Introduction 

Paris Salon or Boston Teas Party as the Basis for Electronic Democracy 

• Paris Salon 
• Boston Tea Party 
• Dominant Conceptions of Electronic Democracy 
• Marginal Conceptions of Electronic Democracy 

• Political Context
• Media Context
• New Media and Political Communication
• New Media and Political Action

• Amsterdam Lessons
• Expanding Electronic Democracy
• Electronic Boston Tea Party
• Toward Hybrid Net Politics

End Notes 

References 

Do you prefer a Paris Salon or a Boston Tea Party? Would you rather politely discuss - over coffee or wine - the important political issues of the day? Or would you rather physically take action and actually intervene in the political process? Are you a theoretician or a practitioner? These may be old questions, but when considered alongside today’s digital, virtual, and electronic environments and social spaces, these questions pose new problems. 

This paper argues that today’s cyber-cultures and cyber-politics are biased toward the more discursive and dialogic Habermasian Paris Salon model of electronic democracy and that the more active and direct Boston Tea Party model of electronic democracy is largely ignored by more ‘legitimate’ actors. It seems this is the dominant case within the discourse of both grassroots new media activists and academicians and scholars who study and write about new media, and especially about electronic democracy. 

The first part of this piece suggests that in addition to the coffee house and salon metaphor and mythology around the genesis of the public sphere, that it may be as valid to consider the Boston Tea Party metaphor. Dominant and marginal conceptions of electronic democracy are presented as examples. The next part glances at Amsterdam’s new media in terms of political communication and political action after situating itself in its political and media contexts. Finally, based on some of the lessons learned from the Amsterdam experience with electronic democracy some ideas are recast for further deliberation about ways to move forward to a more hybrid Net politics. 

One major point of this writing is that standard theoretical conceptions of electronic democracy are too narrowly defined. There needs to be an expansion of the theory and practice of electronic democracy such that it reflects more the reality of actual and physical democratic action. Just as there must be electronic discussions, there must also be electronic rallies, protests, marches, and sit-ins. And maybe there are situations in which an electronic Boston Tea Party would be called for. 

Within the current communication, and more so political communication, discourse around the public sphere - or “sphericules” as some would say [1] - it is somewhat fashionable to invoke Habermasian understandings of the rise of early capitalism and the social space it created for discussions and debates to take place. Common sites for these face-to-face engagements among people were the coffee houses and salons of Europe and colonial America. A fairly standard rendition of this development and emergence of political space that allowed for the establishment of democracies is provided in Curran and Gurevitch’s work Mass Media and Society. [2] 

The economic independence provided by private property, the critical reflection fostered by letters and novels, the flowering of discussion in coffee houses and salons and, above all, the emergence of independent, market-based press, created a new public engaged in critical political discussions. [3] 

Of course the Harbermasian notion of the public sphere is not without critics. Valerie Frissen, an associate professor of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam questions reliance on Habermas’ model. [4] In a recent lecture at the university, Frissen suggested that Habermas’ emphasis on rational discourse was too narrow and that there is indeed good reason to include types of minor or marginal discourse within the confines of the public sphere that would be perhaps be called a feminist public sphere or maybe a post-modern public sphere, one in which a “kaleidoscope” of discourses exist in unison and not solely the more temperate and moderate social space more often visited by men of a privileged nature. 

One might, however, extend Frissen’s critique even more by re-examining the notion of the coffee house and salon as the site of genesis for modern democracy. Perhaps by invoking another potentially powerful mythology and metaphor, the discourse on the public sphere will move to other realms. 

What if, rather than looking at the relatively polite rational and reasonable sites of early capital’s coffee houses and salons as a generative arena for the public sphere and current conceptions of electronic democracy, we instead look at the more impolite, irrational, and unreasonable act embodied in the Boston Tea Party? What happens when we include the mythology and metaphor of the Boston Tea Party in the discourse on electronic democracy? 

One thing that inclusion of the Boston Tea Party metaphor surely does is that it moves electronic democracy from being defined within the confines of political communication (debate, discussion, dialogue) and widens the frame to also include also political action, and in particular extra-parliamentarian, non-electoral forms of direct action. When we consider the history of democracy and democratic actions in full, we are limited if we do not deal with both political communication and political action. For this reason, the Boston Tea Party is an important site for generating ideas about electronic democracy, and more so electronic democratic or electronic mass action. A brief description of the Boston Tea Party may be useful for those unfamiliar with colonial U.S. history. The specific actions taken were in response to the British Tea Act of 1773 which angered colonial merchants and mobilised many people. 

