Both radio activism and gender advocacy within F/OSS illustrate how
technologies acquire political meanings within technical communities. In
examining these sites, we can observe how activists who are concerned with
expressing political beliefs do so through engagement with technologies. Geek
communities are important because they are situated between “downstream”
end-users of technology and “upstream” social groups like policy makers
and designers. “Geek” as a social identity is constructed around the formation of strong affective relationships with highly specialized pursuits
(including fan cultures, though in recent decades “geek” has a dominant
meaning related to technology, especially electronics, and computers). While
geek pursuits may sometimes appear idiosyncratic to those outside their communities, the significance of technologically oriented geeks is the interpretive
work they conduct. They mediate between those who build and regulate
technology and everyday users of technology. Geeks’ interventions into the
politics of artifacts have a profound impact on how technology may be
built, enabled or constrained by policy, or taken up by those of us who are
not geeks.