> ravi wrote:
> >
> > NETROOTS
>
> Huh?
>From Wikipedia:
Netroots is a recent term describing a particular form of grassroots activist organized primarily over the internet, especially on blogs.
The first use of the term applied to political activism related to the online activity of the blogs is Netroots for Howard Dean, in December, 2002 on MyDD, and Joe Trippi credits the success of Howard Dean to their listening and taking the lead from the netroots activity. The netroots also played a key role in drafting General Wesley Clark into the 2004 Presidential campaign. The growing power of the netroots was seen most recently in the Paul Hackett campaign where blog users organized their efforts to raise more money for the political candidate than did the Democratic Party institutions.
In a December 2005 interview with Newsweek magazine [1], Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of Daily Kos, described the netroots as, "the crazy political junkies that hang out in blogs." He is also the co-author (with Jerome Armstrong) of the book Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots and the Rise of People-Powered Politics.
A netroots activity can take form through political framing, debate and exchange of ideas, messaging, and other communication; through online activism that is geared toward persuasion and organizing via the participation of many blogs. Netroots outreach is a campaign-oriented activity that uses the web for complimenting more traditional campaign activities, such as collaborating with grassroots activism that involves get-out-the-vote and organizing through interconnecting local and regional efforts, such as Meetup, and the netroots-grassroots coalition that propeled the election of Howard Dean to the DNC Chair in January, 2005.
The essential quality of the netroots is its flatness and inter-linked web connectiveness. It constitutes communication points that reach out to influence traditional media, but is not directed outward from any one point. Through events like a blogswarm, the netroots displays non-hierarchical and decentralized features.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netroots
--
Colin Brace
Amsterdam