Various colonies made plans to prevent the East India Company from landing its cargoes in colonial ports. In ports other than Boston, agents of the company were "persuaded" to resign, and new shipments of tea were either returned to England or warehoused. In Boston, the agents refused to resign and, with the support of the royal governor, preparations were made to land incoming cargoes regardless of opposition. After failing to turn back the three ships in the harbor, local patriots led by Samuel Adams staged a spectacular drama. On the evening of December 16, 1773, three companies of fifty men each, masquerading as Mohawk Indians, passed through a tremendous crowd of spectators, went aboard the three ships, broke open the tea chests, and heaved them into the harbor. As the electrifying news of the Boston "tea party" spread, other seaports followed the example and staged similar acts of resistance of their own. [5] 

It is safe to say that the vast majority - or nearly all - of the literature on electronic democracy is written from the narrower perspective of political communication that privileges rational debate and discourse over irrational action - like the Boston Tea Party. Electronic democracy as direct electronic political action is largely ignored. From the early work of American scholars (1980s) to the contemporary work of European scholars the model pursued is rooted in or is some variant of the Habermasian “universal communicative community.” [6] 

A survey of very recent European scholarship - British, Dutch, and German - demonstrates that  new thinking in Europe on the subject of electronic democracy is not really so new but more of a reshaping of earlier American work on the subject. Electronic democracy is still being described with the frame of political communication. [7] Granted, each of these authors presents valuable contributions from within the scope of political communication.  Barnett, for example, drawing on experiences in the UK argues that while political discourse on the Internet provides numerous opportunities for marginalized groups, the more traditional mass media will continue to dominate as a site for political debate. [8] Malinas and Jankowski use empirical data from studying a computer network in Scotland to test hypotheses on “virtual democracy” and “urban entrepreneurialism.” [9] Schmidtke in describing Berlin’s digital political culture contrasts top-down and bottom-up means of communicating. [10] And finally, Street, in challenging conceptions of electronic democracy by providing both the standard arguments in favour as well as his and other arguments against, calls in to question precisely what form of democracy we are or should be talking about. [11] 

The problem with the work of these scholars, and with most of the writing on electronic democracy, is still - as stated already - that it stays within the boundaries of political communication and rarely if ever strays into the terrain of political action, and most definitely does not wander far afield into extra-parliamentarian and non-electoral forms of direct action politics. The dominant view still being put forth is that the Internet is exclusively a site for communication. Few, if any, scholars are suggesting that the Internet infrastructure itself can be a site or target for political action. No one is talking about a cyberspacial Boston Tea Party, where, perhaps, instead of dumping tea to protest the policies of an imperial power, cyber-activists might dump data or engage in some other form of direct action on the Internet. 

To discover scholarly - and not so scholarly - work on electronic democracy that explores the subject from outside of the bounds of traditional political communication frames, one has to look outside of the communications field. Two sites for development of ideas as to how the Internet provides avenues for electronic political action of an extraparliamentarian and direct nature are the areas of Information Warfare and that of Electronic Civil Disobedience. 

The literature on Information Warfare primarily has been developed by scholars and academicians either working within or working for the U.S. military-intelligence apparatus, as well as other authors who write on matters of network security and related issues. [12] Key within this entire genre is the work of Arquilla and Ronfeldt who together in 1993 published their now often referenced “Cyberwar is coming!” [13] The main point of their argument and of subsequent work is that networked computer systems have become vulnerable points for attack by hostile forces and that steps should be taken to prevent or reduce the chances of information warfare, netwar, or cyberwar. Much of this literature is of a gloom and doom variety and is clearly written from the point-of-view of the State and of corporations, those who have the most to lose by people beginning to address their grievances by taking action on cyberspacial networks. 

Electronic Civil Disobedience is a domain that has less adherents and scholarship than does Information Warfare theory. This is probably due to the fact that it is a reshaping of Information Warfare theory from a more grassroots, anti-State, and anti-corporate perspective, hence there are less people and less resources devoted to this subject. But it is the theory and practice of Electronic Civil Disobedience that does begin to answer the question of what a virtual or digital Boston Tea Party might look like. [14] So far, the theory of ECD has stated that it is borrowing the notions of trespass and blockade from traditional civil disobedience tactics and applying these tactics to the Internet infrastructure. Blockading or jamming up web sites of political opponents is the current practice of Electronic Civil Disobedience undertaken this year. 

This paper will now turn its attention to the specific case of Amsterdam and then return to these issues of electronic democracy as defined by both political communication and political action on the Internet. Moreover it will argue that the Paris Salon model of electronic democracy – the purview of political communication – needs to be expanded to include the Boston Tea Party model of electronic democracy – the purview of political action – for a fuller and more complete theory and practice of electronic democracy. 

To understand current experimentation with electronic democracy in Holland and particularly in Amsterdam it is useful to have a sense of the political context out of which electronic democracy evolved. In general there are two inter-related histories of politics in Dutch society. The first traditional form of politics is the domain of the political parties and the second non-traditional form is the domain of grassroots social movements. Prior to the 1960s party politics held sway. Since the 1970s there has been a tendency toward greater political participation in social movements and single-issue politics. And in the 1990s, perhaps a synthesis or symbiosis exists between both forms. 

