EMAIL LISTS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN OPEN AND MULTIFACETED IDENTITY

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EMAIL LISTS AND THECONSTRUCTION OF AN OPENAND MULTIFACETED IDENTITYAnastasia Kavada aa School of Media, Arts & Design, University ofWestminster, Harrow Campus, Watford Road,Northwick Park, Middlesex, HA1 3TP, UK E-mail:Published online: 18 Sep 2009.

To cite this article: Anastasia Kavada (2009) EMAIL LISTS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OFAN OPEN AND MULTIFACETED IDENTITY, Information, Communication & Society, 12:6,817-839, DOI: 10.1080/13691180802304854

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http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Anastasia Kavada

EMAIL LISTS AND THE CONSTRUCTION

OF AN OPEN AND MULTIFACETED

IDENTITY

The case of the London 2004 European

Social Forum

Known for its internal plurality, the ‘movement for alternative globalization’regularly comes together in events such as the European Social Forum (ESF),which are integral to the process of networking and cross-fertilization among itsdiverse participants. Yet apart from physical meetings, ‘alter-globalization’ activistsalso meet in a variety of online spaces. This article investigates the role of suchspaces in the communicative process of collective identity construction by examiningthree email lists devoted to the organizing of the London 2004 ESF – a Europeanlist, a national and a national-factional. Considering collective identity formationas a communicative process, the article has focused on the design of the selected listsand the social context or ‘we’ that each one helped constitute. It also explored thecommunicative affordances of the lists for the process of collective identity formationby looking at bonding, trust-building and interactivity. The results show thatdepending on their purpose, accessibility and geographical scale, the email listsserved as distinct but overlapping loci of collective identity. These settings displayedvarying degrees of breadth and heterogeneity in terms of their themes and focus,their types of author, as well as the language in which messages were written.They also exhibited different degrees of interactivity with the factional listhelping the formation of a cohesive collective identity for its members, while theEuropean one allowed the emergence of a much looser, open and fragmentedsense of the collective.

Keywords email lists; collective identity; European Social Forum;movement for alternative globalization

Information, Communication & Society Vol. 12, No. 6, September 2009, pp. 817–839

ISSN 1369-118X print/ISSN 1468-4462 online # 2009 Taylor & Francis

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/13691180802304854

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The ‘movement for alternative globalization’and the internet

Appearing in Seattle in late 1999, the ‘movement for alternative globalization’consists of diverse activist networks opposed to neoliberal globalization. Inter-national economic or political institutions, such as the IMF or the WorldBank, constitute the focal points of this fierce protest activity (van Aelst &Walgrave 2004, p. 99) with demonstrations and actions arranged around highprofile meetings (Lichbach & Almeida 2001, p. 39). The movement furtherorganizes ‘Global Days of Action’ encouraging ‘local activists to protest intheir own community on a day identified in a “call to action”’ that is distributedthrough its networks and the media (Wood 2004, p. 72).

However, in recent years, events such as the World Social Forum (WSF)have become increasingly important as platforms of networking and cross-fertilization (Juris 2005, p. 255). First held in Porto Allegre in 2001, the WSFaims to constitute ‘a plural, diversified, non-confessional, non-governmentaland non-party context that, in a decentralized fashion, interrelates organizationsand movements engaged in concrete action at levels from the local to the inter-national to build another world’ (The WSF Charter of Principles 2001). Thesuccess of the WSF has inspired numerous local and regional social forums.The first European Social Forum (ESF) took place in Florence in 2001 and wasattended by 60,000 participants (Chesters 2004, p. 332), while subsequentESFs were held in Paris (2003), London (2004) and Athens (2006).

‘Alter-globalization’ events and actions attract a wide range of organizations,loose groupings and individual activists. In the ‘Battle of Seattle’, for instance,protesters originated from various categories of resistance including the orga-nized labour, rural peasantry and the urban poor, social identities such as nation-alist/indigenous/ethnic, religious/spirituality and gender, as well as groupsconcerned with the environment, peace, human rights, economic justice andanarchic ideals (Lichbach & Almeida 2001, p. 26). The European part of themovement further encompasses organizations of the socialist or communist tra-dition that tend to be absent from its US branch (Andretta & Reiter 2007, p. 1).

According to della Porta (2005b, p. 186), what helps this movement indealing with its heterogeneous bases is ‘the identity shift from single-movementidentity to multiple, tolerant identities’. These tolerant identities ‘are characterizedby inclusiveness and positive emphasis upon diversity and cross-fertilization, withlimited identification’. Activists thus tend to identify with the collective onlyloosely and partially, trying to belong to a general scheme but not taking onboard all of the ideas offered to them (interviewee IG quoted in ibid, p. 190).This flexibility is also evident in the ease with which movement participantsswing from the local to international in terms of their concerns and pursuits(Tarrow 2005, p. 57). Della Porta and Tarrow (2005, p. 237) describe these

8 1 8 I N F O R M A T I O N , C O M M U N I C A T I O N & S O C I E T Y

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activists as ‘rooted cosmopolitans’, meaning ‘people and groups who are rooted inspecific national contexts, but who engage in regular activities that require theirinvolvement in transnational networks of contacts and conflicts’.

In fact, this emphasis on plurality, diversity and inclusiveness has come toacquire such a strong symbolic status that activists consider it as a definingaspect of the movement’s identity (della Porta 2005a, p. 80). The movementis seen as ‘a big building site’ (interviewee 1E quoted in della Porta 2005b,p. 189) where activists can make connections with diverse others and constructa common basis through the interaction around a concrete objective. Della Porta(2005b, p. 200) suggests that there is a continuous process of ‘frame-bridging’ atplay here that brings together the fragments of diverse cultures. The discoursethat is produced is complex and ambiguous, ‘leaving broad margins for auton-omous developments’ but allowing ‘the development of a collective identitythat is “open” and multi-faceted’. In a similar vein, Bennett (2005, p. 204) hasintroduced the idea of ‘purposeful misunderstandings’, ‘a trend towards relaxingthe ideological framing commitments for common participation in many trans-national protest activities’.

