Posted on 01/31/2004 12:34:36 PM PST by Interesting Times
Online Activism -- that’s a hot topic right now. I know that because a New York Times reporter called me about it… which proves that it’s hot. This was about three weeks ago. And what she wanted to know is what we conservatives are going to do, now that The Amazing Doctor Dean has demonstrated that the Internet can be used for political activism.
I asked her… have you ever heard of Free Republic? --No, what’s that?
You ever hear of Town Hall? -- No.
You ever hear of ConservativeHQ.com? -- No.
She never heard of any of this stuff. So far as the New York Times knows, not only did Al Gore invent the Internet, Howard Dean invented Internet Activism. (laughter) Him and MoveOn.org.
I told her that we at Free Republic, at least, have been at this for about seven years now. Our site has ten times the traffic that MoveOn.org does, and we’ve done that without any billionaires giving us money to make it happen.
I also told her that if she knew any billionaires who would like to give us money, we could probably even get bigger.
She was stunned to find out that “conservatives” were ahead of the so-called “progressives” in making use of all this technology. She wanted to know why I thought that was.
I told her it was because people like you (meaning the New York Times) ignore everything we have to say. So we had to find another way to reach people. And we did. And now we’re ten times bigger than MoveOn.org, and you’re still ignoring what we do in order to write about them.
Let us remember the immortal words of Ronald Reagan. (changes voice to a startlingly good Reagan impersonation) It’s amazing what you can get done if you don’t care who gets the credit. (laughter)
So it’s a deal: Al Gore invented the Internet. Doctor Dean invented Internet activism. And we have the White House, both houses of Congress, and a majority of the Governorships. (applause)
In my two minutes of fame here, I want to give you a framework that you can use to think about different kinds of Internet activism, and how you can employ these things in your own work.
Particularly here in Washington, people tend to think in terms of “getting the word out.” So in one sense, the Internet can look like a new and potentially lower-cost form of broadcasting. It’s like being able to start your own station, broadcasting nationally – in fact, around the world -- for well under $100,000.
That’s an amazing thing. You couldn’t do that ten years ago. Those reporters from the New York Times pretty well had us stifled.
Not any more they don’t.
The “broadcasting model” is one end of a continuum. The other end of that continuum is populated by sites like Free Republic. We just happen to be the biggest one of these, but there are several.
There is no one at Free Republic who is “in charge” of what is going to be said today. There is no “message.” The site content is totally user-generated. So on any given day, the content reflects what conservatives “out there” – meaning waaay outside the Beltway -- are thinking about today.
So as you think about using these tools in your own work, one continuum you need to consider is where you fit on the top-down broadcasting model, vs the bottoms-up participation model. You will have different features on your web site, and you will have different kinds of work to do, depending on where you fit on that scale.
A second way to think about this is in terms of what I’ll call “wide vs deep.” You can make Internet activism extremely easy for people. Come to this site over here, push a couple buttons, and you have just emailed the entire Congress with your opposition to HR-whatever.
Didn’t that feel good? You’re an activist now. (laughter)
You can collect a lot of people doing that, but what you will collect is mostly people whose activism is a mile wide and an inch deep. You’ve made it so easy that the level of commitment required by people in order to participate, is near-zero.
Free Republic Network, and the Free Republic chapters in general, are examples of the opposite of that continuum. If you come to our booth, or the DC Chapter has their own booth here – in fact we now have a Canadian affiliate called Free Dominion that also a booth here out by the escalators -- you’ll see pictures of our folks out in the streets, causing trouble for liberals. Our Los Angeles chapter calls themselves the Hollywood Resistance force; they were out there during the Oscars making their presence felt. Our Florida chapter actually ran off Jesse Jackson one day during the “chad wars”… he had a stage and a bunch of sound equipment… but he was not expecting Freepers with bullhorns that were louder than his speakers. The DC chapter has done countless things here in town; they were out educating the tourists in front of the White House every Saturday – rain or shine --during Clinton’s second term.
During the Iraq war, we at Free Republic Network decided that we were going to attempt to assist people “out there” who wanted to show their support for the troops. So we put up a web site where they could post their events, collect a mailing list, and download things like posters and hints on how to get protest permits, how to handle the media… that kind of thing. The consequence was, there were more than hundred events around the country that came about solely because somebody “out there” took it upon themselves to do it.
We at FRN do not claim credit for this phenomenon. We did not organize those people… we did not pay them. It was a spontaneous effort by hundreds of people around the United States who wanted to do something to show the troops that those ANSWER rallies were not the “voice of the American people.” All we did was provide them a vehicle to get them through the mechanics. We consider it wonderful example of what can get done if you don’t care who gets the credit.
So that’s the other continuum you need to think about… is your cause better served by providing organization and the leadership, and accepting the fact that the people who seem to be joining your cause are probably not all that committed to it…. Or is your cause one that is better off with a smaller number of highly committed, fairly entrepreneurial, local activists who can be facilitated, but who cannot really be led. They will take suggestions, but if this is the kind of activism you need, you have to recognize that you’re going to be herding cats, and that cannot be a top-down directed activity.
In closing, let me suggest that as you approach Internet Activism as something your group is going to do, think about where you fit in this space – the wide vs deep continuum, and the top-down vs bottoms-up continuum. And let me be clear that it is important that someone on “our side of the aisle” occupy every region of this space. It is not that one end or the other of these continua are better than the other, it is that the population out there is segmented in that way. There are people out there who will come to a web site and send a fax or an email, who will never make a sign out of posterboard and go stand in the streets with it. Those are different people, and no one site is ever going to get them all. “We” – meaning conservatives, need somebody to occupy every region of Internet Activism space.
So figure out where your group fits, and go occupy your space, because as a movement, we need that. We need to address every kind of potential conservative activist out there, and make sure they have a home on the web. (applause)
Hey, The NY Times needs *you*... :)>
LOL...I can see her article now. "Conservative group uses internet to spread hate and fear..."
As usual, Darlie & I couldn't break away from our 0cents.com booth and unfortunately missed Bob's speech.
Moveon.org sponsored a candidate against Mark Foley, US Congressman (West Palm Beach, FL) back in 2002. The Palm Beach Post gave the candidate front page, above the fold coverage.
The URL for moveon.org was printed 9 times in the article!
I made a formal complaint to the editor as they steadfastly refused to print FreeRepublic.com time & time again when we would do some type of activism in they readership area. They would always refer to us as a "conservative web site".
Oh, never received a response...why am I not surprised?
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