An unusual characteristic of Dutch society that had a strong bearing on the creation and maintenance of political parties in early periods is the process known as pillarization. In a recent lecture at the University of Amsterdam, professor Kees Brants described the four main pillars of the Catholics, the Protestants, the Liberals, and the Socialists. [15] From cradle to grave, these pillars, or segmented enclaves, formed the basis for participation in Dutch society at the level of school, employment, political participation, and even media usage. A pillar is, or was rather, a tight knit community that very much kept to itself. There was little cross-fertilisation among members of different pillars. 

In the 1960s the era of pillarization began to come to a close. There are not single reasons why depillarization began, but it is thought that in general the tumultuous period the late 1960s and the student movements of that time played a key role. [16] While the pillars were characterised as being vertical, hierarchical, governmental and static, or arbolic, to use a term from Deleuze and Guattari, the new social movements, for the most part, have been more horizontal, non-hierarchical, non-governmental, fluid, or rhizomatic, again borrowing Deleuze and Guattari’s term. [17] 

Today there are four major political parties in Holland that continuously form a coalition government. No one party dominates, so there is always a need for consensus and compromise. [18] It is difficult to say which social movements are strong today. In the 1980s the squatters, feminists, ecologists, and pirate radio adherents were a strong force, but their influence has diminished in the 1990s. But their presence is still felt today in Amsterdam’s cyber-cultures and cyber-politics. 

Historically, at least during the period of pillarization from the time of World War I until the 1960s, media in Holland was very much organised around the different pillars. Each pillar - Protestant, Catholic, Liberal, and Socialist - more or less had its own press, then radio and finally television station. For example, the newspaper De Volkskrant was originally a mouthpiece for the Catholic pillar, while the newspaper NRC Handelsblad had been traditionally associated with the Liberal pillar. Public broadcasting represented a similar differentiation along political or religious lines. “This meant a complicated arrangement of originally five (and now seven) different public broadcasting organisations, each representing religious, political, or social groups in the country.” [19] 

Depillarization meant more cross-fertilisation of ideas. For the press and other media this meant the beginning of a move away from strict adherence to particular religious or political persuasions. The 1970s saw rise of two phenomena that are important in shaping today’s new media environment. The first was the onset of cable television networks which by now have penetration rates hovering at around 90%. [20] The growth of cable, the emergence of Holland as a densely cabled country is one of the factors shaping today’s new media environment. The second area of importance for new media development was pirate radio. In the 1970s and 1980s “thousands of illegal” stations sprung up. [21] Pirate radio, or low-watt unlicensed radio broadcasting, helped to set a tone for a more free-thinking and independent media, a necessary condition for an independent Internet political culture. 

But it was of course the Dutch hackers and proponents of electronic bulletin board systems (BBSs) in the late 1980s and early 1990s who are credited by both Dutch academicians [22] and more grassroots Dutch media activists [23] as being the important precursors to the current new media environment in Holland. It was the convergence of forces from a network of hackers called HackTic and elements from an Amsterdam cultural center called De Balie, that together with initial support from the city of Amsterdam, formed the now well-known model of the Digital City or in Dutch, De Digitale Stad (DDS). Since opening its “doors” on January 15, 1994, the Digital City, along with XS4ALL, an ISP that grew out of HackTic, and a group called the Society for Old and New Media form an important cluster of Amsterdam new media institutions. [24] 

Part of the genesis of the Digital City, one of its raisons d’etre, was a perceived “crisis in democracy” in Dutch society, a “crisis” marked by continual decreases in voter turn-out, a move away from the political party as venue for expressing ones political will and a move toward the single issue politics of social movements, as well as a move toward a general cynicism about politics altogether. [25] Among the initial claims of DDS was that it would become a space for “various members of the city council and other political representatives” to discuss with the public and with “citizens” important issues of the day. [26] 

But this initial euphoric idealism has given way to more pragmatic realism. For all intents and purposes the Digital City has not become a venue for politicians. Nina Meilof of DDS said in a recent presentation at the University of Amsterdam that politicians simply do not like to participate in the types of interactive forums found on the Internet. [27] Lovink and Riemens are a little more caustic, but perhaps on the mark, in their analysis: “politicians were neither able nor willing to familiarise themselves with the new medium, as efforts made in the beginning of the DDS to bring them on-line and start a dialogue with their constituents proved a waste of time. And the citizens were far more interested in dialoguing among themselves than to engage in arcane discussions with close-minded politicos.” [28] It is quite likely that the horizontal, non-linear, rhizomatic nature of the Internet is simply not a good match with the more vertical, linear, and rigid style of politicians. 

