Future Active (PDF)

The revolution will not be televised. But will it be online instead? When the Internet first took off, we heard a lot about its potential for social change. We heard it would revitalize democracy. We heard it would empower us. We heard we would all be publishers, working together to create a new public sphere. Future Active tests such claims. With fierce intelligence and wit, Graham Meikle takes us behind the digital barricades and into the heart of Internet activist campaigns. In the first in-depth look at this global phenomenon, the author talks to key players in the Indymedia movement and introduces us to the activists behind gwbush.com, the website that provoked the President to declare there ought to be limits to freedom. The founder of Belgrade radio station B92 explains how they used the net to thwart Milosevic's censorship, while McLibel trial defendant Dave Morris talks about the role of the McSpotlight website. And pioneer hacktivists the Electronic Disturbance Theater introduce us to virtual sit-ins and electronic civil disobedience - while US military analysts offer a different perspective on this kind of information warfare. Future Active is an accessible, comprehensive, and supremely readable introduction to the world of online activism. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in how hackers, culture jammers, and media activists have not only incorporated recent technology as a tool for change, but also redefined what counts as activism.