This work about the Internet is an introduction, a handbook, a political treatise and a history. Explicitly written for social and political activists, as well as for educators, it presents a history of the technology, a guide to progressive uses of the Internet and an account of how NGOs and others have been using information and communication technology (ICT) for social and political change. Following an opening history of computer-mediated communication, its promises and its threat, the author shows how computing and electronic networking have been liberated from governments and corporations. He examines the social and political contexts of the Internet internationally and its future potential. He then presents a series of case studies - including the use of computer-mediated communication in parts of former Yugoslavia by peace and humanitarian organizations.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Getting started: the promise and threat of information technology - the technology; a new world information order? more of the same? or seeds of social change? what is "better"? studying the politics of information technology. Part 2 Going for IT: computer lib - round I: from backing to communications activism; the Internet; what is the Internet? the politics of the Internet; computer lib - round II: types of alternative networks; some basic effects of computer-mediated communication. Part 3 Networking in a war zone - the case of former Yugoslavia: in the net; from amateur to crisis networking; content of the ZTN; communicative interaction through conferencing; coordinating peace actions - the 1000th day, for example; media substitution; actors and spectators in Cyber Bosnia. Part 4 examples of better uses of electronic networking: media substitution - bringing other news to the people; creating interaction - East Timor solidarity; enhancing interaction - Chinese students in exile; light in a black-out - occupation of West Papua; boundary bashing - the electronic perforation of the USSR, etc; bypassing hierarchy - NAN and a Nobel Peace Prize; crisis communications - B92 and student protest 96 in Belgrade; establishing the south-south link - E-mailing the Third World - providing basic public service - the blood bank network in south India; democratizing knowledge - the GK97; advocacy, campaigning, insurgency and the electronic fabric of struggle; from he-male to (sh)e-mail - creating a gender-sensitive technology. Part 5 computer support for emancipatory action: the communications activist - the salt of Cyberspace; the impetus to access - the electronic agora - discourse or noise? constructions; hurdles; the organization of meaning; the long march through Cyberspace. Select sources. Webography.