To the contrary, Nina Meilof, as well as Niesco Dubbelboer of Amsterdam’s Agora project, point to numerous examples of social movement or grassroots use of the Internet. [29] The two say that various types of interactive Internet discussion spaces have been successfully used by communities and neighbourhoods in Amsterdam to discuss a range of issues from figuring out the most appropriate way to allocate funds designated for a specific neighbourhood, to generating concern over expansion plans for Amsterdam’s Schipol airport, to organising opposition to destruction of a long-term squatted island called Ruigoord. [30] 

One of the more interesting applications of the Net to Amsterdam’s social movement politics was in June of 1997 when Amsterdam played host to a major meeting of the European Union. Meilof said the level of heightened security meant that “Amsterdam became almost a police state.” She also said: 

There was this web site called contrast.org and they kind of made a big protest site. And you could even see that all the media were looking at them and that even the police were looking at this site to see if there were any demonstrations, any kind of scary actions going on. And actually it did have quite a good role during the Top, although half of the people working on the web site were arrested . . . [31] 

The example of contrast.org’s web site during the June 1997 Europe Union meeting in Amsterdam is a good starting point for further examination of the use of new media to support political action that falls well outside of the range of parliamentarian or electoral forms of politics. The type of oppositional street politics for which the contrast.org site was established has strong roots in Amsterdam throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The squatting movement in Holland, and in Amsterdam in particular, produced a more confrontational style of direct action street politics. The 1980s also saw the emergence of a strong anti-Shell movement that was directed toward Shell’s involvement in South Africa. The more radical elements within the anti-Shell movement engaged in such acts as sabotage of Shell stations. Pirate radio and other media forms like zines or pamphlets played a communicative role for Holland’s action oriented politics of the 1980s. Today, there has been an evident lessening of this type of radical politics, but the example of contrast.org is indicative of potential use of new media in a way that moves well beyond the discursive and dialogic model of most examples of electronic democracy. 

There exist several theoretical sites where understandings of new media and political action are being formed. One needs only first to look at the work of Geert Lovink et al. This group of Amsterdam grassroots media activists has hosted two important new media conferences called The Next Five Minutes in 1993 and in 1996, with the next set to take place in March of 1999. [32] From this nexus further thinking around the notions of tactical media are taking shape. [33] 

Tactical media are media of crisis, criticism and opposition. This is both the source of their power, (“anger is an energy”: John Lydon), and also their limitation. Their typical heroes are; the activist, Nomadic media warriors, the pranxter, the hacker, the street rapper, the camcorder kamikaze, they are happy negatives always in search of an enemy. [34] 

In returning to the initial set of theoretical questions raised by positing the Boston Tea Party model of electronic democracy as an alternative to or as a way of expanding the Paris Salon model of electronic democracy, what lessons can be drawn from the Amsterdam experience of cyber-culture and cyber-politics? First of all, it seems that the original set of social actors who formed groups like HackTic or De Balie, along with the others who entered the Nets after being involved in social movement political experience in the 1980s - i.e. those who now shape groups like the Digital City, XS4ALL, and the Society for Old and New Media - it seems that these people may have at one point operated more out of a Boston Tea Party political ethic. But these earlier proponents of more direct forms of social movement politics were somehow seduced by the lure of the Internet and began to veer from the Boston Tea Party model and aim more toward the discursive, dialogic model of the Paris Salon. This claim could be an overstatement or an ill informed generalisation, but it seems that grains or elements of this being true are present. 

Clearly, the discourse or even the mythology of the Digital City project is one largely built up around Habermasian notions of the public sphere. Of this there can be little doubt. This interest in using the Internet as a social space to revitalise communication between the public and public leaders, this notion of bridging the gap, and responding to a “crisis” in democracy, is firmly within the realm of the Paris Salon model of electronic democracy. But even so, this part of the experiment seems to have failed, or at least has not met up with the grand expectations being thrust forth at the beginning. 

The horizontal, non-linear, rhizomatic nature of the Internet has meant that its use is more conducive for social movements or others who are organised more along those structural lines. Social movement discursive and dialogic Internet use does not appear to be entirely bound to the Paris Salon model as the experience of contrast.org shows. This experience demonstrates the possibilities of hybridity that combine action on the street with action on the Net. [36] Finally, it is this sort of Internet usage that fuels the interest of tactical media proponents. Maybe in the end, it is within the social and political spaces created by tactical media advocates that the Boston Tea Party model has more breathing room and resonance. 

One sound reason for expanding the theoretical and practical basis of electronic democracy beyond the limiting confines of the Habermasian Paris Salon model is that in the non-digital world this rational discursive public sphere only represents a fraction of the available avenues for the occurrence of democratic action. In the real world -  in Amsterdam and elsewhere - democratic actions include: mass meetings, pickets, rallies, protests, marches, sit-ins, occupations, blockades, minor disturbances, civic unrest, riots, and even sabotage - like the Boston Tea Party. The Vietnam War did not end because people were engaged in quiet rational dialogue in the public sphere. Political change, democratic change, does not happen solely through public discourse. Recent events in Indonesia should make that transparent. Therefore, it seems that any theory and practice of electronic democracy needs to entertain these various forms of democratic action and begin to conceptualise and operationalize the means by which such non-discursive actions can begin to appear in digital, virtual, or electronic form. 

Another reason for expanding the boundaries of what constitutes electronic democratic action is that the current dialogic Paris Salon model is in effect a way to coopt the more chaotic and dispersive energy of social movement politics. How else could attempts for dialogue, negotiation, and consensus with the State be seen? Seeking dialogue with local city officials, with members of government, with representatives of the State is a way to diffuse or squelch more incendiary positions. It is a way to put water onto a fire. 

