COUNTERHEGEMONIC DISCOURSES AND THE INTERNET

BARNEY WARF and JOHN GRIMES

ABSTRACT. Contrary to much of the hype that posits cyberspace as the uncontested domain
of rugged individualists, computer networks and traffic exhibit deeply social and political
roots. The Internet is neither inherently oppressive nor automatically emancipatory; it is a
terrain of contested philosophies and politics. After a brief review of the politics of electronic
knowledge, we discuss the ways in which the Internet can be harnessed for counterhegemonic
(antiestablishment)political ends. We focus on progressive uses, including the confrontation
of nomadic power and rhizomic power structures, in which the local becomes the global. We
also offer an encapsulationof right-wing uses. Throughout, we see cyberactivism as a neces-
sary, but not sufficient, complement to real-world struggleson behalf of the disempowered.
Keywords: cyberspace, discourse, Internet.

ludgingfrom the number of hours that the average person watches television,
it seems that the public is electronically engaged. The electronic world, how-
ever, is by no meansfilly established, and it is time to take advantage of the
fluidity through invention, before wearelefrwith onlycritiqueasa weapon.
-Autonomedia 1995

T h e vast expansion of telecommunications-a largely unintended outcome of the

microelectronics revolution-has created numerous channels for the acquisition,
processing, and monitoring of information, an integralpart of what Manuel Castells
labels the informational mode of production (1989,1996).These systems form a
fundamental part of the growth of post-Fordist production regimes around the
world, contributing to a massive, planetary round of time-space compression (Har-
vey 1989;Hepworth 1990;Akwule 1992;Warf 1995;Graham and Marvin 1996).
The largest such system is the Internet. Incontestably, the Internet is the worlds
largest electronic network, connecting (in January 1998)an estimated 100 million
people in more than 130 countries (MIDS 1998).The origins of the Internet can be
traced back to 1969,when the U.S. Department of Defense created Arpanet, elec-
tronically connected computers whose transmission lines were designed to with-
stand a nuclear onslaught (Hafner and Lyon 1996).In 1984 Arpanet was expanded
and opened to the scientificcommunity when it was taken over by the National Sci-
ence Foundation, transmogrifymg into NSFNET,which linked five supercomputers
around the United States. Public networks have now been supplemented by a variety
of private access systems-among which, in the United States, are CompuServe,
Prodigy, and America Online-that allow any individual with a microcomputer and
a modem to plug in.
The Internet, which blossomed at a global scale thanks to its integration with
existing telephone, fiber-optic,and satellite systems,was made possible by the tech-

%J DR.WARFis a professor of geography at Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306,

where MR.GRIMES
is a doctoral candidate.
The Gcogruphicul Review 87 (2): 159-274 April 1997
Copyright 0 1997 by the American Geographical Society of New York
260 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

nological innovation of packet switching,in which individual messages are decom-

posed, transmitted by various channels, and then reassembled, virtually
instantaneously, at their destination. In the 1990s such systems have received new
scrutiny as central facets of the Clinton administrations information superhigh-
ways. Spurred by declining prices of services and equipment and unrelenting me-
dia hype, the Internet has grown at astounding rates, the number of users
worldwide doubling roughly everyyear. In an age in which the human-machine in-
terface has become difficult to define precisely,the Internet allows the electronic ex-
tension of networks that have functioned by traditional means for many years.
But what of the politics of cyberspace?Much of the Internets use, for commer-
cial, academic, and military purposes, reinforces entrenched ideologies of individu-
alism and a definition of the self through consumption. Many uses revolve around
simple entertainment, personal communication, and other ostensibly apolitical
purposes. Hegemonic uses of the Net include commercial applications (Weis 1992;
Cronin 1996), particularly advertising and shopping but also purchasing and mar-
keting, in addition to uses by public agencies that legitimateand sustain existingide-
ologies and politics as normal, necessary,or natural. Because most users view
themselves,and their uses of the Net, as apolitical,hegemonic discourses tend to be
reproduced unintentionally. Although dominant ideologies are sustained largely
outside the Internet, the growing communities of cybercitizens-Netizens-inevita-
bly bring their views on-line with them. Whenever blatant perspectives mired in ra-
cism, sexism, or other equally unpalatable ideologies pervade society at large, they
are carried into, and reproduced within, cyberspace.
The Internet can also sustain counterhegemonic discourses,challengingestab-
lished systems of domination and legitimating and publicizing political claims by
the powerless and marginalized. Counterhegernonic,in this context, refers to varied
messages from groups and individuals who refuse to take existing ideologies and
politics as normal, natural, or necessary, typically swimming against the tide of
public opinion. Increasingly easy access to e-mail and the World Wide Web allows
many politically disenfranchised groups to communicate with like-minded or
sympathetic audiences, publicizing causes often overlooked by the mainstream
media and offering perspectives frequently stifled by the conservative corporate
ownership of newspapers, television, and other media outlets. Many such outre
groups, though far from homogeneous, subscribe to opinions that are effectively
outside the mainstream and are not always taken seriously by the larger public.
Counterhegemonic is anything but synonymous with progressive: Right-wing
groups have harnessed the Internet as readily as anyone on the political left, and
perhaps more effectively so.
POWER, KNOWLEDGE,AND THE INTERNET
Early postindustrial theorists fantasized that electronic communications would be
inherently democratic,allowingequal access to data and knowledge.In this ahistori-
cal, partisan, and individualistic interpretation of power and knowledge, electronic
 COUNTERHEGEMONIC DISCOURSES 261

