alrao> Message: 4 alrao> Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 08:45:48 -0600 alrao> To: air-l@aoir.org alrao> From: Steve Jones <sjones@uic.edu> alrao> Subject: Re: [Air-l] FC: How anti-Iraq war protesters employed technology, alrao> from NYT alrao> Reply-To: air-l@aoir.org snip alrao> before it in this regard: One is the internet's relative alrao> instantaneity, another its reach to so many people, and another is alrao> the inherent "copy-ability" of internet communication (e.g., the ease alrao> of forwarding, posting). Which of these matters most, or are they all alrao> equal? And what I'd like to know more than that: Is there something alrao> else, something about the internet as a medium, that makes it more alrao> than a faster/broader medium in comparison to what has come before it? It seems to me that reach is unprecedented, together with instantaneity, or at least fastness, in that we have a worldwide (at least at major cities level) communication. Another aspect is that even if the security agencies do monitor, the traffic is, when it occurs, relatively safe for the actors, compared with the level of control, cut and counter-action that was exposed in using previous tools. I remember a time when the only outside link in an African country in situations of "crisis" was telex and all tlex messages were passing through a special office of the Ministry of interior. No single aspect is imo decisive, it is the combination of all of them that makes the difference. But may be one may add another key factor, blue sky (when it is still blue) hypothesis: the sense of a worldwide community created in part by the other formal characteristics, and also by an emotional sense of belonging to a cybercommunity, which is, delete as appropriate, new, different, promising, etc. Michel