A most impressive and well written post by Eveline Lubbers can be found at: http://www.tao.ca/water/river/0054.html. Its title is: "Counterstrategies against online activism"A few tidbits are:
Pressure groups are small, loosely structured and operate without overhead or other bureaucratic limitations, they move lightly and creativly. They pursue their aims with single- minded and remorseless dedication. To be on the receiving end of a modern pressure group can be a very uncomfortable experience indeed, sometimes even a very damaging one.
* * *
According to Peter Verhille from the Entente PR agency, the greatest
threat to the corporate world's reputation comes from the Internet, the
pressure groups newest weapon. 'A growing number of multinational
companies - such as McDonald's and Microsoft - have been viciously
attacked on the Internet by unidentifiable opponents which leave their
victims in desperate search for adequate counter measures.'
* * *
Listening to the Internet community can be an effective barometer of
public opinion about your company. The Shell Headquarters in London are
making a thorough job of it. Specialised, external consultants have been hired who scout the web daily, inventarising all possible ways Shell is being mentioned on the Net, and in which context. Things are not made easier by the fact that search engines will assign 48 different wellknown uses of the word 'shell'...
(McSpotlight links are posted twice at the end of the article, once the home page and once here)
Happy reading.
bill (P.S. The previous post on the linked site: "Monocultures, Monopolies, Myths and the Masculinisation of Agriculture" containing an article by Vandana Shiva [my original target] is a great read!)
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McSpotlight: There ain't no weapon like the truth applied with some force ;)
