This tutorial will show you how to create an effect as shown above. You should be familiar with some common GIMP functions to be able to understand the technics.
First of all you should get Austin Donelly's Newsprint plug-in and install it. You can download the source here. You don't have to if you use Gimp 1.1 or 1.2.
Create a new image (further we call it [img1]) of apropriate size. In this tutorial I've taken 400x100. Background should be black, foreground should be white. Write the desired text. Now create 2 other copies of this ([img2] and [img3]):
Blur [img2] (Filters - Blur - Gaussian Blur (IIR)), radius about 25. Use the Newsprint plugin on [img2]. SPI=75, LPI=7.5, cell=10, angles should all be the same - 35 is a good value:
Blur [img3], radius about 5.
Create a new image ([img4], same size as the others), transparent. Fill it with the desired text color.
Add a layer mask to [img4] and copy [img1] into the mask. Apply the layer mask and bump map the result using [img2]:
Now bump map the result using [img3] to create a nice bevel:
That's all! Flatten the image and do whatever you want with it:
Try out different values for blurring and newsprinting to achieve your favourite "techno text". Have fun!