making the news: anarchist counter-public relations on the

Critical Studies in Media CommunicationVol. 20, No. 4, December 2003, pp. 335–361

Making the News:Anarchist Counter-Public Relations on the

World Wide Web

Lynn Owens and L. Kendall Palmer

� – Traditionally, radical social movements faced a dilemma regarding media coverage: focuseither on mass media, but lose control of their representation, or on alternative media, but failto get their message to the broader public. The World Wide Web overcomes these problems,allowing movements to create their own media with mass distribution. However, it has two keyweaknesses of its own: attracting audiences and mixing in- and out-group communication. Inthis paper, we show how the structure and content of the anarchist Web-based media worktogether to separate in- and out-group discourses. We then demonstrate how the anarchistsattracted an audience to their Web media. The Black Bloc tactics at the Seattle protests againstthe World Trade Organization brought an increase in media attention, albeit negative. Weexamine how anarchists took advantage of the larger audience created by this bad publicity andmounted a counter-public relations campaign online. We argue that the Web alters the powerrelationship between mainstream and alternative media without displacing the need formainstream coverage.

Anarchists have a serious imageproblem. The North American an-

archist movement, once an importantpart of the radical working class move-ments of the late 19th century, wasconsidered dead and buried by theend of the 20th (Sabatini, 1995).Worse, they were stigmatized with a

long list of negative stereotypes, fromthe dangerous mad bomber to theclueless young punk. During theNovember 1999 protests against theWorld Trade Organization (WTO) inSeattle, however, anarchists made anunexpected comeback. They were in-volved in many aspects of the protests,but it was the Black Bloc that grabbedeveryone’s attention. This tactic in-volves a group of protestors, frequentlydressed in black with their facesmasked for anonymity, who engage inhighly disruptive activities, such asproperty damage or direct confron-tation with the police. A small groupof anarchists, working as a Black Bloc,vandalized corporate storefrontsdowntown and successfully evaded the

Lynn Owens and L. Kendall Palmer are graduatestudents in the Department of Sociology, Univer-sity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Earlierversions of this research have been presented at theSunbelts Social Network Conference in Charleston,SC in 1999 and the American Sociological An-nual Meetings in Washington, DC in 2000. Theauthors would like to acknowledge the assistance ofJames Moody and Charles Kurzman. Both au-thors thank the editors and anonymous reviewersfor their helpful advice.

Copyright 2003, National Communication AssociationDOI: 10.1080/0739318032000142007

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police. Suddenly, anarchists foundthemselves at the center of the mediaspotlight, displacing other protestorsand police violence from the headlines.Like other activists, anarchists want

to “make the news.” Activists use themedia to publicize their existence andspread their message (Lipsky, 1968).To do this, they must first gain cover-age; in addition, this coverage shouldbe sympathetic (Gitlin, 1980). Neithergoal is simple. Moreover, these aimsare often in tension, since some tacticsthat increase newsworthiness can de-crease sympathy (Kielbowicz &Scherer, 1986). Traditional alternativemedia may resolve these tensions, butthey have their own weaknesses, par-ticularly their limited range of distri-bution. The World Wide Web,however, significantly alters the medialandscape of protest, giving activistsaccess to a mass medium that theythemselves control. The Web placesactivists on a more equal footing withother media outlets when waging thebattle over public relations (Atton,1996a; Kellner, 1997). Despite itscomparative power, the Web has itsown weaknesses. First, its ability to actas both an alternative and a mass me-dium brings with it the tension of mix-ing in-group and out-groupcommunication. Second, the Webrarely lives up to its potential as a massmedium, with significantly less accessin practice than in theory.In this work, we examine how ac-

tivists’ use of the Web affects theirmedia and protest strategies. First, weinvestigate the population of anarchistWeb sites and the links between themin order to determine how the net-work’s form and content impact its useas a mass medium. We find a denselyconnected core-periphery structurethat funnels readers towards a smallnumber of central sites. This core acts

as the public face of anarchism online,explaining and justifying anarchistideology to those outside the move-ment, while allowing the sites in theperiphery to focus on communicationwithin the movement. Although thisstructure held the potential to facilitateefficient use as a mass medium, thatpotential remained untapped. Unableto overcome the limited distribution oftraditional alternative media, anar-chists on the Web were not gettingtheir message out to the public.We argue that the events in Seattle

changed all this. With their Black Bloctactic, anarchists made the news, butwere in danger of being remade by thenews coverage. We document the dra-matic rise in coverage of anarchists inthe mainstream media after Seattle:news that was predominantly negative.Focusing on one of the primary coreWeb sites, the Infoshop, we show thatanarchist Web sites received moretraffic after these, and subsequent,protests. Anarchists used this publicityto attempt to counter the negativeviews of anarchism and the Black Bloccirculating in the media and publicopinion. While much has been madeof the role of the Internet in the suc-cess of planning the protests in Seattle(Smith, 2001), less attention has beenpaid to its use in managing the post-protest fallout. We provide evidencethat the news coverage took on asofter, less negative tone over time, afact we attribute at least in part to theinteraction between the mainstreammedia and the anarchist Web-basedalternative media. Rather than beingtaken advantage of by their notoriety,anarchists were able to use their al-ready existing Web presence to takeadvantage of it. Coverage without theWeb sites does anarchists little good,yet sites without the coverage do themlittle good either. Used in tandem,

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they allow anarchists more effectivelyto exploit the untapped potential ofthe Web, both by bringing a new audi-ence to their sites and by influencingmainstream reporting.

Social Movements and the

Media

Lipsky (1968) argues that protesttargets four principal groups. First,protest helps sustain and build socialmovement organizations by promotingsolidarity among activists. Second,protest seeks to maximize exposure ofmovement goals to the broader publicthrough the media. Third, it providesa means for gaining support from thirdparties critical to movement success.Finally, protest targets authorities ableto address the demands of the move-ment. In this work, we focus on thefirst three targeted groups; for themost part we ignore authorities. All ofthese goals are highly interrelated. Inparticular, effective use of the mediacan impact the success of appealing toall targeted parties. Media representa-tions influence public support, and af-fect the level of repression officials canjustify (Gamson, 1990; Wisler &Guigni, 1999). Even protestors, al-though generally connected and in-formed through their own sympatheticalternative media (Downing, Ford, Gil,& Stein, 2001), still depend upon themainstream media response for theirown self-image, reading their own ex-periences through the media portray-als (Ryan, 1991).Kielbowicz and Scherer (1986,

p. 72) state, “The modern mass mediahave become central to the life anddeath of social movements.” Activistsmust therefore court media attention;developing better strategies for work-ing with and using the media has been

an important focus for many activists(Ryan, 1991). Still, protestors remainin a weak position, with limitedinfluence over what the media coversin an era of increasing corporate con-trol of the media (McChesney, 1999).News media do not simply reportevents; they create “news stories”(Hall, Critcher, Jefferson, Clarke, &Roberts, 1978). Journalists’ and mediaoutlets’ conceptions of what is news-worthy rarely match those of theprotestors (Gans, 1979), ensuring astruggle between activists and the me-dia over coverage.A great deal of research has focused

on the relationship between social pro-test and media coverage (Gamson,1992; Gitlin, 1980; Kielbowicz &Scherer, 1986; Oliver & Myers, 1999).McCarthy, McPhail, Smith, and col-leagues have been working on a largeproject detailing the biases in mediatreatment of protests in Washington,DC (McCarthy, McPhail, & Smith,1996; Smith, McCarthy, McPhail, &Augustyn, 2001). They identify twosignificant forms of media bias: selec-tion bias and description bias.Not all protests will be covered by

the media; selection bias determineswhich ones are. McCarthy et al. (1996)found several factors influencing thelikelihood of a protest making thenews. Media issue attention cyclesstrongly influence which protests getcovered. That is, a protest’s likelihoodof making the news is determined byhow well it fits into issues already inthe news. For example, during theGulf War, anti-war demonstrationsgained more attention because theycould be included in larger storiesabout the war itself (McCarthy et al.,1996). While media issue attention cy-cles are out of protestors’ hands, theydo have more control over two otherkey factors. Most important is size; the

