Environmental Engineering Reference
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and frequency of communication through its increased easiness, and
as such are facilitating new weak ties, strengthening existing ties and
building network densities (Diani, 2001 ). With that, ICT builds on
existing ties and relations, rather than creating new ones that did
not exist. Virtual networks work best when they are backed by 'real'
face-to-face or copresent social linkages in specific localised commu-
nities. Computer-mediated communication remains, then, in general
restricted to that of an additional communication tool (Pickerill, 2001 ).
Thus, according to these scholars, new information and computer-
mediated technologies strengthen existing green cultures and networks,
rather than transform or even undermine green politics and activism.
That is also what UNESCO ( 2005 ) found more generally (beyond the
domain of environmental activism), when it investigated the relation
between new technologies and political and civic activism: the use of
Internet correlates highly with civic and political activism (Figure 8.1 ).
Although the Internet and ICT have not directly transformed local
environmental politics of greens, it has done so in the facilitation and
construction of global networks. It is remarkable how swift and sud-
denly the Internet has become crucial in global environmental activist
networks. Some of the major international NGO studies give evidence
of that. In his thorough study on transnational activist groups in 1996,
Paul Wapner hardly mentions the Internet and ICT as resources of
any importance in the struggle of globally operating NGO networks
against states and transnational companies. Nor do items as informa-
tion, transparency and reputational capital belong to his index list of
entrances. Similarly, two years later, the much cited study of Keck and
Sikkink ( 1998 )onglobal activist networks pays marginal attention to
the role of ICT and the Internet. It is only a few years later, especially
following the interpretation and understanding of the Seattle protests
in 1999 and its follow-ups, that the Internet and ICT seem to have
moved to the centre of social science interpretations of the develop-
ments and strategies of a green global civil society (cf. Webster, 2001;
Pickerill, 2003 ; van de Donk et al., 2004b ). There are not many other
sectors in modern society in which Internet and ICT has made a similar
sudden and rapid change in internal organisational modes and external
strategies. We now turn to these transnational informational politics
and strategies of not just well-organised NGOs, but especially of a
more fluid networked global civil society.
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