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Article Excerpt
THIS PAPER PRESENTS AN ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION, based largely on the results of an on-line survey, of one of Canada's first, longest-lived, and most successful feminist discussion lists. PAR-L, a bilingual electronic network of individuals and organizations interested in feminist action and research on policy issues in Canada, was founded as an e-mail list in March 1995 by the former Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women (CACSW), where the two principal authors of this paper were employed. Our main goal was to provide a space where community- and university-based researchers and activists across Canada could come together to exchange information, discuss ideas, and create closer links with one another. When the CACSW was closed down, we moved the list to the University of New Brunswick. Supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (1997-2005), PAR-L developed a Web site (www/unb.ca/PAR-L) and a network of Partners. PAR-L's mission is to promote women's equality by using electronic means for discussing and distributing feminist research and strategies for action in English and French. PAR-L's importance to the women's movement in Canada is indicated by quantitative measures--subscribers to the e-mail list number over 1,500, the list archives contain 15,000 messages posted over the decade 1995-2005, and PAR-L Partners include 21 Canadian feminist research organizations--and by qualitative ones--PAR-L is identified as a "life-line," a "key resource," and even "a national treasure" by survey respondents.
The 2002 survey had two main objectives: 1) to assess the effectiveness of PAR-L as a tool for feminist activism; and 2) to get feedback from subscribers. Our report is based on data collected from questionnaires posted to the list in the spring and fall of 2002. Part 1 presents a brief literature review about how the Internet is used by activists as a means of achieving greater equality and democratic participation for marginalized groups. In Part 2, we analyse the results of our survey in light of these claims. Our analyses show that the cohabitation of differences within a virtual space creates tensions. However, it also functions as a resource for enhancing democratic communication within the women's movement and for fostering self-understanding and well-being among participants.
On-line Activism
How can information and communication technologies contribute to achieving the goals, generally shared by feminists, of changing existing structures of power in politics, the economy and culture, and also of taking a critical look at power relations in everyday life and in the practice of feminism itself?. In a review of social science and feminist literature published in recent years, we identified three "social goods" that are usually associated with Internet use.
First, the Internet is seen as a source of empowerment for groups that have been marginalized and isolated (Engel and Fisher, 1998), especially small groups that "now have communicative capabilities that hitherto have been available only to large, powerful organizations" (Zelwietro, 1998: 45). Second, the Internet is presented as a means of achieving a "true democracy" (Gersch, 1998), in which larger segments of society are better equipped to participate in debates about issues affecting their lives. The Internet thus holds out a promise of "wider and more effective citizen participation in public affairs" (Klein, 1999: 213). Third, the Internet is seen as giving rise to new types of communities, which potentially counterbalance contemporary tendencies towards individualization and isolation.
These communities are usually seen as anchored in common interests, rather than being based on primary relations of blood, geography and memory, and as strengthening social ties within civil society (Scott-Dixon, 1999). These social goods--empowerment, democracy and community--are achieved through several means. Foremost among these is the increased capability of marginalized groups to "access, use, create and disseminate information" (Kutner, 2000: 1). Provided that they have access to computers, individuals and small organizations acquire vastly increased means of finding information, regardless of its physical location, and of making their perspectives available to larger audiences. The Internet is often presented as an "alternative news medium" (Abbott, 2001: 105), which alleviates some of the financial and gate-keeping barriers associated with print media. Analysts thus stress the decentralization of information flows (Zelwietro, 1998).
A second means to the attainment of social goods comes from the Internet's interactive applications (listservs and bulletin boards)--public forums where members can engage one another. They provide spaces where participants "can affirm, support, and respectfully critique each other's work" (Poxon and O'Grady, 1999: 123). These applications are sometimes presented as democracy in action, since they "allow creators to control how they speak, write, and inhabit discursive space" (Scott-Dixon, 1999: 131). They provide "safe spaces" (Bury, 1999) in which marginalized groups can develop voices of their own. Internet forums such as PAR-L thus offer a potential for the realization of loose forms of deliberative democracy (Young, 2000) based on ideals of inclusion, equality, mutual respect and non-domination. Finally, a third means of attaining social goods is the networking capabilities built into the Internet that make it easier for individuals and groups with limited financial and human resources to create and maintain contacts across geographical and social spaces (Zelwietro, 1998; Scott-Dixon, 1999) and to expand and strengthen social and professional networks (Knouse and Webb, 2001). A well-publicized example of the impact of the Internet as a tool for activism is the negotiations surrounding the failed adoption of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 1998. The Internet (including PAR-L) was used as a source of empowerment for MAI's opponents, fostered democratic discussion of the MAI's implications, and is largely credited for stopping the agreement (George, 2000).
Among the forces that threaten the attainment of these social goods are various forms of external and internal exclusion (Young, 2000). External exclusion refers to processes that keep people from participating in on-line forums, as manifested in the persistent digital divide between rich and poor, North and South, "a wired core and a less wired periphery" (Abbott, 2001: 100). These continuing inequalities in access and use have led some analysts to the pessimistic conclusion that "Internet activism is predominantly an elite pastime" (Abbott, 2001: 111). Against the wildly optimistic predictions of early commentators, it is now clear that information and communication technologies do not magically abolish existing social, economic and cultural inequalities. In a content analysis of selected Web sites opposed to the MAI in France and in Quebec, for example, Eric George (2002) shows that the quality and quantity of information offered is a direct function of the economic resources and moral authority of the organizations sponsoring the sites. This problem is further compounded by the increasing commercialization and privatization of the Internet, as small progressive organizations are now competing for space with large corporations that are better equipped to provide content and publicize their sites (Hargittai, 2000; Abbott, 2001).
Analyses of the dynamics of exchanges on electronic forums show the existence of various forms of internal exclusion, whereby people are prevented from effective participation in discussions. Far from being a "radically fluid, even anarchic, platform for communication" (Poxon and O'Grady, 1999: 124), where everyone intervenes on an equal footing, these forums tend to reproduce patterns of dominance and subordination. Social inequalities linked, for example, to gender (Herring, 1996) and formal qualifications (George, 2002) strongly influence whose voice predominates in discussions. Other factors include level...
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