Monitoring, surveillance and empowerment - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 128

even if imperfect, will help focus attention and set priorities in this
critical area of public policy” (http://www.environmentaldefense.org,
accessed September 2006). The goal of Scorecard is not the provi-
sion of scientifically justified or exact pollution data. Rather, the aims
are to present data in such a way that it echoes the interpretation
framework of lay actors, to stimulate lay actors to take an interest
in local environmental quality and to provide a platform for discus-
sion and action. Given the interest in the project, one can conclude
that there is indeed a demand for comprehensive, easily accessible
and understandable information on local environmental quality. A
next logical step would of course be to involve citizen-consumers in
data collection, in units and dimensions that are closely related to
their daily practices and experiences, without losing control of valid-
ity. That would also challenge the data collection monopolies of state
and companies and further enhance the countervailing powers of civil
society.
Scorecard has been used not only by individual citizens to become
informed, to send complaints and to take action. Journalists, NGOs,
companies themselves as well as their rivals, shareholders, and local
and national authorities are among the regular Web site visitors. The
countervailing effects are then also working via a variety of mecha-
nisms, and not in the last place through preventive anticipation by
polluters. Sand ( 2002 : 4-5) and others 12 relate the 'success story' of
the TRI and the Scorecard site in the United States to one or more
of the following characteristics: (i) the possibility of electronic com-
munications via the Internet; (ii) reversal of the burden of proof for
exemptions; (iii) enforcement by citizen suits; (iv) standardised data,
facilitating comparison and 'performance benchmarking'; (v) reputa-
tional effects of competitive ranking on a firm's behaviour.

Webloggers

As I will elaborate further in Chapter 9 , one of the major differences
between the 'old' media (radio, television, newspapers) and the 'new'
media (Internet and related services) is that the production of news is no
longer monopolised but democratised. On the Internet, everybody with

12

See, among others, van den Burg ( 2004 ); Karkkainen ( 2001 ); Fung and
O'Rourke ( 2000 ).