读书笔记 / Reading Notes: Cyberactivism

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Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayers (eds) (2003) Cyberactivism: online activism in theory and practice.
Chapter 3: Vegh, Sandor (2003) Classifying forms of Online Activism: The Case of Cyberprotests against the World Bank
Vegh classify online mobilisation channels into three types:

• Alternative channels for offline actions, mainly communication;
• More efficient channels compared to traditional offline ones;
• Unique channels for activities only possible online.

Although the first two are very important, the third really catches the media and our eyes, especially when hackers and hacking are involved. As Vegh noticed, people tend to dramatised it.
Vegh further classifies online conflicts into three categories below "by examining the identity of the perpertrators and the target, the method and frequency of occurrence, the goal to be attained, and the damage caused":

• Cyberattack (isolated);
• Cybercampaign (coordinated, part of an identified conflict);
• Cyberwar (sustained mutual engagement).

As Vegh explained, although usually in the spotlights, cyberattacks conducted by individuals or civil groups rarely cause damage or direct loss to the international organisations such as the world bank. What they directly fight against is computer security experts and IT companies. This is like a gun-armed civil group against their mighty well-equipped national army. However, hacktivism does have strong meida effects which bring media exposures the organisations like. It also could, sometimes, change the aganda of big international organisations by mobilising people. But most of the time, it is questionable how effective "virtual match" or "virtual sitting in" could be.
However, it is no surprising that the protesters went online and invented all kinds of creative ways to continue cyberprotest. There are some personality links. Those people are usually open-minded anti-traditional and anti-authority - perfect fit for technology pioneers. Also the budget constraints make the "time- and cost- efficient" Internet the perfect tool for those protestors and convert them into "cyberprotestors".