New article about Indymedia (in norwegian)

Indymedia for alle

Kronikk trykket i Klassekampen
Av Egil G. Skogseth

Indymedia har ønsket å gjøre folk i stand til ”a bli mediene”. Har de lyktes?

Helt fra starten i 1999 i Seattle under demonstrasjonene mot WTO har Independent Media Center fylt to roller. Indymedia har både vært et koordinert uttrykk for eksisterende uavhengige og ikke-kommersielle medier, og den nye globaliseringskritiske bevegelsens informasjonskanal. I tråd med sine anarkistiske organisasjonsprinsipper framholder Indymedia at uavhengig betyr flat nettverksstruktur hvor avgjørelser tas ved konsensus, kombinert med en åpen invitasjon til brukerne til direkte deltagelse i nyhets og menings produksjon.

Samtidig som de anerkjenner sosialismens entusiasme for mediene som redskap for dem som ønsker sosiale endringer, avviser Indymedia marxist-lenninistisk/trotskistisk instrumentell tilnærming: Media som overfører av Partiets ideologi til folket. Men den ideologiske miksen stopper ikke der: Inspirert av liberalistisk opplysningstankegods jobber Indymedia for å tilrettelegge åpne fysiske og medierte rom for informasjonsutveksling og diskusjon – felles allmenninger. Her kan deltakerne fritt kritisere for eksempel utgangspunktet for Indymedia: Dagens (ny)liberalisters deregulering av mediesektoren, med påfølgende konsentrasjon av eierskap, innfallsvinkler og meninger. Av praktiske inspirasjonskilder (som til dels også er en del av nettverket) vil jeg framheve bevegelsene for fri programvare og for åpen kildekode, de mexicanske Zapatistene og Åpen kanal-bevegelsen. Selv om de venstreorienterte aktivistjournalistene er i flertall, har mangfoldet i tilnærminger resultert i at flere ideologier og lokale identiteter er representert i dagens omlag 150 redaksjonskollektiver (noen er inaktive).

Indymedias mål, ”å bemyndiggjøre folk til å bli media”, ligger tett opptil deltakerdemokratiske idealer. Denne tradisjonen framholder at borgerne skal ha mulighet til å presentere sitt syn i (og dermed kunne påvirke) den demokratiske beslutningsprosessen, og da særlig i saker som angår dem selv. Dette skal også kunne skje i form av at borgerne selv ”blir media” ved å produsere sine egne medietekster.

Hvilke strategier har så Indymedia valgt for å oppnå dette? For det første disponerer de fleste redaksjonskollektivene et redaksjonslokale med varierende mengder utstyr, åpent tilgjengelig for allmennheten. Ressurssterke kollektiv tilbyr også opplæring på sine mediesentre. Medlemmene i kollektivet tilrettelegger og bidrar på den lokale Indymedia nettsiden og eventuelle andre mediekanaler kollektivet har tilgang på. Her går Indymedia betraktelig lenger enn hierarkisk organiserte mediebedrifter, men tilbudet blir primært benyttet av de mest resurssterke aktivistene.

Viktigere er da at Indymedia setter sin Web-baserte åpne publiseringstjeneste i sentrum for hele prosjektet. For å bidra med egne saker på Newswire eller kommentere andre sine saker trenger man kun tilgang på Internett samt språklige ferdigheter. I stede for tradisjonelle mediers enveiskommunikasjon blir dermed Indymedia (når det fungerer optimalt) en arena for deltagelse og dialog. Dette betyr at aktivister og andre borgere kan ytre seg til et relativt stort antall lesere/brukere uten å bli verken redigert eller sensurert. I tillegg til å komme ett hakk nærmere realisering av idealet om at alle kan være media, åpner strategien til Indymedia for alle typer tekstlige genrer, ikke bare nyhetsjournalistikk. Implisitt i deres strategi og mål ligger det også et ønske om å bryte ned skillet mellom journalist og borger.

Her begynner imidlertid problemene å melde seg. For det første er det et misforhold mellom festtalemålsetningene og realitetene. Organisatorer i Indymedia jeg har intervjuet sier gjerne både at Indymedia skal være for alle samtidig som det skal være et rom hvor ”aktivister kan snakke med andre aktivister”. Når Indymedias aktivistjournalister skal få ”de andre” – de som blir marginalisert i tradisjonelle medier – i tale, så er det som oftest aktivister i de sosiale bevegelsene det er snakk om. Dette er ikke problematisk i seg selv, men både bidragsyterne og kildene utgjør et ganske begrenset utvalg av ”alle”.

Denne orienteringen påvirker også utformingen og innholdet i nyhetssakene. At Indymedia forkaster objektivitetsidealet til fordel for en intersubjektiv tilnærming til sannhet virker fornuftig. Verre er det med relativismen de legger til grunn, og deres eksplisitte krav om at leserne må være kritiske til det de leser på Indymedia. Når dette i praksis vil si at det er en forutsetning (om enn ikke nødvendigvis nok) med høyere utdannelse for å kunne sortere skitt (propaganda og ville konspirasjonsteorier) fra kanel (for eks. effektiv dekning av politivold i demonstrasjoner) beveger prosjektet mot det elitistiske.