systemsare devoid of social roots and serve only egalitarianinterests.House Speaker

Newt Gingrich, under the sway of postindustrialist Alvin Toffler, stated in 1993 that
every child should be guaranteed a laptop computer and modem as a way to combat
poverty. Advocates have long argued that the Internet allows unfiltered, nonhierar-
chical flows of information, a raucous,highly democratic world with no overlordsor
gatekeepers and numerous countercultures of hackers (Mungo and Clough 1992;
Rheingold 1993).In the bedlam of unregulated anarchy, everyone has the right to
seek and express information electronically. One variant of this theme holds that cy-
berspace resembles the nineteenth-century American West: vast, unmapped, and le-
gally ambiguous. Wired magazine argues:
The public square of the past-with pamphleteering,soapboxes, and vigorous de-
bate-is being replaced by the Internet,which enablesaverage citizens to participate
in national discourse,publish a newspaper,distributean electronicpamphlet to the
world, and generallycommunicateto and with a broader audience than ever before
possible. It also enables average citizens to gain access to a vast and literally world-
wide range of information, while simultaneously protecting their privacy, because
in this new medium individuals receive only the communications they affirma-
tively request. (Wired 1996,84)
Earnest claims of the unfettered individualism of cyberspace are ironic, given
the very public and distinctly government-spawned origins of the Internet. In the
1990scyberspace has suffered steady encroachment by corporations for commer-
cial purposes, primarily technical support and electronic shopping (Weis 1992;
Schiller 1993;Cronin 1996).Because the Net has metamorphosed into an office park,
shopping mall, and entertainment arcade, it is sheer fantasy to expect that it will re-
main a libertarian island in a world of conflicting political objectives. As Eli Noam
notes:
For all the rhetoric of an Internet freetrade zone,willthe United Statesreadily ac-
cept an Internet that includes Thai child pornography,Albanian tele-doctors,Cay-
man Island tax dodges,Monaco gambling, Nigerian blue sky stock schemes, Cuban
mail-order catalogues? Or, for that matter, American violaters of privacy,purveyors
of junk E-mail or self-regulating price fixers?Unlikely. And other countries will
feel the same on matters they care about. (Noam 1997)
Equally important, despite claims to the contrary, average citizensdo not exist: If
poststructural social theory teaches us one thing, it is sensitivity to difference,to the
highly variable and contingent ways in which social categories reflect class, gender,
race, and age. As with other telecommunicationssystems-telephones or geographi-
cal information systems, for example-the Internet is a cultural product pregnant
with relationshipsand subjectto the uses and misuses of power (Pickles 1995).Arap-
idly expanding literature documents how cyberspace can facilitate or annihilate
communities, changing not only how people interact but also how they perceive one
another (Jones1995;Negroponte 1995;Miller 1996;Shields 1996;Graham and Aurigi
1997).
262 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

