Dahlberg, L. (2001) ‘Democracy via Cyberspace. Mapping the Rhetorics and Practices of Three Prominent Camps’, New Media & Society, 3: 157-177. Degele, N. (2002) Einführung in die Techniksoziologie, München: Fink. Fisher, D.R. and Wright, L.M. (2001) ‘On Utopias and Dystopias: Toward an Understanding of the Discourse Surrounding the Internet’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 6. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 14 October 2008).

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Gindin, S. (1995) The Canadian Auto Workers. The Birth and Transformation of a Union, Toronto: Lorimer. Habermas, J. (1992) ‘Drei normative Modelle der Demokratie: Zum Begriff deliberativer Politik”, in H. Münkler (ed.) Die Chancen der Freiheit. Grundprobleme der Demokratie, München et al.: Piper, 11-24. ——— (1977) Legitimationsprobleme im Spätkapitalismus, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Hagen, M. (1997) Elektronische Demokratie. Computernetzwerke und politische Theorie in den USA, Hamburg et al.: Lit-Verlag. Held, D. (1996) Models of Democracy, Cambridge et al.: Polity Press. Hoff, J. (2000a) ‘Introduction’, in J. Hoff et al. (eds) Democratic Governance and New Technology. Technologically mediated innovations in political practice in Western Europe, London et al.: Routledge, 1-9. ——— (2000b) ‘Technology and Social change. The Path between Technological Determinism, Social Constructivism and New Institutionalism’, in J. Hoff, Jens et al. (eds) Democratic Governance and New Technology. Technologically mediated innovations in political practice in Western Europe, London et al.: Routledge, 13-32. Jensen, J.F. (2002) ‘Interactivity – Tracking a New Concept in Media and Communication Studies’, in P.A. Mayer (ed.) Computer Media and Communication: A Reader, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 160-187. Kleinsteuber, H. (1999) ‘Information Highway und Canadian Content. Zur Debatte um neue Technologien im Kanada der 90er Jahre’, Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien, 36: 57-72. ——— (1993) ‘Kanadas Medien im Spiegel kanadischer Wissenschaft: Innis, McLuhan und die Folgen’, in F.H. Bastein (ed.) Kanada: Struktur- und Kulturwandel, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 105-116. Laycock, D. (2002) The New Right and Democracy in Canada. Understanding Reform and the Canadian Alliance, Don Mills et al.: Oxford University Press. Lindner, R. (2007) Politischer Wandel durch digitale Netzwerkkommunikation?, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. ——— (2005) ‘Internetkommunikation zum Abbau von Demokratie- und Legitimationsdefiziten? Das Beispiel von Parteien und Interessengruppen in Kanada’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, 39: 823-838. ——— (2004) ‘Internet und Politik’, in D. Nohlen and R.-O. Schultze (eds) Lexikon der Politikwissenschaft. Theorien, Methoden, Begriffe, Vol. 1, München: Beck, 393-396.

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Lindner, R. and Schultze, R.-O. (2005a) ‘Canada’, in D. Nohlen (ed.) Elections in the Americas. Vol. 1: North America, Central America, and the Caribbean, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 109-145. ——— (2005b) ‘United States of America’, in D. Nohlen (ed.) Elections in the Americas. Vol. 1: North America, Central America, and the Caribbean, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 647-729. Lipset, S. (1990) Continental Divide. The Values and Institutions of the United States and Canada, London/New York, NY: Routledge. Macpherson, C.B. (1983) Nachruf auf die liberale Demokratie, 1st ed., Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Maloney, W.A. and Jordan, G. (1997) ‘The Rise of Protest Business in Britain’, in J.W. van Deth (ed.) Private Groups and Public Life. Social Participation, Voluntary Associations and Political Involvement in Representative Democracies, London et al.: Routledge, 107-124. MacGrew, A. (ed.) (1997) The Transformation of Democracy, Cambridge: Polity Press. Norris, P. (2003) ‘Preaching to the Converted? Pluralism, Participation, and Party Websites’, Party Politics, 9: 21-45. ——— (2002) Democratic Phoenix. Reinventing Political Activism, Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press. Pal, L.A. (1998) ‘A Thousand Points of Darkness: Electronic Mobilization and the Case of the Communications Decency Act’, in C. Alexander and L. Pal (eds) Digital Democracy: Policy and Politics in the Wired World, Toronto et al.: Oxford University Press, 105-131. Pinch, T.J. and Bijker, W.E. (1997) ‘The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other’, in W.E. Bijker et al. (eds) The Social Construction of Technological Systems. New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 17-50. Rafaeli, S. (1988) ‘Interactivity: From New Media to Communication’, Sage Annual Review of Communication Research: Advancing Communication Science, 16: 110-134. Schmidt, M.G. (2000) Demokratietheorien. Eine Einführung, Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Schultze, R.-O. (2004) ‘Demokratie’, in D. Nohlen and Schultze, R.-O. (eds) Lexikon der Politikwissenschaft. Theorien, Methoden, Begriffe, Vol. 1, München: Beck, 124-127.