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bigger the protest, the more likely it isto gain media coverage. Level of dis-ruption is also important. Counterde-monstrations, violence, and arrestsincrease newsworthiness (Oliver &Myers, 1999). This general findingheld true in Seattle. Deluca andPeeples (2002) found that the violenceat the Seattle protests increased mediaattention on the movement.Description bias determines the me-

dia’s secondary selection of how todepict the protests they choose tocover (Hocke, 1998). In their recentwork, Smith et al. (2001) examine de-scription bias in media practices, fo-cusing primarily on whether coverageis positive or negative. Contrary toexpectations, under most circum-stances coverage showed no bias, andwhat bias there was tended to favorprotestors. Bias is more than just apositive or negative slant towards theprotest; it is also whether the mediacovers the larger issues and themes ofthe movement. Iyenger (1991)classifies protest depictions as eitherthematic or episodic. Thematic cover-age places the issues within a largercontext, which disseminates the ac-tivists’ goals and beliefs through themedia. In contrast, episodic coveragefocuses primarily on the concrete de-tails of the event and, as a result, ig-nores protestors’ motivations foraction.While negative description bias is

relatively rare, violence, arrests, anddisruption are likely to generate bothepisodic and negative coverage (Smithet al. 2001). Consequently, many so-cial movement organizations havemoderated their ideology and strategyin order to expand their appeal, seek-ing strength and exposure throughmaximizing the number of partici-pants (Everett, 1992). Large groupscan overcome selection and descrip-

tion bias, but smaller, more radicalgroups are at a disadvantage, particu-larly since press coverage is critical formarginal groups (McIntyre, 1989). Onone hand, they must be newsworthyenough to make the news. Withoutlarge numbers, disruptive strategiesare an effective means to accomplishthis (Piven & Cloward, 1977). On theother hand, as noted above, disruptionmakes episodic and negative coveragemore likely (Smith et al., 2001). Buteven when radical social movementsmanage to make the news without be-ing disruptive, they still tend to beportrayed as illegitimate (Shoemaker,1984), while their larger political cri-tique is ignored (Carragee, 1991).With no means to overcome descrip-tion and selection bias simultaneously,radical groups often find themselvesconfronted with a Faustian bargain:either negative coverage or no cover-age at all (Hertog & McLeod, 1995).Further complicating the situation,tactics that grab media attention maynot effectively appeal to authorities(Gamson & Modigliani, 1989).One possible response to the short-

comings of the mainstream media is toavoid it altogether. Using their ownmedia, activists choose which events tocover and how to frame them (Down-ing et al., 2001). But exclusive relianceon alternative media carries the dan-ger of simply preaching to the con-verted. While activists gain morecontrol over media production, fewerconsume the end product. Circulationis low, access and distribution are lim-ited, and there are high barriers toentry, such as cost of printing (Atton,1996a, 1996b). Alternative media arerarely mass media, seldom reachingthe general public or even non-move-ment activists. Yet strong internal me-dia do more than fostercommunication within the movement;

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they also help movement ideas enterthe mainstream. First, they mobilizeand build solidarity in the movement,increasing its strength and public pres-ence. Second, they can influencemainstream media since journalists of-ten look to alternative media for devel-oping trends (Ryan, 1991).Nevertheless, the direct effect on non-movement actors is usually limited.Traditionally, activists have had to

strike a balance between high control/low distribution alternative media andlow control/high distribution main-stream media. Movements use theirown media for in-group communi-cation and solidarity building whilecourting mainstream media coveragein order to reach third parties and thegeneral populace. But, as discussedabove, radical movements are unlikelyever to overcome both selection biasand description bias in the mainstreammedia, and thus will rarely communi-cate their views to a wider population.Many scholars and activists argue

that the World Wide Web allows usersto bypass traditional alternative andmainstream media and overcome theshortcomings of both. First, by makingthe means of media production morewidely available and giving activistsnew opportunities to share their viewswith others (Kellner, 1997), it lays thefoundation for a more democraticpublic sphere (Downing et al., 2001;Poster, 1995). The Web widens publicdiscourse to include more oppositionalvoices and “subaltern counterpublics”(Fraser, 1992); thus mainstream medialose their monopoly over the pro-duction of images and ideas. For ex-ample, Smith et al. (2001) argue thatWeb-based alternative media such asthe Independent Media Center (IMC)“allow for a more decentralized chan-neling of information about publicdemonstrations than is possible

through the mass media outlets”(p. 1418). The Web provides themeans for building alternative massmedia and thus expands the capabilityof activists to set and build publicagendas.Second, since it is accessible from

virtually anywhere, the Web over-comes the problems of low access anddistribution of alternative media (At-ton, 1996a). The Web connects geo-graphically dispersed people sharingcommon interests (Rheingold, 1993;Wellman & Gulia, 1998), including so-cial movement groups and activists(Castells, 1997; Cleaver, 1999; Diani,1999; Frederick, 1993; Myers, 1994,2002; Saxton, 1998). These Web-based mass alternative media offer in-creased range, immediacy, and easeover traditional alternatives.Activists also want to reach beyond

their own movement to ideologicallysimilar third parties. The flexibility ofcomputer networks facilitates the for-mation of coalitions between differentmovements and organizations (Myers,2002). Ideologically diverse, but com-patible, communities can connect innon-hierarchical, networked forms,bridging activist groups and linking to-gether similar messages (Arquilla &Ronfeldt, 1995; Castells, 1997; Freder-ick, 1993; Keck & Sikkink, 1998).Cleaver (1998, 1999) argues, for exam-ple, that the Zapatistas and their sup-porters have created a “left-alternativepolitical fabric” online, effectively us-ing this network to distribute infor-mation excluded from the mainstreammedia while simultaneously bringingtogether diverse groups.The hyperlink structure of the Web

influences how it is used as a newsmedium; that is, it impacts which in-formation is consumed and by whom.The Web’s basic architectural unit, thehyperlink, reflects its dual nature, con-

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necting people and structuring infor-mation (December, 1994). By connect-ing individual Web sites, linksstructure the larger community net-work and establish the position of indi-vidual sites within it. This network canbe read as a text, shaping how readersnavigate the information (Jackson,1997). Links can be interpreted bothas a unit of structure, in that theydetermine the shape of the network,and as a unit of content, in that thetype of links reveals much about indi-vidual sites and the community as awhole (Miller, 1995).Much of the rhetoric about the Web

has not paid enough attention to thedifficulties of implementing it as aneffective replacement for alternativeand mass media. We identify two po-tential limitations of Web-based ac-tivist media. First, the Web is amedium for both in-group and out-group communication. In-group dis-course is that which occurs amongmembers of the same group (for exam-ple, communication among anar-chists), and it tends to reinforcecommunity and create solidarity. Out-group discourse, on the other hand,involves reaching out to a broaderaudience in order to spread infor-mation beyond the movement andshape the movement’s image (Simons,1970). As Mitra (1997) argues, themixing of in-group and out-group onthe Web can have unintended conse-quences. In-group discourses are basedupon real-life activism and on effortsto confront and deal with internalconflicts. Consequently, they tend tobe messier and more contentious thanout-group discourse. The situation isfurther complicated by the fact thatbuilding and sustaining coalitions withother activists and organizations isbased on some combination of bothin- and out-group discourse. There-

fore, using the same medium to reachall three targets may be problematic.Second, Web access is far more lim-

ited in practice than it is in theory.Diani (1999) claims that the Web isnot fully public communication, sincenot everyone has access to the necess-ary technology. But access to the tech-nology is not sufficient; interest is alsonecessary. The Web is characterizedby the sheer volume of informationavailable. Few will discover most ofthis information without a specific in-terest in finding it. Without this inter-est, the Web’s potential to be used as amass medium remains untapped.Our research empirically examines

how anarchists used the Web to over-come the problems of alternative andmainstream media. We then explorehow they were also able to deal suc-cessfully with the weaknesses of onlinemedia. We argue that the emergentnetwork structure separated in- andout-group communication while tacti-cal innovation helped overcome theaccess problems of the Web.

