US activist and community networker Ed Schwartz recently wrote a book
on the use of the Internet for campaigning (NetActivism: How Citizens
Use the Internet, O'Reilly, 1996). http://www.ora.com/catalog/netactivism/noframes.html
In Ed's view the most basic
Internet tools are the most useful.
He comments: 'The heart of political organizing and advocacy is
communication. At any given moment, we need to be able to reach one
another and to speak out to the people in power. Up to now, we have
to do rely on snail mail, telephones, and fax machine. All are
expensive and limited in their outreach. Only large organisations or
movements with sizeable budgets could make full use of them.
'Email now adds a powerful new resource to the list. It is not simply
a "me-to-you" broadcasting system. It is a powerful "we-to-us"
communications system. It is this system that permits people from all
parts of the world to connect simultaneously with one another
quickly, easily, and at minimal cost. This is the system that holds
the greatest for the Internet in politics.'
Email is also be useful in the day to day work of organisations, says
Ed.
'We can use email to develop online, to establish ongoing discussions
within our civic and political organisations, thereby strengthening
the relationships among group members and attachment to the group
itself. The hardest problem facing any organisation is securing
attendance at its meetings, especially now when both parents in
families are likely to work and need their evenings to spend time
with their children.
'It's rare for a group to get together more than once a month and
even these occasions involve only a small portion of the membership.
The result is that boards and committees end up doing most of the
work, which is then conveyed to the membership via a newsletter.
'A group that established an email list for its members, however,
could conduct business every day. There would still have to be "real
time" meetings, of course. Even ongoing electronic communication is
no substitute meeting face-to-face. Nonetheless, a list would permit
those who could not attend regular meetings to offer suggestions
online in their absence. It would enable members to see drafts of
proposals prior to meetings and offer feedback before formal
discussion began.
'People could even "sign off" on final drafts of proposals and
resolutions without having to wait a month for the next meeting. If
citizen activists and political organizers had asked the
telecommunications industry to develop a new technology just for us,
they couldn't have found a better one. '
www.partnerships.org.uk/articles/ed1.html