The ability of the movement to hold together such diverse constituencies canfurther be attributed to the way it is structured and organized. The principles ofhorizontality, decentralization and direct participation facilitate actors to becomeinvolved in the movement since they ensure entry without the need for commit-ment or serious compromise (della Porta 2005a, p. 80). The internet is con-sidered to play a central role in this organizing process since it aids theestablishment of inclusive digital networks that ease personal engagement withothers and relax demands on new partners to conform to a specific ideology(Bennett 2004, p. 129). These loose connections or weak ties generate alarger capability for tolerance towards individuals from different political tra-ditions and cultures, facilitating ‘the construction of new, flexible identities’(della Porta & Mosca 2005, p. 186).

However, empirical evidence linking the role of the internet with the move-ment’s open and multi-faceted identity is still scarce. This article aims to addressthis gap by focusing on the use of email lists in the preparatory process of theLondon 2004 ESF. The concept of collective identity has offered a useful frame-work for this investigation, even though, as I argue in the following section, itdoes not pay sufficient attention to the communicative aspects of collectiveidentity formation.

The concept of collective identity

Within social movement theory, collective identity has become an increasinglyinfluential concept, marking a shift from rationalist to cultural perspectives of

T H E C A S E O F T H E L O N D O N 2 0 0 4 E U R O P E A N S O C I A L F O R U M 8 1 9

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social movements, from the how to the why of mobilization (Polletta & Jasper2001, p. 283). However, as Polletta and Jasper (2001, p. 284–285) argue, theconcept of ‘collective identity has been forced to do too much analytically’ as ithas been employed ‘to describe many different dimensions and dynamics ofsocial protest’. This has often made it difficult to distinguish collectiveidentity from the related concepts of solidarity, trust, interest, ideology orcommitment.

According to one of the most commonly held descriptions of the term,collective identity is

the (often implicitly) agreed upon definition of membership, boundaries,and activities for the group. [. . .] It is built through shared definitions ofthe situation by its members, and it is a result of a process of negotiationand ‘laborious adjustment’ of different elements relating to the ends andmeans of collective action and its relation to the environment.

(Johnston et al. 1994, p. 15)

These shared definitions are then objectified in rituals, practices, cultural arte-facts, stories, characters and names.

Drawing on symbolic interactionism, inquiries within this field have exam-ined the interactions among movement participants in the process of building acollective identity (ibid, p. 17) employing frame analysis as their predominantmethod. Influenced by the work of Goffman, this method focuses on the inter-pretative frameworks of the movement, investigating the correspondencebetween individual and collective frames of reference, as well as the processesthrough which movement participants arrive at common frameworks (Mische2003, p. 263). Yet, what remains rather unclear is the extent to which the acti-vists’ cognitive frameworks should overlap in order for them to be considered aspart of the same movement. In that respect, Melucci (1996, p. 71) argues thatthe cognitive level of collective identity does not necessarily entail unified andcoherent frameworks but can encompass ‘different and sometimes contradictorydefinitions’. This seems to be more in tune with the open and looser identityschemes characterizing the ‘alter-globalization movement’.

Research on the subject has also tended to ignore the multi-faceted nature ofcollective and personal identities (Hunt & Benford 2004, p. 445). As Snow (2001,p. 10) puts it, collective identity is multi-layered as ‘there can be variation to itslocus’. Within a social movement, for instance, collective identity can consist ofthree layers: that of the social movement community (everyone opposed toneoliberal globalization), that of the social movement (everyone belonging tothe ‘movement for alternative globalization’), and that of the social movementorganization (everyone belonging to a specific ‘alter-globalization’ group suchas Globalise Resistance). The organizational layer is further complicated by theactivists’ membership to multiple movement organizations. Still, the shift from


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single to multiple movement identities discussed in the previous section demandsgreater attention to the multi-faceted nature of collective identity in currentmovements.

While frame analysis can shed light on the symbolic and cognitive level ofcollective identity construction, it does not address its emotional aspects(Goodwin et al. 2001, p. 6). It thus tends to ‘portray collective identity asthe drawing of a cognitive boundary’ (ibid, p. 9), disregarding the emotionalinvestment that ‘enables individuals to feel themselves part of a commonunity’ (Melucci 1996, p. 71). In fact, it is exactly this emotional dimensionthat distinguishes the concept from that of ideology, as ‘unlike ideology, collec-tive identity carries with it positive feelings for other members of the group’(Polletta & Jasper 2001, p. 284). Thus, studies within this field need to takeinto consideration both the emotional and the cognitive underpinnings of collec-tive identity.

In addition, research has so far tended to focus on the resulting collectiveidentity, on the product and not the process. For Melucci (1996, p. 84), thisis indicative of a broader tendency to take the existence of the collective forgranted instead of exploring the interactive and shared process through whicha collective becomes a collective. By ‘interactive and shared’, Melucci meansthat ‘these elements are constructed and negotiated through a recurrentprocess of activation of the relations that bind actors together’. This is whyhe prefers to use the term ‘identization’, which expresses more accuratelythe dynamic and ever-changing character of collective identity formation(ibid, p. 72).1

The process of ‘identization’ is also framed by a network of active relation-ships between movement participants constituted by ‘[f]orms of organization andmodels of leadership, communicative channels and technologies of communi-cation’ (ibid, p. 71). However, the ways in which the media frame the processof identity construction and shape interaction have yet to be clearly conceptual-ized within this field.