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Scolve, R.E. (1995) Democracy and Technology, New York, NY et al.: Guildford Press. Sholle, D. (2002) ‘Disorganizing the “New Technology”’, in G. Elmer (ed.) Critical Perspectives on the Internet, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 3-26. Skocpol, T. and Fiorina, M.P. (1999) ‘Making Sense of the Civic Engagement Debate’, in T. Skocpol and M.P. Fiorina (eds) Civic Engagement in American Democracy, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1-23. Stegbauer, C. (2001) Grenzen virtueller Gemeinschaft. Strukturen internetbasierter Kommunikationsforen, Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Streeck, W. (1987) ‘Vielfalt und Interdependenz: Überlegungen zur Rolle intermediärer Organisationen in sich ändernden Umwelten’, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 39: 471-495. van Dijk, J. (2000) ‘Models of Democracy and Concepts of Communication’, in K.L. Hacker and J. van Dijk (eds) Digital Democracy. Issues of Theory and Practice, London et al.: Sage, 30-53. ——— (1999) The Network Society: Social Aspects of New Media, London et al.: Sage. van Dijk, J. and Hacker, K.L. (2000) ‘Summary’, in K.L. Hacker and J. van Dijk(eds): Digital Democracy. Issues of Theory and Practice, London et al.: Sage, 209-222. van Selm, M. et al. (2002) ‘Political Parties Online: Digital Democracy as Reflected in Three Dutch Political Party Web Sites’, Communications, 2: 189209. Williams, F. (1988) Research Methods and the New Media, New York, NY: Free Press.

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A Plea for More Experiments and Creativity in Political Laboratories Johanna Niesyto:1 As you have been working intensively on the impact of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) on culture and politics, what do you think are the strongest impacts of the web on political campaigns? Geert Lovink: In the past I have criticized the inability of many movements and campaigns to effectively use the web. ICTs are mainly used internally. This is primarily due to the fact that this scene – mainly the more official parts of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) – was one of the first to use computers and email. They have been progressive and really used computer networks and databases in their offices and within their organizations from very early on. It all started around 1984 or maybe it goes even back further to the 1970s and mingled with the hippie counterculture coming from California. From the mid-1990s on most of the NGOs have lost the connection to what is really happening, which is mainly because commerce has taken over and the ideas of cyberspace as a public realm have somehow faded away. Of course, we could say that instead we have seen a rise of the emphasis on technical tools, like free software and open source that really have taken off since then. But in terms of an effective use of the web for campaigning, with a few exceptions, movements have shied away. We have seen traces of ‘technophobia’ catching on again. I think the anti-globalization movement in particular has been very weak in the use of, even hostile to, some of the aspects of the World Wide Web. They did not properly study the whole ideology of the dot-com, primarily because within a larger picture these people were standing against each other, they were adversaries. The dot-com world of the web was highly infiltrated, or rather infected, by the whole rhetoric of global finance of corporate consultancy firms and so on. Consequently, there happened a real rift in the late 1990s, which meant that effective ways of using the web for campaigning were not properly studied. And then one saw only in 1999 and 2000 that the new media came up, but that was really late – it was five years late, in a way. It was using some interesting technological keys but that has not really spread further. So it means that a lot of NGOs and campaigns, as of today, are effectively only using email. 1

This interview with Geert Lovink took place in June 2008 in Amsterdam at the Institute of Network Cultures. The transcription was made by Franziska Liebig.

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JN: In your essay The Principles of Notworking2 you put forward the thesis that persuasive communication in networks is not as effective as in other media. Given that political web campaigns operate in new media networks and strive towards persuasion would you say these communicative efforts are ineffective? GL: Do you use these tools to set up a movement or do you use them to effectively communicate your arguments to a larger audience? These two approaches are completely different because to communicate your arguments you can use the web. The web has turned social – it is not just there to propagate your good arguments. That is an old style of looking at media, since you are only using them as a megaphone to multiply, so to speak, your arguments, for instance that you are against gene technology or other policies. Then you put all your arguments and your material online and hope that everybody reads it and afterwards is convinced by your arguments. Well, this is a completely old-style way of thinking about how people use information and also about how people use the web. JN: Some studies in the volume illustrate that the division between internal and external communication mentioned by you becomes blurred when communication goes online. GL: It is blurred, but not in the world of activists and NGOs, and that is the problem. The NGOs make this complete separation best illustrated in the fact that internal communication is only rarely exchanged in public online spaces. This is also why they are completely absent in the whole Web 2.0. They play no role in the so called social web because they make a distinction between their own way of socially organizing, being completely invisible, and their, in my view, rather primitive and old-school way of using the web and web campaigning, namely only transmitting their arguments. I do not want to present this as criticism but as a strategy. A lot of problems emerge, if you blur the two. We cannot just, like everybody else, put these two things together. We rather need to thoroughly debate how social movements can best make use of the incredible amount of tools that are now available. JN: But given the complexity of online and offline spaces, how would you say one can assess efficacy of political campaigns on the web?