The Anarchist Movement

and the Web

The Haymarket tragedy in 1886,with eight anarchists falsely arrestedfor throwing a bomb at a labor rally(David, 1958), marked the beginningof the decline of the North Americananarchist movement. Their public im-age as bomb-tossing terrorists madethem an easy target for both the stateand other rival movements. Squeezedout by competition from other socialistparties on the one hand, and facingincreased government repression onthe other, anarchism eventually disap-peared from the political field (Saba-tini, 1995). Since that time, themovement has remained largely mar-

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ginal and invisible. We show how twoseparate recent innovations worked to-gether to help spur a resurgence ofanarchist activism: the Web and theBlack Bloc.Anarchists saw the Web’s potential

early on, going online earlier thanmany other groups on the left (Klein,2000). The Spunk Press Web site (acentral, core site in our dataset), ananarchist text archive, went onlineduring the first year of the Web’s exist-ence, and many others quickly fol-lowed. While many anarchists cite theconvergence between the decentraliza-tion of anarchist theory and the decen-tralized structure of cyberspace (Kriha,1994), most users are drawn by thepractical advantages of the Web (At-ton, 1996a; Zolla, 1998).Anarchy is not chaos but, rather,

non-hierarchical social organization(Kropotkin, 1910; Ward, 1996). Anar-chists work to maximize individual lib-erty and social equality, which theyregard as mutually self-supporting.Anarchist praxis reflects these goals,emphasizing direct action, mutual aid,and prefigurative politics, the buildingof alternative institutions within thealready existing society (Ehrlich,1996). Additionally, anarchist politicalorganization favors decentralized,non-hierarchical collectives over large-scale, bureaucratic forms (Fitzgerald &Rodgers, 2000).Historically, anarchists’ strict adher-

ence to these principles of equality,decentralization, and small groups hashampered their ability to grow as asocial movement (Tarrow, 1998). To-day, many in the movement see theWeb as a tool for connecting adher-ents, building coalitions, and reachinga wider audience. The Web allowscommunity building without compro-mising anarchist principles, with thepower “to break down the isolation, to

promote communication, so thatsmall, poorly-financed, or regionallyisolated groups can still participatefully in the movement and connectwith all other areas of the movement”(Sprite, n. d.). Using the Web, activistsare better able to move beyond localboundaries, strengthening movementties and solidarity (Kemp, 1996).Anarchists are interested in develop-

ing working coalitions with other rad-ical social movements, and the Web isseen as a simple means to reach thesegroups. According to Sprite (para. 27,n. d.), the online community shouldtherefore “extend beyond @ [anar-chist] groups to other autonomist,anti-authoritarian, and non-authori-tarian groupings … thus leading to-wards more change and understandingof each other.” The goal is to situateanarchism within the larger radical so-cial movement milieu by extendinglinks to other groups in order to ex-press solidarity and create new ties.Hoping to create sympathy for their

cause, anarchists are eager to chal-lenge the negative stereotypes and ex-pose a wider audience to the “truth”about anarchism. Sprite (para. 6, n. d.)argues that the Web can “provide analternative media, which would coun-ter the lies and illusions of the capital-ist media. To create a forum for ourown voices and analyses to be heard,debated, and acted upon.” The Webmarks “a dissolution of the constraintson freedom of expression and on themonopoly of publishing and distri-bution,” allowing more participationin media production (Atton, 1996a,p. 115). In a study of French-speakinganarchist organizations, Zolla (1998)found that the goal most cited whenusing the Web is to spread anarchistideas and convert outsiders. Atton’s(1996a) interviews with anarchistsfound that most viewed the growing

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anarchist Web presence as a “positivemove, since it would increase access todocuments and publicize anarchism ingeneral, and do much to counter itsnegative image in the mainstreampress” (p. 124).Although anarchists were busy in-

creasing their presence online, they re-mained invisible in the real world.Some saw the Black Bloc protest tacticas a way of generating a higher level ofvisibility for anarchist activists andideas. Normally, the Black Bloc is usedto escalate the disruptiveness of protesttactics, with the size and anonymity ofthe group a shield for committing il-legal acts. It is also a means to expressgroup solidarity. The bloc’s distinctiveblack clothing and facemasks facilitatethese goals of increasing visibility, cre-ating solidarity, and ensuring anon-ymity (“Black Blocs,” 2000). First usedby German Autonomen during the 1980s(Katsiaficas, 1997), the tactic had beenused only occasionally in the UnitedStates before becoming a prominentfeature in recent protests against cor-porate globalization (Glavin, 2000).The Black Bloc remains a contro-versial tactic, even among anarchists.Some find the tactic inappropriate formass actions, as it places nonviolentprotestors in danger and ultimately isineffective in reaching its goals (Do-minick, 1999). Others, while support-ive of the tactic in general, criticize itfor excluding women through itsoverly masculine style (Maggie,Rayna, Michael, & Matt, 2001), aswell as for its exclusion of minoritiesand the poor, who cannot as easily riskarrest (Glavin, 2000).In the analysis that follows, we first

examine the structure and content ofthe anarchist Web community, to in-vestigate how anarchists use the me-dium to reach their target groups, andto explore how the anarchist Web me-

dia connects anarchists into a com-munity online. We then argue that thespecific structure and content of thesemedia manage the insider-outsiderproblem of the Web by channeling thepublic to central Web sites that intro-duce them to anarchism, while allow-ing more interested readers (mostlikely third-party activists) to ease theirway into internal anarchist discourse.However, we also argue that it re-quired an “external” shock from theBlack Bloc to realize the Web’s latentpotential as a mass medium for radicalsocial protest, as increased mainstreammedia interest in anarchism drewmore readers to the Web sites, over-coming the access problems of theWeb. We investigate the dynamics be-tween the mainstream coverage of an-archists and the anarchist onlinecounter-public relations campaign inorder to examine how anarchist Webmedia exploited the new attention andhow it affected the larger public dis-course.

Methods and Data

The goals of this project require acomplex methodological setup, withseveral stages of analysis, both quanti-tative and qualitative, over time. Inthis section, we detail our methodolog-ical process.

