Public Participation and Information Technologies 1999
Published by CITIDEP & DCEA-FCT-UNL, edited by Pedro Ferraz de Abreu & João Joanaz de Melo
© CITIDEP 2000

Chapter 4
Impact of PP-IT in organizations and public administration


Are Deep South Grassroots on the Internet ?

Lucie LAURIAN

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3140;
Department of City and Regional Planning, New East, CB# 31140
Email: lucie_laurian@unc.edu

 

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the role of information technologies for grassroots organizations and particularly their function for enhancing democratic participation and expression of political and environmentalist concerns. In this paper, I first present the background of this paper by briefly reviewing the literature on IT and participatory democracy. Second, I describe the information-technology resources available to grassroots environmental groups, as well as to political student-lead activist groups in the state of North Carolina, U.S.A. I also compare how these groups actually use (and in some instances don't use) these resources. And finally, I discuss how information-technology resources have enhanced --and have the potential to further enhance-- citizen participation in local policy-making decision processes.

 

INTRODUCTION

This paper focuses on the role of information technologies (IT) for grassroots organizations and particularly their function for enhancing democratic participation and expression of political and environmentalist concerns. This paper will not deal with the large issues of corporatization of the media, the concentration of media ownership, the potential for the control of contents of electronic services, or the issue of information overload. Rather, it will deal with access to IT, use of IT, and the difference IT makes in citizens' mobilization efforts.

Different views about the effects of IT on politics have been proposed: (1) the ongoing communication revolution will change the traditional political processes, (2) given the information-based economy, it is essential that political institutions be decentralized and flexible to preserve democracy, (3) we will become different people because of computers, and (4) although it may bring new sorts of risks, IT have a great potential for democratic discourse because they can be used to guarantee equal access to information, tying individuals and institutions into networks that make discussion and debate possible. I will focus on the latter view, proposed by Benjamin Barber (1988). To determine whether this potential is realized at the local level, I will consider selected grassroots groups and movements in North Carolina, USA, and I will compare the use they actually make of IT.

North Carolina is in the southern United States. It is a rural state where the dominant productions have historically been cotton and tobacco, but now hog farming is one of the largest industries. It is a conservative state, which every six years elects Jessie Helms, the most conservative senator in the US Senate. Workers in the state have extremely low rates of union participation, and public employees have no right to collectively bargain. In contrast with the rural regions of the state, the center of North Carolina hosts the Research Triangle Park, a high tech research center installed between three universities: North Carolina State in Raleigh, Duke University in Durham and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In this context, I will present and contrast the use of IT by two different kinds of groups in North Carolina: Environmental Justice grassroots groups and a student movement. The student movement I will describe took place in the campus of the university of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to oppose the use of sweatshop labor in the production of university apparel (e.g., caps, T-shirts, sweat-shirts) baring the UNC logo. The - now national-Environmental Justice movement emerged in the 1980s in North Carolina from the struggle of an African American community in Warren County to oppose the siting of a hazardous waste landfill. The Environmental Justice movement is a reaction to the fact that minority and poor communities are more often chosen to host polluting industries and waste disposal facilities, and generally African- American and poor Americans live in areas more polluted than their wealthier and white counterparts. The goal of the Environmental Justice movement is therefore to ensure that minority and poor people are not overburdened by pollution. Environmental Justice grassroots groups are local groups which are mobilized to protect the quality of their local environment while adopting the view that race and class matter in the geographic distribution of pollution.

 

I. BACKGROUND: IT AND PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

I will focus on the effect of IT on citizens' groups or movements, i.e., on civil society.

The concept of civil society is based on Hegel's view of civil society as society without its state component, and simultaneously as society in the process of formation or transformation of the state. It is important, following Gramsci, that civil society, as a political realm, is distinct from the economic sphere. Furthermore, going back to Tocqueville, civil society in the U.S. refers mostly to political associations. From this point of view, civil society refers to the domain of civil rights and freedom, as guaranteed and protected by the state (Splichal, Calabrese and Sparks, 1994). Social movements, the keystone of bottom-up political action in the U.S., are therefore the embodiment of the civil society at work.