2

Lovink, G. (2005) The Principles of Notworking. Online. Available at: www.hva.nl/lec toraten/documenten/ol09-050224-lovink.pdf (accessed 13 July 2008).

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GL: The whole idea of fashion and identity has taken over. You and I are activists because we wear a certain kind of clothes and have a certain lifestyle. I criticize this direction. It has a self-marginalizing effect. So what we will first have to start with is establishing a basic level of a critique of fashion and identity. Hence the starting point has to be: Activism is an activity but it is not an identity. This is a core problem that we have here. It has nothing to do with the technology per se but it has everything to do with the social formation of protest. Protest originates in social friction and is neither a profession nor a lifestyle. We need to have a radical critique of the so-called autonomous lifestyles, in order to break open this whole question. JN: Nevertheless so called lifestyle politics or identity politics seem to be on the rise no matter which political actors – governmental actors, parties, trade unions or civil society groups – you look at. Given the complexity of globalizing social and political relations and the power of corporation, to which Veronika Kneip’s chapter points, one could argue that identity politics defines a strategy to (re-)politicize spaces. GL: Yes, but for me these are all very clever strategies to neutralize radical contributions. So, for me, that is what the word government means: You have to make it manageable and you have to somehow deal with the fact that there are very real tensions out there. These offices are, sometimes after decades, finally forced to respond, like what you see now with global warming, for instance, which has been around for decades, not just years. When things turn ugly and when it becomes a hot issue, some people wake up. But what I am interested in are new strategies. Talking about new strategies we cannot start at the end; we have to focus on the beginning, on the birth of protests or movements – which these days have unique possibilities to grow much faster than they could in fact in the past and to become global in a way that we have never seen before, in spite of the fact that both labour movement and women’s movement, for instance, have been very international for a century. There are now peopleto-people possibilities providing the opportunity to connect to other people that goes way beyond the old rhetoric of solidarity. JN: At this juncture the Euro Mayday Parade campaign analyzed by Alice Mattoni can be seen as an innovative and creative example for the development of new strategies. Interestingly her analysis reveals that the presence of precarious workers employed in the information and communication sector made the parade to appear as a protest campaign that was managed by a more rooted and participated transnational social movement network than it actually was. In

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general, do you think political web campaigning blurs the character of campaigns when it comes to space relations? GL: It is true that there is always a danger with these tools – but with all the media tools – that we create safe delusions for ourselves because we can dream up magnificent networks and create enormous simulacra of protest. Of course this is very dangerous; there is a kind of seduction at work here. And this is why, I think, it is very, very perilous for social movements to be too much involved in this media realm or to be over-confident about the network tools because then you get the problems that you referred to. JN: Also looking at political web campaigning of trade unions or of institutions like the European Commission, being engaged in building so called trans¬national links, do you think it is really all about deterritorialization processes? Or do you think that it is more adequate to think of virtualized space as hybrid communication spaces3 in which place still matters very much? GL: Indeed, places matter. And this is why I think that there is a danger in believing that you only have to do media campaigns or that the only thing that matters is the amount of friends your campaign has on your MySpace website or something like that. I strongly believe that this is not what is really important. Even though, on the short term, it could impress some politicians and it could put some companies or corporations, especially the large ones, under pressure, because they are fully operating on legitimacy that is entirely derived from the media realm these days. So you can attack them with all sorts of viral resistance – whatever tools you have available – but that is officially guided Public Relations (PR), in a way. This is PR that such a movement can do, that unions can do, but that basically anyone can do, right? There is no one excluded from that knowledge because it is public knowledge: You read those books, study them carefully, and understand how a means works and how it replicates itself or you do not. But that is not critical because these are all very easy-to-understand manuals that can teach you how to set up a campaign effectively. That is not really what concerns us, though, because this is really not the point where the things come into being. This is what could really be of consequence: How do they grow? How does an idea or a belief form itself? This is why I appreciate the Euro Mayday campaign, as I think there are elements that tell us something about the future, for instance, the importance of the creative aspect; I think that is something they really understood. Also, I 3

Hamm, M. (2006) ‘Proteste im hybriden Kommunikationsraum. Zur Mediennutzung sozialer Bewegungen’ Forschungsjournal Neue Soziale Bewegungen, 2: 77-90.