Structure and Content of Anarchist WebMedia

In this first component of ourmethodology, we gathered data on thestructure and content of the anarchistWeb media by searching for“anarchism” on Yahoo.com in the fallof 1998, before the Seattle protests ofNovember 1999. We then collectedthe links from each of the 17 sites

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found by Yahoo. Linked sites wereclassified by content as either anarchistor non-anarchist. Sites identified as an-archist then formed the basis for thenext wave of the snowball sample, inwhich we repeated this process of col-lecting and classifying links. Data col-lection went through eight wavesbefore reaching redundancy, generat-ing 390 anarchist sites and 2408 addi-tional non-anarchist sites, to whichthey link. When the collection processwas complete, we searched on severalother search engines to find any sitesmissed in the snowball sample. Thisproduced only one additional site forthe dataset. While these 391 sites maynot in fact make up the entire popu-lation of anarchist Web sites at thetime the data were collected, we arguethat we did collect all the primarysites, and therefore have a reasonablyaccurate depiction of the general struc-ture of the network.We categorized each site in our

dataset by its content and links. Con-tent falls into two main groups: anar-chist and non-anarchist. An anarchistsite is defined as any site whose pri-mary focus is the anarchist politicalideology and movement. The non-an-archist group is further divided basedon the specific focus of the site. Mostare politically orientated and groupedby their primary political affiliation(labor, environmental, anti-racism,and so on). Many sites defy such easycategorization, tending to be multi-is-sue rather than single issue. Thesewere classified either as “radical” (ifthey advocated extra-parliamentarytactics) or “progressive” (if they advo-cated working within the system). Alarge number of sites fall into no par-ticular classification, and are thuslumped into an explicitly non-politicalcategory, “other.”To measure structure, we collected

all links from each anarchist site. Un-fortunately, constraints did not allowus to gather systematic data on thelinks from the non-anarchist sites.Thus, we have data for links betweenanarchist sites and links to non-anar-chist sites from anarchist ones. Usingthese data in combination with quali-tative content analysis of the most im-portant anarchist sites—measured bythe number of links they receive fromother anarchist sites—we mapped anddescribed the online network.

Quantity and Content of Mass MediaCoverage

The next step in our methodologywas to gather measures of mainstreammass media coverage of anarchism.We examined the coverage throughthe lens of selection and descriptionbias; that is, we were concerned withthe quantity of coverage of anarchismand the content of that coverage.Thus, we tracked both the changes inthe rate of coverage over time and thegeneral tone and depth of the cover-age. The key date here was of coursethe November 30, 1999 re-emergenceof anarchism (through the Black Bloctactic) during the Seattle protests. Totrack the rate of coverage, we searchedLexisNexis by the keyword “anarchist”to identify mainstream media storiesabout anarchists and anarchism from1991 to 2001. We use these data toshow how the publicity from the BlackBloc overcame selection bias againstanarchists and generated mainstreammedia attention.Once selection bias is overcome, de-

scription bias becomes an issue. Wefirst document initial description biasby tracking the mass media coverageof the Black Bloc tactic used in theSeattle protests. To do this, we survey

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TABLE 1CLASSIFICATION OF LINKS FROM ANARCHIST SITES

Total no of Mean no of links per % of totalLinks to links anarchist site anarchist links

Other anarchist sites 3399 8.7 40.9Other left political sites 3335 8.5 40.1All other sites 1576 4.0 19.0Total 8310 21.3 100.0

analyses of the media coverage of theSeattle protests, identifying positiveand negative, episodic and thematic,descriptions of anarchists.

Reactions from Anarchist Web Mediaand Their Impact

Finally, we show how anarchiststook advantage of the publicity fromcoverage of the Black Bloc and usedthe pre-existing structure of their Webmedia, and its unprecedented speed“to press,” to counter the mainstreammedia’s description bias and to spreadtheir own message.1 To do this, wefollowed the discussions of anarchisttactics online, particularly on the IMCWeb site, and the development andupdates of the main anarchist sites inour dataset, especially the Infoshop,the key anarchist site detailing contem-porary movement tactics, trackingchanges in both content and Webtraffic. We then study the developmentof mainstream media coverage of an-archism in the two years followingSeattle, paying particular attention tochanges in the content of the coverage.

Analysis

Structure and Content of the AnarchistWeb

The structure and content of theanarchist Web media determine the

way activists and information are orga-nized online and thus indicates theeffectiveness of anarchist Web mediabefore Seattle in reaching the threeprimary media goals of activists: 1)connecting adherents, 2) formingcoalitions, and 3) spreading their ideasto a wider audience. We show howstructure and content impact theachievement of these three goals anddeal with the problem of simultaneousinsider and outsider communication.The first media goal, traditionally

the domain of alternative media, is toconnect anarchists into an online com-munity. Our data indicate that anar-chists have built a strong, denselyconnected community, bringing to-gether activists from around the world.We use the basic architectural unit ofthe Web—the link—as a signal of soli-darity and connection between sites.Anarchist linking patterns to other an-archist Web pages, other left-politicalsites, and non-political sites are sum-marized in Table 1.In this section, we focus on anar-

chist linking patterns to other anar-chist Web pages. A total of 3399 linksconnect the 391 anarchist sites in thedataset. This means that, on average,each anarchist site received, and sent,about 8.7 links to other anarchist sites.Of course, simple means can hide awealth of information. Table 2 bringsout additional details of the anarchistWeb network by looking at the distri-

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TABLE 2LINK FREQUENCIES FOR ALL ANARCHIST SITES BY

NUMBER OF LINKS

Links Sent Links received

No of links No of sites % of sites No of sites % of sites

0 109 27.9 3 0.81–4 108 27.6 218 55.85–15 112 28.6 109 27.916–25 33 8.4 35 9.026–60 22 5.6 21 5.461� 7 1.8 5 1.3Total 391 99.9 391 100.2

Notes: The first column is the number of links—either received or sent.Columns 2 and 3 detail the number of anarchist Web sites and percentageof anarchist Web sites, respectively, that send the number of links in therange in the first column to other anarchist web pages. Columns 4 and 5are similar to columns 2 and 3, except they deal with the number andpercentage of sites that receive the specified number of links, instead ofsend them. Totals do not add up to 100.0% due to rounding.

bution of links between anarchist sites,both incoming and outgoing; that is,Table 2 categorizes anarchist sites bythe number of links they send to, andreceive from, other anarchist Webpages.As shown in the first row of Table 2,

all but three anarchist sites in the data-set receive at least one link from an-other anarchist Web page, with mostreceiving multiple links. Outgoinglinks show a similar distribution: al-most 75% send at least one link toanother anarchist site, most sendingmore than one. While the 109 siteswith no links to other anarchist sitesmight suggest that part of the sampledoes not attempt to connect to thebroader community, only 26 of thesepages make any links at all. The result-ing structure is a highly connected net-work; of all possible pairs of anarchistsites, over 70% are reachable throughlinks, with the mean number of linksseparating connected sites just overthree. Thus, most sites in the networkare only three clicks away from mostother sites. In short, the anarchist Web

presence meets the structural precon-ditions for an effective alternative me-dia: it is connected into a densecommunity.Second, anarchists want to reach

beyond the movement to potential co-alition partners. While online com-munity building is primarily based onin-group discourse, signified by linkswithin anarchism, since these thirdparties border between insiders andoutsiders, coalition building tends tostraddle this boundary. We use links toideologically like-minded groups as anindicator of connecting out to poten-tial coalition partners. Table 1 showsevidence that many of these links areto ideologically like-minded groups—potential coalition partners. In fact,including anarchists, 81% of all linksmade by anarchists are to explicitlyleft-political sites. Table 3 gives moreexplicit details of the most popularcategories of sites to which anarchistsites link. Most of the top 10 categorieslinked to are explicitly left-political.Only the “music” and “other” cate-gories do not obviously fit this descrip-