The relationship between the public and the State in Holland is quite different than it is in the United States, and in places like Texas where there is a strong anti-Federal government antagonism, but even so, in a generalizable way, we can say that attempts to negotiate, discuss, and reach consensus with government is quite a different form of political expression than one of direct confrontation. Maybe the experiment of the Digital City in this regard of acting as a negotiating or consensual forum has failed and that now it mainly thrives as a space for people-to-people discussion. But still, the overarching mentality of this Habermasian dialogic model is one in which it is difficult to break out of to entertain more confrontational methods. By injecting the theoretical underpinnings of electronic democracy with a good dose of Boston Tea Party fervour, perhaps the sedentary discursive elements within the various cyber-salons can be provoked to more nomadic warrior behaviour, seeing the Net as more than a means to speak, but also as a way for action. [37] 

What might an electronic Boston Tea Party look like? If we adopt the Boston Tea Party metaphor in a strict sense then we might be looking for examples of actual dumping, for what the Tea Party originally did was dump tea from ships into the harbour. When applied to the digital world, dumping of information, a data dump, an erasure of information, would be a strict interpretation of this metaphor. However, it seems that the metaphor can be applied a little more loosely than that and can be used more as a metaphor for direct action. In the narrower sense of pure dumping there surely have been cases of hackers entering computers and erasing or dumping data into the trash. But for the broader sense of the Boston Tea Party serving as a metaphor for generalised direct action on the Internet, there have been numerous examples. 

A recent case clearly stands out. In May of this year, in what has been called the largest hack of its kind, a young anti-nuclear hacker simply known as “JF” placed anti-nuclear images and texts on over 300 web sites around the world. [38] This tactic of entering web sites to erase, add, or change information is one that has also been used against the Mexican government by supporters of Mexico’s Zapatistas. [39] Less dramatic, and probably much less illegal, acts against the Mexican government have been being carried out by a group called the Electronic Disturbance Theater. The EDT group has been developing tactics of Electronic Civil Disobedience, in particular it has devised a software tool it calls FloodNet as a means to allow mass participation in collective and simultaneous web site blockades. [40] These forms of actions against web sites have been called “virtual sit-ins.” [41] There has also been a group in Mexico that organised a “virtual march” against the Mexican government. [42] 

The kinds of Internet direct actions that have taken place so far, especially those that attempt to involve mass participation as opposed to the more solitary attacks of the lone hacker, seem to be in still an early stage of development. What we are mostly seeing are experiments. There is also a lack of theoretical work to describe, explain, and frame this sort of new Internet activity. The Critical Art Ensemble’s The Electronic Disturbance and Electronic Civil Disobedience are two short works that clearly stand out among the few works of this sort. [43] The Critical Art Ensemble, the Electronic Disturbance Theater, tactical media groups, and others developing bottom-up Information Warfare theory, such as those preparing for the Ars Electronica Festival on InfoWar, are sites to locate the incipient electronic Boston Tea Party. [44] 

To reiterate a point, current conceptions of electronic democracy are too narrowly defined with the frame of the Habermasian Paris Salon model of dialogue and discourse. Missing from this narrow conception of electronic democracy are democratic forms of direct action that have historically been important in numerous countries throughout the world when there have been times of democratic social change. Democracy is about more than polite, rational, and reasonable discourse among polite, rational, and reasonable social actors. There are times when irrational and impolite actions are warranted. Therefore, as we see in Table 1 below, the frame of electronic democracy must expand to also include the Boston Tea Party model. 

So the issue is not an either/or proposition. It should not be a question as to whether the Paris Salon model is preferable to the Boston Tea Party model, or whether real and physical actions are preferable to virtual and electronic actions. The point here is that all four of these forms, as presented in Table 1, are all valid and worth pursuing both in terms of actual practice as well as in theoretical terms. 

Clearly within the communications field, and even with the subfields of political communication or computer-mediated communication, the bias has been toward the virtual or electronic Paris Salon model. This need not be the case. And it is the hope of this work that all of these above-mentioned forms will begin to given equal weight and equal treatment. But one can not be so naive as to presume that any time soon communication scholars and academicians who are studying electronic democracy will move beyond the more traditional and conservative Habermasian public sphere. After all, the major science, the dominant discourse within the communication field is one that supports the status quo and one that supports the state and government. The Boston Tea Party, even though a pivotal moment in the development of modern democratic societies is still much too radical for most communication scholars today. 

One thing not addressed in this article is the question as to when it would be politically valid to host an electronic Boston Tea Party; when is it legitimate to practice direct action on the Internet? This is obviously a question that requires considerable more time than allowed for in this short piece, because it is one that raises quite a range of possible responses. Some, clearly, will argue direct action on the Internet is never justifiable, while others will suggest direct action every day. In addition, the answer to this question depends on the political context; it depends on the country or government within which or against which one is acting. A possible way to address this question is to ask under what conditions might have Internet direct action been justifiable in the past. In this decade, the Gulf War stands out as a good example. Although short-lived, resistance to the Gulf War from within the United States was fairly militant. Throughout the country there were, of course, rallies, marches, and protests, but there were also occupations of army recruiting stations, bridge and highway take-overs, and in some cases riots. In San Francisco, for the first three days after the U.S. military forces started to bomb Iraq, the protesters and not the police were in control of the streets. 

