Cyberactivism, Chapter 3.

In chapter 3, titled "Classifying Forms of Online Activism: The Case of Cyberprotests against the World Bank", Sandor Vegh lists three general types of activism using the internet: awareness/advocacy (spreading information about a cause), organization/mobilization (calling for action on behalf of a cause), and action/reaction (direct action through the internet, or hacktivism). He goes into the greatest detail on the last of these, noting specifically actions in connection to the WTO protests in Seattle.

My first thought when reading about hacktivism was skepticism. First, it seems more like an extreme version of spreading awareness than a useful tactic, and perhaps more alienating as well. At best, you might make a few visitors to the site aware of your cause, but it does little to convince your opponents to listen to you. Second, it seems a bit juvenile in its method; I couldn't help but think of our own campus's infamous "Anarchist Tagger" and the general student body's opinion on his methods. Graffiti is, by many, considered not revolutionary but annoying.

Upon further thought, however, I realized that I was leaving out the real point of both graffiti and hacktivism: a statement of defiance to the institution involved. Just like spraypainting all over the front doors of a bank is a slap to the bank's face, hacking into an organization's website and defacing it is a slap to the organization's face. In addition, it shakes the public's faith in that institution, providing further embarassment.

I suppose it depends on what one wants to accomplish. I personally believe in mediation and compromise over all-out assault and conquering, so I disagree with the usefulness of hacktivism from a practical point. As for emotional value, though, I sympathize with what the hacktivist is trying to do, and I won't deny that I get a kick out of seeing a corporate website infiltrated.

Social Movements.

For this book, I was interested less in the historical examples than I was in the lessons learned from these examples. For instance, I was interested in the analyses of the anatomy of the social movement, for instance the idea introduced in chapter 1 and explored through the book of a social movement consisting of campaign, repertoire, and display.

That last element, the WUNC display (worthiness, unity, numbers, commitment), I found most thoughtful; it seems like too often members of a movement fail to be thoughtful of how individual appearance and action affects public perception of the group, either for good or ill. I am curious to see if this concept applies usefully outside of activism as well -- for instance, can subcultures be measured by their displays of worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment?

Not all in the book I agreed with, however. For one, I disagree with his statements on page 131 that increased internationalization is making difficult the growth of current social movements by taking power away from the necessary local and national levels. I believe just the opposite: if the goal of a social movement is, ultimately, internationalism, then modern international technology -- that is, the internet -- makes it easy to begin immediately at the international level, bypassing the lower levels needed in the past due to slower communication technology.

Though a bit of a slow read, the book, in all, contained much good information, undoubtedly useful to the activist and, in my opinion, worth considering outside that setting into other fields.