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TABLE 3MOST POPULAR NON-ANARCHIST GROUPS LINKED TO

No of % of links to

Content links non-anarchist sites % of total links

Radical 748 15.2 9.0Music 318 6.5 3.8Labor 290 5.9 3.5Progressive 269 5.5 3.2Anti-racist 266 5.4 3.2Other 236 4.8 2.8Socialist/marxist 193 3.9 2.3Environmental 187 3.8 2.3National liberation 178 3.6 2.1Anti-corporate globalization 176 3.6 2.1Total 3111 58.2 34.4

tion. However, many of the musiclinks are to anti-establishment, politi-cal bands. Anarchists, then, are clearlylinking into a larger left-alternativepolitical fabric on the Web (Cleaver,1998). Many of these links reflect real-world organizational overlaps, whereanarchists work together with othergroups, such as support for the Zap-atistas, the campaign for death rowinmate Mumia abu-Jamal, and theanti-corporate globalization move-ment.Third, we examine the use of the

anarchist Web media to spread infor-mation on anarchism to a wider pub-lic. Links are information, and linksstructure information. Links play apublic role by helping to define themovement’s image to outsiders (Miller,1995). For example, links to sites out-side anarchism represent affinities toother political causes and movements,challenging the mainstream image ofanarchists as cut off from and antagon-istic to other progressive causes (Her-tog & McLeod, 1995). It softens theextreme image of anarchism, situatingit within a broader political and socialcontext. Working similarly to thematiccoverage in mainstream media, these

outgoing links contextualize anarchistgoals and ideas.The anarchist network links to simi-

lar, compatible groups. However, link-ing out of the group can be risky; thereis no guarantee the reader will return.Unfortunately, we cannot determinefrom our data how many of these non-anarchist sites reciprocate the linkback to the anarchist network, nor canwe determine which sites outside thesample link to anarchists. Although wedid not collect systematic data on thenumber of non-anarchist sites linkinginto the network, definite trendsemerged during data collection. Farmore links are being sent out of theanarchist network than are being sentinto it, and those that do link backtend to be from ideologically similargroups. Thus, the likelihood of out-siders coming to an anarchist Web sitethrough links is quite small and de-creases sharply in less radical areas ofcyberspace. Though they worked wellfor community and coalition building,anarchist Web media were confrontedwith the same challenge as traditionalalternative media: limited distribution.Links also structure information by

organizing the patterns via which we

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TABLE 4TOP FIVE ANARCHIST SITES (RATED BY NUMBER OF INCOMING LINKS)

No of anarchist sites % of anarchist sites % of totalName linking in linking in anarchist links

Spunk Press 117 30.0 3.4Liberty for the People 106 27.1 3.1Anarchist FAQ 80 20.5 2.4Anarchy Archive 68 17.4 2.0Infoshop 67 17.1 2.0Total 438 N/A 12.9

access the content. In terms of Webmedia, links determine which contentreaders access and in what order. Themost striking feature of this network isits high level of centralization, particu-larly in light of anarchists’ allegiance todecentralized forms of organization.But in order for the Web to function asa mass medium, the insider-outsiderproblem outlined above must be man-aged; that is, insider and outsider com-munication must be separated. Thestructure and content of the anarchistWeb, in combination, effectively han-dles this issue. We find a distinct core-periphery structure with a very smallnumber of sites receiving a very highnumber of links. The five most centralsites (just over 1% of the sample) re-ceive almost 13% of the links, asshown in Table 4. Having a core isessential to using the Web as a massmedium. Importantly for use as both amass medium and an alternative one,core sites also send a much highernumber of links back out to the rest ofthe network, encouraging movementback to the periphery. As Table 5details, sites that receive the most linksfrom anarchist Web pages also sendout, on average, the most links back toother anarchist sites. From anyplace inthe network, the reader is funneledtoward the center and then back to theperiphery.2

This structure reflects a division of

labor within the network. Anarchistsare very self-conscious about theirpublic image. Most sites include theirown disclaimer about what anarchismis and is not, emphasizing that anar-chism is a legitimate political move-ment and not simply the absence oforder. Many sites, however, ratherthan dedicating a large share of theirWeb space to explaining and justifyinganarchism, choose instead to refer thereader to the core, thereby creating acentralized public face of anarchismonline. Freed of this responsibility,they can focus on their own interestsand activism. A form of ideologicalgatekeeping emerges, which encour-ages readers to pass through core in-troductory sites first before moving tosites dedicated to anarchist activism onthe periphery. Simultaneously separat-ing and connecting the in- and out-group discourses allows interestedreaders to ease into the more internalcommunication.The content of the core is primarily

theoretical. Most of the core sites aretext archives, storing the writings ofclassical and contemporary anarchistthinkers (for example Spunk Press, theAnarchy Archives, and Liberty for thePeople). The most prominent site isthe Anarchist FAQ, which receiveslinks from over 20% of the anarchistsites under investigation. Offering anintroductory statement on anarchismto the uninitiated, the FAQ’s stated

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TABLE 5MEAN NUMBER OF OUTGOING LINKS BY INCOMING LINKS

Number of incoming links Mean number of outgoing links

0 21–4 5.15–15 9.216–25 11.826–60 15.161� 58.0

goal is “to present what anarchismreally stands for and indicate why youshould become an anarchist,” and itincludes over 1000 pages of originaltext covering most aspects of anarchistthought and practice. Only one coresite, the Infoshop, closely covers thecontemporary movement in additionto anarchist theory, offering coverageof activism and “news of interest toanarchists.” Because of its emphasis,this site plays a key role in the anar-chist public relations campaign that wedetail below.There is an old joke that if you put

three anarchists in a room, you will getfour different definitions of anarchism.While this may be a healthy sign ofdiversity, it also points to the danger oftoo much tolerance. A viable politicalmovement requires basic agreementson beliefs. The anarchist movement isbased on a strong, but often poorlyunderstood, ideology. While the hier-archical structure of the network seemsto contradict the anti-authoritarianworldview of anarchism, it can be bet-ter read as a sign of agreement onbasic principles, giving theoretical co-herence to the movement as a whole.Links represent support for principles,not allegiance to the rule of a smallnumber of organizations. This huband spokes model of organization givesthe movement a larger vision withoutsimultaneously compromising theautonomy of individual activists

(Klein, 2000). The core not only legiti-mates the anarchist movement tothose outside, but also helps forge acommon identity amongst anarchistsonline.The anarchist Web network is

densely connected, overlaps with othermovement networks, and is based on adivision between information for insid-ers and outsiders. The core has severaldistinctive features. In addition to re-ceiving a large number of in-links, itsends a significantly higher number oflinks both within the core and to therest of this network. This increases thereachability of the entire network, en-couraging movement from the periph-ery to the core and back. Wherever areader begins, she or he is likelyquickly to wind up in the center of thenetwork. This is a much more efficientorganization than a purely decentral-ized, “anarchic” model. Through theirpattern of links, anarchists have estab-lished a strong underpinning foreffectively using the Web as a counter-public relations medium.3 The core-periphery structure funnels readerstowards the core, which displays ideo-logical agreement, while a denselyconnected community facilitatesmovement through the network andsituates anarchism within a broaderpolitical context.The anarchist network is well struc-

tured for use as a mass medium, butthe Web is crowded; before Seattle it

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was unlikely that the audience forthese public sites would ever extend farbeyond the ideological fellow travelersof anarchism. With relatively few linkscoming in, avenues of entrance werelimited. Furthermore, links only struc-ture choices of movement; they neitherdetermine them nor do they influencestarting places. Access is driven by in-terest. Something more was needed tospark the public’s interest in anar-chism. To exploit the Web’s potentialfully, it is necessary to advertise. Whilesome businesses rely on pop-up win-dows, anarchists prefer broken ones.

