From Brigades to Blogs: Environmentalism Online in Slovakia 20 Years after the Velvet Revolution

Abstract

This article examines aspects of contemporary Slovak environmental activist discourse in the digital realm of blogging and cyberspace. It explores this subject by fi rst comparing volunteer brigades and samizdat writing from the late communist period with present digital forms of environmentalism in the new millennium. Current environmental blogs are then analysed accord- ing to material, substantive, and discursive aspects as these suggest obstacles and benefi ts to promoting environmentalism in the wake of political trans- formation. In examining this issue in one Central and East European context, the paper aims to raise broader questions regarding both research on environ- mental behaviour and policy in post-socialist Europe as well as the relation- ships between culture, political consciousness and technology in an age of globalisation.