Environmental activism and advocacy - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 196

social activism. But the subsequent assessment of the influence of these
new technologies and the related informational practices on the ideolo-
gies, strategies and organisational networks of environmental NGOs is
far from universal. Broadly, two - not necessarily conflicting - assess-
ments prevail: one focussing on local environmental activism and one
on global activism.
To what extent has the Internet undermined, transformed or
strengthened conventional local activism and place-based commu-
nity building via face-to-face interaction and conventional media?
Putnam's ( 2000 ) social capital thesis argues that the Internet and
ICT reinforce conventional community life, face-to-face interactions
and place-based networks rather than replacing them. Although the
Internet and information technologies clearly widen the opportunities
to interact, build networks and form activist communities beyond
any place-based restrictions, there are clear evidences that most local
environmental groups and organizations use modern information
and communication technologies rather to reinforce and strengthen
their place-based local relations, instead of moving their attention
predominantly to newly created placeless communities. Horton ( 2004 :
742) provides an illustration of this strengthening of local green com-
munities by the combination of virtual and copresent densities of local
green networks in analysing how the Internet is used for Swap Shop. 7
ICT and the Internet seem to be strengthening a local green identity as
they consolidate rather than transform or undermine existing patterns
of local activism/environmentalism, much in line with what is found
within new social movement research in general. This is in contrast
to, for instance, television technologies, which are known to have
caused an erosion of local community life, identity, organisations and
activism. The Internet and ICT, enabling two-way communication
much more than the TV, have increased a quantitative jump in volume

7

In Lancaster, U.K., activists set up a weekly e-mail bulletin in 2001 to which
subscribers could contribute information on the used goods that they either
have to offer or want from others. Through this virtual space, green
materialities were institutionalised, which was usually done in face-to face
interactions. After contact via e-mail, successful transfer of used goods, of
course, included face-to-face interactions. In addition, corporal Swap Shop
gatherings were organised after the e-mail bulletin proved to be successful. By
October 2003, the bulletin had more than two hundred members.