Seattle, the Black Bloc, and MediaResponse

The protests in Seattle brought at-tention not only to the WTO and itspolicies, but also to the widespreadorganized opposition to those policies.Over 30,000 people (Smith, 2001) par-ticipated in the broad-based coalitionsprotesting against the WTO, includingas many as 2,000 to 5,000 anarchists(Graeber, 2000a). Use of the Internetin planning the protests was importantto the mobilization’s success. Indeed,the protests themselves were seen as arealization of the potential to organizeand co-ordinate a large-scale proteston the Web (Klein, 2000). The Inter-net also offered a medium throughwhich others all over the world couldfollow the events. Whether throughemail updates, news posted to theIMC or Infoshop Web sites, or otheronline resources, people were able toget up-to-the-minute coverage that of-ten conflicted with the stories in themainstream media (for a more detailedanalysis, see Smith, 2001).Although the early news of the

protests was the conflict between theprotestors and the police, the focus

shifted with the appearance of theBlack Bloc. On the morning ofNovember 30 (otherwise known asN30, an international day of protestsagainst the WTO), the Black Bloc be-gan smashing windows and spray-painting anarchist symbols indowntown Seattle, attacking corporatetargets such as Niketown, Planet Hol-lywood, and Starbucks. Contrary tomost reports, this tactic was indepen-dent of the police repression of theprotests, acting neither as the triggerfor repression (Ackerman, 2000; Gill-ham & Marx, 2000; Smith, 2001), noras a simple response to it (ACME,1999). According to the Black Bloc Com-munique, this attack on corporate prop-erty was planned well in advance ofthe protests, an attempt to give voiceto the anarchist critique of both theWTO and the “reformist” tactics ofprotest “leaders” (ACME, 1999).The mainstream media immediately

took notice of anarchists. As Figure 1shows, rates of reference across news-papers, magazines, television, and ra-dio were relatively stable for the yearspreceding the protest (as measuredfrom November 30 to November 29).After Seattle, the amount of coverageincreased dramatically. The biggestjump was in the days and weeks imme-diately following the protests, as alsoreported by Deluca and Peeples(2002). The amount of coverage stabi-lized and declined soon thereafter, butwith each new protest, the fear of ananarchist Black Bloc again became afocus of media attention. Coveragewas, therefore, consistently high overthe course of the year 2000. Newspa-per coverage more than doubled inthis time period, and television andradio exposure increased to over 13times the average for the precedingdecade. Coverage declined somewhatthroughout 2001 (with the exception

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FIGURE 1PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN NUMBER OF REFERENCES TO ANARCHISM IN

MAINSTREAM MEDIA FROM THE 1991-1999 AVERAGECompiled from a LexisNexis search on the keyword �anarchist,� measured fromNovember 30 to November 29

of magazines), a fact Deluca andPeeples (2002) attribute to the lack ofviolence at later protests. Neverthelesscoverage remains at rates much higherthan the pre-Seattle period.4

Anarchists were all over the news,but the news was not good; that is, theBlack Bloc helped anarchists overcomeselection bias in the mainstream me-dia, but not description bias. Anar-chists were consistently portrayed in avery negative light. Hertog andMcLeod (1995) studied media cover-age of anarchist protests in the 1980s,finding it distinguished by several keytraits, which we also found repeated inthe post-Seattle coverage. First, anar-chists are depicted as apolitical trou-blemakers. They are frequentlyreferred to as “self-styled” or “self-pro-claimed” (Stowers, 2000), trivializingthe anarchist identity and politicalideology (McLeod & Detenber, 1999).More attention was paid to their devi-ant appearance (“black-clad”) than to

their politics. Second, the division be-tween anarchists and other protestorswas accentuated (Rojecki, 2002). Notonly were anarchists portrayed as vio-lent, they were also depicted as igno-rant of the issues (Ackerman, 2000).Sympathy was extended only to the“non-violent” protestors, who had tosuffer at the hands of both the policeand the anarchists (Graeber, 2000a).Third, many media reports empha-sized how the anarchists were stealingthe limelight from the rest of the pro-test (Cockburn & St. Clair, 2000;Straus, 2000), disregarding the factthat the media itself had control overwhat it covered and generally tendedto ignore peaceful protests (Graeber,2000b; Rall, 2001). Coverage of anar-chists was much more episodic thanthematic, with the spotlight only ontheir specific acts, ignoring the largerideological context. Finally, the main-stream media focused on anarchistsfrom Eugene, Oregon, the location of

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earlier confrontations between anar-chists and the police, and the home ofJohn Zerzan, a prominent theorist ofanti-technology anarchism. Zerzanwas linked to the Unabomber in bothtactics and ideology, further connect-ing the Black Bloc to terror and politi-cal violence (Smith, 1999).

Many protestors were upset with theanarchists’ tactics and the resultingmedia coverage. Organizers of theWTO protests established guidelinesfor non-violent direct action, both toensure the safety of the protestors andto give them the moral high ground inthe conflict. Many saw the Black Bloctactics as an open betrayal of theseguidelines, leaving them angry andthinking anarchists had misrepre-sented themselves in order to hijackthe protests for their own purposes.Michael Albert (1999, para. 10), editorof Z Magazine and a vocal critic of thetactics, argued that they:

(a) divert attention from the real issues, (b)provide a pretext for repression whichwould otherwise have been unequivocallyseen as crushing legitimate dissent, and (c)and [sic] arguably most important, causemany to feel that dissent is an unsympa-thetic undertaking in which instead of ac-tors respecting one another, some, at least,feel that they have the right to undemo-cratically violate the intentions and desiresof most others.

Points (a) and (b) clearly criticize theeffect the Black Bloc had on mediacoverage. The implicit assumption isthat, without the Black Bloc, coveragewould have been more sympatheticand focused on the political positionsof the protestors. Anarchists were seenas ruining a protest that would other-wise have been hugely successful.Hoping to capitalize on the rising po-tential of the anti-corporate globaliza-

tion movement coming out of Seattle,many activists seemed more than will-ing to rid themselves of their anarchistliability.

Anarchists’ Response to MainstreamMedia Coverage

Anarchism was no longer an ob-scure historical relic. People were nowlearning from the media about thenew threat of the anarchist movement.Many anarchists argued that theseportrayals were far from accurate, re-inforcing the negative images of anar-chism (“Caught in the Web,” 2000).Nevertheless, the overall level of mediaexposure was still much greater thananarchists could have expected onlyone month earlier. This exposure in-creased demand for information aboutanarchism, a demand that anarchistWeb sites were there to meet. Anar-chists used this opportunity, and theirWeb pages, to counter their negativepublic image as apolitical, isolatedtroublemakers. In looking at this pro-cess, one core site in particular meritscloser attention: the Infoshop. Runpredominantly by an individual anar-chist activist in Washington DC, theInfoshop offers frequently updatedcoverage of contemporary activismand social struggles. During theprotests in Seattle, the Infoshop pro-vided breaking coverage, samplingfrom the mainstream mass media, thealternative media, and eyewitness ac-counts. Most importantly, the siteplayed a central role in addressing thebacklash, both through its content andits structural position between anar-chist activists and outsiders. The siteacts as a counter information sourceon the Black Bloc and anarchism, aswell as an entry point into the largeranarchist network.

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The Infoshop’s counter-public rela-tions first took the form of giving ananarchist position on the events inSeattle. New pages were added to thesite, including the ACME Black BlocCommunique, a FAQ on anarchist activ-ities in Seattle, and, ultimately, a pageentitled “Black Blocs for Dummies.”These texts give the anarchist side ofthe story lacking in other media. Theyalso shift attention away from an ex-clusive focus on these tactics; that is,they provide a shift from episodic tothematic coverage. The Seattle FAQattacks not only the mainstream mediarepresentations of anarchists, but thenegative responses of other protestorsas well.

