Viewing file details for :

Appropriating the Internet for Social Change

Type : pdf

Size : 632.27 KB

Download : Appropriating the Internet for Social Change.pdf

As civil society, we are confronted with an opportunity – to use the Internet and other emerging network technologies to support our quest for global peace and social justice. Consider that we currently live in a world where almost anyone located in an urban centre can share their message globally with a free blog and a few dollars spent at an Internet café. Access is not– or will not for much longer be – a major communications stumbling block for civil society organizations. The much more pressing need is for civil society to learn how to appropriate the network technologies that we now have access to, bending and molding them so that they can be used more strategically and politically. While we can point to examples of innovative and exciting civil society applications, most organizations have not moved beyond e-mail and basic web sites – and they have certainly not moved on to what might be called the ‘strategic use’ of these technologies. Put simply, the tools are in our hands, but most if us have not yet decided what to build.