Anarchogeek

Thoughts about the evolution of indymedia since 1999

I read recently a saying: "The Size of a Forest Fire Doesn't Depend on the Size of the Spark Which Created It." In someways that reflects indymedia. The spark which got things started was the WTO protests, and it was a big spark, but what make it spread were the conditions. Indymedia represented a model for how many people could participate directly in media making for social change.

The indymedia network has added a new local imc every 11 days. That's a sustained level of growth which has only been possible because of the flexible and decentralized network form of organization which the indymedia network has adopted. The network is grounded in a set of principles of unity which lets each group adapt their organization and activities to the local political environment while providing some standards and integrity across the network.

Indymedia started out as more an organization which facilitated media making by already established activist journalists. Over time it evolved in to more of a mass organization of amateur media makers. The indymedia slogans, 'become the media', 'be the media', and 'everybody's a journalist' were adopted as the network grew, and came from the UK, Belgium, and Argentina respectively, not from the North American IMC's. They reflect a growing sense of indymedia as being embedded within social movements.

In someways this was a move away from the more liberal conception of the role of media in social change. IMC's in the english speaking world tend to be much more 'liberal' and tend toward a chomskian conception of an equal playing field and depoliticized free speech as the ideal for building a communal discursive space for social change. That same communal space is also a vital component in IMC's outside the english speaking world, but the perspective is more partisan, the space that is being opened is just for leftists.

This conception of opening space is important to understanding indymedia. It gets to why indymedia is so wedded to Open Publishing. What indymedia is trying to do is reconstruct how media for social change is organized. One of the accomplishments of the Leninists was to create a model for media and communication which advanced social change. The 'What is to be done' model lays out a conception of society as a Fordist factory, with the news and ideology flowing from the cadre, or capitalist press, to the masses. Much of the left around the world still operates what is basically a Leninist model of media for social change. An intellectual elite create quality news and content which goes out to the masses who consume it.

With the media movements in the 70's there started to be a trend of community media, which is more participatory, but often less politicized. Indymedia draws on this more multidirectional tradition of media. We also draw on the concept of the Zapatistas of leading by following, of a dialog lead revolution to make revolution possible. This anti-vanguardist tradition says that we don't know the path to the revolution. Social change is something that grows up out of the crowd and through action not theory.

Indymedia is a media system built upon the premise that only by radical participation in a communal discursive space can a new conception of politics be created. It is this open publishing, participatory media making network which invites a broad spectrum of social movements to participate that makes indymedia special.

Sure we've got websites, servers, videos, andstreaming web video radio stations with sms gateways, and automated breaking news phone lines, but what we really have is a new model for 'what is to be done.' Indymedia is the 21st century version of the leninist party newspaper. It's something who's time has come, the mix has grown and been shaped by the movements around it. It's a way of constructing a broad popular front without coercion or hierarchy. Where the proletarian, or student / proletarian, or counter culture blocks of radical actors have been replaced by a contradictory multitude.

When i have talked to groups in dozens of different countries explaining indymedia i get the same reaction. People take to the idea, like they've been hoping for a set of models which they can use. It's never been a process of convincing anybody to start a new indymedia center. All we need to do is explain and show how it works, and people adopt what is useful to them and take it forward.

Hum, i guess ranted off there a bit. I'm sorry about that.

Back to the evolution of indymedia. We've made some interesting decisions as we've evolved.

We decided to embody a radical form of participatory democracy and consensus.

We decided to not have a central office or staff.

We decided not to have presidents, directors, staff, or elections.

We never talk in the name of indymedia, and never make endorsements alongside other leftist groups, except in some cases directly related to media activism.

We've discovered that we have a lot to learn from the free software movement, and copied many of their tools and techniques.

We've appropriated technology as an essential tool for radical social change.

We decided that each imc should be allowed tremendous autonomy.

We've decided we do have values and kicked out groups which weren't open, weren't leftist, or were controlled by a leftist political party (mostly greens, maoists, and trots.)

We've decided that we don't care too much what other people think of us.

Posted by rabble at September 2, 2004 07:03 PM | TrackBack