One main focus of the finger-pointing hasbeen the actions of the Black Bloc andfriends, specifically the trashing of storewindows and spray-painting of buildingfacades. A lot of disinformation and misin-formation surrounds those actions, as wellas the involvement of anarchists through-out the week in Seattle. This FAQ aims toclarify what the anarchists actually did inSeattle and N30 around the world. It alsoexplains their goals and desires.(“Frequently Asked Questions,” 2000)

The site recognizes that the BlackBloc tactics were probably the reasonwhy many came to the site, but refusesto allow that to set the agenda. In-stead, the publicity from the BlackBloc was used as an opening to intro-duce anarchism and the anarchistmovement.Content is only part of the story. An

audience is needed as well. Some, in-trigued by the media coverage, mightsearch for anarchists online. Regard-less of their starting point, the networkstructure directs them toward the net-work core. Other routes are more di-rect. In many post-Seattle onlinediscussions over tactics, the Infoshopwas often cited as the definitive re-

source for anyone interested in anar-chism. For example, during many ofthe numerous debates that took placeon the IMC Web site, the Infoshopwas consistently invoked as an import-ant resource for those whose onlyknowledge of anarchism came eitherthrough the mainstream media orfrom what they experienced in Seattle.Anarchists linked to this site in orderto back up their own positions, sparingthe trouble of rehearsing the same ar-guments repeatedly.Of course, to ask people to visit the

site does not guarantee that they will.Nor does the increased exposure ofanarchists in the mainstream press en-sure more traffic to anarchist Websites. Infoshop’s usage statistics, how-ever, reveal a dramatic increase intraffic directly following the protests inSeattle (see Figure 2). In the threemonths preceding Seattle, the Infos-hop received a steady average of10,500 hits per day, and in the fivedays after the protest, the site receivedan average of over 33,000 hits perday—a significant jump. Clearly, in-terest in anarchism had been piqued,and anarchist Web sites were import-ant in meeting this demand. This ini-tial growth was relatively short-lived;two weeks later, the number of hits perday had dropped to 15,000, althoughstill markedly higher than before theprotests. These findings reflect the ini-tial objective of the Infoshop of react-ing to events happening in the realworld. With the next round of protests,the site took a more proactive role inspreading information on anarchist ac-tivism.The success of the Black Bloc in

Seattle assured its place among theprimary tactics of anarchists, and itbecame a prominent feature of mostsubsequent protests. Beginning withthe IMF/World Bank protests inWashington, DC in April 2000, the

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FIGURE 2MONTHLY AUDIENCE DATA AT INFOSHOP

Source: http://www.infoshop.org/statsTop line: number of hits per month (in millions)Bottom line: number of visits per month (in 100,000s)

Infoshop served as a billboard to ad-vertise and explain anarchist BlackBloc activity. By posting their inten-tions on the Web beforehand, anar-chists were able to avoid some of theproblems from Seattle, where manyactivists were caught off guard. Fur-thermore, it created an avenue for re-cruitment, opening the Black Bloc to alarger number of participants. SinceSeattle, readership of the Infoshop hascontinued to grow steadily and, nota-bly, the increase in visits now beginsbefore the protests rather than after.During the protests against the FreeTrade Area of the Americas (FTAA) inQuebec City in April 2001, the sitewas receiving an average of over120,000 hits per day, a tenfold in-crease in eighteen months. The rise inthe number of visitors follows a similartrajectory, but with a slower growth

rate, suggesting that visitors accessmore content per visit over time.Not all anarchists agree with Black

Bloc tactics, although it would be hardto discover this based on a survey ofanarchist Web sites. The dissent anddisagreement that did occur took placeprimarily outside the core sites of thenetwork. Some criticisms were pub-lished on the Web (Bray, 2000; Do-minick, 1999) but, significantly, theyappeared not in the center but in theperiphery, shielding them from publicconsumption. This should not be seenas an explicit effort to suppress dissent,as the Infoshop links directly to someof these anarchist criticisms. The con-tent of the site, however, is clearlydevoted principally to the support andexplanation of the Black Bloc.Due to its structural position, the

Infoshop is strategically placed to serve

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as a movement representative. Thenetwork efficiently channels readerstowards this and other core sites, as-suring high rates of access to pertinentinformation. But the Infoshop is notan isolated site. It also acts as a gate-way into the larger anarchist com-munity online, sending a high numberof links back to other anarchist sites.The large increase in traffic to the siteshows that anarchists have been effec-tive in translating their real-world ac-tivism into gains in prominence oftheir online media.

Developments in Media Coverage ofAnarchism

The treatment of anarchists in themainstream media did not change dra-matically over time. News stories con-tinued to characterize them as violenttroublemakers at odds with the largermovement. There were, however, twoimportant developments in the mediacoverage: the amount of thematiccoverage increased, and anarchistWeb sites became an increasingly im-portant part of the story.In their analysis of news coverage of

earlier anarchist protests, Hertog andMcLeod (1995) found important ex-ceptions to the episodic and negativetrend of mainstream press coverage.They distinguish between hard news,which focuses solely on the protestsand rarely goes beyond episodic andnegative coverage, and soft news,which instead gives a more thematicperspective. While this coverage stillemphasized differences, the larger pol-itical ideas and principles of anarchismwere also featured, and anarchistswere allowed to speak more on theirown behalf. Once anarchists becamemore prominent in the media, therewere more soft news stories, which

often took the form of features in theperiod leading up to major protests.For example, stories ran on anarchistsoccer leagues, bakeries, and collectivehouses, in addition to coverage of theNorth American Anarchist Confer-ence held before the Democratic Na-tional Convention (Corley, 2000;Leiby, 2000; McGregor, 2001; Roe,2001; Stelzer, 2001).This is partly a question of time.

The longer activists remain in the pub-lic view, the more likely the media areto employ soft news coverage (Hertog& McLeod, 1995). While the contin-ued use of the Black Bloc kept anar-chists in the news, we argue thatanarchist Web sites have also affectedthe changing coverage, seen mostclearly in the fact that they have them-selves become part of the story. Ini-tially, anarchists were linked to ananti-technology ideology. This anglewas soon dropped; they are now por-trayed as tech-savvy and wired. Therole of the Web in planning and ad-vertising actions became an importantstoryline in the coverage. Often thisconsisted of non-specific references,simply referring to general “anarchistWeb sites.” Whenever a particular sitewas named, however, it was almostalways the Infoshop (Crittenden, 2001;Duffy, 2000; Hanes, 2001; Norman,1999). But naming specific sites is notnecessary, given a network structurethat funnels readers toward the center.Therefore, even a general search foranarchists on the Web would quicklylead a reader to this site.Following Seattle, reporters were

suddenly interested in the anarchistmovement. As Gitlin (1980) points out,journalists rely on movementspokespersons. With no anarchists intheir Rolodexes, they needed alterna-tive methods for finding sources. TheWeb neatly fills this void, offering ac-