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liked their pro-European approach very much. They have overcome the idea of nationality, something that the anti-globalization movement, for instance, never was able to do; they have always been anti-EU and anti-Brussels, since they mixed up Brussels and the bureaucrats who sit there. For them, the European project is the bureaucrats in Brussels but for the European Mayday the European reality is a reality and we are interconnected already in a very deep way. Maybe we have not overcome all the issues between the nations and we might find it difficult to communicate or understand that there are cultural differences, but the European reality is there and I think they deal with that in a very, very interesting way. There will probably be social movements in the future that will be European by definition. We will not even notice anymore. JN: Looking at what you just said and considering the studies and insights provided in our volume, we are mainly discussing Western democracy’s political web campaigning. Against it, the project incommunicado which you cofounded aims at exploring emerging South-South relations, amongst other things. Concerning activities of Southern actors would you say there is a different approach towards political campaigning on the net? GL: The tension between social movements and NGOs is much bigger elsewhere. In a way, this is not so much of a real concern for us. But we know that in countries in the Global South NGOs are much more established and people’s movements look at them with a healthy attitude of disrespect and distrust. We cannot imagine living in a country where we need to distrust all the NGOs by definition because they are too much involved in corruption or too much under the control of the state, or something along those lines. This is a really different cultural reality we need to understand and accept – in the same way as that the Internet is not playing a very important role in Southern social movements. Communication is going in completely different ways, be it comic books, or radio, or mobile phones – you name it. Internet is playing a role, even a very interesting one, but rather as a communication tool in the background. JN: Would you say that this is also due to different media landscapes? GL: Yes, very much so. There are radical differences in different countries. Just think about the larger ones; think about how different, for instance, all this is if you compare China with India or the tiger states in Asia with really poor countries in Africa where there is almost no awareness of these kinds of things – there are big differences. But it is always difficult and also dangerous to overemphasize too much the real differences because a lot of people in such

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situations are also very, very creative and will find amazing ways of getting things done in a form that for us is very hard to imagine. In general, I think, we are by no way near making effective use of mobile phones, for instance. It is considered a nice add-on function but not an essential tool for survival or for organization. More and more, however, it is becoming an interesting tool for mobilization. And I am very happy about it. JN: Looking at mobilization – be it from social movements or other, also institutionalized, political actors – Jodi Dean, Jon W. Anderson, and you argue that when looking at the micro-level of users, one fails to ask the right questions about political changes. Instead you argue that a look on the meso-level, that is the dot-orgs and the organized groups, constitutes a better perspective.4 Would you say, correspondingly, that political web campaigning is not so much about the empowerment of the individual as the rhetoric of the empowerment of the individual in particular with regard to Web 2.0 suggests? Or more radically asked: Do individual users matter at all in political web campaigns? GL: We know from the visions or the involvement of people in these Web 2.0 sites that there is an interesting way to mobilize them, to get them involved, to inform them. On the one hand mobilization becomes very easy these days but, on the other hand, the engagement also becomes enormously short-term. It is almost a kind of micro-politics – micro in the sense of time. The time aspect of people involved in these concerns has shrunken considerably. Web campaigns are somewhat the ultimate example for this shrinking of time aspects into one single act: With one click on your mouse you can, for instance, donate money, sign a petition, and so on, and are briefly involved. We see that now with the American presidential election, too. You can get a lot done with this kind of micro-involvement, if you mobilize it well – and the Obama campaign has studied this very well – you can raise a lot of money and get millions of people involved. But how involved are they? If one looks at it from the question of how protest comes into being, however, this is not very interesting. It is just a gesture. JN: We observed that there has been a little ‘soberness’ within Internet studies. There was this euphoria in the beginning that it will politicize people, that they will get more highly involved, not just on this low level, you just described, that 4

Dean, J. et al. (2006) ‘Introduction: The Postdemocratic Governmentality of Networked Societies’, in J. Dean et al. (eds) Reformatting Politics. Information Technology and Glocal Civil Society, New York, NY et al.: Routledge, xv-xxix.

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there will be more deliberation, and so on. Why do you think there is so little political engagement on the Internet by individuals? GL: There is a decline across the board if you look at membership numbers of political parties and trade unions, and at the size and the frequency in which large social movements come into being. At the same time, however, the amount of topics or reasons why people choose to stand up and protest has not declined but multiplied. That is very strange. I think that the reason for this development is that we have not done enough social experiments and discovered new models that people can really identify with. The models that we mentioned here – the political parties, trade unions, NGOs, social movements – are all from the 19th and 20th century. What we should in fact do is add at least one major one to that list for the 21st century. That is our obligation, but at the moment, people do not know and there is no such thing yet. With friends we discuss whether it should be called an organized network, we wonder whether it will be in the form of a network altogether or whether it will transcend that or it will even criticize the network as too loose, as a somewhat bogus form of social engagement. These are all questions that we have to face and have to address, which is why I think we should do a lot of different experiments. After all, as you pointed out, there is a big problem out there and it is visible across the board at the very end of the whole spectrum. But I believe – maybe this is a naïve avant-garde idea – that we need more small political laboratories. JN: In your aforementioned essay The Principles of Notworking, you refer to the notion you just touched on, the organized network. You say that these networks are set up partly by tactical media and partly by institutional formations. Are different actors such as organized civil society organizations, trade unions and political parties, starting to alter themselves? Would you say that these are on the way to become organized networks and point to the future of political web campaigns? GL: No, organized networks are not the solutions for the problems we have. What I propose is to have a much more open and multidisciplinary dialogue about which new forms of organization fit the condition of the lives that people have these days. Maybe forms of organization can be developed that maybe even lead people away from the kind of fragmented, disillusioned lifestyle that they feel they have when they are surrounded by brands and lifestyles they do not really identify with. So what I am proposing is to be much more open for input especially from young people – I think we should much more listen to them. Concerns in the political life have focused for much too long on the

