RAND_MR1382

when a campaign scores successes. There seems little doubt that the Internet—as the
pamphlet, telephone, and fax machine did for previous generations of dissidents—
helped activists broadcast news around the world about their campaign and about the
situation of the people in Burma, prompting a wider public debate. This, of course, is
the first goal of any global grassroots campaign.
In the Massachusetts selective purchasing and Pepsi cases, the campaign led to dozens of
articles in the Boston newspapers, as well as articles in such national publications as
USA Today and The New York Times. Once it became clear that Gov. Weld would sign the
selective purchasing legislation, traditional media from around the world descended on
Massachusetts. Radio and television outlets from Europe, Asia, and Australia were
suddenly—and probably for the first time—focused on a local bill in a U.S. state
legislature.
Wielding political power via the Internet is sufficiently new that many of the traditional
media seemed to be drawn by the novelty of how the cyberactivists were doing what
they were doing as much as what they were doing. Whether this novelty wears off as the
Internet becomes a more widespread tool of political activism remains to be seen.
Either way, it has been noted elsewhere that grassroots political campaigns, which do
not use force or violent coercion, depend heavily on words and images, as well as
reason. 74 The Internet helps spread these words and images to what the activists hope
will be a sympathetic public.
The Internet-based activists have a leg up on non-Internet-based groups. Grassroots
organizers, whether involved in the Burma campaign or other efforts, were among the
first to understand the political powers of the Internet. While SLORC and international
corporations doing business in Burma have begun to realize the power that the tool
gives their adversaries and have tried to emulate it, the prodemocracy movement has
been consistently ahead in its use of the Internet. This raises the question of whether the
Internet is by its very nature more suited to decentralized groups and inimical to
hierarchical organizations.
SLORC, because of the relatively impoverished nature of the country it rules, does not
have the full infrastructure needed to make maximum use of the Internet. Even if it did,
it is far from clear that it, corporations, or governments sympathetic to it could use the
Internet in the same way. It is far easier for activists using a worldwide network to play
“offense” by exposing SLORC and campaigning for change, as was done in these cases,
than it is for their opponents to play “defense.” It is unclear what SLORC would use the
Internet for. Answering the activists’ charges directly only gives them wider currency.
The alternative is advertising and image making, such as that represented by
www.myanmar.com. But many, if not most, Internet users are instinctively wary of
authority and organization and are unlikely to warm to the enticements of a