----- Original Message -----
From: Nancy Baym <nbaym@ku.edu>
Date: Friday, January 30, 2004 9:28 am
Subject: RE: [Air-l] howard dean, social movements and clay shirky

[snip]
> Shirky asserts:
> 
> "We know well from past attempts to use social software to organize
> groups for political change that it is hard, very hard, because
> participation in online communities often provides a sense of
> satisfaction that actually dampens a willingness to interact with the
> real world."
> 
> My question (and I think Ren's) was not whether this is an 
> accurate 
> explanation of what's going on with Dean's campaign, but whether 
> there is any evidence to support this claim in general -- what is 
> the 
> evidence from the use of social software to organize groups for 
> political change that participation in online communities results 
> in 
> less willingness to interact in "the real world"?

For what its worth, my experiences with online groups who tried to 
organise anything, and its only subjective and limited, is that it 
is exceedingly hard to translate online enthusiasm into actual 
*sustained* action of any sort - taking the action offline makes 
it even harder.  

Furthermore it seems that stuff eventuates when it can be largely all 
be done by one or two 'fanatic' people - or it can be done through 
personal ties between a few list members, or there is already some 
kind of offline organisation propelling people.

I think this would be harder still when you are going against 
established power or communication systems, or when your class of 
members is largely not able to do what you need them to do - say if, 
as Art suggests, Dean's web campaign attracted people who were too young to vote, and not enough of the voters.

These kinds of effects may well be of social origin, not innate to the
Net.  Ie to use an old term, in a place were people are already alienated from action, then talk may well be the only action people are 
willing to take or risk.

But as i suggested earlier this may also vary with the kind of social 
action we are discussing, and the kind of resistances to it. It is not
necessarily an all or nothing thing.

Ie with Dean, it seems much easier to find the mainstream media's 
coverage of the 'i have a scream' thing and how it disqualifies him
in some people's eyes, than to find out anything about what he 
actually said.  That probably has something to do with already 
established powers.

jon



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