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ELECTRONIC ACTIVISM ON THE INTERNET Faculty: Harel Barzilai

In this course, students will use the Internet as a tool with which to
explore this very medium. We will explore the Internet as a
communication and information resource generally, and as a tool for
'electronic activism' in particular. Participants will learn about
email, automated email-servers, mailing lists and list-servers, the
UseNet (the world's largest bulletin board system) ftp, gopher,
telnet, the world wide web, and more.  Homework exercises (optional,
of course) will allow participants to make this as 'hands-on' an
experience as they choose. Examples will be given, from anti-Gulf War
organizing, to more recent anti-Contract With America coalitions,
illustrating electronic activism in practice.

In addition to learning the 'tools of the trade' of electronic
activism, we will compare and discuss their relative advantages and
disadvantages for everything from coalition-building to electronic
leafleting. We will also explore the "online culture", especially on
the noncommercial and quasi-anarchic UseNet, including how UseNet and
the radical "GNU" project have provided, online, living proof of the
power of cooperative rather than competitive economics.

We will conclude by discussing the tremendous potentials, as well as
pitfalls, ahead of us on the 'information super-highway' -- from
privatization and commercialization, to the great potential of
democratizing the airwaves through internet 'virtual broadcasting'
radio (and eventually TV) stations beaming left/activist programs
directly into America's homes. The information highway offers seeds
for creating and sustaining a truly democratized media -- provided
activists take the initiative rather than leaving things to Corporate
America. Course graduates will be in the position to be actors in, not
merely spectators of, this unfolding drama.

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Faculty Bio:
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Harel Barzilai, an electronic activist since the late 1980s, is
co-founder and co-moderator of the ACTIV-L mailing list and the UseNet
newsgroup "misc.activism.progressive" (MAP), with a global readership
of 30,000 to 60,000. His _Electronic Activism: Part I_ has been
electronically published throughout the world, including being
translated into Spanish and Dutch (and in fact text-converted by
fellow LOLU faculty member Chip Berlet). Parts I and II of _Electronic
Activism_ will form the basis for the first part of the course.

He has been a volunteer/consultant for IGC (PeaceNet/EcoNet/LaborNet);
the 1992 presidential campaign of former mayor of Irvine, Larry Agran;
The Nation; Z and LBBS; FAIR; Mark Achbar (co-producer of
_Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media_) and David
Barsamian; and others. He welcomes further inquiries, including about
the course, at "harelb@igc.org".

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