Writings on the role of the media in community building can be helpful hereas they point to the communicative processes that underlie the development ofbonding and a shared culture, features that are integral to collective identity.According to Etzioni and Etzioni (1999, p. 243), bonding demands a highlevel of encompassing knowledge of others and a degree of trust in the inter-action. For trust to develop, community members need to feel that others areaccountable for their actions and that the information they transmit can beauthenticated.

Community building also requires a degree of ‘interactive broadcasting’, as

communities need to be able to (1) broadcast, that is, send messages thatreach many people simultaneously, rather than point-cast to one person ata time [. . .] (2) provide for feedback from those who are addressed by


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the said broadcast, including that from many recipients of the broadcast tomany other recipients (communal feedback) and not merely from one par-ticipant to another.

Broadcasting determines the imagined boundaries of the community. In this sense,the community includes everyone who is ‘simultaneously being acknowledged ashearing a speech act’ (Austin quoted in Holmes 2005, p. 108). This facilitatesmass recognition and engenders forms of solidarity based on an ‘imagined com-munity’ (Holmes 2005, p. 110). Communal feedback, on the other hand, iscentral for ‘mutual persuasion’, the process through which people with divergentopinions come to develop a shared position (Etzioni & Etzioni 1999, p. 244).

Therefore, underlying the process of collective identity construction is acommunicative process. This communication affects the imagined boundariesof the group, its degree of bonding and trust, as well as its shared cognitiveschemes. In other words, this communicative process influences both the cogni-tive and emotional elements of collective identity, as well as the social context or‘we’ that is referred to.

Studying email lists as spaces of ‘identization’

Thus far, empirical research on the role of the internet in collective identity hasmainly focused on the connection between internet use and the individual’sidentification with the collective (see for instance della Porta & Mosca 2005).In addition, research by Wall (2007) has analysed the email lists of three organ-izations involved in the coordination of the Seattle protests, looking at theexpression, rather than the construction, of collective identities online.Hence, there is currently a lack of research on the process of collective identityas it unfolds on the level of the movement since studies have tended either toexamine collective identity as a product or to observe the process from thepoint-of-view of the individual.

Aiming to address this gap, this article examines email lists as settings of theinteractive and shared process of ‘identization’ taking place in the ‘movement foralternative globalization’. These settings are not considered simply as containersof the interaction, but as spaces that shape and influence it. This is attuned tocurrent scholarship on the subject of social space, which, inspired by the workof Lefebvre, suggests that space is produced by social relations and, in turn,enables and constrains the type of relations that are constituted through it(Martin & Miller 2003, p. 145). In the case of email lists, this indicates thatthe design of the lists affects their affordances for the process of collective iden-tity construction, as well as the ‘we’ or social context that they delimit.

This article explores the above by focusing on three of the main email listsused in the preparatory process of the London 2004 ESF: the European-level


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email list (FSE-ESF), the British national list (esf-uk-info) and the email list of animportant faction of the ESF process, the ‘Horizontals’ (democratisESF). Thearticle analyses the design of the email lists in terms of their accessibility,purpose and geographical scale. It also examines the social context or, followingSnow, the locus of collective identity that each list helps constitute and itsimagined boundaries, as well as the overlaps between these different contexts.It finally investigates the communicative affordances of each list for collectiveidentity formation by looking at their degree of interactivity or mutual persua-sion, as well as bonding and trust-building.

The empirical data derives from a content analysis of a 10 per cent randomsample of the selected lists. The sample period spanned from 10 November 2003to 31 October 2004 that was roughly the ‘organizing year’ of the London 2004ESF. Based on Melucci’s ‘identization’ theory, the content analysis calculated thenumber of messages discussing or referring to the ‘action system’ of the move-ment, including its means and ends of action, its resources and constraints, aswell as its relationship with its environment. It further measured the numberof messages discussing the plurality or inclusiveness of the movement, whichis considered as an integral component of its self-definition. The content analysisalso included categories concerning the type of authors and the themes of mess-ages, which all contributed in constructing the locus of the identity or the col-lective that was referred to.

This data was complemented by in-depth interviews with 24 activists whowere involved in the organizing of the London ESF and subscribed to the afore-mentioned lists. Two-thirds of my interviewees were based in the UK, while theremaining third came from different European countries. The sample includedactivists from diverse political backgrounds and ideological traditions, reflectingthe internal plurality of the ESF process.2 The interviews shed light on the users’perceptions and appropriation of these spaces. This was particularly the case forthe lists’ emotional aspects and their affordances for bonding and trust-building,which are difficult to grasp through other methods. The interviews were alsocrucial for obtaining background information on the setting up and purpose ofthe examined lists and the principles guiding their design. Further insightswere afforded by my participant observation of all the major ESF organizingmeetings and email lists.

Design, purpose and geographical scale

Both the FSE-ESF and the esf-uk-info lists were established as tools of theorganizing process of the ESF. The FSE-ESF email list was created on 15March 2002 by the French web team of the Paris 2003 ESF organizing process(Jessover 2005). The esf-uk-info list was set up in order to facilitate the mobil-ization of British activists for the Paris 2003 ESF and, once it was decided that


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London was going to host the ESF in 2004, the list began to be used as a site oforganizing.

