Dear Chuck: There have been two books published in the last year or so that are a good place to start: 1)Future Active: Media Activism and the Internet by Graham Meikle (Routledge, 2002)and Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael Ayers (Routledge, 2003). Both cover the most well-known articulations of the Internet as medium of communication and mobilization with social movements on the RL side of the screen (i.e. anti-globalization, Zapatistas). I like the former book because it also address the WWW itself as a terrain for social movements with its own distinct identities, strategies, and tactics (i.e. Hactivism and Electronic Civil Disobedience). And since you asked for observations I will offer one: it is very important to take an instrumental stance towards the relationship between "new media" and social movements, that is, media as something that either affects social movements from the outside or, conversely, new media as tool that social movements utilize to achieve this or that goal or objective. New media, like all media, can be constitutive of the very shape, identity and practices of social movements. I think the anti-globalization movement is very good example of the constuitive role of new media. A couple of good web sites that will lead you to other examples are: 1) Citizen Lab at http://www.citizinlab.org. Citizen Lab "is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada focusing on advanced research and development at the intersection of digital media and world civic politics" that is headed by Prof. Ron Deibert (you can eben see Prof. Deibert eat his lunch via web cam); 2)The Interactivist Info Exchange at http://slash.autonomedia.org. Thef ormer, obviosuly, has a scholarly bent and the latter an activist one but neither is exclusively one or the other. I am sure that others on the list will have many other suggestions as well. Good luck. Andrew Herman

For a chapter on 21st century social movements, I would welcome papers, bibliographies, crucial citations, or observations on how the availability and employment of electronic media have affected the organization and practices of recent social movements. I promise acknowledgments for items I use.

Chuck T.

-- Charles Tilly Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science, Columbia University Office 514 Fayerweather Hall, letters and packages 413 Fayerweather Hall, Mail Code 2552, Columbia University, New York 10027-7001, USA telephone 212 854 2345, fax 212 854 2963, electronic ct135@columbia.edu

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