Habermas regrets the erosion of the public sphere, which would result from the entry of the state (under the economic conditions of advanced, or corporate, capitalism). He also laments that economically powerful corporate "legal persons" displace and reduce the role of private citizens when "large corporations strive for political compromises with the state and with each other, excluding the public sphere whenever possible," while at the same time attempting to "assure themselves at least plebiscitary support from the mass of the population through an apparent display of openness" (Habermas, 1974, p.54). While a very true comment, it is important to note that, in some instances, private citizens organize into grassroots groups and build up movements to intervene in political decision-making processes, especially at the local level. Marcuse also was pessimistic when he argued that IT would make freedom and opposition increasingly impossible (Marcuse, 1967). I will show in this paper that in some instances, IT are indeed a useful tool for grassroots movements.

All victories in the building of democratic societies have been the result of long and painful struggles, armed struggles, legal challenges, political mobilization, civil disobedience, etc. and these efforts are always met by resistance of government, state and/or business before improvements are made. In this sense, and despite general stereotypes, the U.S. left is not very different from the European one, and as when Tocqueville wrote, there are strong intellectual and moral associations in America. Tocqueville was impressed by the impulse he found among Americans to organize around any number of causes and interests limited in scope. This would still impress him today: there are tens of thousands of local and national associations in the U.S. Their civil-rights type struggles may not be "seen on TV" too often, but they are taking place throughout the US, even in the so called "apathetic Nineties." Grassroots Environmental Justice groups are one type of such local political grassroots groups usually encompassing environmental justice goals, sometimes including racial and social justice as broader goals. Some student groups are also politically active, and tend to focus on a limited set of issues.

 

Are Citizens Empowered by IT?

Some argue that IT can be empowering as the information-poor potentially become information- rich, and as increases in communication and contacts between people potentially widens expectations of a more participatory democracy (Williams and Pavlik, 1994). Others see IT as a tool for restoring a sense in local community vitality. Finally, new modes of communication may also have the potential to create alternative institutions to challenge the status quo (Perelman, 1998). Perelman, however, seems pessimistic as he writes: " ... alas, I do not see any evidence that such developments represent a substantial threat to the corporate dominance of capitalist societies" (Michael Perelman,1998 p.11). One of the main reasons why IT may not increase citizens participation and democracy is the issue of access to IT, and therefore of access to information. Pavlik emphasizes the importance of increasing the access of the poor to IT because "Numerous studies have demonstrated that increases in the flow of information often widen the gap between the rich and the poor" (Pavlik in Williams, 1994, p.144)

While rich and middle class families can provide computer access to their children, children from poor families are less likely to have access to computers. The cost of computer in the U.S. is about $800 to $1,000 and Internet access costs about $20 per month. Despite the steady decrease in computer prices, these are still high amounts for poor families. Children from poor families are therefore less likely have a computer at home, to develop computer skills and to have access to the same type of information as children from richer families. Furthermore, specific training and skills are necessary to use IT, and wealthy and middle class individuals are more likely to develop the appropriate skills than the poor (Michael Perelman, 1998, p.11). This gap is reinforced by the fact that rich and middle class children are more likely to go to schools that provide hands-on computer training and Internet access than children from poor neighborhoods (Schiller, 1995).

 

Is IT Absolutely Necessary?

Is access to and use of IT absolutely necessary to contemporary the success of social movements? Although Murdoch probably didn't have grassroots social movements in mind when he said that "the information age is like a steamroller. Either you get on it or you become part of the pavement." This paper addresses the question whether this harsh judgment applies to citizen groups.

James Madison, in a spirit closer to the concerns of this paper, wrote in 1822 that "A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives" (James Madison, 1822, cited in Sussman, 1997). If this is true, then the access to and use of IT by citizens groups would be crucial. Social activists have developed projects to empower communities by providing them computer access. Efforts in this direction have been made in a few American cities: Santa Monica, Glendale, and Pasadena in California, where online systems for public use have been set up. However, there seems to be no breakthrough in altering the imbalance of access to information and knowledge (Sussman, 1997). This paper now turns to observations made about the use of IT resources by a number of grassroots groups in North Carolina.