However, the democratisESF list had a much more specific purpose. It wasfounded in November 2003 by Stuart Hodkinson, a writer for Red Pepper andmember of the British mobilization network. The list was created in order tospread information about the bid for London to host the next ESF and to alertas many activists as possible about the lack of transparency in the process. Itsestablishment was simple: Hodkinson selected a number of activists from hiscontact list whom he thought would be sympathetic to the cause and signedthem up on the email list without their permission. He then sent the firstemail informing them about the purpose of the list, apologizing for the unortho-dox way in which it was set up and providing members with the opportunity tounsubscribe (Hodkinson, S., Personal Interview, 2004). Therefore, the democra-tisESF was a much more homogenous list than the other two since its initialmembers were all Hodkinsons’ contacts, pre-selected for their potentialsupport to the cause of ‘democratizing the ESF’. The group later named them-selves ‘Horizontals’ in opposition to the ‘Vertical’ manner in which moretraditional elements of the forum, such as the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP)and the trade unions, were attempting to organize the ESF.3

The lists further differed in terms of their geographical scale. While the FSE-ESF list operated on the European level, the esf-uk-info list referred to the Britishone. The democratisESF also comprised activists mainly based in the UK, eventhough there was no restriction for non-British activists to participate in eitherthe esf-uk-info or the democratisESF.

Despite their differences in purpose and scale, all of the examined listswere designed with the same underlying logic. Prefiguring the values of open-ness and inclusiveness characterizing the social forum idea, the lists were opento participation by any activist (or not) wishing to subscribe to them. Inaddition, the esf-uk-info and democratisESF lists were publicly archivedmaking their postings available to every subscriber. The lists were also unmod-erated, reflecting the participatory spirit of the forums where in principleeveryone has an equal say in the decision-making process. However, it isworth noting that the number or identities of subscribers to each list werenot made publicly available.

Constructing the social context: authors and languages

Traffic on the lists was high during the sample period, with the FSE-ESF garner-ing the highest number of messages.4 Furthermore, all of the lists served as‘spaces of identization’, since all of them encompassed a significant number ofmessages referring to or discussing the means and ends of action, resourcesand constraints, as well as the movement’s relationship with its environment.


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Yet, in comparison with the other two lists the FSE-ESF exhibited a much lowerper cent of ‘identity’ messages (Table 1).

The FSE-ESF list also had the largest number of authors, while the figuresfor the esf-uk-info and the democratisESF lists were comparable. However,authors on the FSE-ESF list tended on average to send fewer messages thanthose on the other lists (Table 2).

What is more, in all of the examined lists, authors writing on their personalcapacity were responsible for the highest per cent of ‘identity’ messages. This isparticularly the case for the democratisESF list, but much less so for the FSE-ESF(Table 3).

In terms of language diversity, the esf-uk-info and democratisESF lists werepredominantly in English. The FSE-ESF was more diverse linguistically, with 65per cent of its messages in English, 19 per cent in French, 5 per cent in Spanish, 1per cent in Italian and 9 per cent in other languages.5

Thus, even though all of the lists shared the same design principles in termsof their openness and accessibility, their differences in purpose and geographicalscale affected the type of authors contributing to them and the languages in whichthe messages were written.

The FSE-ESF list had the highest number of authors and constituted the mostformal and institutional list as it garnered the highest per cent of messages postedby organizations, groups and bodies of the ESF. It was also a more fragmented listin terms of language. The democratisESF list, on the other hand, had a higherdegree of personalization since it was populated by authors writing on theirindividual capacity and sending more messages than authors on the other lists.It was also quite unified in terms of language.

TABLE 1 Total number of messages, sample and ‘identity’ messages (percentage

of sample from each list).

list total number sample ‘Identity’ messages percentage of sample

FSE-ESF 1,591 159 64 40.3

esf-uk-info 1,068 107 66 61.7

democratisESF 1,487 149 88 59.1

TABLE 2 Total number of authors and messages per author.

list total number messages per author

FSE-ESF 390 4.08

esf-uk-info 204 5.24

democratisESF 192 7.74


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Therefore, the characteristics of each list afforded different imaginings of itssocial context and boundaries. The FSE-ESF list referred to a ‘we’ that was moreheterogeneous, institutional and broad, the democratisESF to one that was morehomogeneous, individual and narrow. In other words, each list constituted adifferent locus of collective identity or ‘imagined community’ and one of themultiple facets or layers characterizing the identity of the movement. In turnthis influenced the themes and focus of the interaction.

Themes and focus of the interaction

According to Table 4, messages referring to or discussing means and ends ofaction garner much higher per cents of ‘identity’ messages than the other cat-egories. Means and ends of action could concern particularly the ESF organizingprocess, mentioning for instance that the process should be inclusive, democraticor efficient. They could also refer to the movement in general, alluding to thegoals of specific campaigns emerging from the ESF or WSF process. In termsof resources and constraints of action, messages concerned the funds, logisticsand resources of the ESF process. Such messages garnered the highest percent on the esf-uk-info list and the lowest on the FSE-ESF. Discussion concerningthe relationship of the movement with its environment related to the process of

TABLE 4 Referring to or discussing identity (percentage of ‘identity’ messages

from each list).

FSE-ESF esf-uk-info democratisESF

Means and ends 40 62.5% 23 34.8% 44 50.0%

Resources and constraints 15 23.4% 7 10.6% 24 27.3%

Relationship with the environment 13 20.3% 12 18.2% 19 21.6%

Inclusiveness/plurality 17 26.6% 17 25.8% 19 21.6%

TABLE 3 Type of authors of ‘collective identity’ messages (percentage of ‘identity’

messages).

FSE-ESF (%) esf-uk-info (%) democratisESF (%)

Individual 46.9 68.2 86.4

Individual as part of organization 21.9 24.2 6.8

Working group/office/decision-making

body of the ESF

14.1 4.5 1.1

Group/organization/political party 17.2 3.0 5.7


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setting and negotiating the boundaries of the movement, as well as figuring outits relationship with a variety of actors, both allies and enemies. Messages of thissort garner almost equal per cents of ‘identity’ messages in all of the analysedlists. Table 5 also shows that plurality and inclusiveness formed a centralaspect of the movement’s identity since all of the analysed lists containednumerous messages with references to these issues.