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institutional crisis we have; we know that crises are there and we also know that very little is going to change; we know that it is required to reform the church and the state and they all are trying to reform it. So I am not saying these institutions are completely backward looking and frozen in their very concept. For instance concerning the question of today’s media, we in fact focus again too much on how to reform the television and the daily newspapers, meaning that the whole focus has already been shifted to what we do with these very large institutional setups. I think that we underestimate how big experiments that we start now could be in ten, twenty, thirty years time. JN: Talking about experiments, in synopsis the different campaign analyses presented in the book give the impression that everyone is experimenting online, though in different ways: Ralf Lindner’s analysis finds out that there is a positive correlation between a preferred democratic model and online communication practices. For instance the Canadian Federation of Independent Business Groups employs the net rather in a very elitist way and has a notion of elitist democracy. Would you say that these are desperate struggles to use the Internet and that we have already left representative democracy behind us? And if yes, in what ways do experiments – also to varying extents – maybe mutate or transform our notions of democracy? GL: I see them as complex structures and think some of them are pretty powerful and will become even more powerful. The whole idea of free software in schools, for instance, is spreading. It started somewhere in the mid-1980s and then really took off again from 1993 onwards with Linux and the UNIX operating system. It is now spreading through the creative commons into the area of open content. Actually, though, it is spreading into all aspects of life; we are now also talking about open hardware and open publishing. That is the mechanism that I am talking about, but instead of just only looking at how it spreads like a wildfire at the moment, we could look into that crucial period, for instance, between 1984 and 1993 and at what happened exactly in the early 1990s. How do people who are quite small, quite technical, and hidden somewhere create such a set of ideas which can not only multiply actively but also be changed and be used in so many different contexts? We can lift that somewhat to a meta-level and say: What we have here are two basic ideas: free software and open source. Now, why do we not look – with other ideas – how we can formulate general principles like those that have dealt with so many of contexts over the years, for instance with tactical media, with free cooperation, and so on? At least we would learn something and a lot of people would have different concepts into which we then can look, dedicating ourselves system-

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atically to the replication and modification – maybe also mutation – of our cultural values. JN: So, looking at – whatever you want to term it – the mutation or transformation of democracy, you put forward the idea that we have to overcome traditional concepts such as representative democracy and to think more creatively about concepts which are more adequate? GL: I am not in favour of replacing representative democracy. Instead of only analyzing the problems of other people, in this case politicians or political parties, I strongly belief in some kind of civil society scenario: not civil society as a bunch of representatives from NGOs, however. I find that a fundamentally wrong idea and who ever reduces this concept to some new representatives the power can stick to is wrong, in my view. I think that to be not only highly suspect but also deeply fragile as there is a lot of power and energy out there in society that does not need to be channelled merely through some completely random NGOs. Civil society, for me, is a very complex and also a very dynamic thing. It is not just some broad and big ‘garbage bag’ or an energy resource where representatives can just pick out what they want and then take that to the table of negotiations. I reject that moral. JN: In what relation does what you just said stand to the concept of post-democracy in the Foucaultian sense of governmentality, putting emphasis on principles like reputation management, expertise, performance, and so on? GL: There is still the question of representation, of agreement and disagreement, of majority and minority. The classic questions of the political sphere do not suddenly vaporize. But the question for me is: Should the energy of activists, artists, and all the people involved in these processes, only be channelled towards the solution of other people’s problems? That is how I see the crisis of the political sphere at the moment. I find it unacceptable that the political sphere wants us to become responsible for the mass that they manage. It is not my problem that the major political parties have lost their legitimacy and I do not believe that a lot of people feel that it is their concern – and rightly so. JN: Coming back to the notion of post-democratic governmentality: For me it was interesting to see – when I was reading through your introductory chapter in Reformatting Politics – that all the principles you name, such as expertise and reputations management, fit very well with the notion of web campaigning. If you look among the campaigns we have, on the one hand they aim at mobilizing individuals through participation, but on the other hand one can identify

