Activism and the Internet: From e‐mail to new political movement

Abstract

Large‐scale street protests such as the demonstration against the World Trade Organization (WTO) intergovernmental conference in Seattle in November 1999 have pushed issue activism to a new level of political consciousness. They have also drawn attention to a new consequence of the Internet, which appears to enable activist groups to become more effective and more powerful than ever before. This paper tests this assumption by analysing how the Internet is actually being used by activist groups. It concludes that while it has greatly increased the effectiveness of activist groups in many ways, the Internet is also changing the political basis of activism by stimulating the emergence of a new kind of activist. As such groups proliferate and influence the media’s view of activism, the centre of gravity of the non‐governmental organisation (NGO) movement as a whole is being shifted to a more radical and more overtly anti‐capitalist position.