david silver wrote:

please contact matt falloon if interested ...

If you could give his address ..

---------- Forwarded message ----------

my name is matt falloon. i am a trainee journalist at city university, london, uk, currently researching the growth, background and characteristics of email community action groups.

i recently came across a group in london who are of mixed demography and who have joined together in an email list to lobby local government on issues of planning and licensing as well as environmental issues and other things of community concern. although they meet up occasionally, most of the action is done by collective email.

i wonder if you could point me to someone, or perhaps yourself, who could answer a couple of questions for an article i am trying to put together.

1) how common is this activity now? when did they really take off?

2) why do they work so well?

Do they? What means - working well? Chatting about politics? Changing political agendas? Or producing political outcomes ?

3) does the internet represent the forum for future mass political action?

Stalin once asked: How many batallions has the pope? In the long run, history proved the question to be stupid. In the short run, he was right. Today, I would say: How many votes did the winner get through the Internet at the last election? But in the long run ??? Mass political action produces political impact when you see people on the street, and on the TV screen, and at ballot boxes. Internet (or email?) is an additional communication tool which might reduce the weight of the other political communication means, but not fundamentally. So, it does not represent THE forum.

4) is the internet allowing people to get into politics and voice their opinions once again and perhaps in a more proactive way then before?

Technically speaking, it allows that, though politically speaking I'd say: why should a technical tool, a communication means, change political motivation, political convictions? People don't engage in politics, as they don't see their ideas represented by today's political movements. They see that influencing a political decision needs a large investment. If a political movement can motivate (the basic condition) AND provide an easy going comm tool at the same time (the secondary condition), you might get people to act more proactively. See the mobile mobs at Seattle, at Genoa. A change of technology alone does nothing.