Environmental activism and advocacy - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 205

determine what is newsworthy, by a more fluid understanding of truth
and a more dispersed production of news. 17 Against the hierarchi-
cally, formalised, privately owned and closed structure of conventional
media conglomerates, Indymedia is more mobile and decentred, having
multi-ownership, an open structure, free access, 'copyleft' and limited
filters and editorial interventions that mediate between the decentred
producers of 'news' and the final publication. It can thus be seen
as a practice in participatory democracy, although computer access
and technical skill, certain social and cultural barriers (language, poor
representation of indigenous groups) and geographical concentration
to Western countries prevent the materialization of ideal-typical full
democracy (Pickerill, 2003b ). 18 Overall, Indymedia glues various (left-
ist) protest movements together globally, constructing perhaps not
directly a global community but certainly new ties and a loose sense
of collective identity among groups that were previously separated in
place, time and issues. It has proved to become essential for a global,
active civil society in an age where information is crucial. 19

4. New strategies, new alliances

Our analysis of environmentalists in informational governance has up
until now focussed mainly on the Internet and ICT. There is, however,
also a category of civil society innovations in informational governance
that is linked less to ICT and the Internet. The growing importance
of information in environmental governance, and the importance of

17

Wikipedia, the Internet encyclopaedia that is constructed and continuously
renewed in a decentralised way by all its users, has a similar structure.
Although a comparison illustrated that the correctness of Wikipedia can
compete with the commercial Encyclopaedia Britannica, increasingly it has
become clear that Wikipedia is strategically used for private interests and has
the danger to turn into an informational battleground. In 2005, it was
discovered that climate change sceptics were systematically reversing all
information in Wikipedia that pointed at the seriousness and dangers of
climate change. In 2006, staff of U.S. congressmen 'cleaned' more than one
thousand Wikipedia articles (often biographies of politicians) to make them
more advantageous to their politicians. These and other problems led to calls
and initiatives to leave production of Wikipedia to a more limited group.

18

The development of decentralisation and regionalisation of the Indymedia
network is one reaction to the (perceived) cultural dominance of the United
States. Discussions on language continue at Indymedia.

19

Not surprisingly, there have been several attempts to limit the influence of
Indymedia by state censorship and security and intelligence agencies (cf.
Pickerill, 2003b ).