Right now, Hurricane Isabel is howling around us and most work has

ceased. The University has taken its server down, blessedly cutting

off my email. Yesterday afternoon, when the skies were still clear,

I met with Marty Kearns of Green

Media Toolshed, who is full of fascinating ideas about how the

Internet and other distributed technologies (including billboards

and buttons) can be used for political activism. Meanwhile, I was

reading reviews of Bruce Bimber and Richard Davis’ new book, Campaigning

Online: The Internet in U.S. Elections. Apparently, they argue

that the Internet is effective for mobilizing strongly committed partisans,

but it does not increase net participation in politics and elections.

This is consistent with CIRCLE research on young people, and also

with my predictions in a 2002 essay

on the Internet and politics.

Marty Kearns makes me optimistic about the political power of digital

technologies and their value for progressive organizations. But I

also worry about the chief barrier to participation. It’s not the

digital divide, or technological literacy, or the power of major media

companies to constrain the ways that the Internet is used. It’s rather

the lack of motivation to participate politically—the lack of

identity as citizens—among many marginalized people. In the

past, people developed that kind of identity and motivation by enrolling

in disciplined organizations with strong cultures: unions, political

parties, religious denominations. I’m not convinced that we’ve found

replacements for such organizations in the digital age.

(Still from Camden): If you compare a newspaper website to

a conventional newspaper page, I think the results are a little

surprising. We’re used to seeing the Internet as a great expansion of

possibilities, compared to print. But news websites only display about

15 words on each line, plus advertising and navigation bars. That means

that a reader must essentially scroll down one vertical column of text

at a time. A traditional sheet of newsprint, by contrast, is very wide

and can contain an elaborate array of stories (some linked together),

diagrams, and photographs. The reader can spread out a newspaper, scan

it quickly, and select what to read and in what order.

As a result, news sites are perhaps more like broadcast programs than

they are like conventional newspapers. A broadcaster can only transmit

one stream of content at a time. There is always a danger that listeners

will switch channels if they don’t like what they see and/or hear. Thus

broadcasters feel pressure to cater to as large an audience as possible

with each of their programs. In contrast, a traditional newspaper is

a diverse bundle of material, which readers can navigate and read selectively.

The more diversity of content, the better, at least to a point. One

would think that Internet sources would be more interactive and diverse

than newspapers, not less so. But I think that the width of

our current screens may actually make websites more like broadcast channels.

They have to emphasize a few headline stories and try to keep their

visitors from "clicking" away to other sites.

Of course, there are other differences between newspapers and news

websites. (To name just a few: the lack of any final edition on websites;

visitors’ ability to search current and archived editions; and the prevalence

of links to sites beyond the newspaper’s control.) Still, the difference

in width deserves mention.

If you’re interested in how GIS (computer mapping) technology

can help us understand human beings’ use of their physical environment,

check out the 3-D

GIS Gallery of Professor Mei-Po Kwan, a geographer at Ohio State.

These are beautiful images, and potentially useful too.

The latest technological phenomenon to get the attention of the New

York Times is "mobbing." An announcement spreads around

blogs, listservs, and bulletin boards: everyone is supposed to show

up at a particular time and place to do some particular, but random,

thing, like asking a Macy’s sales clerk for a "love rug" or

shouting "Yes, Yes!" Thanks to the viral nature of the Internet,

the idea spreads and people actually show up.

Are smart mobs "The

Next Social Revolution?" as Howard Rheingold is arguing? They

certainly fit the current ideal for social organizations: completely

decentralized, with

minimal costs of entry and exit, no hierarchy, and no rules. I have

absorbed so much conventional social theory that I’m very skeptical

about this ideal. I assume that the creation of public goods is difficult

and requires a solution to the classic free-rider problem (namely: people

won’t contribute much of value if the good is enjoyed by everyone else).

Destroying stuff is much easier. Therefore, I would guess that the new

phenomenon of "smart mobs" will be used much more effectively

to destroy than to create. People may show up to shout "yes, yes!"

(which is funny and costs nothing), but they won’t use "smart mob"

methods for real constructive action. I also assume that one of the

trickiest parts of social organization is finding ways to make actors

appropriately accountable. I don’t see how a smart mob can be forced

to answer for its behavior. However, all this could be wrong. (I’m very

"twentieth century.")