these groups combated global capital with global campaigns. And present in these strategies is the faint hope that if a
campaign generates enough velocity and resonates with enough people, it might just take on some of the qualities of a
movement.

SIMULATION VS REAL ACTION

For many, the urgency of some of the questions we are facing generate an angry scepticism around any practice that rais-
es art or media questions. For real actionists the equation is simple, discourse = spectacle. They insist on a distinction be-
tween real action and the merely symbolic. From this perspective media tacticians are accused of merely talking not doing
anything. By focusing on the media question we are accused of just creating more empty signs. And there is much in the
current European political reality to support this critique. After all the expansion of the media realm has not automatically
resulted in an equivalent growth in emancipatory movements and critical practice. It has merely resulted in an accumula-
tion of self-referential topics. Media these days are accused of fragmenting rather than unifying and mobilising.
Paradoxically, that is partly because of their discursive power to elaborate on differences and to question rather than just
voice propaganda.

Although our favourite topic remains the end of media, the era of a total implosion of the whole spectacular media circus.
This however remains the utopian option (which should not mistaken for abandonment or surrender). Meanwhile at least
for the Next 5 Minutes, we continue to languish in a world in which many struggles appear to have left the street and the
factory floor and migrated into an ideological space of representation, constructed by and through the media. This is often
characterised as a shift from public space towards virtuality or a shift from social action towards the mediated. In a time
where we can see such growth in media channels where there is a tremendous expansion of various cyberspaces it is a
nonsense to talk about "a return to the real”. In fact one might even ask whether any meaningful politics can exist outside
of the media sphere. The current debate about "net activism" is the focus of the “merely” symbolic Vs the "real action" dis-
cussion, with critics voicing scepticism about whether you really can provoke a campaign by just sending out hostile com-
mands via the internet or whether on your own, you can construct a movement via technical means or through mediation
only.

Another level of critique addresses the problematique nature of self referential campaigns, that is campaigns that do not
go beyond the media, such as the open source movement or the "WE WANT BANDWIDTH" campaign
(http://www.waag.org/bandwidth). Although we believe that there can be no effective campaign if you have not tackled the
media issue we are aware that this is just our assumption, perhaps our arrogance. We know how easy it is to lose oneself,
to dive into an attractive and fatal media trap. Attractive because it is so vast, there is always more information, more
channels, more software and the political issues within that sphere of contestation, the severe struggles within the media
industry is a universe in and of itself. So yes we must be wary of the self-referential campaigns that are friction free, ap-
propriating the glamour of activism without the sweat and tears... It is true we are vulnerable to the accusation of being
trapped in the same old safe assumption that all power struggles are being fought out in the media space. However to be-
lieve this would be to believe that the campaigns to damage Shell, Nike or McDonalds have just been fought on the level
of pure semiotics, It is a too easy and luxurious position to disdain the media question altogether. The point is to ask the
right questions about what has more effect and what brings us nearer our goals? These questions imply analysis and in the
end a judgement.

In part the trick is to emphasise topics which lie outside of the media realm whilst at the same time retaining sophisticat-
ed media tactics. The Maclibel campaign is a classic example of a campaign which would like to construct itself into a
movement. Like every group it depends of the willingness of local groups to identify itself with it. The Macspotlight site is
a collection of links to sites, bringing together this variety of local groups. The whole project makes a dialectical move
whereby a single a campaign organised from Oxford is translated into a translocal movement with broad appeal address-
ing billions of people.

TEMPORARY ALLIANCES AND HYBRIDISATION
Although a shared agenda may be emerging we should also be realistic about the differences. We have no unique over-