Future Active: Media Activism and the Internet

By Graham Meikle, Annandale: Pluto Press, 2002, 225 pages, paperback, $34.95. Reviewed by Melissa Gregg in the October 2002 issue.

Help more readers find out about this article
Slashdot   Digg   StumbleUpon   Del.icio.us

Despite (or perhaps because of) the reams of celebratory rhetoric accompanying the birth of the Internet, the world of online activism is still something of a neglected site for a sustained and historically informed analysis. Thankfully, Graham Meikle's Future Active has come along, filling a real gap for those interested in the motivations behind and the success of political action online. At once optimistic and sobering, Meikle's account helps to clarify as well as complicate the assumptions we may have of Internet activism, given our still perceptible reliance on older media forms to measure its impact. Indeed one of the opening claims of the book seeks to overturn the typical view that the 'Net' should be seen as 'an entirely separate realm'. Instead, Meikle writes, 'we have to see it as part of the broader media environment'. (p 4)

Meikle wants a realistic approach to the Internet's potential. He is all too aware of the similarity with which each new technical innovation has been greeted throughout history, as if this time, this medium really will be the one to fully actualise democracy, human rights, and justice for all. The kinds of biases behind such claims are today more evident than ever: 'With half the world having never used a telephone, modern technological communications, especially the Internet, can easily be elitist, and at the same time provide an illusion of interaction between ordinary people' (p 175). This is Dave Morris, defendant in the McLibel case, which provides one of the focal points for Meikle's study. A real strength of the book is this decision to allow the activists room to speak for themselves. Interviews with the key proponents of alt.media, 'hack'tivism, and many other interventions, strategic and tactical, give the reader a context and a reason for the kinds of protest work that take place. This is the humanising detail journalists don't usually bother with, and it is fascinating to learn of the precipitating factors which lead 'ordinary' people to become politically involved.

An organising principle of the book is Meikle's sense that we've hit a fork in the road on the information super-highway. There are two options available for further advancement: either a 'Version 1.0' model--the Net as an open system, consonant with such foundational goals as file-swapping, share-ware, increased opportunity for debate, and a fully realised participatory ethic--or a 'Version 2.0' design, where there is little choice, merely the 'juke-box' alternatives (p 29) proffered by major corporations, the electronic agora 'paved over and turned into the virtual shopping mall' (p 2). Of course, that's to put it neatly; the reality of the Internet as it currently exists is a messy combination of both these versions. Meikle's tract gives us many instances of why this needs to remain so, perhaps the most stunning being the example from the US Republican National Committee website, which 'included a button marked online activism--clicking on it took you straight to the gift shop' (p 42).

What's interesting throughout the book is the way that the old and the new combine. Meikle notes that so far, 'there's little evidence of entirely new tactics developed specifically to exploit the unique properties of the Net. This may be less a failing of online politics than an inevitable consequence of the ways in which we adapt to technological change' (p 24). 'Backing in to the future' is Meikle's take on the use of online petitions, sit-ins, strikes and ribbon campaigns. These 'were among the first instances of rear-view mirror tactics, of activists applying old ideas to the new media environment' (p 41). The success of each intervention is shown to depend on the variables of timeliness, a worthy target, attention from other media, and diligence to the cause. And to this end not much has changed in politics.

For a footnote fetishist, the book is hard work. It's extensively researched with a valuable overview of other material relevant to Internet and media studies. We need more work like this to be published, books that are accessible without being theoretically naïve. In fact, I'd add that the royal 'we' at the end of each chapter is unnecessary. The 'coming up, we'll look at culture jamming' style made me feel like I was in high school--or worse--that I was watching a lifestyle show. That said, the lack of intellectual and disciplinary posturing evident here is refreshing for a book on cultural politics. The author is right to think that good examples tend to speak for themselves.

My only question, given Meikle's ultimate preference for a 'Version 1.0' world, is why entry to the book launch cost $15?

Citation

• Melissa Gregg. 'Review: Future Active: Media Activism and the Internet by Graham Meikle' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), October 2002. Availability: <please cite the web address here> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 08 February 2010].

Back Cover Blurb

• Future Active is an exploration of the widening field of Internet activism, of the key players and their ideas, and of the tactics and technologies that inspire them. The Internet has enabled unprecedented global commerce and helped create new oligopolies - but it has also mobilised millions of people locally and globally with very different visions of connected world communities.
  
  Future Active examines the uses of the Internet as a tool to effect social, political and cultural change. Graham Meikle talks to activists from around the world: from culture jammers to right-wing resistance movements, from political parties to pioneer hacktivists. He provides case studies of milestone Net campaigns - key figures explain how Belgrade radio station B92 used the Net to thwart Milosevic's censorship, how the McSpotlight website contributed to the campaign of the defendants in the McLibel trial, and how the global Indymedia phenomenon was born.
  
  Meikle argues that it is the unfinished and open nature of the Internet that is most radical. It is through creating open media spaces that people can come to make their own futures - and those futures will be much more exciting than the media McWorld of corporate 'interactivity'.
  
  'Future Active is a report from the frontlines of the guerrilla media war. Writing in brisk, skip-the-bullshit style, Meikle chronicles and critiques the tactical strikes of hacktivists, culture jammers, and other mutant free radicals who are putting the Internet to political use.' Mark Dery, author of 'The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink'

Visitors' Responses

• Your Review And Question At The End.
  Your review and question at the end. Your review was a very good. You ask about the cost for the launch. It was in fact a seminar at Berkelouw Books; the launch was at a pub at another date and free. We regularly organise seminars to explore further the themes of our books and we have to charge for these seminars to cover costs. We believe that we are giving value. The usual costs are $10 for those in employment and $5 for concessions. For further information on Pluto Press new book releases, seminars and launches our website: www.plutoaustralia.comBrendan O'dwye (20/02/1018)

Have You Also Read?

• The Hawke Government: A critical retrospective
  
  Susan Ryan and Troy Bramston, North Melbourne: Pluto Press, 2003, 512 Pages, Paperback, $39.95
  Reviewed by Bobbie Oliver in the March 2004 issue.
  
  The concept of a 'critical retrospective' to mark the twentieth anniversary of the election of the first Hawke Government is undoubtedly worthwhile, and some of the contributions to this edited collection are of a high standard, yet the book's major weakness is the uneven quality of the contributions. Perhaps this is inevitable when authorship ranges across a number of disciplines and professions, each with its own set of requirements and standards. This reviewer found the chapters written by academically-trained authors to be generally more objective, contextualised and genuinely critical than those by journalists, whilst the politicians' chapters also varied considerably in quality and ... read more.