During the build-up to the Gulf War – from August 1990 to January 1991 – the Internet, in particular political nets like PeaceNet, was used to communicate information about opposition to that war, but there were little or no signs of people using the Internet infrastructure as a site for action. If there were another Gulf War, or another U.S. interventionist war in the near future that prompted as a dramatic and quick domestic resistance within the United States, then it seems likely that more militant and direct actions on the Internet would occur, parallel to whatever actions were taking place in the streets. So it seems we might conclude that one site for future application of Internet direct action would be in response to future U.S. interventionist wars. But this is just one example, one possibility. Nevertheless, entertaining possible electronic, digital, or virtual resistance to future wars may in fact be one avenue for furthering the development of bottom-up Information Warfare theory. It seems like one direction that electronic democracy theorists and practitioners might find useful to explore. 

1. Gitlin, Todd. 1998 “Public spheres or public sphericules,” in Liebes, Tamar and James Curran, eds., Media, Ritual and Identity. London and New York: Routledge. 

2. Curran, James and Gurevitch, Michael, eds. 1991. Mass Media and Society. London, New York, Melbourne, Auckland: Edward Arnold Publ. 

3. Curran, James. 1991. “Mass Media and Democracy: A Reappraisal,” in Curran, James and Michael Gurevitch, eds., Mass Media and Society. London, New York, Melbourne, Auckland: Edward Arnold Publ. See page 83. 

4. Valerie Frissen, Associate Professor of Media Studies, Department of Communication Science, University of Amsterdam, gave a lecture called “Somewhere between Forum and Supermarket: Relocating Citizenship in the Information Society,” on July 16, 1998 at the University of Amsterdam. 

5. Janssen, Cassandra. 1995. “The Boston Tea Party, ” available at http://www.stjohnsprep.org/htdocs/sjp_tec/projects/internet/tea.htm 

6. Schmidtke, Oliver. 1998. “Berlin in the Net: Prospects for cyberdemocracy from above and from below,” in Rosa Tsagarousianou, Damian Tambini, and Cathy Bryan, eds., Cyberdemocracy: Technology, Cities and Civic Networks. London and New York: Routledge. 

7. Barnett, Steven. 1997. “New Media, Old Problems: New Technology and the Political Process,” European Journal of Communication. Vol. 12(2): 193-218; Malina, Anna and Jankowski, Nicholas W. 1998 “Community-Building in Cyberspace,” Javnost: The Public. Vol. 5 (2): 35-48; Schmidtke, Oliver. 1998. “Berlin in the Net: Prospects for cyberdemocracy from above and from below,” in Rosa Tsagarousianou, Damian Tambini, and Cathy Bryan, eds., Cyberdemocracy: Technology, Cities and Civic Networks. London and New York: Routledge; Street, John. 1997. “Remote Control? Politics, Technology, and ‘Electronic Democracy’,” European Journal of Communication, Vol. 12 (1): 27-42. 

8. Barnett, Steven. 1997. “New Media, Old Problems: New Technology and the Political Process,” European Journal of Communication. Vol. 12(2): 193-218. 

9. Malina, Anna and Jankowski, Nicholas W. 1998 “Community-Building in Cyberspace,” Javnost: The Public. Vol. 5 (2): 35-48 

10. Schmidtke, Oliver. 1998. “Berlin in the Net: Prospects for cyberdemocracy from above and from below,” in Rosa Tsagarousianou, Damian Tambini, and Cathy Bryan, eds., Cyberdemocracy: Technology, Cities and Civic Networks. London and New York: Routledge. 

11. Street, John. 1997. “Remote Control? Politics, Technology, and ‘Electronic Democracy’,” European Journal of Communication, Vol. 12 (1): 27-42. 

12. There are numerous Information Warfare (IW) web sites. For a sampling of links to some, see: http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wray/ecd.html. 

13. Arquilla, John and David Ronfeldt. 1993. "Cyberwar is Coming!" Comparative  Strategy 12 (April-June): 141-65. For a version of this article in a gopher site, see: http://gopher.well.sf.ca.us:70/0/Military/cyberwar 

14.  Refer to a web site devoted to the theory and practice of Electronic Civil Disobedience. See: http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wray/ecd.html  

15. Kees Brants, Associate Professor at the Department of Communication Science, University of Amsterdam and Director of the MA-Program on European Communication Studies, gave the opening presentation of a week long seminar called “Communication, Community, and Democracy” at the University of Amsterdam, from July 12 to 18. 

16. Semetko, Holli. 1998. “Media and Politics in the Netherlands. Introduction: Poulders, Pillars and Understanding Dutch Democracy,” Political Communication, Vol. 15 (2): 139-147. 