Andre problematiske momenter er ekskluderende venstreradikal sjargong, ukritisk sympati med de sosiale bevegelsene og en kaotisk nedbrytning av skille mellom kommentar og reportasje, kilde og journalist. Avslutningsvis, når en av Indymedias mest sentrale teknikere, Australske Matthew Arnison, anslår at kun en prosent av brukerne av en Indymedia nettside bidrar, så er det nærliggende å konkludere at de har et godt stykke igjen før de klarer å få andre en resurssterke aktivister til å ”bli media”.

For å bli noe mer en motoffentlighet må antakelig Indymedias løsne på båndene til den globaliseringskritiske bevegelsen, og forsøke å rekruttere bidragsytere utenfor de politiske aktivistenes rekker. Videre vil jeg tro at en mer oversiktlig inndeling mellom nyhetssaker som følger noen grunnleggende journalistiske prinsipper på den redaksjonsstyrte midtkolonnen (på hjemmesidene), og meningsinnlegg på Newswire ville fungere bedre enn dagens ”hummer og kanari-tilnærming”.

Det er godt mulig noen av problemene med Indymedia bunner i at det er lettere å se åpningene enn stengslene når man befinner seg midt i et idealistisk eksperiment for å demokratisere mediene, men ekskluderende er de like fult.

New Blog about Indymedia

As the title indicates, this blog is for discussions on the global activist newsnetwork Indymedia. My interest in Indymedia comes from writing my master thesis in media studies about Indymedia at Department of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen in Norway. The thesis is available in the post below. I welcome both discussion about my findings and on Indymedia in general, preferably in English, but comments in Norwegian are also fine. I have also written articles about Indymedia. "Farlig uavhengig" is a comment (kronikk) I wrote in the Norwegian newspaper BT about the FBI seizure of Indymedia severs in October 2004. A new article (kronikk) will be published in Klassekampen soon. I will provide a hyperlink to it.

Thesis on Indymedia available for download

My thesis "Indymedia - Journalistic Anarchy on the WWW" is available in PDF format here. The PDF-file is set up for printing doubled sided.
Please add your comments below.

Thesis Abstract

As with all new media technologies, the establishment and growth of the Word Wide Web in the 1990s sparked optimism in civil society. Instead of solely relying on their marginalised existence in mainstream media and/or expensive analogue production and distribution technologies, many of the new direct action orientated groups in the global justice movement formed their own cheap and efficient Web-based news outlets to tell their side of the globalisation story.

Indymedia (Independent Media Center – IMC) have since they started in Seattle in 1999 – covering the protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO) – grown to become the largest of these new social movement media projects. The global IMC-network consists of hundreds of volunteers – organisers, activist journalists, and “techies” – in approximately 150 editorial collectives (some of which are inactive) in 48 countries. In addition to this, all collectives’ homepages have an open publishing section (Newswire) which enables everyone with access “to become the media”. From their anarchist point of departure Indymedia question the distinction between journalist and citizen by allowing people to use their homepages as a tool for social change.

In order to assess what consequences this strategy has had on Indymedia’s organisational and journalistic praxis, the thesis firstly introduces its four theoretical approaches: globalisation and the network society, media ownership and Internet as an arena to challenge corporate control, the public sphere, and journalism. The discussion of the last two concludes with new normative theories: Publicity for Empowerment and Journalism of Radical Engagement. Secondly, the descriptive part of the thesis introduces Indymedia’s ideological and practical sources of inspiration. This includes socialism, computer hackers, and the Mexican Zapatistas. The next chapter uses Indymedia’s coverage of the protests in Seattle against the elite network WTO as a case study of their focus on events. Finally, sparked by their achievements in Seattle, the development of a global network of autonomous IMC-collectives is evaluated.

The first part of the analysis trace the journalistic conventions of Indymedia by evaluating extracts from interviews with Indymedia activists in relation to the ideals set forth in Journalism of Radical Engagement. Based on a short fieldwork, the second part of the analysis is a case study of Indymedia’s coverage of the Word Social Forum in Mumbai in 2004. Using several theoretical approaches (amongst others Publicity for Empowerment) on this coverage of a pro-active global justice movement, the chapter asserts that the international collective produced counter information, which unlike the IMC coverage of Seattle did not manage to break through the infosphere. The thesis concludes that Indymedia for several reasons mostly enable computer literate political activist “to become the media”. Thus, as a participatory media experiment, IMC have a long way to go before they constitute a truly global and democratic network of public spheres.

Thesis Conclusion

This text is my thesis' conclusion, and address my overarching research question: What consequences does Indymedia’s goal: to enable people to “become the media”, which implies breaking down the division between journalist and citizen, have for their organisational and journalistic praxis?
Although it is quite long, it might be easier to comment than the whole thesis. A PDF-version is available here.

