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Hacktivism and Habermas: Online Protest As Neo-Habermasian

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Hacktivism and Habermas: Online Protest As Neo-Habermasian Hacktivism and Habermas: Online Protest as Neo-Habermasian Counterpublicity A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Media and Communication in the University of Canterbury by Tessa Jade Houghton University of Canterbury 2010 1 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... 1! Abstract ..................................................................................................................... 2! Chapter 1 ................................................................................................................... 3! Introduction ............................................................................................................... 3! 1.1 An overview of the thesis chapters ................................................................... 5! Chapter 2 ................................................................................................................. 10! Methodology and research questions .................................................................... 10! 2.1 Finding an appropriate methodology: False starts and dead ends .................. 11! 2.1.1 Difficult subjects, and the inappropriateness of quantitative methods .... 12! 2.2 A qualitative methodology ............................................................................. 15! 2.2.1 Constructing a ‘data pool’ of possible cases for analysis ........................ 16! 2.2.2 An overview of critical discourse analysis .............................................. 17! 2.2.2.1 Context .............................................................................................. 22! 2.2.2.2 Text ................................................................................................... 22! 2.2.2.3 Access and control ............................................................................ 23! 2.2.3 The use of theoretical sampling to select case studies ............................. 25! 2.2.3.1 A rationale for the ‘binding cause’ for the case studies ........................ 29! 2.2.3.2 Case One: Hacktivismo .................................................................... 34! 2.2.3.3 Case Two: The Creative Freedom Foundation and the New Zealand Internet blackout ........................................................................................... 35! 2.2.3.4 Case Three: Anonymous and Australian Internet censorship ........... 36! 2.2.3.5 The overall representativeness of the case studies ............................ 37! 2.2.3.6 The selection and collection of a data corpus for each case study and critical discourse analysis ............................................................................. 38! 2.2.4 Research questions ................................................................................... 39! 2.2.4.1 A ‘theoretical turn’: Research question 1 ......................................... 39! 2.2.4.2 Hacktivism as counterpublic spheres: Research question 2 ............. 41! Chapter 3 ................................................................................................................. 43! The evolution and current form of hacking: An investigation of existing knowledge ................................................................................................................ 43! 3.1 The emergence and evolution of hacking: Motivations and perceptions ....... 44! 3.1.1 Generation one: The true or original hackers .......................................... 48! 3.1.1.1 The contested nature of ‘the hack’ .................................................... 48! 3.1.2 Generation two: The hardware hackers ................................................... 50! 3.1.3 Generation three: The software or game hackers .................................... 51! 3.1.3.1 The hacker ethic ................................................................................ 52! 3.1.4 Generation four: The hacker as criminal (a.k.a. the cracker) .................. 53! 3.1.4.1 The media and the beginning of the myth of the ‘electronic bogeyman’ .................................................................................................... 55! 3.1.5 Generations five and six: The Microserfs and the free/libre and open source software (FLOSS) movement ................................................................ 58! 3.1.5.1 Black hat / White hat ........................................................................ 58! 3.1.6 Tim Jordan and Paul Taylor: A summarisation and extension of hacking and its generational evolution ........................................................................... 63! 3.1.6.1 The collective identity negotiation of hackers .................................. 65! 3.1.6.2 Hacking as an explicitly political act ................................................ 71! 2 3.1.7 The seventh generation: The emergence and identification of hacktivism proper ................................................................................................................ 75! 3.1.8 The increasing conflation of hacking and cybterterrorism ...................... 77! 3.1.9 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 80! Chapter 4 ................................................................................................................. 83! Hacktivism: The revival and extension of the political ideology within hacking .................................................................................................................................. 83! 4.1 The imaginary hacktivist ................................................................................ 84! 4.1.1 Hacktivism and Netwar ........................................................................... 84! 4.1.2 The Critical Arts Ensemble and electronic civil disobedience ................ 86! 4.2 The emergence of a hacktivist reality ............................................................. 90! 4.3 The conflation of hacktivism and cyberterrorism: Hacktivism’s inheritance of hacking’s image problems, pre-9/11 ..................................................................... 93! 4.3.1 Electronic civil disobedience or hacktivism? .......................................... 95! 4.3.2 Hacktivism and publicity: An unavoidably necessary evil ...................... 99! 4.4 Hacktivism and the post-9/11 world ............................................................. 100! 4.4.1 Hacktivism and the repertoire of electronic contention ......................... 101! 4.4.2 Hacking for democracy: Media representations of online public resistance to elite control ................................................................................ 102! 4.4.2.1 Differentiating hacktivism from cyberwar, and internally differentiating hacktivists ........................................................................... 103! 4.4.2.2 Hacktivism and publicity: An unavoidably necessary evil (redux) 104! 4.4.3 Mass Action and Digitally Correct: An internal differentiation of hacktivism ....................................................................................................... 107! 4.4.4 Political coders, performative hacktivists and political cracking: An improved internal differentiation of hacktivism ............................................. 111! 4.4.4.1 Hacktivism as a form of identity construction ................................ 113! 4.4.4.2 Political coding and policy circumvention ..................................... 114! 4.4.4.3 Hacktivism, free speech, and accountability .................................. 114! 4.4.5 The imagined community of hacktivism ............................................... 116! 4.4.6 The morality (or lack thereof) of hacktivism ......................................... 117! 4.4.7 Hacking and hacktivism: Conclusions and the lack of a public sphere theoretical interpretation of hacktivism .......................................................... 119! 4.5 A summary of the literature and emergent definitions ................................. 123! 4.5.1 A ‘definition’ of hacking ....................................................................... 123! 4.5.2 A comparative definition of hacktivism ................................................ 124! 4.5.3 An internal typology of hacktivism ....................................................... 126! Chapter 5 ............................................................................................................... 129! The Habermasian public sphere .......................................................................... 129! 5.1 The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere ................................... 130! 5.1.1 Habermas and the Frankfurt School ...................................................... 131! 5.1.2 The rise of the bourgeois public sphere ................................................. 132! 5.1.3 The rationalisation of exclusion ............................................................. 135! 5.1.4 The fall of the bourgeois public sphere ................................................. 137! 5.1.4.1 The refeudalisation of society and the public sphere ...................... 138! 5.1.4.2 The role of the mass media ............................................................. 140! 3.1.4.3 The modern ‘public sphere’ and the possibility of renewal ............ 142! 5.2 Habermas’s ‘linguistic
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