17. Rhizomatic and arbolic are terms from Deleuze and Guattari. See Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. By Brain Massumi. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press. See also Wray, Stefan. 1998. “Rhizomes, Nomads, and Resistant Internet Use,” at http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wray/RhizNom.html  

18. The four main political parties in Holland are: Social Democrats, http://www.pvda.nl; Christian Democrats, http://www.cda.nl; Liberal Conservatives, http://www.vvd.nl; and Liberal Democrats, http://www.d66.nl. Of lesser importance are the Socialists, http://www.sp.nl and the Green Left party, http://www.groenlinks.nl 

19. Semetko, Holli. 1998. “Media and Politics in the Netherlands. Introduction: Poulders, Pillars and Understanding Dutch Democracy,” Political Communication, Vol. 15 (2): 139-147. 

20. Brants, Kees and McQuail, Dennis. 1997. “The Netherlands,” in Bernt Stubbe Ostergaard, ed. The Media in Western Europe, London; Thousand Oaks, CA, New Delhi: SAGE; Lovink, Geert and Riemens, Patrice. 1998. Amsterdam Public Culture: On the Contradictions Among the Users. A paper written in July 1998 and found on the Nettime discussion list available at The Thing. See threaded discussion at: http://www.thing.net  

21. Brants, Kees, Huizenga, Martine and van Meerten, Reineke. 1996. “The new canals of Amsterdam: an exercise in local electronic democracy,” Media Culture and Society, Vol. 18: 233-247. 

22. Francissen, Letty and Brants, Kees. 1998. “Virtually Going Places: Square-Hopping in Amsterdam’s Digital City,” in Rosa Tsagarousianou, Damian Tambini, and Cathy Bryan, eds., Cyberdemocracy: Technology, Cities and Civic Networks. London and New York: Routledge; Brants, Kees, Huizenga, Martine and van Meerten, Reineke. 1996. “The new canals of Amsterdam: an exercise in local electronic democracy,” Media Culture and Society, Vol. 18: 233-247. 

23. Lovink, Geert and Riemens, Patrice. 1998. Amsterdam Public Culture: On the Contradictions Among the Users. A paper written in July 1998 and found on the Nettime discussion list available at The Thing. See: http://www.thing.net 

24. See: De Digitale Stad, http://www.dds.nl; XS4ALL, http://www.xs4all.nl; and Society for Old and New Media at De Waag, http://www.waag.org 

25. Kees Brants in lecture at the University of Amsterdam on July 13, 1998 emphasizes the point several times or there being a “crisis” in democracy. 

26. Anon. 1994. The Digital City (De Digitale Stad). News release dated January 3, 1994 from DDS. 

27. Nina Meilof, Project Manager of the Public Domain of Amsterdam’s Digital City, gave a lecture on “Reversed Politics” at the University of Amsterdam on July 16, 1998. 

28. Lovink, Geert and Riemens, Patrice. 1998. Amsterdam Public Culture: On the Contradictions Among the Users. A paper written in July 1998 and found on the Nettime discussion list available at The Thing. See: http://www.thing.net  

29. Niesco Dubbelboer, Director of Agora Europa and Policy Advisor to the Amsterdam Municipality, gave a lecture on “ICT and Amsterdam: a Marriage de Raison?,” at the University of Amsterdam on July 15, 1998. 

30. The opposition at Ruigoord presented their story in comic strip form on their web site. See: http://www.contrast.org/groenoord/ 

31. Nina Meilof of De Digitale Stad in a lecture on “Reversed Politics,” at the University of Amsterdam on July 16, 1998. For the group Contrast see http://www.contast.org and for their specific use of the web site during the Amsterdam European Union meeting in June 1997. See: http://www.contrast.org/eurostop/ 

32. For the Next 5 Minutes archives see http://www.dds.nl/~n5m/n5m2/index.html 

33. Lovink, Geert and Garcia, David. 1997. The ABC of Tactical Media. A manifest written for the opening of the web site for the Tactical Media Network. See: http://www.waag.org/tmn; Lovink, Geert. 1997. “Strategies for Media Activism.” Paper presented at ‘Code Red’ at The Performance Space, Sydney, November 23 1997. 

34. Lovink, Geert and Garcia, David. 1997. The ABC of Tactical Media. A manifest written for the opening of the web site for the Tactical Media Network. 

35. “[nettime] is not only a mailing list, but an attempt to formulate an international, networked discourse, which promotes neither the dominant euphoria (in order to sell some product), nor to continue the cynical pessimism, spread by journalists and intellectuals working in the 'old' media, who can still make general statements without any deeper knowledge on the specific communication aspects of the so-called 'new' media. We intend to bring out books, readers and floppies and web sites in various languages, so that the 'eminent' net critique will not only circulate within the internet, but can also be read by people who are not on-line..” See: http://www.factory.org/nettime; [nettime] is also archived at http://www.desl.nl/~nettime and at http://www.thing.net 

36. For discussion of hybrid actions see Wray, Stefan. 1998. On Electronic Civil Disobedience, http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wray/oecd.html 

37. For more on rhizomatic and nomadic Internet resistance see Wray, Stefan. 1998. “Rhizomes, Nomads, and Resistant Internet Use.” http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wray/RhizNom.html  

38. See http://www.antionline.com for a complete listing of the activities of “JF” and the group Milworm. 

39. There have been recent hacks into Mexican government web sites. First news of this sort of activity appeared in early 1998. See http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wray/real/html 

40. See Wray, Stefan. 1998. The Electronic Disturbance Theater and Electronic Civil Disobedience, http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wray/EDTECD.html for an explanation of FloodNet. 