 

 

II. USE OF IT RESOURCES FOR GRASSROOTS ACTIVISM

 

1. Resources Available

In this section, I briefly describe the IT resources available to grassroots environmental action groups, as well as to political student-lead activist groups in North Carolina. I focus mostly on email and Internet-based resources.

 

What students get

College students basically have unlimited access to the Internet and are educated to use it. They know where to get and how to look for information, and are accustomed to use these skills for varieties of topics and needs. Students also have access to university networks and make great use of email listserves. Each student group has one or several listservs. Groups post on their own listserv as well on the lists of other close groups when they need assistance or announce some event. Listservs are very active as students typically open and read their email several times a day. Furthermore, members of groups usually post information on the listservs of various groups. This ensures the communication of information from group to group. As a rule, students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have access to any IT they can justify a use of.

 

Environmental Justice resources on the Internet

After an extensive search, I have counted about 120 different Environmental Justice (EJ) sites on the World Wide Web. This includes: various list of resources, directories of EJ groups, bibliographies, databases; organizational, governmental and commercial sites (e.g., think tanks, institutes for civil justice); U.S. companies and national organizations; US government sites (e.g., Health Institutes, Department of Energy, White House, Department of Defense); Environmental Protection Agency sites with the Office of EJ and the National EJ advisory council; international resources; academic sites; community groups and non-profit organizations including Native American groups, African American groups, Hispanic groups, Asian and Pacific Islanders groups; and specific stories (speeches, texts, newspaper, TV and radio reporting); resources on the health effects of pollution and epidemiology; and strategies, solutions and approaches to fight environmental injustice (e.g., political and legal battles and strategies, GIS mapping resources).

One extensive bibliography on the Environmental Inequality includes a list of publications which deal with EJ, the discussion of cases of environmental racism, statistical studies showing the disparity in number of toxic sites in minority and poor communities and those in white and wealthy communities, case studies of specific mobilization efforts. An annotated bibliography, "Fighting environmental racism: a selected annotated bibliography" defines environmental racism, and summarizes the main reports providing evidence of environmental injustice, describing mobilization strategies etc. This resource may be most useful to groups trying to document or to make the case that their community is affected by environmental injustice or racism. Finally, the Internet also provides a valuable networking tool in the form of a list of all EJ local groups by region in the US, "the People of Color Environmental Groups Directory" published on the Internet by EcoJustice Network. Groups can get in contact with other groups in their region and share their concerns, strategies, and/ or support each other.

Great resources are available to students and EJ grassroots groups, and can potentially enhance their mobilization capacity and effectiveness.

 

2. The Use of IT: What is actually going on?

Given the potential importance given to IT for local participatory democracy, and given the importance of the resources available to groups, it is necessary to investigate how grassroots groups actually use these resources. I will contrast the use of IT resources by EJ grassroots groups and by a student movement.

 

Use by EJ grassroots

In North Carolina alone, there are 27 groups who deal, solely or partly with issues of EJ. Sixteen are local grassroots groups and this paper will focus on them only. It is important however to know that local groups have access to, and potential support from, larger organizations. Four of these are not place-based and work throughout the state: the United Church of Christ Commission on Racial Justice which published the first report raising the issue of environmental injustice, the Clean Water Fund, which supports and advises many EJ groups, North Carolina Fair Share, and the Environmental Science Program of North Carolina State University. Three groups focus mainly on farmer's issues (United Farmers organization, the Land Loss Prevention Project and the Farm Workers Project), and three groups focus mostly on economic justice (Southerners for Economic Justice, Black Workers for Justice and the Center for Women's Economic Alternatives).

Of the sixteen local grassroots groups, twelve could be contacted by phone and interviewed about their use of computers in general, and email and the Internet in particular. They were asked whether they use email on a regular basis for the activities of the group, how they inform their members about meeting time (whether by direct contact, phone, email, or other means), whether they obtain information useful to the group on the Internet, whether they put information out via the Internet, and whether their group has a web page.

 

Based on these interviews:

Six out of twelve groups don't use email on a regular basis. Of the six groups who use email on a regular basis, only two use address lists to send a message to all members of the group simultaneously. The six groups who don't use email use mostly the phone and face to face meetings to communicate with members.

