Environmentalists and the Net: Pressure Groups, New Social Movements and New ICTs

Environmental organisations have been widely recognised for their innovative use of the media, often deploying it to raise public awareness and pressurise reluctant politicians and policy-makers (Hansen, 1993). Recently environmental organisations, informal groups, and individual direct action protesters have begun utilising new ICTs, to aid their campaigns (Young, 1993; Brass and Poklewski Koziell, 1997). ‘Far from being the bunch of technophobic Luddites portrayed in the popular press, Green activists have been switched on to the power of the Net for years’ (Lawson, 1995, p. 42).