Appropriating the Internet for Social Change

The primary question addressed by this 90-page report is: what will it take to catalyse a broader trend of appropriation and strategic use of networked technologies within civil society?

According to the authors, "the ability of civil society organizations to control their own communications, and even their relationships and networks, is intimately intertwined with the question of appropriating networked technologies. Given this, the issue of appropriation – using networked technologies strategically, politically, creatively – is amongst the most pressing that civil society faces in the information society."

"By looking at organizations which are at the forefront of strategic use – IndyMedia, the Sarai/Waag Exchange, OneWorld, Jubilee 2000, the movement against corporate globalization", Surman and Reilly suggest "it is possible to see a world where technology is at once central and forgotten. E-mail lists, web sites and databases are so deeply ingrained into the DNA of these organizations that they are no longer the point, or the problem. The fluidity and flexibility of these tools has become the natural raw material from which much more important things are built – coalitions, campaigns, knowledge, networks."

The authors believe that this technological movement "appears to be exception and not the rule". Furthermore, there is "growing informal consensus that most civil society organizations – especially larger, more conservative NGOs – have not made it to the appropriation step on the ladder. They have not yet dipped their toe into the pool of cultural and organizational change that comes when a group molds networked technologies in its own image, making these technologies a part of their very fabric and being."

In order to explain both the potential and the challenges of these technologies, the authors review what is happening now and break the strategic uses of networked technologies within civil society into four major areas:

• Collaboration
• Publishing
• Mobilisation
• Observation

The challenges of using theses technologies are grouped into five major areas:

• Equity (north + south)
• Impact
• Trust
• Sustainability
• Enclosure

And lastly, the authors offer nine recommendations to promote the widespread strategic use of networked technologies:

• Build the social tech movement
• Focus on goals not gizmos
• Experiment with more equitable network models
• Collaborate with both thought and passion
• Embrace open source culture
• Experiment and stretch
• Push the sustainability envelope
• Fight to keep networks open
• Create better maps

In conclusion, the authors remind the readers that given the constant changes in technology, "we will never 'arrive' in the land of strategic technology nirvana" and that "the appropriation of technology is a process and not an outcome". Becoming skilled at this process means learning how to dynamically mold the technologies as issues and political strategies change. "As noted in one of the Sarai/Waag documents: 'the techno-civic maze always remains under construction.' The way forward requires us to learn how to build, create and work together in this ever changing maze."

Click here to download the report in PDF format.