[Imc-g8-2005] IMC London on Edinburgh Media Centre

[Planet Mail]

Hiya,

At 16:45 27/05/2005, mini mouse wrote:

>But there is one thing I would like to clarify - and bear in mind I'm 
>pretty new to indymedia and this is the first alternative media centre 
>I've been involved with.
>
>At the London meeting this week I asked who we thought the sixty or so 
>computer stations were for. I don't recall anyone saying that they 
>expected these to be occupied by hundreds of people from the streets - the 
>feeling I got was that they got directed to a slightly more public and 
>less secure area where they could upload their reports....
>
>The majority of the centre appeared destined to be occupied by video crews 
>visiting from kollectives in Europe and the US. The primary purpose of the 
>media centre seemed to me to be to empower what sounded to me like 
>non-corporate journos.

the mass style net cafe area with the lots of destops will be for people to 
use who sign into the imc - ie volunteer reporters - the london idea was to 
arrange the room into something like two sections  - one the more net cafe 
style imc area / the other more concentrated indy working.  there will only 
be something like 5 terminals in the more public area - if people want to 
send an email to their mum they can use these -  there will be seperate 
room/s for the video folks.

sometimes the facilities will have a heavy load - other days there will be 
lots of machines free that are not being used.

>As someone who was at that point a <complete> outsider, this is exactly 
>how the Camden Centre seemed to operate. If you were off the street, you 
>went to the cafe and used a machine there. If you were a bit special, you 
>got to go upstairs over the stage.

re the camden centre imc (set up for the ESF) - it didn't work that well 
for a indymedia reporting centre. the front cafe area with computers was 
where a lot of people worked from and hung out (it was a nice space) - the 
other rooms with lots more computers were in fact signposted from the front 
door and lots of people were told about them on entering the building - but 
it was a bit of a trek to find them, and many did not make the convoluted 
journey through the corridoor or main hall and up the stairs - this was not 
the intention...

origninaly the street access main door behind the stage was going to be 
used to give very clear access to the other imc rooms - but the venue 
stopped this from happeneing at the last minute :(  grrr.

ciao,
dave