[Imc-communication] [Fwd: [www-features] Time magazine]

[Jay]

Hi Boud and everyone,

I'm inclined to agree for the most part with Boud about the Time 
article and the recent rise of do-it-yourself online media ("This is 
spectacular proof of indymedia's success!" :) while I can definitely 
appreciate schock's sentiment.

Indymedia began with a mishmash of goals, one of which was definitely 
to demolish the barriers between media "producers" and 
"consumers."  As Boud reminds us, a relatively small part of the 
world's population is online, but among such a crowd, much of what we 
envisioned and worked toward in that realm has come to be.  How many 
of us actually thought in 1999 that by 2006, other than in our 
wildest dreams, so many millions of people would feel empowered 
(entitled?) to "be the media?"  Whatever small role Indymedia played 
in encouraging people to blog, post and generally express their ideas 
to one another online, I'm excited to have been involved with a 
project that was an active and conscious part of that shift.

To many of us though, working toward more democratic media has alway 
been a small part of Indymedia's greater  vision -- not the end in 
itself, but one of the means toward building a better world.  We 
(meaning the many of us who are online and the many more who aren't) 
certainly have a long way to go toward achieving that goal.  I'm glad 
everyone and his sister has a blog nowadays, and that Indymedia was 
part of that wave, but I don't quite feel ready yet to throw up my 
arms and cry "victory!"

As for where indymdia is right now and where we may be heading.... 
there are some fascinating conversations going on about "the next 
stage" of indymedia on the Imc-alternatives list 
(imc-alternatives at lists.indymedia.org), so join that list if you'd 
like to join in the fun.

Jay

At 12/20/2006, boud wrote:
>On Wed, 20 Dec 2006, Anna wrote:
>
> > -------- Original Message --------
> > Subject: [www-features] Time magazine
> > Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 09:51:24 +0700
> > From: Sasha Costanza-Chock <schock at riseup.net>
> > Reply-To: schock at riseup.net
> > To: imc-video at lists.indymedia.org, www-features at lists.indymedia.org
> >
> > Well. No mention of access inequality. But perhaps, when 'user generated
> > content' reaches the cover of Time magazine it means that the open
> > publishing aspect of Indymedia 'is dead.'
>
>i don't understand why this makes open publishing in indymedia "dead".
>
>What it means is that one of the basic ideas of indymedia has become
>so popular among the minority (17% or so) of us who have internet
>access, that it has become acknowledged by the US mainstream media.
>
>IMHO it's clear that there is a big attempt to make this a cooptation
>rather than a revolution. Circumstantial evidence regarding attempted
>cooptation includes:
>
>     * myspace is owned by News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch's empire)
>
>     * youtube is owned by Google Inc.
>
>     * the yahoo article cites the sort of articles which are reasonably
>       likely to to appear on indymedia:
>
>      "But now a mother in Baghdad with a videophone can let you see a
>      roadside bombing or a patron in a nightclub can show you a racist
>      rant by a famous comedian,"
>
>       while not referring to the most obvious example (indymedia) at all.
>
>     * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web2.0 shows that there's a network
>       of people trying to associate the idea of open publishing and
>       open editing with the capitalist free market
>
> > ... instead, the only remaining value of our network (which is
> > considerable) is our connection to social movements. So, maybe its time
> > for local IMCs to take stock and do a critical self evaluation as to how
> > connected we are to movements and movement organizations locally, and
> > prioritize that work of outreach, training, growing...
>
>Participation by local social movements of course remains a priority, but
>i think it would be ridiculous to deny that the people who are socially
>networking through the coopted, centrally controled services like youtube
>and myspace are not themselves a "movement".
>
>As noam chomsky has pointed out, opinion surveys in the USA show that
>absolute majorities of US citizens would prefer social/economic
>policies which are more or less similar to those of the "social
>democracies" of Western Europe, i.e. reformist but in a way which could
>open the way to further and further snowballing reforms.
>
>If this majority is socially networking, it's going to be (and
>probably already is) impossible to repress people discovering they
>have similar opinions.
>
>My feeling is that one of the elements of turning the cooptation on
>its head is by saying to people something like:
>
>     * Yes, you can use youtube and myspace and so on rather than
>       indymedia if it seems "easy" and effective, but be alert about
>       centralised control and remember that you cannot participate in
>       decisions about how the whole service is organised
>
>     * Keep backups of your data and social contacts in case your
>       corporate service provider does something you don't like
>
>     * Be aware of technical/sociological/administrative aspects of
>       these services which discourage you from associating with others
>       or discussing topics involving job rights, housing, racism, the
>       war in Iraq, torture in Latin America, etc etc. [here i'm
>       thinking especially of the US context].  When you see this
>       happening, resist! and learn and then it may be time to work
>       with and learn from indymedia...
>
>     * Remind people of the facts: only about 17% of us have any sort
>       of internet access. 83% of us do not have internet access. That's
>       a huge majority by any notion of democracy.
>       People who deny this are racists and or authoritarians.
>       (e.g. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm)
>
>And imc-cms development will help too, of course. People are probably
>distracted by the server issue right now, so not much has been happening
>on imc-cms and #cms - except for this review comparing samizdat to the
>other cms'es being considered:
>
>[imc-cms] CMS Survey: Review of Samizdat
>Dmitry Borodaenko angdraug at gmail.com
>Tue Nov 28 18:00:19 PST 2006
>http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-cms/2006-November/1129-0p.html
>
>
>solidarity
>boud

>me again...
>
>On Thu, 21 Dec 2006, boud wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 20 Dec 2006, Anna wrote:
> >
> >> -------- Original Message --------
> >> Subject: [www-features] Time magazine
> >> Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 09:51:24 +0700
> >> From: Sasha Costanza-Chock <schock at riseup.net>
> >> Reply-To: schock at riseup.net
> >> To: imc-video at lists.indymedia.org, www-features at lists.indymedia.org
> >>
> >> Well. No mention of access inequality. But perhaps, when 'user generated
> >> content' reaches the cover of Time magazine it means that the open
> >> publishing aspect of Indymedia 'is dead.'
> >
> > i don't understand why this makes open publishing in indymedia "dead".
> >
> > What it means is that one of the basic ideas of indymedia has become
> > so popular among the minority (17% or so) of us who have internet
> > access, that it has become acknowledged by the US mainstream media.
>
>IMHO another way to say it is:
>
>"This is spectacular proof of indymedia's success!" :)
>
>Time Magazine may be denying us credit for open publishing and is
>supporting the cooptation of the idea (e.g. adding the assumption that
>open publishing must necessarily be controlled at its core by
>hierarchy and by the stock market in order to be successful), but that
>doesn't change the fact that it's a big achievement. IMHO it's
>something like NYT talking about "world opinion" as "the new
>superpower" after the Feb 2003 demos.
>
>"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you,
>then you win." (Gandhi)
>
>
>solidarity
>boud