Can Internet technology still revolutionize activism?

By Robert Lebowitz, Digital Freedom Network

One of the biggest promises of the Internet was the transformation of political activism. No longer would change come about solely through the actions of large organizations, claimed the Web's early enthusiasts. Now, they claimed, individuals could rouse the concern of their fellow citizens for a particular cause through Web sites, e-mail, and online petitions. Those who normally shunned demonstrations and limited their participation in the public sphere could be contacted personally in their e-mail box, and all that would be necessary for them to do to show their support would be to click a button or fill in a field. Soon, pundits predicted, there would be a revolution in grassroots participation in the political process.

Now, several years after these enthusiastic pronouncements, there has been a reconsideration of the effectiveness of online activism. Although the World Wide Web is still in its infancy, sufficient time has passed for those involved in electronic activism to reflect upon the basic questions underlying their work: Has the Internet really increased participation in the political process? Have mass e-mailings really had a significant impact on decision-makers? Will the Internet decrease the importance of affiliation with parties and organizations and increase the impact of the individual?

E-mail petitions

E-mail petitions have been repeatedly skewered for their impracticality. Superficially, they seem to be an improvement on traditional petitions that are taken from door to door or signed in a public square, since they can reach exponentially more people with much less effort.

However, many have pointed out that the e-mail petition is flawed by its very design. Each person who signs the petition will be adding his or her names to a list of names that will then be presumably forwarded to several friends or acquaintances. Each of those recipients will then add their names to the list and mail them out to others. The result will be that, in fact, the original e-mail petition will actually be split into several lists, which will then split into even more lists. Were the originator of the petition then to try to count the number of people who signed the original list, he or she would have to sift through potentially thousands of duplicate signatures.

E-mail petitions inherently carry other problems that jeopardize their value. The opportunity for forgery looms large; it is very easy to cut and paste names from whitepages.com into an e-mail petition. Additionally, affixing one's name to an e-mail petition requires much less effort and allows for much more anonymity than signing a real petition. For these reasons, politicians are inclined to treat the dedication and commitment-as well as the very existence-of the signers as dubious.

A recent example of the fallibility of e-mail petitions is that of a recent electronic campaign to save Amina Lawal, a Nigerian woman condemned to death by stoning for the crime of having a child out of wedlock. An e-mail petition falsely bearing the logo of Amnesty International was disseminated to protest the execution of Lawal, erroneously claiming that it was to occur on June 3. The well-intentioned wave of e-mail responses-which ranged from Nottingham, England, to Beirut, Lebanon, to Washington D.C.-alarmed the Nigerian-based women rights groups most directly involved with the aspects of Lawal's case.

Their concern was that these petitions would hasten Lawal's execution, as those subscribing to the implementation of Sharia law in this matter would fear that foreign, non-Muslim supporters of Lawal were about to intervene and thus take pre-emptive action.

A number of scholars of electronic activism, such as author Howard Rheingold, who discusses how communication and computing technologies amplify human talents for cooperation in his recent book  Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, are duly skeptical of such e-mail petitions.

"[They are] either urban legends or ineffectual," said Rheingold in an e-mail interview with the Digital Freedom Network.

 "Does anybody who actually works with human rights issues believe that an e-mail petition would have changed the Taliban's treatment of women? They can be effective only if they include the real names and addresses of the petitioners and are delivered by an effective lobbying organization. Even more effective are electronic calls to action that enable people to call or write their congressional representatives about specific legislation."

A study by OMB Watch, a nonprofit group focusing on activities at the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB), concurs with Rheingold's observation. "Most [US] Congressional offices give the most weight to personal letters, followed by [in descending order of priority] personal visits, telephone calls, faxes, personal e-mails, paper petitions, form letters, postcards and form e-mail."

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