Anarchogeek

There's an interesting tension here.

The basic source of it is how to use resources, and a question of how many resources are needed. There's an assumption that for something to have a broad reach, it has to be professional (read: expensive) from top to bottom.

Meanwhile, the low-hanging fruit is rotting. It often occurs to me to start up a two-watt (i.e. not intensely illegal in Canada) station with a pc, a net connection and a transmitter. People in my neighborhood would have a round-the-clock source of spoken word and music, should they care to tune in. I get the sense that it *doesn't* occur to people who start projects like IWT to do this kind of thing.

I see the 'net-enabled grassroots media as being, at the very least, the first layer upon which other media projects can be based. So much of the information flow and infrastructure is there; all it needs is to be packaged and delivered... the last mile, as it were.

But these folks still find it necessary to build the entire infrastructure from scratch. (100 million could be 20,000 little grants of $5000 each, each one paying for a year or two's work from a full time correspondent somewhere in the global south, a radio station, a computer lab, or whatever else. 20,000! TV with a similar cost, is, as you say, around the corner.)

I ran into this tension a few weeks ago when I found out that Adbusters was raising $60,000 for one full-page ad in the Globe and Mail to call attention to media concentration... the irony being that $60k is the same amount I'm trying to raise to give the Dominion national distribution through the establishment of a number of local editions.

At any rate, I see the Dominion (and more and more other projects) as being possible because of grassroots media, including indymedia. Another layer of the same cake, maybe. (a low-hanging fruit cake?) We're trying to adapt some of the same aspects of decentralization, while focussing more on delivery to the mainstream that might otherwise be scared off by the polemics and chaos of open publishing. Another piece of the media ecology.

Maybe that's another good metaphor to illustrate the tension: ecology vs. engineering.

Enough spouting, anyway. Glad to see you commenting at length about independent media and revolution again. Makes me think we should start a group blog about media revolution, even if it's only re-posts initially. I could go through the politics of tech category on misnomer and--one by one--polish, update and extend bits from there to be more coherent. Lemme know if you're interested.

that is a free tv in brasil where ppl is working on have a stream of it...the project is called TV7Z and is one of the projects from the submidia collective:
submidia.radiolivre.org

CORRECTION!!!
I just wanted to clarify to whom and in reference to what i writing about because i just realized that a large chunk of my post was deleted. Al Gore is attempting to organize a international 'indy' MEDIA tv network and sent out a call to all guerilla film makers and writers. I wrote to the homies at the 'station' and i copied an email above. I think that a collectively organized not for profit indy tv station would be absolutley amazing - i think that the attempt of people with money and power to appropriate this for profit would not. Sorry for the confusion.
Always in A hurry looking for more of the revolution!,

Djette

Low power community TV stations are rather easy and inexpensive to put together. We are currently testing out several configurations. Thanks to the availability of a broadband power module whose operational frequency range falls right into the high VHF TV band (channels 7-13), a 25 watt TV transmitter can be achieved by driving the module with a surplus cable TV modulator. A channel 12 modulator was purchased locally for $10 which is an average price. Frequency agile units cost a bit more but have the advantage of operating on all the channels.

In any case, initial results for a 25 watt transmitter show that a good quality signal can be sent for a distance of about 4 miles, depending on terrain, height of antenna, the degreee of urban clutter and the antenna design. In an urban area, 4 miles translates to a lot of folks within the coverage area.

It looks like we will be able to supply the 25 watt power module as a kit for around $100 or so. Provided you can find a surplus modulator, a transmiter can be built for less than $200. Even if you had to buy a new modulator, the cost would be under $500. Antennas are not too hard to build, one of our folks is working on some easy to construct designs at the moment.

As far as content goes, there are so many independent documentaries and other films available, you could keep a 5 or 6 disk DVD player full all the time. Just feed the output to the modulator.

In regards to a national network for distribution, it already exists. Free Speech TV has a channel on the Dish network. Also, there is World Link which is on both Dish and Direct. You could feed the video live from the dish receiver to the transmitter. For free programming, set up a 30-36 inch KU band dish and receiver to get the free to air programming from Telstar 5. There are dozens of channels available, a whole bunch from the mideast. Add a DVR unit, either standalone or PC based, to record the programming. More than enough material to keep a community engaged.