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campaigns that are about spreading a ready-made message as you said in your earlier point on reputation management, performative action, and building of trustworthy relations. So against this backdrop, one could argue that that political web campaigning will gain significance in the scenario of governmentality. GL: Yes, that is true. JN: For me it is very difficult to grasp the overall trend since on the one hand one can find this performative side and on the other hand the analyses of some campaigns in this volume point to enabled individuals and to networking among them. We see in all the different campaigns that there is apparently the will and the engagement – how authentic it may be can be questioned – that individual users should be involved in the campaign training or even in its aesthetic language, as the EU campaign Equal Opportunities for All illustrates. Concerning the aesthetic creative side, which is also found in the context of anti-corporate campaigns, one can find people who say: “Let’s do Culture Jamming and Adbusting. We want you to join!” How would you interpret these efforts? Would you say they are free cooperations5? GL: First of all we have to see them in the current general trend of user-generated content. Into that trend we also have to drag that whole context of the debate about Web 2.0 and particularly around Andrew Keen’s book The Cult of the Amateur6 and the question of what Web 2.0 status is, at the moment. Who is really making profit and who is benefiting most from all these people that are just working out there for free? I am not a supporter of Andrew Keen’s kind of conservative point of view, but I really see his point and for activists and artists these are very relevant ideas because there is a serious problem that we all end up being an amateur which would seriously undermine efforts to think through political strategies on a somewhat longer base. What that would replicate, after all, is to say: Well, for the long term strategies there are the established institutions – the party or the state institution and so on. And then there is nothing and then there is the one-day concern of a person who is just joining a campaign or another person who one evening suddenly stumbles across a campaign through an email that was forwarded by a friend. So this gap

5

Lovink, G. and Scholz, T. (eds) (2007) The Art of Free Cooperation, Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.

6

Keen, A. (2007) The Cult of the Amateur. How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture and Assaulting our Economy, London et al.: Brealey.

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is only becoming bigger and I think we should be very cautious of that. In my view we need new models, for instance, for NGOs. JN: Tackling the problem of having this ad hoc campaigning moment reminds me a bit of Howard Rheingold’s notion of Smart Mobs7 meaning that people gather for one moment together. However, we have also notions of what Lance Bennett, for instance, termed Permanent Campaigning8. He says that it is all about the fact that networks can change; so network members can change and maybe even the issues they deal with may change. GL: A good example would be moveon.org that tries to build a more sustainable culture – not through every item but all over again, and not everybody is interested in everything they address. That is a way to go and very effective. And I think we will see that happening with a few similar concerns, for instance with ecologists or environmentalists. JN: Interestingly you also said that, on the one hand, we have these commercial social platforms like YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, and, on the other hand, we have the free software and open source movement. Campaigns being looked at in this volume are rather engaged in these commercial platforms. So one can raise the question why they are doing that and also whether this is changing the notion of the interrelatedness of or the distinction between public and private space because suddenly political issues appear on commercial platforms and within social networks. So my question is: Why are they using these and not open source to get to the people? GL: Activists, artists, and designers have been very much behind in designing it and – technologically speaking – in the geek environment something similar has happened because most of the alternative computer programmers worked their way up. This means that, as I said, they started in 1993 with the Linux operating system. There are still a lot of people working on that basic level. Then there is the level of the browsers, email programmes, and other office applications. More sophisticated tools, for instance image manipulation, have been around for a couple of years, but they are still rather new. When you

7

Rheingold, H. (2003) Smart Mobs. The Next Social Revolution, Cambridge, MA: Basic Books.

8

Amongst other in Bennett, L.W. (2005) ‘Social Movements beyond Borders: Understanding Two Eras of Transnational Activism’, in S. Tarrow and D. della Porta (eds) Transnational Protest and Global Activism, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 203-226.

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move on and then look at videos, for instance, it becomes much more difficult. It is only recently, over the last few years, that an open source and free software community has been created that is dealing with all these difficult issues of codices and standards that are necessary not only to shoot and store video material but also to edit it and to put it on a web platform. You would have to do the whole range in open source free software, that is the problem. Another problem is, I would say, a lack of financing means. You know, in a few years time it is going to get interesting because by then a lot more people will be using the Internet. We are now at the level of twenty percent of the world population, mostly in Western countries – not only, however. Of course the largest and fastest growing market is China, the estimations are that it will soon surpass the two billion mark and probably even more. That moment, you can imagine, when these tools, that are enabling now a lot of people to do interesting stuff, will become an available and free application for so many people will be quite promising. And there is also a conceptual problem, we should also look further into the problem that we have on a social level. What does social mean in the web to that zero context? And what does social mean if we use the word social movement? These are two completely different things. And what, for instance, does it mean when social movements move into that realm and uncritically start to adapt the whole idea of a friend? “You are a friend” – but what does that mean? You are not a member. Do friends always agree with each other? No, they do not, but they are friends! So should we reuse the whole concept of friendship in this new context? This is a crucial question that I do not see has really been dealt with on a fundamental level. People like to say: “Yes, I want to be involved”, but that is not what Web 2.0 sites suggest, for instance, they do not suggest involvement. They only suggest that you are linked. Now what is the difference between a link and an involvement/engagement? JN: I think that this is varying. For instance one would have to do a comparison between the function of the protest button and the modern tag you have for instance in your Facebook profile saying “I am a friend of this or that campaign” because it serves, I think, a very similar function but in different contexts and media environments. GL: Yes, but the question of “are you a member or a friend”, I think, is a new and interesting one. JN: And it is about trusting each other.