In terms of Internet use, six groups use the Internet a lot, four use it sometimes, and two groups never access the web. Of the ten groups who use the Internet at least sometime, six groups use the Internet only to get information, and four groups use the Internet to obtain information and to put information out (including through a web page). Examples given of Internet use were: to get information on Grants (one group obtained an EPA Environmental Justice Small Grant), to obtain precise information about the effects of pollution on health, and to get statistical data in a GIS mappable format to show trends in environmental injustice.

Among the groups who never or very seldom use computers, one indicated as a main reason that the group members are old and don't have the skills to use computers, and four groups indicated the lack of access as a reason for the little use of computers. Only one group indicated that they didn't need computers, email or the Internet.

Half of the groups use email on a regular basis, indicating that email has become a widespread and useful tool to grassroots groups. The Internet has also proved to be useful to some groups mostly as a way of accessing information (only one third of the groups also use it to share information).

As presented above, the use of IT by grassroots is extremely variable. Half the groups rely on email and Internet access for their routine business. Others only use these resources at specific moments (e.g., when they need specific information). Yet, other groups never use any IT other than phone. Most of these latter groups cite the lack of access or skills for this (only one group indicates that they don't need these tools). It is easy to understand how local groups don't need computer-based IT on a daily basis. Most include members who know each other, are neighbors, and see each other often, and most use the phone to communicate within the group and with other groups. Furthermore, when they mobilize citizens, Environmental Justice groups tend to use techniques that don't involve IT, such as attending public hearings, signing petitions, mailing postcards to elected officials, and sometimes civil disobedience. Access and lack of access to IT may not affect the effectiveness of mobilization efforts for most groups.

However, networking among groups is done both by mail and email, and groups who never use email may be at a disadvantage in terms of contacts and potential support by other groups.

Furthermore, lack of frequent access to the Internet may put a group at a disadvantage. There are many programs to support grassroots mobilization efforts, and eventually to increase their access to IT. These include grants from private foundations (e.g., Z Smith Reynolds), as well as government programs, such as the EPA Environmental Justice Small Grant Program, the EPA Technical Assistance Grant program for communities around toxic "Superfund" sites (which enables groups to hire an expert), or the US. Department of Agriculture Technical Assistance Grants for small farmers. However, when the government provides a service that can enhance mobilization capacity and/or access to IT, most of the information about these resources is announced via the Internet. Groups who use the Internet do benefit from these resources. Groups who don't use the Internet must rely on mailed documentation. Mailed documentation is sent to large groups, but often does not reach local grassroots groups. Thus, groups who don't have access to the Internet won't necessarily know about these opportunities. This may mean that groups which have most access to IT and uses it most are also the groups which will receive most support from the government and non-profits, will have access to more information and advice with regard to strategy, and may be more effective in their mobilization efforts.

 

Use of IT by student anti sweatshop movement: the 1960s revisited

The students' anti-sweatshop protest is best qualified as a Civil Rights-type protest revisited in the 1990s. Students for Economic Justice, an undergraduate student group at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is requesting that the University: (1) should request that companies that produce UNC apparel fully disclose the locations where the products are manufactured (2) should not contract with any company that uses sweat-shop labor or that doesn't pay a living wage, and (3) adopts an independent monitoring procedure to verify working conditions in factories that produce UNC apparel.

The context of this movement is a "conventional" student protest, with students presenting a set of demands to their administration, trying to talk and negotiate with the administration, and after one year of non-productive discussions through a Task Force group, heated the protest. The protest has taken a traditional aspect, with marches in front of administration buildings, with home made banners and posters, walks through campus with public announcements, flyers on walls, announcements in classrooms, etc. The pressure was increased through the organization of a sit-in in the administrative building. Civil disobedience was seriously considered as students discussed the possibility of occupying the chancellor's office.

When it comes to the techniques used, however, the students' group used all IT available, and in a university setting, this means a lot... Information Technologies were used for media outreach as press releases were sent out to local TV and radio stations and to local, regional and national newspapers sometimes several times a day by email and fax.