An unfortunate tendency in the popular media to drown in technocratic utopi-

anism largely obscures the power relations that permeate cyberspace. In the United
States, vast discrepancies exist in terms of wealth, gender, and race: Although one-
third of U.S. households have personal computers, only 12 percent have modems
(and Internet access). American Internet users are overwhelminglywhite and mid-
dle class, well educated, and in professional occupations that demand college de-
grees. The average age of Net users in the United States is thirty-three, and the
average household income is $59,000, twice the national average (Kantor and Neu-
barth 1996,47).A surveyby the National Telecommunicationsand Information Ad-
ministration (1995) found that white households use computers three times more
frequentlythan do black or Latino ones. Of World Wide Web users, 82.5 percent were
male. The elderly often find access to the Internet intimidating and beyond their
means. In the United Kingdom, according to Stephen Graham and Andrew Aurigi,
Net users are similarly overwhelminglywhite, middle class, and male (Graham and
Aurigi 1997).
Access to the skills, equipment, and software necessary to gain entree to the
electronic highway threatens to create a large-and predominantly minority-un-
derclass that is substantially disenfranchised from the benefits of cyberspace. Mod-
ern economies are increasingly divided between a poorly educated, impoverished
underclass ignorant of cyberspace and an elite for whom the Net is indispensable.
Furthermore, disparities in Internet access are global in scope. Thus inequalities in
access exist internationally, reflecting the bifurcation between the First World and
the Third World as well as between the superpowers after World War I1 (Warf 1995).
In short, social categories of wealth and power are inevitably reflected in cyber-
space.
The sheer size of the Internet lends credence to contradictory arguments: It may,
simultaneously, support the position of defenders of the Enlightenment, such as
Jiirgen Habermas, who claim that it best approximates an ideal-speech situation of
unfettered discourse,the public sphere in which social life is constructed and repro-
duced and through which truth is constructed in the absence of communication
barriers (Habermas 1971).Conversely,the bewildering cacophonyof voices and per-
spectives exemplifiesJean-FranGoisLyotardsnotion of mutually unintelligibleelec-
tronic communities in a postmodern age (Lyotard 1989).Following Henri Lefebvre,
the Internet is both a representational space and a representation ofspace: Because
all representations reflect vested interests, there can be no value-free, apolitical dis-
course, electronic or otherwise (Lefebvre 1991). Despite manifest discrepancies in
access to the Net, its very size and popularity have made cyberactivism an essential
part of progressive (and reactionary) politics in the 1990s.
Knowledge and power are inseparable,as theorists such as Antonio Gramsci and
Michel Foucault have long pointed out. Use of the Internet for electronic surveil-
lance and monitoring is well documented (Lyon 1994). Some governments have
come to fear the Net for its emancipatory capabilities. The Chinese government, for
example, was stung by studentsuse of faxes and e-mail during the 1989Tienanmen
 COUNTERHEGEMONIC DISCOURSES 263

Square massacre. It was especially aggrieved at their use of a network-ChinaNet

-based at Stanford University, so it began in early 1996 to limit access to Internet
nodes (Mueller and Tan 1997).
In February 1996 the U.S. Congress passed the Communications Decency Act
(CDA), an attempt to limit childrens access to pornography-however loosely
defined-on the Internet by facilitating government censorship, particularly the
distribution of patently offensive materials to minors (Wired 1996). In essence,
the act catered to the political agenda of the Christian Right. Resistance to passage of
the CDA by the community of Net users was ferocious. It included lawsuitsby a coali-
tion of Internet service providers and a barrage of e-mail petitions and messages
that encouraged the wearing ofblue ribbons in protest (bythe CitizensInternet Em-
powerment Coalition, at [http://www.ciec.org/]), and it led to a Supreme Court
case in which the CDA was overruled.Thus, even in the United States,the Internet can
be used to oppose government regulation, particularly when it directly affects Net
users.
Other regimes are more blunt in their approach. In April 1996 the Guatemalan
government, through Guatel, the state-owned telecommunications company, made
private satellite or telecommunications links illegal. Singapore, Thailand, and Ma-
laysia have all sought restrictions on private satellite dishes for fear of foreign con-
tamination. Even the most solid of panopticons, however, can be retrained on its
masters: The Internet has been harnessed for progressive purposes as well as for re-
actionary ones.
PROGRESSIVE USESOF THE INTERNET
The many progressive uses of the Internet include the dissemination oE documents,
graphics, and frequently asked questions (FAQS) for teaching; announcements of
conferences;communication among like-minded people via the Usenet or listservs;
e-mail petitions; software that can be downloaded;and information about potential
resources, events, and problems pertaining to action. Countless groups use the Net
for their own political interests and agendas: civil and human rights advocates,
sustainable-developmentactivists, antiracist and antisexist organizations, gay and
lesbian rights groups, religious movements, supporters of ethnic or national identi-
ties and causes (the Irish Republican Army and the Basque group ETA, for example),
anarchists, socialists and social democrats, Marxists of many stripes, youth move-
ments, militia watchdogs, antihistorical revisionists, peace and disarmament par-
ties, nonviolent-action supporters and pacifists, and animal-rights spokespeople.
Marginalized people who are unable to express their needs and identities in the
so-called real world, such as gay youth in homophobic rural contexts, can share in-
terests and experiences in interactivediscussionforums (chat rooms), forming clas-
sic communitieswithout propinquities,spaces of shared interest without physical
proximity. On a more macabre note, the Internet has facilitated the efforts of the
right-to-die movement (DeathNET, at [http://www.rights .org/-deathnet/]), as
terminally ill people search for a dignified exit (Lessenberry1996).Politicallymobi-
264 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