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GL: Yes, exactly. And it is also about invisibility because the social movements, especially in a vulnerable phase – for instance in the phase of active resistance – cannot be completely transparent. It is impossible since then everybody could be traced. So the question is also: How can a social movement, which is actively resisting, organize itself at a time when all communication – technical at least, I am not talking about non-technical – is monitored and stored. This is a problem. In the past, surveillance, privacy, etc., were separate issues; it was just another issue like feminism or ecology. It was just one of many concerns. But now this problem is starting – or will start – to dominate all the fields. Therefore, if you are involved in a campaign against a factory somewhere, you also have to be aware that the police and the state, but also the corporations themselves, are fully monitoring you and everything you do. JN: But on the other hand I think one can see that organizations across the board are making use of this data. If you consider, for instance, the 2008 US presidential pre-election campaign: They made use of the data and knew exactly who the friends of their campaign were, what kind of cars they drive, what brand of gin they drink, and so on. So the campaigns themselves make use of it and link it up with the social network, and then it develops very much into the direction you just described: The political becomes very private – and more things influence effective campaigning than they probably should. GL: Yes, but it also presumes, for instance, that social movements have a very high awareness of what is called counter-intelligence. If you do not have this, you remain somewhat naïve. If you do not have the awareness of these tools, if you cannot interpret the data nor have proper tools for data visualization to quickly see what is happening, then, when being out in the field in the midst of a confrontation, a strike or whatever, you cannot be fully aware of what is taking place. Almost in real-time, you have to have the overview. You cannot deal with it only on the content level because it is so massive that meaning can easily flip into noise. We are talking about millions of pieces of data that become available. And how can we raise a general awareness of, for instance, counter-intelligence? But that is also a question, one could say, of education and media literacy. You can revert back to schools and ask: “Well, what is the modern citizen?” The modern citizen is a person who is not only completely aware of the fact that he or she is monitored and surveyed all the time but is also endowed with the appropriate tools to protect himself or herself, the family, or whoever he or she is involved with, against that. So it is not only the awareness but also one step further. And I think that is on the agenda.

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JN: Looking at power struggles, when it comes to the web, we find different positions in the literature. On the one hand, there are scholars like Jürgen Habermas with his concept, which developed at a different time, one should always be aware of this, I think. He interprets the Internet as a secondary public sphere.9 One can say: “Okay, this is a time of transition, so terming it secondary is to say it is not but it could become primary.” There a hierarchy becomes visible when we use this word secondary. We have people, on the other hand, like for instance Rainer Winter in this volume who say the web has a great significance particularly when it comes to so-called counter-discourses. After all, this is where the struggles, public opinion formation, and discourses, etc., are really taking place. What kind of importance would you personally attach to the public and the political sides of the web? GL: It has never been an aim of the net to criticize television, radio, or journalism. The whole idea that this civic journalism or blogging is the destiny of the Internet – or the aim of the people who developed it – and that it is meant to somehow undermine or replace television, radio, etc., is nonsense. That’s completely not where it came from. Maybe that is how it turned out to be over the last five years or so but there is nothing in the history that suggests this kind of claim. Throughout the 1990s it has even been wildly debated whether the Internet was a medium to start with or whether it was not rather just a sort of IT technology that is used for communication and control. It is a control device and it never had this kind of idea behind it that it could create cultural frictions, discourses, etc. It is only in this ‘cultural age’, let’s say, that the very possibility of the Internet has come up. So that’s why I somewhat like what Habermas says because the Internet has taken a completely different trend trajectory to start with. The Internet was not developed to broadcast things, let’s be honest. It is a major hassle and what the Internet is going through right now could easily be its end, but if one thinks through the idea that all people on the planet will use the Internet to watch television then one must realize that we have a serious capacity problem. In the more advanced societies people already seriously start to switch from television to Internet and, I am afraid, it could easily completely fall apart because the technical infrastructure and the protocols – the very basic network architecture of the Internet – have not been designed to replace television. This whole shift is happening as we speak. It has already happened, almost without us noticing, for instance with the telephone. Many people would not even know and they have virtually no clue that their phones are operating over the Internet and that it is all IT processes. 9

Amongst other Habermas, J. (2008) Ach, Europa. Kleine politische Schriften XI, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 161-162.