Yet, a closer look at the themes of messages reveals the democratisESF as thelist with the most explicit focus on the ESF process. This is because most of its‘means and ends’ messages referred specifically to the ESF organizing process andwere often related to the particular ‘means and ends’ of the ‘Horizontals’. Inaddition, 84.2 per cent of messages concerning the movement’s relationshipwith the environment focused on the Greater London Authority (GLA) whoserved as one of the main sponsors of the event and whose relationship withthe ESF was a subject of controversy between the ‘Horizontals’ and the ‘Verti-cals’. The democratisESF list also had the highest per cent of ‘inclusiveness/plur-ality’ messages referring specifically to the inclusiveness of the ESF meetings.What is more, ‘identity’ messages on the democratisESF list contained morereferences to attempts by certain groups to control the London ESF process.This is evidence of the more polemic character of the list, where breaches tothe open and inclusive character of the process were furiously discussed andlengthily documented (Table 5).

However, it is worth noting that, calculated as a per cent of ‘identity’messages, these figures tend to disguise the fact that overall the FSE-ESF listincluded a higher number of messages not referring to the ESF. Such messagesrepresented 41.5 per cent of the FSE-ESF sample, 18.7 per cent of the esf-uk-info and only 10.1 per cent of the democratisESF list. In other words, theFSE-ESF list encompassed more messages concerning campaigns and actionsorganized separately by different groups and organizations with no referenceto the ESF process. Thus, the more heterogeneous composition and wider

TABLE 5 Specific themes of messages (percentage of each category of identity

messages from each list – ‘means and ends’, ‘relationship with the environment’,

‘inclusiveness/plurality’; last row: percentage of ‘identity’ messages from each list).


Means and ends of the ESF process 95.5 85.1 74

Relationship with the GLA 84.2 75 53.8

Inclusiveness/plurality of the ESF

process

42.1 29.4 11.8

References to attempts of controlling

the process

30.7 22.7 12.5


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scale of this list was accompanied by a much broader focus and range of messagethemes, particularly in relation to more homogeneous lists such as the democra-tisESF. This curtailed the potential of the FSE-ESF list to construct a tightidentity among its members.

Author and content overlaps

The three lists were not distinct from one another but had overlaps in terms ofauthors and content. Author overlaps reveal the degree to which the same voiceswere heard in all of the examined lists. According to Table 6, the FSE-ESF hadthe lowest per cent of authors posting on the other two lists, while the esf-uk-info list had the highest. In addition, the author overlap between the FSE-ESF anddemocratisESF lists was minimal, as only four authors posted on both these twolists without also sending messages to the esf-uk-info. Authors who were postingmessages to all three lists can be considered as ‘connectors’, meaning activistswith multiple memberships that help the circulation of information between dis-tinct networks. This role was often played unwittingly by authors with a limitedknowledge of the email list technology and the norms of the lists who were moreprone to send messages indiscriminately to all of the lists they were subscribed to(Figure 1).

Thus, to an extent, the online space seemed to mirror the geographical dis-tinctions of the offline, with the national mediating between the international andthe specific space of the national faction. This assumption is strengthened whenwe examine the flow of messages between the three lists.6 According to Table 7,messages tended to travel from the European level down to the specific level ofthe national faction, while counter-flows were less significant. This indicates thatinformation appearing on the European list was more valuable or relevant to thenational or factional levels than vice versa.

TABLE 6 Author overlaps (percentage of total number of authors on each list).

FSE-ESF esf-uk-info democratisESF all three lists total

FSE-ESF

Number of authors – 41 4 38 83

Percentage of authors – 10.5 6.9 9.7 27.1

esf-uk-info

Number of authors 41 – 38 38 117

Percentage of authors 20.1 – 18.6 18.6 57.3

democratisESF

Number of authors 4 38 – 38 80

Percentage of authors 2.1 19.8 – 19.8 41.7


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It is also worth noting that the per cents of messages flowing to the FSE-ESFlist from national lists other than the British were very low. The esf-uk-info listconstituted an exception as it was the national list of the host-country of the ESFand the one experiencing fewer language barriers. Since most of the messages on

FIGURE 1 Author overlaps (in parentheses: number of authors).

TABLE 7 Flows of messages between the three lists.

from FSE-ESF from esf-uk-info from democratisESF total

FSE-ESF

Frequency – 78 19 97

Percentage of overlapping – 28.5 6.9 35.4

Percentage of total – 4.9 1.2 6.1

esf-uk-info

Frequency 57 – 40 97

Percentage of overlapping 35.2 – 24.7 59.9

Percentage of total 5.3 – 3.7 9.0

democratisESF

Frequency 29 106 – 135

Percentage of overlapping 13.4 49.1 – 62.5

Percentage of total 2.0 7.1 – 9.1


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the European list were written in English, information appearing there could beeasily forwarded to the esf-uk-info list without the need for translation. This wasnot the case for other national lists, such as the Greek one (Yulis, P., PersonalInterview, 2004).7

Interactivity and mutual persuasion

The degree of interactivity constitutes a fundamental aspect of the lists as sites ofidentity construction as it is crucial for ‘mutual persuasion’. This is because inter-active messages denote a greater degree of discussion and, possibly, engagementbetween different views. Non-interactive messages point to a different process,whereby positions are clarified but engagement between list participants islimited. According to Table 8, ‘collective identity’ messages tended to bemostly interactive. This was especially pronounced in the democratisESF listwhich comes first in terms of ‘discussion or debate’. However, ‘questions andrequests for information’ garner the lowest per cent on this list. This is possiblyexplained by the more formal and institutionalized nature of the esf-uk-info andFSE-ESF, which made them more authoritative sources of official information onthe ESF process. In the FSE-ESF, the difference between interactive and non-interactive emails was quite small as the list contained more ‘statements orannouncements’ and messages circulating documents. Finally, the esf-uk-infoand democratisESF lists were used more extensively than the FSE-ESF to circu-late or endorse petitions.