lized watchdog groups can issue legislative updates and alerts at critical moments.
Such communication is often superior to snailmail,which in any case is more sus-
ceptible to interception, censorship, and tampering. Finally, progressive individuals
can reach each other through informal discussion groups and personals services.
Though far from constituting a homogeneous whole, these varied groups often
share a broad sense of social and economicjustice and an antipathy to discrimina-
tion based on race, sex, age, religion, or sexual preference.
SETTINGS
For activists in the Third World, the Internet allows cheap access to sympathetic
counterpartsabroad,without the need to obtain an exit visa. Some governmentsare
wary of the sheer quantity of content generated by the American infotainment ma-
chine. They argue that freedom of expression is an unaffordable luxury. Singapore,
for example,has imposed strict restraints on siteswith political, religious, or porno-
graphic content. It also requires all local Internet access providers to be registered
and to screen out objectionablecontent. The countrys minister for information
and the arts, George Yeo, defends the censorship moves as merely a symbolicway to
maintain awareness of what is socially acceptable.
Japanese leaders are less concerned about the gush of Western ideas and more
agitated by the United Stateslead in establishing standardsfor the Internet market.
Their hesitation in jumping aboard a predetermined informationinfrastructurehas
made some local Internet advocates impatient. Izumi Aizu, director of the Institute
for HyperNetwork Society of Japan, has used his Net expertise not only to help
launch Tokyo executives into cybercommercebut to organize a grassroots political
movement for a prefecture with 1.25 million people.
DouglasCoupland,in the weekly independentstudent newspaper at the Univer-
sity of Guelph,the Ontarian, warned that it is absolutely necessary that developing
countries have a voice in internet development at a global level. As the thirdworld
continuesto be marginalized in the growth of informationtechnologies,the net will
become another source of cultural imperialism perpetuated by the corporate first
world (Coupland n.d.).
To illustrate the scope and growth of progressive Net sites we performed brief
searches in August 1996 and October 1997,using keywords common to such causes
(Table I). For many keywords,the volume of resourceswas virtuallyinfinite,encom-
passing millions of homepages worldwide. Furthermore, the growth rate over a
mere fifteen months was astronomical, reaching more than 414,195percent in the
case of human rights. In general, topics with the most links in 1996 exhibited the
slowest rates of growth, and those with the fewest exhibited the greatest percentage
gains. Such data reflect both the enormous popularity of the Web in general and the
ways in which it has been rapidly seized upon by politically active groups.
Among the categories in Table I, economicjustice includes numerous groups
that are concernedwith issues of social equality,labor-marketdiscrimination,pub-
lic policy, and so forth. Corporate responsibility pertains to groups, individuals,
 COUNTERHEGEMONIC DISCOURSES 265

TABLE
I-INTERNET LINKSTO PROGRESSIVE
CAUSES,
AUGUST
1996 AND OCTOBER
1997

NUMBER OF LINKS, NUMBER OP LINKS,

KEYWORDS USED AUGUST 1996 OCTOBER 1997 PERCENT INCREASE

Animal rights 258,920 2,650,017 923

Economic justice 94,346 831,406 78 1
Cultural preservation 60,055 474,452 890
Corporate responsibility 47,620 915,853 1,823
Religious freedom 43,767 536,185 1,124
Antidiscrimination 32,199 386,900 1,101
Labor rights 30,518 2,668,166 8,642
Peace activism 28,902 330,521 1,043
Antiracism 27,562 340,329 1,134
Youth rights 27,128 2,633,062 9,606
Disabled rights 14,49 1 2,522,762 17,309
Gay and lesbian rights 12,357 2,589,741 20,857
Minority rights 12,295 2,491,644 20,165
Racial equality 8,900 125,567 1,310
Elderly rights 6,732 2,458,292 36,416
Childrens rights 3,542 2,392,092 67,435
Environmental activism 3,397 555,371 16,248
Womens rights 2,744 2,392.095 87,075
Human rights 804 3,330,934 414,195
Source: Compiled by the authors, using the Netscape search engine.
a Although number of links is not a perfect indication of resources to be found on the Internet, it is a
rough indication of volume. Note that links are not mutually exclusive: Some are government Web
sites; others are organized by individuals, organizations, or corporations.The quality of links ranges
from highly professionalto embarrassinglyamateurish.

and, occasionally, corporations that monitor corporate taxes, lobbying, waste dis-
posal, and hiring practices. Union activistsand labor organizers use such links to de-
nounce irresponsiblecorporations or to announce their own efforts to curtail them
(including, for example, striking Boeing workers in Seattle).Among the links on be-
half of the disabled are numerous advocates of greater access to transportation fa-
cilities for the handicapped. Environmental activistshave a wide variety of resources
on which to draw, including homepages for the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the World
Wildlife Fund, Friends of the Earth, advocates of solar energy or sustainable devel-
opment, and the like.
Issues of progressive politics are well represented on the Web (Appendix I).
Womens rights links, ranging from radical feminists to moderate political-
empowerment organizations such as the National Organization for Women, allow
numerous expressions of views and data pertaining to reproductive rights, family
structures, and discrimination in labor and housing markets. Human rights find an
on-line voice with groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union [http:
//www.aclu-il.org/] and Amnesty International [http://www.io.org/amnesty/] ,
which popularize instances of the misuse of government power- typically political
prisoners--oten in graphic detail. The Southern Poverty Law Centers Web site
[http://www.splcenter.org], for example, informs concerned citizens about recruit-
266 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

