DAT201: Research Theme: Hacktivism and Tactical Media

For my readme (which is a communication of ideas for the artefact), I am researching the themes of Hacktivism and Tactical Media. Hacktivism and Tactical Media is, to an extent, a form of guerrilla communication, and has developed from previous forms, but takes it to a whole new level. The real definition of Hacktivism and Tactical Media varies according to source, but the many examples I've found from at least 3 sources included "media activism using traditional political work with technology" (A Virtual World is Possible. From Tactical Media to Digital Multitudes), "a method of engagement using re-engineering as creativity" (Digital Media and Technology), and a "critical form of interventionism" (Tactical Media).

Recently, many examples of hacktivist interventions have occurred. During the WikiLeaks saga, activists have taken to the digital platform to vent their anger against organisations that have severed ties with WikiLeaks following the publishing of sensitive US Government data. They used what is known as DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) attacks, which uses deliberated connections to cause bandwidth overloads, which then drives the website offline. These types of interventions tend to have mostly democratic goals, to vent anger at governments, to send out a very strong message of disapproval, and to promote better democracy as well.

The term 'tactical media' was coined as recently as 1997, to describe a form of digital interventionism that, as the name suggests, uses tactics to deliver the message. Last year, in IDAT108, we was shown one example of 'tactical media' in a lecture, which came in the form of a manifesto/documentary film about the 'remix' culture, which involves recycling copyrighted media in a world where corporations are heavily fighting for tight control, and where copyright needs to be updated for the 21st century. The 2008 documentary RiP!: A Remix Manifsto explains the whole subject about the problems of copyright and how it has impacted on remix artists, as well as promoting the concept of open source, even going as far as promoting itself as being the 'world's first open source documentary'.

There is a link to both Hacktivism and Tactical Media. One hacktivist, Jaromil, pioneered the idea of linking the two. Jaromil, famous for one of the world's most elegant form of UNIX shell fork bomb, which consists of just 13 characters, created dyne.org, a website dedicated to promoting the freedom of expression using free software.

Sources:

• A Virtual World is Possible. From Tactical Media to Digital Multitudes - http://www.uoc.edu/artnodes/espai/eng/art/lovink_schneider0603/lovink_schneider0603.pdf - Lovink & Schneider (2003) 
• Tactical Media - http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=0IyN2OKQzgQC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=Hacktivism+and+Tactical+Media&ots=sVi2LcrnNF&sig=-MNyUDC4dAmDKax1Il2SU7FoFlU#v=onepage&q=Hacktivism%20and%20Tactical%20Media&f=false - Raley (2009) 
• The New Digital Media and Activist Networking within Anti–Corporate Globalization Movements - http://ann.sagepub.com/content/597/1/189.short - Juris (2005)
• Tactical Media and Hacktivism - http://jchasef.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/tactical-media-and-hacktivism/ - Digital Media and Technology - jchasef (2008) 
• RiP!: A Remix Manifsto - http://www.ripremix.com/- Gaylor (2008) 
• Dyne.org - http://jaromil.dyne.org/ - Jaromil