41. In January, 1998, a group in Italy called the Anonymous Digital Coalition issued a call for virtual sit-ins on Mexican financial institution web sites. See http://www.nyu.edu/projects/anondigcoal.html 

42. A virtual march had been called by digital activists in Mexico. 

43. Critical Art Ensemble. 1994. The Electronic Disturbance. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia; Critical Art Ensemble. 1996. Electronic Civil Disobedience and Other Unpopular Ideas. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia. 

44. For Ars Electronica, see http://web.aec.at/inforwar/index.html 

Anon. 1994. "The Digital City (De Digitale Stad)." News release dated January 3, 1994 from DDS. 

Arquilla, John and David Ronfeldt. 1993. "Cyberwar is Coming!" Comparative  Strategy 12 (April-June): 141-65. 

Barnett, Steven. 1997. “New Media, Old Problems: New Technology and the Political Process,” European Journal of Communication. Vol. 12(2): 193-218. 

Brants, Kees, Huizenga, Martine and van Meerten, Reineke. 1996. “The new canals of Amsterdam: an exercise in local electronic democracy,” Media Culture and Society, Vol. 18: 233-247. 

Brants, Kees and McQuail, Dennis. 1997. “The Netherlands,” in Bernt Stubbe Ostergaard, ed. The Media in Western Europe, London; Thousand Oaks, CA, New Delhi: SAGE. 

Critical Art Ensemble. 1994. The Electronic Disturbance. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia. 

Critical Art Ensember. 1996. Electronic Civil Disobedience and Other Unpopular Ideas. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia. 

Curran, James. 1991. “Mass Media and Democracy: A Reappraisal,” in Curran, James and Michael Gurevitch, eds., Mass Media and Society. London, New York, Melbourne, Auckland: Edward Arnold Publ. 

Curran, James and Gurevitch, Michael, eds. 1991. Mass Media and Society. London, New York, Melbourne, Auckland: Edward Arnold Publ. 

Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. By Brain Massumi. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press. 

Francissen, Letty and Brants, Kees. 1998. “Virtually Going Places: Square-Hopping in Amsterdam’s Digital City,” in Rosa Tsagarousianou, Damian Tambini, and Cathy Bryan, eds., Cyberdemocracy: Technology, Cities and Civic Networks. London and New York: Routledge. 

Gitlin, Todd. 1998 “Public spheres or public sphericules,” in Liebes, Tamar and James Curran, eds., Media, Ritual and Identity. London and New York: Routledge. 

Janssen, Cassandra. 1995. “The Boston Tea Party.” 
http://www.stjohnsprep.org/htdocs/sjp_tec/projects/internet/tea.htm 

Lovink, Geert and Riemens, Patrice. 1998. "Amsterdam Public Culture: On the Contradictions Among the Users." A paper written in July 1998 and found on the Nettime discussion list available at The Thing. http://www.thing.net 

Lovink, Geert and Garcia, David. 1997. "The ABC of Tactical Media." A manifest written for the opening of the web site for the Tactical Media Network. http://www.waag.org/tmn 

Lovink, Geert. 1997. “Strategies for Media Activism.” Paper presented at ‘Code Red’ at The Performance Space, Sydney, November 23 1997. 

Malina, Anna and Jankowski, Nicholas W. 1998 “Community-Building in Cyberspace,” Javnost: The Public. Vol. 5 (2): 35-48. 

Schmidtke, Oliver. 1998. “Berlin in the Net: Prospects for cyberdemocracy from above and from below,” in Rosa Tsagarousianou, Damian Tambini, and Cathy Bryan, eds., Cyberdemocracy: Technology, Cities and Civic Networks. London and New York: Routledge. 

Semetko, Holli. 1998. “Media and Politics in the Netherlands. Introduction: Poulders, Pillars and Understanding Dutch Democracy,” Political Communication, Vol. 15 (2): 139-147. 

Street, John. 1997. “Remote Control? Politics, Technology, and ‘Electronic Democracy’,” European Journal of Communication, Vol. 12 (1): 27-42. 

Wray, Stefan. 1998. “On Electronic Civil Disobedience.” http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wray/oecd.html 

Wray, Stefan. 1998. “The Electronic Disturbance Theater and Electronic Civil Disobedience.” http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wray/EDTECD.html 

Wray, Stefan. 1998. “Rhizomes, Nomads, and Resistant Internet Use.” http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wray/RhizNom.html