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”.