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JN: Only if there is, for instance, a disruption. GL: Yes, exactly. When it all goes down, they realize. But that is a somewhat interesting shift. It is, though, also what makes the whole fear of radio and television ‘funerals’ a little bit ridiculous because they have this ‘conspiracy theory’ that the Internet was developed to take away their jobs, their power, and so on. This is, however, simply not the case. JN: You just talked about the institutional design of the Internet, but one could argue that this, carefully expressed, contradicts the notion of creative energy you mentioned earlier. After all, there you had this belief in change and transformation when it comes to digital culture. Now, when you talk about the technological context, you say there are limits and restrictions, for instance because the architecture is not designed for X, it’s not designed for Y, it’s not designed for Z. GL: Yes, that is interesting. Maybe we will find some very big limits ahead of us but maybe less concerning the creative context but I am talking rather about mass use, meaning very intense use by millions, if not billions, of people simultaneously. JN: If you look at the concept of avant-garde, for instance however, you see that there is a kind of cycle: ideas migrate from avant-garde to the common mass culture. So for sure, at one point we talk about avant-garde but then, maybe thirty years or so later, we talk about mass culture. So this is a problem one just has to face then at a different stage. GL: Yes, that is an interesting view. JN: You have just been talking about the future. Some people already think about what is happening with the Web 3.0, the semantic web, the Internet of things, for instance. There has been this project Making Things Public discussing something like an object-oriented democracy.10 So, when you look at the subject of this volume – “Political Web Campaigning” – what would you say could be the relation between the Web 3.0 and political web campaigning?

10

Latour, B. and Weibel, P. (eds) (2005) Making Things Public. Atmospheres of Democracy, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

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GL: I sincerely hope that there will be a re-introduction between the people who do the campaigns and those who think about the technological and technical infrastructure. I do hope that this kind of attentional divide will cease. Those who work on the content and programmes should seriously merge and melt into the people and into the crowd that create the technology so that we can overcome all these issues. That would, in my view, be absolutely critical. Maybe that is an idealistic construct, but this is, in my view, necessary and desirable. Whether it is going to happen? I do not know. Especially concerning young people, I really hope that their media literacy will further explode and rise dramatically so that at the very moments they decide to be concerned with social and political issues they can immediately review those concerns. JN: Thank you very much for this interview. Geert Lovink is founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures Amsterdam, Netherlands. In January 2004, he was appointed as associated professor at the University of Amsterdam. He is also the organizer of numerous conferences, festivals, and publications as well as the initiator of numerous Internet projects, such as www.nettime.org and www.fibre culture.org. Amongst his books are “Dark Fiber” (2002), “Uncanny Networks” (2002), and “My First Recession” (2003). In 2005/6, he was a research fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg), where he completed his third volume on critical Internet culture titled “Zero Comments”. For more information see www.network cultures.org/geert.

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Contributors Sigrid Baringhorst is professor in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Siegen. She is director of the research project ‘Changing Protest and Media Cultures’ in the Collaborative Research Centre ‘Media Upheavals’ which is funded by the German Research Foundation. ([email protected]) Veronika Kneip is PhD student and research fellow in the project ‘Changing Protest and Media Cultures.’ She holds a Master of Arts in Media Planning, Development and Consulting. ([email protected]) Ralf Lindner is project manager and senior scientist in the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovations Research, Department of Emerging Technologies. He was awarded a PhD in Political Science by the University of Augsburg. ([email protected]) Stuart Hodkinson is research fellow in the Economic and Social Research Council project ‘Autonomous Geographies: Activism and Everyday Life in the City’ at the Universities of Leeds and Leicester. He received a PhD from the School of Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds. ([email protected]) Alice Mattoni is PhD student in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute, Florence. She graduated in Communication Sciences at the University of Padua. ([email protected]) Lorenzo Mosca was awarded the degree of PhD by the University of Florence. He then got a post-doctoral fellowship at the European University Institute and is currently research fellow at the University of Trento. ([email protected]) Johanna Niesyto is PhD student and research fellow in the project ‘Changing Protest and Media Cultures.’ She holds a Master of Arts in Media Planning, Development and Consulting. ([email protected]) Ulrike Röttger is professor in the Institute of Communication Science at the University of Münster. She is chair of the German Communication Association and director of research projects such as ‘PR-counseling of political actors’ (funded by the German Research Foundation). ([email protected])

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Daria Santucci completed her PhD thesis in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Torino and is working on (transnational) projects about e-participation. She holds a MA in Communication Sciences from the University of Torino, where she is currently teaching in a laboratory on web campaigning. ([email protected]) Jeffrey Wimmer is lecturer and postdoctoral research fellow in the Institute of Media, Communication & Information (IMKI) at the University of Bremen. He graduated in Social Sciences at the University Erlangen-Nuremberg and is a holder of a PhD in Communication Sciences from the Ludwig-MaximiliansUniversity, Munich. ([email protected]) Rainer Winter is professor in the Institute of Media and Communication Sciences at the University of Klagenfurt. For the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Parliament, he conducted the study ‘Netbased communication and transnational public spheres’. ([email protected]) Sarah Zielmann is PhD student and research assistant in the Institute of Communication Science at the University of Münster. She graduated in communication studies, sociology, economics and constitutional law at the Universities of Göttingen, Padua and Leipzig. Currently, she is working on the research project ‘PR-counseling of political actors’. ([email protected])

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