In terms of the type of author and interactivity, individuals writing either ontheir personal capacity or on behalf of organizations tended to send interactive

TABLE 8 Type of ‘identity’ messages (percentage of ‘identity’ messages from each

list).


Non-interactive

Statements/announcements 31.3 21.2 10.2

Circulating documents 10.9 3.0 6.8

Total non-interactive 45.3 24.2 18.2

Interactive

Discussion/debate 34.4 47.0 61.4

Questions/answers 7.9 10.6 4.5

Petitions 3.1 10.6 11.3

Comments to statements 4.7 6.1 3.4

Total interactive 53.1 74.2 80.7


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‘messages’. On the other hand, groups, organizations and political parties orgroups and decision-making bodies of the ESF process tended, almost unequivo-cally, to send non-interactive messages. This suggests that discrete types ofauthors are differently engaged in the process of collective identity formationwith individuals being more open to discussion and engagement or ‘mutualpersuasion’ (Table 9).

This lower degree of interactivity on the FSE-ESF list was explained by myinterviews with list participants. As one interviewee noted, ‘there’s nothing hap-pening on there, it’s [the FSE-ESF list] really dry, it’s a really dry list . . . I don’tknow whether if it wasn’t so dry I would feel more ready to engage’ (Interviewee15, Personal Interview, 8 July 2004). In that respect, the FSE-ESF constituted amore intimidating space for starting a discussion since authors were often unsurewhether their issues would be considered relevant to the concerns of a Europeanaudience. In fact, activists were often reprimanded for occupying the list withdiscussion of little importance to the rest of its members. In one such case,the webmaster of the FSE-ESF list wrote:

Personal discussions should be kept personal i.e. be sent to people willingto discuss together. Everyone can understand that sometimes an off-topicdiscussion can start on this list, we are all human, but we ask people alsoto realize that it cannot last in this list.

(ESF Mailinglist netiquette 2004)

However, what is considered as a personal discussion is obviously a matter ofinterpretation. For instance, one of the activists to whom such criticism wasdirected replied: ‘The topic is a relevant one at the moment . . . And surelymore “real” than many found on our supposedly “political” lists over here,which are usually limited to the “jostlings” over small issues’ (Red Star case:Inappropriate use of this list 2004). Therefore, activists were understandablymore reluctant to send emails to the larger and more heterogeneous lists,where their messages could be more easily considered irrelevant. As an

TABLE 9 Interactive ‘identity’ messages and type of author (percentage of

‘identity’ messages).


Individual 76.7 86.7 82.9

Individual as part of organization 64.3 62.5 100.0

Working group/office/decision-making

body of the ESF

0.0 0.0 0.0

Organization/group/political party 18.2 0.0 40.0


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interviewee from Britain put it, ‘I try to be very, only send them when I thinkthere’s a need to send them to the bigger lists and very rarely get a responseanyway’ (Interviewee 16, Personal Interview, 15 July 2004).

The lower degree of interactivity on the FSE-ESF list can further be inter-preted as a mechanism for the prevention of conflict, which can erupt moreeasily in lists with a heterogeneous composition. Instead, this limited interactionallowed different perspectives to be present in this list but not necessarily in arelationship with each other. This is concurrent with the notion of ‘purposefulmisunderstandings’ (Bennett 2005, p. 204) and ‘open’ identity (della Porta2005b, p. 200), as disparate beliefs and statements can more easily co-existwhen list subscribers do not enter into a discussion in order to clarify or chal-lenge these positions.

Creating a cohesive ‘horizontal’ identity

As a group founded on resistance, the ‘Horizontals’ soon developed a cohesiveidentity in opposition to the groups who organized the ESF in a ‘vertical’ way.The democratisESF list aided this process by constituting a relatively homo-geneous social context with a narrow focus and a high degree of interactivity.The list further served as a site for the co-writing of proposals and documents,as well as the naming of the group. This allowed the ‘Horizontals’ to arrive to acommon articulation of their beliefs, aligning their frames of reference andclarifying their conflicts and misunderstandings.

The main document written collaboratively on the list was the ‘Call forDemocracy in the ESF Process’. Evidence from the interviews and the democrati-sESF list suggests that this was a long and difficult process. According to one of myinterviewees, the main ideas for the call were initially thrashed out in a face-to-facemeeting. My interviewee then wrote a first draft of the document and posted it onthe democratisESF list inviting comments and alterations (Interviewee 6, PersonalInterview, 31 March 2004). However, as the consultation period for amendmentswas nearing its end, certain activists protested about the strong wording of parts ofthe proposal. After much discussion, the solution they came up with was to turn theinitial petition into a background document and to create a smaller version of theproposed points of action that everyone felt comfortable to sign.

