I'm in the midst of reading the Arquilla/Ronfeldt-edited Networks and Netwars, which came out in 2001.

A quick quote from Paul de Armond's piece in that collection, "Netwar in the Emerald City":

"Netwar is nothing new as a form of conflict. What is new is the richer informational environment, which makes the organization of civil (and uncivil) society into networks easier, less costly, and more efficient."

I like this quote because it brings the reader back to the sense that actions and the media that make them possible must share the stage when it comes to analysis. Social netwar, in the case of the Seattle WTO protests, may have looked like an expression of a newly developed sentiment, but it might be better to see it as an old, familiar sentiment enabled by new means. The underlying question, of course, being to what extent does the expression determine the sentiment.

Back to reading.