RAND_MR1382

egimes by widely exposing the offending issue, by facilitating public education about
the issue, and by promoting and mobilizing “netizens” in actions against the regimes. In
doing so, the activists have augmented the effects of their activities on international
relations, challenging the management of diplomatic affairs traditionally carried out by
states and their diplomatic representatives. Nevertheless, is the promise greater than the
reality? This study seeks to examine the use of the Internet by the Burma prodemocracy
activists as a case study with that question in mind.
It is also reasonably well-established that new communication technologies, including
the 15-year-old revolution in real-time television, have given new powers to nonstate
actors, challenging officials’ primacy in international and internal affairs. 2 Ordinary
citizens have used the handheld videocamera, the telephone, the fax machine, and other
communication technologies to make their causes known, from the “people power”
revolution in the Philippines to the antiapartheid movement in South Africa and the
Zapatista rebellion in Mexico. 3
The past decade is replete with examples of how advanced-information flows have
played a central role in helping grassroots activists, who seek democratic rule, to
counter dictatorial regimes. The 1989 revolutions throughout Eastern Europe were
fueled by both personal media, such as hand-passed videocassettes and newsletters, and
mass media beamed in from abroad, allowing citizens in one place to learn of, and then
mimic, political dissent elsewhere. 4 While the peaceful demonstrations in Tiananmen
Square were in progress, information was the crucial umbilical cord between the
Chinese students, their cohorts around the world, and an international audience. One
technology often blended with and fed into another, in a sort of “feedback loop,” as
news sent out of China by foreign reporters was “smuggled” back in via hundreds of fax
machines. The dissemination of information and news facilitated by the new technology
helped delegitimize the regime significantly in the eyes of the international community
and the Chinese people.
Nevertheless, because information and communications increasingly form the base of
international transactions, the dictator finds himself in a dilemma. Modern states
require citizens—whether doctors, businessmen, or inventors—to have access to the
latest sources and forms of information in order to compete in the global marketplace.
“But the more they [i.e., dictators] permit these new technologies, the more they risk
their monopoly of control over information and communication.” 5
Another view is that new information and communication technologies do not give an
inherent advantage—either to governments or other centralized authorities, on the one
hand, or citizens, on the other. In this analysis, new forms of information distribution
cause temporary changes in the societal structure, but these soon dissipate. “When the
political system absorbs a new technology, the public may know a temporary high of
influence before the balance of power returns to a shared custody over policy.” 6