ing efforts by racist groups around the country. The Nation, the oldest liberal news
magazine in the United States, has developed a network of on-line activists, educa-
tors, and supporters through its Web site, [http://www .thenation.com/index .htm] .
In non-U.S. contexts, Japans Ainu minority used that nations emerging Inter-
net system to call attention to threats posed by the construction of Nibutani Dam, as
did Okinawans protesting U.S.military bases (Rimmer and Morris-Suzuki 1997).
The Web site of the Basque separatist movement ETA (formerly [http://www.igc
.apc.org/ehj]) was shut down by the Spanish government, ostensibly because of its
very effectiveness (Cushman 1997).Shannon OLear describes how environmental
activists in Estonia and Russia cooperated in using e-mail to combat the degradation
of a nearby lake (OLear 1996,1997).Dozens of countrynets report actions and
events in repressive political systems around the world, including China, Burma,
Kenya, and East Timor, often providing material that is not available through tradi-
tional media (Neumann 1996). In the same vein, the journal Cultural Survival at-
tempts to preserve endangered tribal peoples through its Web site and electronic
journal Active Voices [http://www.cs.org/cs%Website/Intropage]. Similarly, the is-
sue of childrens rights, embracing a plethora of matters such as infant mortality,
child-labor laws, the effects of divorce on children, and juvenile justice, are dis-
cussed.
A few key sites stand out as important jump stationsfor progressive uses of the
Internet. The Institute for Global Communications [http:/www.igc.org] links nu-
merous connections to progressive groups via PeaceNet, EcoNet, ConflictNet, La-
borNet, and WomensNet. The Electronic DemocracyInformation Forum [gopher :
//garnet.berkeley.edu:i2~0/1] allows, among other things, access to digital versions
of progressive magazines such as Mother Jones, Tikkun, and the Multinational
Monitor.
Some magazines are published only on the Internet, including the Texas Ob-
server, Znet, and Progressive Populist, formerly available at [http://www.cjnetworks
.corn/-cubsfan/zines.html]. One such e-zine, Kill Yourself, described itself as fol-
lows:
Kill Yourselfis a sociopoliticalE-Zine that explores everything thats wrong with the
world today. This includes: Earth, America, labels, the mainstream, education, the
government, religion, ignorance, etc., etc. Absolutely free, the zine is attempting to
create productivity in peoples seemingly boring lives. We hope to motivate people
to create solutions to ongoing sociopolitical problems because they exist and they
must be solved. . . .Working together to solve these problems is the only hope we
have left. Things need to change. ., .We do not care who reads this Zine, we do not
care who publicizes this Zine, we do not care who copies from this Zine. We know
where the information came from and so do you. We do not care how this Zine gets
to you nor how it is distributed, in full form or not, by alternative distributors. Al-
though we dont condone it, there is nothing we can do if you decide to steal our
ideas. All that matters is the free distribution of information. If you can be enlight-
ened or intrigued by something we say, our purpose has been served. (Formerlyat
[http://www.cjnetworks.com/-cubsfan/zines.html])
 COUNTERHEGEMONIC DISCOURSES 267

Such journals, which may have minuscule audiences,provide a cost-freealternative

outlet for critical social perspectives that are rarely found within the mainstream
media. On the Net, everyone can be a publisher.
This brief sample suggests the vast possibilities of the Internet, ranging from the
profound to the trivial. Indeed, the veritable glut of information, and corresponding
overload, of such resources presents a distinct danger. Web sites offer a bewildering,
confusing array of insights and contradictory claims. What seems to be lacking on
the Net is knowledge, not data. Knowledge entails a critical capacity to make judg-
ments and is required if one is to make sense out of competing claims and organize
and understand the flood of facts.
A more pressing danger is that of preaching to the converted: If Internet users
are, by and large,above average in income,better educated than the norm, and better
informed than the public at large, they are often already sympathetic to positions
advocated at a site. Those who need information the most-the poor and relatively
disenfranchised-will have the least access to it.
A powerful counterhegemonic use of the Internet is the ability to communicate
intersubjective knowledge-as much an attribute of hypertext as innate in the Inter-
net. People from differentplaces, with radicallyvariant experiences,are able to con-
vey a notion of what it is like to be them, to live their lives, via the Net. For example,
the production side of the commodity chain no longer is shieldedwhen one reads an
essay,written by a shoe-factoryworker, that describes conditions where Nike shoes
are made. In an ideal situation these texts are written by the individuals who are in-
volved, not by experts or elites, and are unfiltered.
The Internet rarely reaches this potential, however. Knowing other people, with
radically varying viewpointsand situated in different cultural and political contexts,
through the Net is very difficult,especiallywhen they generallydo not have access to
it. When they do, their experiences may make us uncomfortable-as they should.
And the tendencyto jump to the next Web page or delete the message, rather than re-
main and gain valuable knowledge and insights, is common. Moreover, we must be
careful not to conflate the virtual experience of distantpeople with experiencing
them in person. Via the Net we often contact farawaypeople who are socioeconomi-
cally similar to us, while we frequentlyignore nearby persons of different ethnicities
or social classes who experience the world very differently. Communicating across
distance with individuals is no replacement for interacting with others in our daily,
nonvirtual lives.
USEOF THE INTERNET IN LOCALSTRUGGLES