Firstly, it is worth repeating Sparks’ sober assessment of the Web as a medium with “clear limits that exclude the voices and interest of a majority of the world’s population”. So although Indymedia might manage to include more people on the “wrong” side of the digital divide through their analogue media projects (which have not been evaluated here), it is fair to say that Indymedia are very far from realising their goal: to enable everybody (right-winged extremists mostly omitted) to become the media. As for users with skills and access to the Internet, it is worthwhile to repeat IMC techie Matthew Arnison’s more realistic assessment that about one percent of Indymedia’s users become contributors. This is not a very high number for an ambitious independent news outlet, so in practice Indymedia have therefore always mostly included political activists, and only to a certain degree managed to break down the division between journalist (the activist journalists in the collective) and citizen (the users). The genuine whish in many IMC collectives to achieve this nevertheless reflects a clear opposition to the journalist role promoted by the professional ideology journalism and mainstream journalism. Indymedia activists do however diverge in this important question. While some take the above-mentioned stance, others argue that Indymedia should be a forum where “activists are talking to other activists”. As of today, Indymedia seem to mainly pursue the latter ambition. The question then remains if they should adjust their slogan, or find a strategy where everybody really can “become the media” on Indymedia. There is reason to believe that only the latter strategy can turn Indymedia into a medium for extensive social change.

Whether Indymedia chose to take this step or not, it is worth asking if they have underestimated the skills which are necessary to contribute high quality news stories, or if “all” in practice means the skilled and educated middle classes. The latter is not necessarily less elitist than the approach promoted by journalism. As Indymedia generally do not have any editorial quality filters today, a similar problem is present as they expect that “the reader can tell a crappy story from a good one”, and find the information they are after. One might ask if it is not problematic to expect such a level of competence from the user. Maybe Indymedia would be more inclusive if they facilitated a space (for example the editorial collective-controlled feature column) where they can guarantee that the news stories are editorially filtered both in terms of facts and quality. Indymedia could furthermore increase their credibility by insisting that those who publish in the features column sign with their full name and email address, rather than allowing the dissolution of the journalist subject through the use of nicknames or just “IMC” as byline. This seems to work on many webloggs where the credibility of the easily identifiable blogger normally relies extensively on readers finding them trustworthy. A further move to reduce confusion amongst users could be to cultivate the discussion group genre in the Newswire and rename it “Viewswire”. This could have more easily enabled IMC’s users to, as the passionate proponents of enlightenment in Habermas’ bourgeoisie public sphere, enter into deliberation about how “Another world is possible”, without being constrained by expectations that their contribution should be a news report.

The anarchistic DIY-attitude reflected in Indymedia’s slogan has resulted in a non-profit, non-hierarchical, and consensus approach to organising which bypasses editors, publishers, advertisers, and corporate interests. Although there might be one or more informal editor(s) in a collective, these function more as advisors rather than superiors. The same democratic approach is in principle applied on network level, but here the founding members and some techies have considerably more informal power than the rest of the activists. In Indymedia, few or none editorial filters result in an almost “anything goes” brand of journalism, and political agitation and/or coordination. Although there is some moderating on the newswires (mostly due to an increase in xenophobic, sexist, and other destructive posts), one could say that Indymedia is not about journalism at all. However, it is problematic to exclude them from the journalistic field as such. It seems fairer to say that Indymedia mostly contains activist journalism – a hybrid of journalism and social movement. It is nevertheless uncertain if their hybrid form can be sustained. Perhaps Indymedia at some point will have to choose in which direction they want to go.

The reports on Indymedia are mostly based on the activist journalist’s personal experiences, and on narratives and strategies for creating a better world. The reports are therefore often from the arenas where these strategies are contested: the large demonstrations against corporate led globalisation. This results in quite a few news stories full of action and passion, but much more rarely background analysis of the contested issues and news about local issues. As the same time as this politicised and emotional discourse challenges outdated ideas of objectivity in journalism, it can easily exclude people outside the global justice movement. Although a more differentiated coverage might have been more favourable for Indymedia in the long run, this coverage has created much enthusiasm amongst activist, and is a reflection of the priorities of the individual activist journalist. Contrary to the media projects in the Marxist Leninist left, Indymedia’s approach reflects the multifaceted and at times chaotic global justice movement in its journalistic approaches. Consequently, in accordance with Hardt and Negri’s concept, they generally address a politicised multitude rather than a homogeneous mass (Hardt and Negri, 2000). Although this politicised multitude today is mostly activist in social movements, it does in itself represent progression from a more dogmatic past. Indymedia must therefore be understood as an interesting attempt which demonstrates the difficulty in trying to create a truly global, democratic, and well functioning network of public spheres. Thus, my conclusion does to some extent mirror co-founder Jeff Perlstein’s characterisation of Indymedia as an “experiment in media democracy”.