Text in poster presented at the First European Communication Conference in Amsterdam, November 05

Background and Goal

Indymedia (Independent Media Center – IMC) have since they started in Seattle in 1999 – covering the protests against the World Trade Organization – grown to become the largest of the new social movement-initiated media projects. The global IMC-network consists of hundreds of organisers, activist journalists and ‛techies’ (all volunteers) in approximately 150 editorial collectives in 48 countries (some are inactive).

Although some resourceful collectives produce news for “old” media such as newspaper, magazine, TV and FM radio, Indymedia’s main distribution channel is the much cheaper World Wide Web (which is also the focus of the study). This is quite evident as all collectives are required to host a homepage which features the open publishing service ‛Newswire’. By this Indymedia whish to enable everyone with access ‛to become the media’, and thus remove the distinction between journalist and citizen, and allow those who wish to use their homepages as a tool for social change. The thesis includes an analysis of to what extent the journalistic convention this approach results in relates to the normative journalism theory Journalism of Radical Engagement.

Theoretical approach:
Journalism of Radical Engagement (norms):

- Seeking the truth
- Independent politically, economically and journalistically
- Separate facts & values
- Relevant and examining
- In dialog with readers
- Engaged in conflicts
- From audience to participants

Material and Methods

• Observation during field work and semi-structured qualitative interviews with experts and skilled contributors to Indymedia: activist journalists, organisers, and techies
• Interviews with two organisers/ activist journalists in Oslo, Norway in October 2003
• Field work during the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India in January 2004, including interviews with 16 IMC-activists from USA, India, G.B, Israel, and Turkey.
Results

Indymedia’s extremely limited editorial filtering results in news stories with all sorts of approaches to the journalistic ideal of seeking the truth. While they seem to be independent of political actors outside the global justice movement, a political (but rarely economical) allegiance to the movement is often evident. Activist journalists are open about their biases. This is reflected in their unbalanced use of sources.

Although some collectives and activist journalists try to keep facts and values separated, the two are often mixed in articles. Indymedia cover relevant political issues which are often not prioritised by mainstream media. In this respect, they function as an alternative watchdog closely monitoring the political and economical elite’s activities.

Most of their users are activists, and Indymedia seems successful in facilitating dialog with, and between them. People outside the activist community are not included to the same extent. The activist journalists are engaged in the conflicts they cover, but often end up uncritically in favour of those they perceive as victims/underprivileged. This does at times reduce conflicts to a dichotomy of good activists vs. evil transnational organisations and corporation.

Conclusion

• Indymedia do only to a certain extent adhere to Journalism of Radical Engagement.
• It is mainly educated middle class anarchist and socialist political activists who ‛become the media’ on Indymedia. Their homepages therefore mostly contains activist journalism – a hybrid of journalism and social movement.
• If the goal for Indymedia is to empower all people ‛to become the media’ (or at least all sorts of people), loosening the tight connection to the global justice movement and increasing the journalistic standard is probably necessary.

The First European Communication Conference