The Internet can provide accessto skillsand resources that are not present in local ar-
eas but are needed in local struggles, transcending scale limitations. For example,
academicinformation can be made available on terms that are determined not byso-
called experts, as often is the case, but by indigenous people themselves. This ap-
proach creates a balance between local and expert knowledge and puts activists
closer to the status of academics. By making the skius of academia available to indi-
268 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

viduals who are involved in local struggles, academics become de-professionalized

intellectuals(Esteva 1987,128)who have traded in the myth of objectivityto be-
come partners in a larger coalition advocatingsocial change. The Internet is also use-
ful in that it allows a local struggle to establish links with other, occasionally similar,
local struggles. This is important in that it may reduce activistsfeelingsof isolation.
More importantly, this type of contact fosters the sharing of useful ideas and strate-
gies. Coordinated local struggles are able to exert more pressure than are isolated
efforts. Linking local political struggles may offer an effective way to counter the
hypermobility of global capitalism. After all,even globalcapital must situate itself
in a local setting.
The coordination of local places as a response to global capitalism is illustrated
by Robin Alexander and Peter Gilmore (1996),who highlight an unexpected silver
lining to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAPTA): the establishment of
international alliances by U.S. unions as a reaction to the rapid internationalization
of multinational operations since NAFTA. The United Electrical, Radio and Machine
Workers of America (UE) and the Authentic Labor Front (FAT, Mexicos only inde-
pendent labor federation) have formed a Strategic Organizing Alliance to confront
working conditions in the muquihdoru zone on the border between Mexico and the
United States. As a reaction to the mobility of multinational corporations and the
poor working conditions in the maquiladora zone, the Strategic Organizing Alli-
ance states, We believe it is imperative that we develop a new kind of international
solidarity-one which is focused on organizing (Alexander and Gilmore 1996).
From the perspective of the developed world, the Secretary-Treasurer of the UE
states:
Workers in the United States and Canada share a common interest in ensuring that
Mexican workers are successful in organizing democratic unions and improving
wages and benefits. If they fail,we share a future of common misery.I prefer to think
of a future where we sit together at the bargaining table with trade unionists from
Mexico and Canada, and together take on transnationalcorporations such as Gen-
eral Electric and Honeywell. (Alexander and Gilmore 1996)

The Internet has been, and will continue to be, important in disseminating the so-
cial relations of production in the maquiladora zone beyond the local setting. As a
model that overcomes the limitations of distance, the creation of the Strategic Or-
ganizing Alliance realizes the need to counteract mobile capitalism by organizing
beyond its borders.
On New Years Day, 1994,a revolutionary group unknown to the rest of the world
initiated an uprising against the Mexican government in the state of Chiapas. The
Ejkrcito Zapatista Liberaci6n National (EZLN), and its leader, Subcomandante Mar-
cos, attacked and destroyed the Palace of Government in the main square of San
Crist6bal de las Casas. In addition, the EUN used the Internet effectivelyto carry on
their revolutionary struggIe (Froehling1996,1997).The EZLNSchoice of the Internet
as a site of revolutionary struggle signifiesboth the changing location of power and
 COUNTERHEGEMONIC DISCOURSES 269

the growing importance of electronic forms of resistance. Although the Palace of

Governmentwas an important symbol of colonialism and oppression,the EZLN ap-
pears to have destroyed it more out of continuitywith past forms of resistance than
out of any pressing strategic concerns. The building was a monument to dead capi-
tal, a bunker through which power flowed, but it contained no power of its own. Its
destruction or occupation could only disrupt the flow of power, not eliminate it.
Power itself is mobile, or nomadic (Castells 1989,1997).
Nomadic power is diffuse power, with no location, and it maintains its auton-
omy through movement. Its valuables, electronic capital and electronic informa-
tion, are located both nowhere and everywhere and cannot be physically captured.
Nomadic power is not easily put on the defensiveor defeated if it cannot be located
Elite [nomadic]power,having rid itself of its national and urban bases to wander in
absence on the electronicpathways, can no longer be disrupted by strategies predi-
cated upon the contestation of sedentary forces. The architectural monuments of
power are hollow and empty, and function now only as bunkers for the complicit
and those who acquiesce (Autonomediai995,6-7).
Nomadic elite power can be countered by nomadic forms of electronic resis-
tance in cyberspace. The EZLNS electronic forms of resistance are most effective at
matching the ability of capital to cross the Mexican border with little effort by ac-
cessing resources beyond the local scale.
RIGHT-WING
USESOF THE INTERNET
Counterhegemonicuses are not an electronicmonopoly of the political left. Right-
wing groups-many of them racist, anti-Semitic, or deeply distrustful of existingpo-
litical institutions-employ the Internet and the World Wide Web in avarietyofways
(Appendix 11). Users range from relatively benign groups, such as libertarians and
followersofAyn Rands objectivism,to gun-rightsgroups (liketheNationalRifle As-
sociation, at [http://www.nra.org/]), to antienvironmentalists, and to far-right
Christian Identity movements, rabid tax protestors such as Posse Comitatus, global
conspiracy-theorymilitia devotees, neo-Nazis,White Power advocates,and the Ku
Klux Klan. The Aryan NationsWeb site [http://www.nidlink.corn/%7earynvic/], for
example, openly espouses anti-Semitic and racist views. The Web page of the Na-
tional Alliance, a neo-Nazi group, contains position statements and an application
form and receives more than 500 hits a day. The alliances leader, William Pierce,
noted that Our message can be expected to have more of an impact on someone
who wants to see it and looks for it on the Internet than some Joe Sixpack who finds
an unrequested leaflet in his screen door or under his windshield wiper (Southern
Poverty Law Center 1996b,7). Electronic hate mail has become increasingly wide-
spread on college campuses (New York Times 1997). Somewhat more moderate in
outlook is DixieNet [http://www.dixienet.org/] ,which advocates a new Southern
Confederacy, with hypertext links to other secessionist movements in the United
States (Texas,Hawaii,and Alaska) and elsewhere (Quebec,Scotland,and Italys Lega
Nord).
270 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

CONCLUDING COMMENTS
By publishing electronically-essentially at no cost, and with a potentially vast audi-
ence-political views that might be impossible for others in distant locations to find,
the Internet dramaticallyexpands the range of voices heard on many issues. It per-
mits the local to become global, and vice versa. It carries within it the full diversity
and contradiction of human experience: Cyberpolitics mirrors its nonelectronic
counterparts,though the boundariesbetween the two realms are increasinglyfuzzy.
Clearly, linkagesoutside cyberspaceare critical to the successof progressive politics.
The Internet may sustain and augment existing communities, but it is unlikely to
create them. Given the enormous size and rapid growth of the Web (by some esti-
mates at the rate of one site per minute),another danger is that everyposition will be-
come lost in the cacophony of information overload.
The Internet does not necessarily serve either hegemonic or counterhegemonic
purposes; it can and does serveboth. Like the workplace, household,state,and other
social arenas,cyberspace is a contested terrain, a battleground of discourses.The de-
gree to which different groups employ its capabilitiesdepends largely, of course, on
their technological sophistication,the need for which at times is not inconsiderable,
and on access to high-speed machines and fiber-optic lines (especially to receive
graphic materials, at which the World Wide Web excels). Indeed, the constraints to
cyberactivism are largely those that hobble other political involvement: commit-
ment, time, money, expertise.The Internet obviously does not guarantee the emer-
gence of counterhegemonic discourses, but it does facilitate the opening of
discursive spaceswithin which they may be formulated and conveyed. Castells notes
that it is in the realm of symbolicpolitics, and in the development of issue-oriented
mobilizations by groups and individuals outside the mainstream political system
that new electronic communication may have the most dramatic effects (Castells
1997,352).
A likely difficulty in Internet activism is that the audience of users, a preselected
elite in terms of income, race, gender,and class, may alreadybe sympathetic to such
messages. Indeed, those who may benefit the most from counterhegemonicuses of
the Net may have the least access to it. A cyberpolitical danger is that it may become
an ineffectual substitute for politics in the real world.
For the browser who views Web sites around the world in safe and anonymous
comfort, the Internet can be either inspirationalor boring. It is often both. The ex-
perience of cyberspaceitself,however, changes our perspective and cognitive filters.
As Mark Poster notes, electronicsystems change not onlywhat we know, but how we
know it (1990).With the steady expansionof cyberspace,the Enlightenment notion
of the human subject-unified, consistent,and noncontradictory-is being increas-
ingly replaced by Netizens, who may occupy numerous, even contradictory social
positions and inhabit multiple, overlapping communitiessimultaneously.Foucault
(1986,22)put it well: We are in the epoch of simultaneity;we are in the epoch of
juxtaposition, the epoch of the near and the far, of the side-by-side, of the dis-
persed.
 COUNTERHEGEMONIC DISCOURSES 271

NOTE
1. Among the progressive Usenet groups are: [soc.rights.human], [alt.privacy],[alt.feminism],
[soc.feminism], [ misc.activism.progressive], [ alt.activism], [alt.activism.death-penalty], and [alt
.motherjones].
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SITESON THE INTERNET

ICELECTED
APPENDIX
WOMENS RIGHTS

The Center for Womens Global Leadership: [gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:~o/oo/orgs/cwgl

/qlgol
Feminist Activist Resources on the Net: [http://www.igc.apc.org/women/feminist.html]
Global Fund for Women: [http://www.igc.apc.org/gfw]
The International Womens Tribune Centre: [http://www.womensnet.apc.org/womensnet
/beijing/ngo/iwtc.html]
The National Organization for Women (NOW):[ http://now.org]
Virtual Sisterhood [http://www.igc.apc.org/vsister/index.html]
The Womens Environment and Development Organization: [gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org
:7o/ii/orgs/wedo]
Womens Human Rights: [ http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/Diana/]

HUMAN RIGHTS
African Human Rights Resource Center: [http://www.urnn.edu/humanrts/africa/index
.html]
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)Science Human Rights
Program: [ http://shr.aaas.org/program/shr.htm]
Amnesty International: [http://www.io.org/amnesty/]
Arab Organization for Human Rights: [http://i~~.~o~.i80.6z/mlas/aohr.htrn]
 COUNTERHEGEMONIC DISCOURSES 273

Canadian Human Rights Commission: [http://www.chrc.ca/]

The Carter Center: [ http://www.emory.edu/CARTER-CENTER/homepage. htm]
Columbia Support Network [http://www.igc.apc.org:8o/csn/index.html]
Derechos: [ http://www.derechos.org/] Committee to Protect Journalists: [gopher://gopher
.igc.apc .org:5ooo/ii/int/cpj]
DIANA: [http://diana.law.yale.edu/]
The Global DemocracyMovement (TeledemocracyAction News &Network): [http://www
.auburn.edu/tann/]
Human Rights Country Reports of the U.S. Department of State: [gopher://gopher.state
.gov:70/77Index?humanrights]
The Human Rights Gopher: [gopher://gopher.humanrights.org:~ooo/i]
Human Rights in China: [http://www.igc.apc.org:~ooo/o/NAT/hric.webpointer]
Human Rights Institute of South Africa: [http://wn.apc.org/hr/hurisa/hurisa.htm]
The Human Rights Research and Education Centre: [http://www.uottawa.ca/-hrrecl]
Human Rights Watch: [gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:~ooo/ii/int/hrw]
The International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development: [gopher:
//gopher.igc.apc.org:~o/ii/orgs/ichrdd]
The Laogai Research Foundation: [http://www.christusrex.org/wwwl/sdc/laogai.html]
The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights: [http://www.lchr.org/]
Mennonite Central Committee: [http://www.mennonitecc.ca/mcc/regions/]
PENS Freedomtowrite Program: [gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:~ooo/ii/int/pen]
Physicians for Human Rights: [gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:~ooo/ii/int/phr]
Queens University of Belfast States of Emergency Database: [http://www.law.qub.ac.uk
/qub-law/preface.htm]
Refugees Human Rights: [http://www.qlsys.ca/quicklaw.html]
RFE/RL Newsline (Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty): [ http://www.friends-partners.org
/ friends/news/omri]
Support Democracy in China: [http://www.christusrex.org/wwwl/sdc/sdchome.html]
The University of Minnesota Human Rights Library: [http://www.umn.edu/humanrts]
The Washington Office on Latin America: [http://americas.fiu.edu/wola/about.html]
CHILDRENS RIGHTS
Childrens Defense Fund: [http://www.childrensdefense.org/index.html]
The National Child RightsAlliance: [http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/ellens/NCRA/ncra
.html]
Save the Children: [http://www.oneworld.org/scf/index.html]
United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF):[http://www.unicef.org/]

APPENDIX 11-EXAMPLES OF RIGHT-WING USESOF THE INTERNET

WEB PAGES
American Patriot Network [http://www.civil-liberties.com/]
Logoplex [http://www.logoplex.com]
Minuteman Press [http://www.ah.org/-mpresd]
Republic of Texas [http://www.republic-of-texas.com/]
Sovereignty [ http://www.worldtrans.org/sovereignty.html]
U.S. Militia [http://www.ipser.com/usmilitia]
USENET DISCUSSION GROUPS
alt.conspiracy
alt.engr.exp1osives
274 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

alt.phi1osophy.objectivism
alt.politics.nationalism.white
alt.politics.org.batf
alt.politics.white-power
alt.revisionism
alt.revolution.american.second
alt.revolution.counter
alt.society.anarchy
alt.survivalism
alt.thought.southern
misc.activism.militia
rec.guns
rec.pyrotechnics
talk.politics.guns
talk.politics.libertarian