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cess to formerly hard-to-find popula-tions and an efficient way to findspeakers based on nominations (that is,links) from the activists themselves. Astructure that leads journalists to rec-ognized spokespeople increases theprobability that the speaker will ade-quately reflect the ideas of the repre-sented group. Many newspaper storiescovering the protests interviewed theInfoshop Webmaster for the anarchistside of the story, treating him as the defacto expert on the Black Bloc(Dougherty, 2001; Kanaley, 2000;Kirn, 2000; Leiby, 2000).It is not possible here to make a

causal argument that the changes inmedia coverage are a product of theanarchist counter-public relationscampaign, but the relatively high ac-cessibility of the anarchist version ofthe story ultimately made a one-sidednegative account less stable. Reporters’credibility could be threatened if read-ers are apt to visit anarchist sites ontheir own. Moreover, because many inthe media were not unsympathetic tothe protests in general (Rojecki, 2002),they were in a position to beinfluenced by this campaign. This isnot to claim that anyone visiting theseWeb sites would necessarily becomemore sympathetic to anarchism. How-ever, Gamson (1992) argues that me-dia content provides a toolbox forreaders to use when interpreting politi-cal issues. Expanding the number oftools to include counter-themes in-creases the possibility of readers betterunderstanding the protests andprotestors and negotiating oppositionalreadings of the coverage. Any cover-age that does not exclusively supportthe status quo tends to lead to audi-ences interpreting protests andprotestors more favorably (McLeod &Detenber, 1999).The relationship between anarchists

and the larger anti-corporate global-ization movement improved afterSeattle, particularly with regard to tac-tics. At the April 2000 IMF/WorldBank protests in Washington, D. C.,the bloc acted primarily in a defensivemanner, having decided as a groupnot to destroy property (Graeber,2000b). Even Albert (2000, para. 4),critical of the Seattle Black Bloc,pointed to anarchists’ “praiseworthytransformation in a very short period.”Anarchists continued to advocate a“diversity of tactics” and, at the FTAAprotests, many fellow activists chose toparticipate in, rather than condemn,the confrontational tactics against thepolice barricade (Milstein, 2001).Some of this progress might be cred-ited to the anarchists’ use of the Webto share information more effectivelybetween activists, such as the publiccalls for Black Blocs before protests, aswell as better explanation of the goalsbehind the movement.In contrast, at the Genoa protests in

July 2001, a Black Bloc participant,Carlo Giuliani, was shot and killed byan Italian police officer. The bloc inGenoa was exceptionally disruptive,fighting not only with the police butwith other protestors as well. In fact,many suspect that the bloc had beeninfiltrated by agent provocateurs in an ef-fort to drive another wedge betweenthe protestors and to serve as a pretextfor the very harsh crackdown on theprotest convergence space (Starhawk,2001). The continued effectiveness ofthe Black Bloc tactic is a point ofdebate, even for many anarchists, whofeel that it may be beyond the point ofrecuperation (Cunningham, 2002).There is no question, however, that ithas played a critical role in re-estab-lishing the public visibility of the anar-chist movement. This in turn helpedanarchists to overcome the access

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problems of the Web, allowing anar-chists online to tap the potential of themedium to expose a wider audience totheir views.

Conclusion

The success or failure of protest de-pends in part upon public image. Themedia have historically acted as thegatekeeper between movements andthe public, deciding which protests arecovered and how. In order to avoidany negative coverage, manyprotestors play it so safe that they donot even qualify as newsworthy. Badpublicity is considered worse thannone at all. This model is different toHollywood, where there is no suchthing as bad publicity. Yet the ultimategoal of both is the same: a positivepublic image. The important differ-ence is that the Hollywood modeltreats bad publicity not as the end of acareer, but as the beginning. Image-making is a long-term process, not aone-time act. To be respected, onemust first be known.The anarchist case illustrates this

alternative model. In order to gainpublic attention, anarchists used themost effective tactics at their disposal:vandalism and disruption. The factthat this brought with it a storm ofcriticism in the mainstream media wasnot necessarily problematic. At leastanarchists were making the news—it-self a significant change. But withoutan effective response, the negativecoverage threatened quickly to destroyany of the movement’s gains fromSeattle. Anarchists responded bylaunching a counter-public relationscampaign on the World Wide Web tochallenge the mainstream line. Ac-tively making and producing the newsfrom their own perspective, they

worked to influence the way othersunderstood anarchism. The central-ized and well-connected character ofthe anarchist network facilitated theprocess of making the story public byfunneling readers to the primarysource of information. That source, inturn, displayed agreement upon acommon position, strengthening thecoherence of the message and soli-darity of the movement.While the mainstream media and

the other protestors originally heldvery negative views on anarchists,these were somewhat tempered overtime. We do not claim that the anar-chist media campaign online was thesingle cause behind these changes.The improved protestor relations werealso the result of better co-operationbetween anarchists and other activists,while the softening news coverage canin part be attributed to standardjournalistic practices. Without a fullerstudy of the larger movement and themainstream media, the basis for draw-ing conclusions about these questionsis limited. However, the Web was animportant player in this process, cre-ating opportunities for sharing infor-mation. We show that anarchists usedtheir Web media to defend their ideol-ogy and tactics to others and that peo-ple were reading these defenses.Improved communication laid thefoundation for resolving the questionsover tactics within the anti-corporateglobalization movement.The Web dramatically changes the

media landscape for social movements.It gives activists more power to shapetheir own media image, particularly asmore people turn to the Web for infor-mation. But this is not simply a storyof the power of the Web; the import-ance of the mainstream mass mediahas not disappeared with the rise ofthe Web, and it remains the primary

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news source for most people. Activistsmust continue to focus some effort onmaking the mainstream news. If theyspend all their energy making and pro-ducing their alternative news online,there is no guarantee that anyone be-yond the core movement members willever see it. Mainstream and alternativemedia continue to influence eachother more than ever. What haschanged is the power differential be-tween the two. Alternative voices are

more available, which affects the de-gree of bias acceptable in the main-stream media. In particular,mainstream description bias becomesless important, and more energy andcreativity can be devoted to overcom-ing selection bias. While those activein social movements cannot afford toignore the mainstream media, thosewho study social movements cannotafford to ignore the Web.

Notes

1 When studying media, there is always the danger of believing that the researcher knows theintentions of the author(s) and can infer the responses of the audience. For the purposes of this paper,we take the stated intentions and goals of authors on anarchist Web sites at face value. With regardto mainstream media coverage of anarchism, we make few, if any, inferences about audience response.According to their statements online, anarchists believe that the negative mainstream coverage ofanarchism impacts their public image, that changes in the amount of negative coverage will havepositive effects on this image, and that they should act on this belief. We thank an anonymousreviewer for this point.

2 Our network analysis does include non-English language and multi-lingual sites (includingsignificant numbers of French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, and Dutch language sites).However, only English language sites are found in the core of the network. The linking patterns bylanguage are actually quite interesting. All languages link primarily to sites of the same language, witha few important exceptions. All non-English languages link out to English and multi-lingual sites, andEnglish sites also link to multi-lingual sites (which thus become the gateway from the English side ofthe network to the rest). Within each language, a structure could be found that was quite similar tothe overall structure of the network: a highly centralized, densely connected structure. Most languageshad a small number of sites in their respective cores. These sites were also much more likely to bemulti-lingual and to both give and receive links across language groups. These core non-English sitesalso tend to direct the reader towards the larger core of the network. Thus, we believe that thepatterns we discuss in the paper are also found in the non-English sites in the network. Since thequalitative analysis focuses on the core sites in the network, English language sites are privileged inthis paper.

3 Obviously, our data are just a snapshot of the network’s structure at one point in time. Thevolatility of the Web, with sites disappearing and new ones coming online, suggests that this structurewould change over time. However, given the high level of centralization, we argue that this structurewould be relatively stable over time, since more prominent and central sites are likely to be morewell-known, and thus more likely to receive links from new sites. Also, links are often not updatedregularly and are slow to change.

4 One important caveat: not every use of the word anarchist is a reference to the anarchistmovement, and the numbers are therefore only approximations. However, if anything, this situationwas even more pronounced before Seattle, when the term anarchist was more of an empty referent,and thus these results probably under-represent the growth in coverage of the movement.

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Received January 12, 2003Final revision received June 25, 2003Accepted July 1, 2003

making the news: anarchist counter-public relations on the

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