The democratisESF list also helped the ‘Horizontals’ to crystallize their iden-tity in another and possibly more crucial way: finding a suitable name for thegroup. More specifically, the name emerged spontaneously from the delibera-tions on the list after a story about the Argentinean Picatelas movement wasposted on the democratisESF list by Stuart Hodkinson. According to his account:

I sent an email to an email list called democratize_the_esf, which I’ll talkabout in a minute in which I related the story of the Argentina, Argentine


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Picatelas movement and how there were two forces within the Picatelasmovement, there were the ‘Verticals’ and the ‘Horizontals’, the ‘Verticals’were those who came from the Trotskyist groups, they were not interestedin the assemblies of the Picatelas movement, they were trying to dominate itand the more sort of anarcho-types within the Picatelas who were interestedin spokescouncils and delegates and democracy and someone came on tour inBritain from the Picatelas and she said, you know, the problem in Argentinawith the Picatelas is not a single movement . . . [. . .] so I sort of sent thatemail and all of a sudden [name omitted], the arch email sender andcyber-sort of-surfer and then [name omitted] fixed on this dichotomy andthey said ‘Yes! We are the Horizontals’

(Personal Interview, 2004)

As another ‘Horizontal’ put it,

Stuart reported, had a comment on one of his clashes and sent us this storyhe has read about the Argentinean movement . . . [. . .] and when I read thison my computer screen I remember thinking ‘wow’

(Interviewee 6, Personal Interview, 31 March 2004)

The name soon consolidated: it appeared in the title of a document circulated bythe group and started to be widely used by the ESF participants.

Hence, while the FSE-ESF list operated more as a bulletin board, the demo-cratisESF list acted as the home of a much more cohesive identity. This meansthat depending on their design and purpose email lists have different affordancesfor the process of ‘identity’ construction. However, as the next section reveals,even the more homogeneous and smaller email lists are limited in their affor-dances for bonding and trust-building, particularly in relation to face-to-facecommunication.

Openness, trust and bonding

While the democratisESF list played a key role in the emergence of the ‘Hori-zontal’ identity, the links created on the list needed to be consolidatedthrough face-to-face meetings. As Hodkinson (Personal Interview, 2004) noted:

what happened was a very very dedicated . . . eligible group of individualsjust seemed to emerge within the democratize list and through their invol-vement in the European assembly we started to go from cyberspace to real placeand we started to hold meetings before meetings and hold mid-week meet-ings, talk to people on the phone


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In other words, while the democratisESF list was important for initially bringingtogether activists who were unhappy with the London process, the core of thegroup deepened their bonds through face-to-face communication. This isbecause, as most of my interviewees noted, building relationships of trustsolely on email is very difficult and time consuming. Instead, face-to-face com-munication accelerates the process of trust-building for reasons referring both tothe cognitive and the emotional bases of trust (Mayer et al. 1995, pp. 717–719).As my interviews showed, evidence of trustworthiness tends to be more believ-able when transmitted within a face-to-face context, while non-verbal cues canmore easily convey emotive content.

This core group of the ‘Horizontals’ also stopped using the democratisESFlist to deliberate on their strategies, preferring to hold these discussions in asecret list that was not accessible to their opponents. Although necessary in prac-tical terms, I would argue that the ‘secret list’ was also crucial for the develop-ment of the collective identity of the group. This is because open email lists,where anyone can subscribe and where no one has complete knowledge of thelist’s membership, can be a hostile habitat for fostering relationships of trust.For instance, talking about the FSE-ESF list, one interviewee noted:

Certainly on the European one who is reading that?, it’s kind of and it is, it’slike, you know, you touch on certain things and it’s like where is it going? . . .are they going to pass it on to somebody else? And you suddenly realize, youknow, you can’t criticize somebody on there because they’ll pass it to some-body and you suddenly realize that this is not a private conversation it’s quitepublic, that can make you sort of slightly paranoid

(Interviewee 15, Personal Interview, 8 July 2004)

In other words, the closedness of the space can lead to a greater closeness amongits participants. This seems to be the case even for groups like the ‘Horizontals’for whom the establishment of a ‘secret list’ directly contravened the values ofopenness and inclusiveness on which their identity was based.

Conclusion

Viewing collective identity as a communicative process, this article examined therole of three ESF email lists as settings of collective identity construction. Theanalysis focused on the design of the lists, showing how it prefigured thevalues of inclusiveness, plurality and equality that are inherent in the socialforum idea. Thus, the lists were open to subscription and discussion was notmoderated. However, the three lists varied in terms of purpose and geographicalscale. In turn, this affected the social context that each one helped constitute, aswell as their communicative affordances for the process of ‘identization’.


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Hence, the FSE-ESF list had a much more heterogeneous composition and alower degree of personalization as it received more postings by groups andorganizations. It was also more diverse linguistically and had a broader focusin terms of themes. The democratisESF in contrast had a more homogeneouscomposition and a higher degree of personalization. Messages were written inEnglish and focused specifically on the ESF process and the goals of the ‘Horizon-tals’. Thus, each list constituted a different ‘network of active relationships’(Melucci 1996, p. 71) or locus of collective identity, giving rise to different ima-ginings of the social context and its boundaries or the ‘we’ that was referred to.

However, these multiple loci were not distinct from one another but con-nected through overlapping memberships and content. In that respect, messagestended to travel from the European scale to the national and then to the factionallist, while the reverse journey was relatively limited. In addition, the national listmediated between the European and the factional one, as it had author overlapswith both of them, while the overlaps between the other two were minimal. Inother words, these multiple ‘sites of identization’ intersected in ways that wereindicative of the hierarchy of concerns within the movement.

Furthermore, the three lists differed in terms of their communicativeaffordances for the process of collective identity construction. In that respect,the FSE-ESF list was far less interactive, resembling more of a bulletin boardthan the other two lists. Thus, within this list different perspectives couldexist side by side while conflicts and internal challenges were restricted sincediverse opinions were expressed in statements and announcements rather thandebate and discussion. Thus, the FSE-ESF list was home to a looser and moreopen process of identity construction, allowing a greater degree of ‘purposefulmisunderstandings’ (Bennett 2005, p. 204). Yet, this also curbed the potentialof this list to foster unity, since this limited the process of ‘mutual persuasion’and the development of common positions.

