Robert, I wonder if putting a medium-size power like Turkey on the spot, when the drive for war originates with the U.S., is the right approach. Shouldn't people rather be emailing and faxing the White House, Congress, and Senate, rather than Turkey and other NATO countries? Turkey isn't the problem! The U.S. is the problem. Living as I do in another reluctant allied country, I know how the U.S. can seek to disadvantage and even economically damage countries that dissent from its "leadership". The Bush administration doesn't care what the rest of us outside of the U.S. think, but if a couple of million Americans emailed and faxed their disapproval, the Washington gang would have to take note.........Alex alex.kuskis@utoronto.ca ----- Original Message ----- From: "robert m. tynes" <rtynes@u.washington.edu> To: <air-l@aoir.org> Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2003 3:36 PM Subject: [Air-l] the Internet and global political action - TURKEY

This is a forward off of an anti-war pro-peace listserv:

Turkey is currently in hot and heavy negotiations with the US Administration over the use of Turkish territory for a "northern front" against Iraq. Please contact them and ask them to refuse the use of their territory for a war against Iraq. (ACTION REQUESTED)

Please contact Turkish embassies and consulates in your vicinity by sending delegations, fax and e-mail messages AND send faxes and e- mail messages to officials in Ankara.

Below is a sample message. Feel free to send it as is or, better still, to add your own comments. The contacts/addresses for your messages and/or delegations are below. In solidarity, Peace Initiative of Turkey

We will appreciate it if you forward a copy of your messages to us at the following address: peaceturkey@yahoo.com

I am concerned that the discussion on the AIR list has moved from question of the impact on internet technology on global politics and activism to politics. Who should be emailed what etc. I am quite certain that a variety of political views exist on this list. I think posting for ignoring the threat posed by the fascist Iraq Baath party, appeasement, peace sit-ins, happenings, new forms of containment, military intervention, regime change, or war is an inappropriate use of the list!!! Thank You Quentin

At 17:25 Uhr -0500 20.2.2003, Quentin (Gad) Jones wrote:

I am quite certain that a variety of political views exist on this list. I think posting for ignoring the threat posed by the fascist Iraq Baath party, appeasement, peace sit-ins, happenings, new forms of containment, military intervention, regime change, or war is an inappropriate use of the list!!!

I would like to discuss how Internet research could be done on the following Web site: http://typhoon.wcp.muohio.edu/union.html ;-) --u

Concerning the question of appropriateness, when AoIR got its start (not so many years ago) and air-l ran on my little server my goal was to let the community fend for itself concerning appropriateness of postings, and I believe the AoIR executive committee has taken a similarly laissez-faire approach (with one exception when we had to remove a person from the list). My strong preference is to continue to let the community set its standards as it goes. Concerning the issue of air-l being "essentially a social science list," in my (emphatic) opinion it is most certainly not that. It is a list to which are subscribed social scientists, artists, musicians, lawyers, doctors, humanities scholars, journalists, marketing professionals, academics of all stripes (undergraduate students through to emeritus faculty), all of whom (I think) are trying to make sense of what the internet does and what we (insert your definition of "we" here) do with it. In short, I've learned something from virtually every posting to air-l (excluding perhaps the aforementioned incident requiring removal of a subscriber, but even then I think I learned some things). Thanks, Sj At 10:40 PM +0000 2/20/03, SocAdmin wrote:

Isn't this essentially a social science list? That just happens to pertain to the internets impact etc?

...

From this particular member I find any 'social' discussion that even touches on the internet (as the posts in question did) is relevent, and I should imagine that all on this list are mature enough and level headed enough to not start a full on flame war. A discussion group will go little way to discussion if people cannot 'discuss'.

With regard to the msg in question however, I'm all for being pro-active in these temultuous times, but do you actually believe the power of email is so great it will make any difference? I am assuming all messages will be promptly deleted. :o(

Angela VERY Happy with the list and it's varied and interesting content. --------------------------- Sociopranos - Society Redefined: All new members welcome! www.sociopranos.com eLearning, ICT and Social Inclusion Discussion Forum http://bbs.odeluce.stir.ac.uk

----- Original Message ----- From: "Quentin (Gad) Jones" <qgjones@acm.org> To: <air-l@aoir.org> Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2003 10:25 PM Subject: [Air-l] Is this What the Air List Is For????

...

I am concerned that the discussion on the AIR list has moved from question of the impact on internet technology on global politics and activism to politics. Who should be emailed what etc.

I am quite certain that a variety of political views exist on this list. I think posting for ignoring the threat posed by the fascist Iraq Baath party, appeasement, peace sit-ins, happenings, new forms of containment, military intervention, regime change, or war is an inappropriate use of the list!!!

Thank You Quentin

_______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l@aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l

_______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l@aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l

Dear Gina and all: In response to Gina's -

From the research I've seen, emails aren't taken as seriously as handwritten notes or letters in one's own words. And emails don't get covered by the New York Times; marches of over 100,000 get covered by the New York Times (and the same is true for other cities and their hometown papers and marches -- good turnouts lead to coverage).

Several points I'd like to make: 1. I think that we might want to put aside past research on the effects of e-mails in a political process. Maybe it's better to just observe what is happening - what do e-mails to gov't officials do? maybe they don't get read? but is that the point? could they be jamming devices, designed to overload the system in conjunction with all the other forms of protest, such as marches? And, yes, it is true that the NYT covered the marches but not the e-mails; but that might mean that marches have entered into the state institutional apparatus; hence they can be a highly controlled form of communication. and easily commodified, via newspapers E-mail bombardment, on the other hand, may be, at this stage, too chaotic to institutionalize/control. Yes, you can delete an e-mail, but that's not the unit of analysis we should look at. E-mails are not letters. 2. What happens when e-mails cross borders into other cultures? Does an e-mailing to a Turkish official really get received in the same way that an e-mailing to a US Congress person does? I've done some research with West African e-mail usage. Although there are many similarities, there are also many differences in the way that e-mail is used. So, can we make a global generalization about e-mail yet. Or, should we wait and watch some more. 3. I'm not an e-mail utopian raelian heaven's gate dude. Just someone who's not so sure that the effects of e-mail can be easily quantified. It seems much too early in the history of the history yet to happen. -robert

imho just as a matter of interest, it is not compulsory to read or reply to every message on this list - only to those that interest you if i don't want to participate in a post i do one of two things, i either delete it after reading it, or delete it without reading it what i have never done (i hope) is to reply and insist that others who are interested in the topic don't post to it denise Denise Maia Carter, CASS, University of Hull, Hull , HU6 7RX Email:denisecarter@denisecarter.net Web: http://www.denisecarter.net

On Thursday, February 20, 2003, at 05:40 PM, SocAdmin wrote:

Isn't this essentially a social science list?

not necessarily, it is an internet research list and the primary list of the association of internet researcher which has members across many disciplines as varied as mathematics and physics to information studies to philosophy, the social sciences, geography, science studies, education, etc. etc. etc. (and etc. I don't want to leave anyone out), in short, we run the whole spectrum:) internet research is an interdisciplinary study as we define it on the aoir.org site.