Cyberactivism
Definition
David de Ugarte:
“We could define “cyberactivism” as any strategy that seeks to change the public agenda and include a new topic for social debate by spreading a certain message. This message is spread through a “word of mouth” process which is multiplied by electronic communication and personal publishing media.
Cyberactivism is not a technique but a strategy. We
engage in cyberactivism when we publish on the web – in
a blog or a forum – in the hope that those who read our
post will tell others about it, linking to our post in their
own blogs or recommending it by other means. We also
engage in cyberactivism when we send an email or text
message to other people in the hope that it will be
forwarded to other people in their address books.
That’s why we are driven to cyberactivism. And
really, we all are: the writer who wants to promote his
book, the social activist who wants an invisible problem to
turn into a social debate, the small company selling an
innovative product which doesn't reach its potential
clients, and the political activist who wants to defend her
ideas.”
(http://deugarte.com/gomi/the-power-of-networks.pdf)
Typology
David de Ugarte:
“there are two basic models, two forms of strategy. The first one is the logic of campaigns: building a centre, proposing actions to be taken, and spreading the main idea. The second one is to start a swarming, a distributed social debate the consequences of which will be, from the start, unpredictable.
As the “housing sitins”
that took place in Spain in
May 2006 proved, there is no middle way to success. Both
strategies require very different forms of communication.
In the logic of campaigns, as in traditional activism, a
topic, an antagonist, a set of measures to demand, and a
form of mobilisation are put forward. People are invited to
join in, but not to plan the campaign.
In the logic of swarmings a topic is set in motion until
it becomes sufficiently “heated up” in the deliberative
process for it to spontaneously develop into a cyberthrong
or a new social consensus. From the start, control over
what forms the process will take at each stage and even
the possibility of aborting it are given up. For if we try to
centralise a distributed process, if we try to bring the
debate process we have started under our tutelage, we will
only inhibit it, and in the end will have no clear proposals
people can adhere to.”
(http://deugarte.com/gomi/the-power-of-networks.pdf)
Characteristics
David de Ugarte:
“Cyberactivism is nowadays based on the development of three modes linked by a mantra which has been repeated to satiety in recent movements: empowering people.
1. Discourse:
successful cyberactivism is much like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once we reach a number of people who not only want to but believe that they can change things, change becomes inevitable. That's why new discourses are based on empowering people, on the stories told by individuals or small groups supporting a cause, who transform reality by using their will, imagination, and inventiveness. That is, new discourses define activism as a new form of “social hacking”.
These are the new myths in an absolutely postmodern
sense: unlike utopian Socialists or Ayn Rand
followers, they impose no strict hierarchy of value,
no set of values or beliefs. On the contrary, they put
forward “ranks” that exemplify a certain outlook on
the world, a certain lifestyle that is the real glue
binding the network together. That's why this whole
discursive lyricism entails a strong identity
component which in turn enables communication,
without the mediation of a “centre”, between two
members who have never encountered each other
before. That is, it ensures the distributed nature of the
network, and thus its overall robustness.
2. Tools:
the development of tools that will make individuals aware of the possibility of social hacking is far more important than any demonstration. Cyberactivism, as a product of the hacker culture, is based on the DIY myth of the individual's capacity to generate consensus and transmit ideas in a distributed network.
The gist of it is: tools must be developed and made
publicly available. Someone will know what to do
with them. Tools are no longer neutral. From
downloadable template files for printing flyers and tshirts
to free software for the writing and syndication
of blogs, through manuals for nonviolent
civil resistance which can be propagated through many
daily small gestures. All this has been seen in Serbia
first and the Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan later. It works.
3. Visibility:
tools must be developed so that people, through small gestures, can find likeminded equals. The visibility of dissent, the break with passivity is the culmination of the empowering people strategy.
Visibility is something that must be permanently
fought for. First online (to wit, the aforementioned
examples of aggregators), then offline. Visibility, and
therefore the selfconfidence
granted by numbers, is
key for reaching tipping points, those moments in
time when a threshold of rebelliousness is reached
and ideas and information spread through an
exponentially growing number of people. Hence the
symbolic and real importance of cyberthrongs, the
spontaneous manifestations organised and spread
from blog to blog, by word of mouth, from text
message to text message.
A cyberactivist is somebody who uses the Internet,
and specially the blogosphere, to spread a discourse and
make public a number of tools that will give the power
and visibility that are nowadays monopolised by
institutionsback to the people. A cyberactivist is an
enzyme within the process by which society goes from
being organised in decentralised
hierarchical networks to
self-organising into basically egalitarian distributed networks.”
(http://deugarte.com/gomi/the-power-of-networks.pdf)