On the other hand, the smaller, factional or more homogeneous lists seem tobe better sites for the generation of a cohesive identity for their subscribers. ThedemocratisESF list illustrates how an email list can be used for the circulation ofstories that reinforced the identity of the group and for the co-writing of state-ments that pinned down and articulated its goals and objectives. In this particularcase, the list also constituted a site for the naming of the group which helped it toclearly identify itself in opposition to its adversaries.

However, in relation to face-to-face communication, all of the lists were con-strained in their affordances for trust-building and bonding. This was due to theirlimitations in conveying emotive content, as well as authenticating the informationthat was offered. It was also a result of their design, as their open characterrendered them risky habitats for the free expression of feelings and opinions.

Therefore, referring to different geographical scales and population ofsubscribers, the three email lists operated as distinct but overlapping settings forthe process of collective identity construction. This indicates that in terms of


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individual identities, belonging to multiple email lists may increase the activists’flexibility to move between different ‘sites of identization’ and juggle their invol-vement in different ‘Wes’. In other words, involvement in a variety of email listsmay be facilitating the development of ‘multiple, tolerant identities’ (della Porta2005b, p. 186), as well as the emergence of a cadre of activists defined as ‘rootedcosmopolitans’ (della Porta & Tarrow 2005, p. 237). The lists also varied interms of their communicative affordances for the process of ‘identization’,serving as a setting for the construction of a loose identity on the Europeanlevel and a much more cohesive one on the level of the specific faction.Hence, the email lists constituted an infrastructure for the simultaneous devel-opment of multiple and intersecting identities within the movement with varyingdegrees of openness and cohesiveness.

Notes

1 For Melucci, the word ‘identity’ alludes to a sense of permanence whichdoes not suit the processual analysis that he is arguing for. He nonethelessuses the term for lack of a better one, noting that ‘it represents by defi-nition a temporary solution to a conceptual problem, and should bereplaced if and when other concepts prove themselves more adequate’(1996, p. 70).

2 It is worth noting here that all interviewees were anonymized apart fromStuart Hodkinson, the creator of the democratisESF list.

3 Social forum politics have always been characterized by a tension betweenthe culture of horizontal networking and the command-driven logics typi-fying the more traditional components of the Left. However, the LondonESF organizing process was the first time this conflict became so explicitthat the two opposing camps were named after the modes of organizingeach one was supposedly pursuing (Nunes 2005, p. 298). According tomany of my interviewees, the intensity of the clash can be partly attributedto the particularities of the British Left and its distinctive balance of forces,characterized by the powerful position of the SWP. One of the main linesof demarcation between the two camps referred to their different percep-tions of the goals and purpose of the ESF. While the ‘Horizontals’ arguedthat the organizing of the forum should embody the participatory beliefs ofthe movement, the ‘Verticals’ insisted on the primacy of ‘strategic goals’,viewing the ESF as an event that, if successful, could lead to the emergenceof a ‘mass movement’. The clash also derived from two opposing under-standings of democracy, with the ‘Horizontals’ stressing the value of directparticipation, while the ‘Verticals’ were more appreciative of representa-tive structures.


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4 In the results that follow, the total number of authors and the estimates ofauthor overlap and message flows were calculated based on the totalnumber of messages posted on each list. The remainder of the resultsrefers to the 10 per cent random sample.

5 For 1 per cent of messages the language was not clear (this includes oneempty message).

6 I estimated the flow of messages based on the subject line of the message. Ifthe subject line included an indication that this message was forwarded to/from another list or was a reply from a message to another list, then it wascounted in the flow of messages. For instance, the subject line ‘[esf-uk-info]Fwd: [FSE-ESF] about the European Assembly’ means that this message wasinitially forwarded to the FSE-ESF list and then sent to the esf-uk-info. Mess-ages posted on two or three lists simultaneously were not counted as they didnot move from one list to the other. However, if a subscriber, for instance,forwarded a message from one list to the next but altered the subject line,then obviously the subject line of the message would not indicate that thismessage was sent to both lists. Therefore, these figures may be actuallyunderestimating the flow of messages between the three lists.

7 However, a point to note here is that if we take into account the per centsof total number of messages, then these differences seem nearly negligible.Lacking any other similar research, there is some difficulty to interpretthese figures with certainty.

References

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Bennett, L. W. (2004) ‘Communicating global activism: strengths and vulnerabilitiesof networked politics’, in Cyberprotest: New Media, Citizens and Social Movements,eds W. van de Donk, B. D. Loader, P. G. Nixon & D. Rucht, Routledge,London, pp. 123–146.

Bennett, L. W. (2005) ‘Social movements beyond borders: understanding two erasof transnational activism’, in Transnational Protest and Global Activism, eds D.della Porta & S. Tarrow, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, MD,pp. 203–226.

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Dr Anastasia Kavada is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Communi-

cation and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) of the University of Westminster.

Her research interests concern the role of the internet and social technologies

in the establishment of international campaigns and political coalitions and in

practices of citizenship and democracy. Her research has focused on the

Global Justice Movement, exploring the connection between the internet and

participatory decision-making, decentralized organizing, and the development

of a common identity among movement participants. She has taught in a

variety of courses in media and communication at the University of Westminster,

Middlesex University and Kingston University. Address: School of Media, Arts &

Design, University of Westminster, Harrow Campus, Watford Road, Northwick

Park, Middlesex HA1 3TP, UK. [email: [email protected]]


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http://repositories.cdlib.org/csd/01-07

http://repositories.cdlib.org/csd/01-07

http://www.wsf2007.org/process/wsf-charter



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EMAIL LISTS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN OPEN AND MULTIFACETED IDENTITY

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