IT was massively used to gather support from local and national personalities. The Internet was used to get the contact emails, fax or phone numbers of senators and personalities. Senators, and House representatives were contacted by phone and fax. Emails were distributed widely to get support from people across the nation. The support of a local House Representative was greatly appreciated. It is interesting to note that her phone call, because it seemed more personal, was more appreciated than most emails. However, when Noam Chomsky emailed the group a letter of support, this letter had a very significant impact for the group morale (and sense of pride) and for the group's credibility.

IT was used to a very large extent to establish and maintain contacts within a broader network of student groups in other universities going through, or having gone through, similar struggles (including Brown University, University of Michigan, University of Arizona). Emails too were sent to numerous listservs to get the word out quickly about each significant progress to a national network of universities. They in turn encouraged U of Arizona where the sit in lasted 10 days. Members of other groups across the country emailed back encouraging messages, shared their experience, suggested strategies etc. but again, phone calls were the most appreciated contacts...

The movement's web page was updated after every significant event to keep other groups informed about the state of negotiations and the results of meetings with the administration. Nothing concerning the strategy of the movement was put on the Web because the group knew that the administration was checking the web site on a regular basis from the other side of the closed door. Because the sit-in was in the administrative building, the group was weary about depending on phone lines to communicate with "the outside world." Cell phones were used so that the lines wouldn't cut. Now this doesn't look like the 1960s anymore! Finally, students have access to rather advanced technology: the sit in was broadcast over the web in real time. This was I believe the first sit-in to be broadcast online in real time for the world to watch. And then again, nothing replaces the phone: the group received phone calls from supporters telling they were watching the sit-in on the web.

This rather traditional civil-rights-type student movement made heavy use of IT for publicity, media outreach, networking efforts, and took on a whole different aspect from most sit-ins. It is impossible to know whether IT played a part on the success of the movement, but we can be sure that the local media wouldn't have followed the movement so closely, that Chomsky wouldn't have sent his support, and that the New York times wouldn't have published a piece on this student movement if it wasn't for the heavy use of many different ITs.

CONCLUSIONS

IT other than phone is not absolutely necessary for grassroots movements to mobilize and be effective. Some groups don't, or very seldom, use any IT other than phone, and are able to function. Grassroots and students struggles are quite "traditional" in form. However, these struggles have the potential to be much more effective with the use of IT because it increases (1) the capacity to obtain resources (e.g., grants), (2) the ability to network with other groups or personalities and benefit from their experience and their support, (3) the ability to publicize the struggle to a wider population via email and to the media via the ease of sending press releases or information to many destinations simultaneously. IT therefore have enhanced --and have the potential to further enhance--the effectiveness of citizen mobilization and participation to bottom-up local policy-making decision processes.

Although access to information-technologies is unevenly distributed in the population - some groups don't have any access at all- they appear to greatly enhance citizen mobilization capacity. The increasing availability of public access sites (e.g., in schools or public libraries) has the potential to radically change the nature and impact of community mobilization.

 

References

Barber, Benjamin (1988). "Pangloss, Pandora or Jefferson: 3 scenarios for the future of technology and democracy" in IT: The Public Issues, by R. Plant, F. Gregory and A. Brier (eds.) Manchester University Press, London.

Calabrese, Andrew (1994). "Free speech in America: contemporary social movements and the politics of representation" in Information Society and Civil Society, by Splichal, Calabrese and Sparks (eds.). Indiana: Purdue University Press, West Lafayette University, Indiana.

Habermas, J. (1974). The Public Sphere. New German Critique. Vol. 3, pp.49-55.

Marcuse (1967). One-dimensional Man. Beacon Press, Boston.

Perelman, Michael (1998). Class Warfare in the Information Age. St Martin Press

Schiller (1995). Information Inequality: the Deepening Social Crisis in America. Routledge, New York.

Splichal, Calabrese and Sparks (1994). Information society and civil society. Purdue University Press, West Lafayette University, Indiana.

Sussman, Gerald. (1997). Communication, Technology and Politics in the Information Age, Sage Publishers.

Williams, Frederick and John Pavlik (1994). The People's Right to Know. Media, Democracy and the Information Highway. Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ.