Page 133 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Political Organizations
part because of perceptions by Republicans that it was a “Democratic
bill.” 12 As the deadline on the original bill’s five-year authorization ap-
proached and the outcome of the reauthorization remained uncertain,
the groups intensified their efforts at grassroots mobilization as well as
“inside” lobbying. Participants found that the Internet could play two
major roles in those processes: providing a means for highly responsive,
rapid coordination among groups, and facilitating the large-scale mobi-
lization of citizens. The Public Policy Director of the National Coalition
Against Domestic Violence, one of several umbrella groups advocating
for the bill, claims that the Internet was “critical” to coordination among
13
the groups as well as to communication within the organizations. The
sponsors of the largest web site dedicated to passage of the bill brokered
over 150,000 e-mail messages from citizens to members of Congress dur-
ing the final twelve weeks of the campaign, as well as facilitating a great
deal of traditional mail, faxes, and telephone calls. 14
This case again exhibited some of the features of postbureaucratic
politics: flexible, event-based organization in which the boundaries of
groups were sometimes vague, and mobilization occurring outside for-
mal membership rolls. So too with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against
Defamation (GLAAD), which began using new communication tech-
niques as early as 1996. In 1998, when the U.S. Navy moved to discharge
gay sailor Tim McVeigh, an advocacy network sprang up in his defense
using the Internet for coordination. 15 McVeigh had revealed his sexual
orientation in an America Online (AOL) venue, and through that act
came to the attention of his naval superiors. As the Navy prepared to
discharge him for being gay, McVeigh distributed electronic messages
to every AOL member with the word “gay” in their personal profile –
accomplishing the first steps in Tocqueville’s model of information and
association formation. Many of these AOL members passed the messages
on to others, and a rapidly expanding group of advocates emerged. With
help from John Aravosis, a political consultant in Washington, D.C., and
Rex Wockner, a gay activist in San Francisco, the group attracted the
attention of the mass media. Despite its initial disinterest in McVeigh’s

12 Bonnie Robin-Vergeer, former staff aide to Senator Joseph Biden, telephone interview
by Diane Johnson for the author, May 7, 2001.
13
Juley Fulcher, Public Policy Director, National Coalition Against Domestic Violence,
telephone interview by Diane Johnson for the author, May 4, 2001.
14
Erica D. Rowell, “Spurring an Online Movement,” ABCNews.com, Oct. 18, 2000,
http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/dailynews/onlineactivism001018.html.
15
This person is not related to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
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