An overview

Many factors make the internet attractive for campaigning – its speed, its reach globally and locally to a enormous number of users, low publishing cost, and 24-hour access. The internet is an important alternative source of information to official and mainstream media, and a powerful means of connection outside mainstream institutions. It is a truly mass medium, enabling individuals worldwide to share information and dialogue.

Electronic campaigning should complement but not replace other offline tactics. Constituencies that are less connected to the internet, for instance, are less likely to be reached by internet organising alone.

Any campaign determining its strategy should analyse its goals and consider the best way to influence, facilitate and create opportunities. Electronic campaigning techniques may work best when supplementing offline tactics, or may be unsuitable given a campaign’s intended audience, targets, timing, or resources.

The notion of a centrally coordinated, traditional ‘campaign’ should also be reexamined with respect to the emergence of large-scale, even spontaneous, online collaborations that are not centrally or hierarchically organised.

This section contains links to other sections of the site which provide tools for online advocacy.