ImcHistoryJayTwo

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Personal point of view by jay from new-imc and imc philly

First person in the text is jay's voice. See also: http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/new-imc/2007-January/thread.html .

Way back in the summer of 1999, when I was a bright-eyed wannabe world-changer and independent media was something I made because it something I simply had to do, the idea of an international network of independent media centers forming any time in the in the near future seemed idealistic to the point of absurdity.

Luckily, most of Indymedia's early organizers were both idealistic and absurd. After Indymedia first appeared in Seattle in late 1999, many media-making activists saw the potential for the "independent media center" model to take root around the world. We then plotted, schemed and stumbled blindly into building a network that formed the media (and often social) backbone of a global movement for change

We did this by embracing the Internet as a dynamic, engaging and instantaneous way to communicate. The heart of Indymedia was, and still arguably is, "open publishing," a system by which website users post their own news and comments without pre-approval by an editorial board. In 1999, long before everyone and his sister had his own blog, Indymedia's groundbreaking open publishing newswires were among the only places on the Internet where individuals could publicly post and debate their own unsolicited news reports. As the "anti-globalization" movement grew, more and more people looked to the Indymedia newswire as a source for breaking headlines, a place to find uniquely vibrant analysis and as a home to post their own information about the essential issues that corporate media did not cover.

Indymedia's open invitation to participate online inspired innumerable media makers to meet and work together in the real world. Many thousands of "IMCistas" have worn an Indymedia press badge at a protest or convergence, worked on content-building projects together through the network, or have met face to face to build and maintain viable local not-for-profit independent media centers. In meetings both on and off-line, they built strong bonds that made the vast movements for change feel personal, communal and real. Organizing with Indymedia was social and inspiring. It was even, most often, fun.

Can one say the same thing about Indymedia today? Do people still flock to Indymedia to make media, make news and make change? Does the Indymedia network that exists in 2007 create more energy than its maintenance demands? The answer, as with most everything relating to Indymedia, is maddening and unclear.

Indymedia began at a particular moment in history, when a particular urgency to reclaim the media became an essential focal point of a particular movement to fight for global justice. Since then, "the movement" has changed radically to meet radically changing times, shifting away from the protest convergences that once provided energy for IMCs and toward more sustainable, long-term organizing. Indymedia has made a similar change. As global politics shifted, Indymedia activists realized that in order to support the long-term existence of such a diverse network, we would have to reorient the network from a project that focused on global protest convergences to one that prioritized sustainable community organizing. Indymedia has therefore chosen to emphasize the development of local independent media centers that would act as real life hubs for neighborhood media-making.

Today, Indymedia is a loose network of almost 150 autonomous local, mainly all-volunteer, non-hierarchical media collectives on six continents operating in dozens of local languages. Some of the local IMCs have developed into efficient, functional collectives that publish regular newspapers, produce original videos and TV programming and operate local radio stations, working with communities to empower people through media. Some have claimed physical space in their communities ~V either squatted, rented or owned -- that provides a hub for face-to-face meetings, skill sharing and neighborhood media-making. Many other IMCs have fallen apart due to burnout, collapsed due to lack of a viable decision-making process or succumbed to general inertia. Some even vacillate between extremes, uniting in an instant to provide coverage of a crisis, then drifting aimlessly apart between big events.

The "global" network ebbs and flows as well. There are a number of active network-wide working groups that use rough consensus to make important decisions. The "imc-finance" working group, for example, allots money donated to the network, albeit through an often difficult decision-making process, to worthy Indymedia projects. The "new-imc" working group helps aspiring local collectives form into empowering, sustainable IMCs, based upon the network's "Principles of Unity." However, for every network-wide decision made harmoniously, there are even more debates that turn personal and unpleasant, e-mail arguments that cause discomfort or hurt, and endless regurgitation of the same nagging issues that rarely resolve with a firm decision. Though the network proves time and again the ability to effectively marshal resources in times of crisis, Indymedia has been unable (or unwilling) to develop many efficient, viable network-wide decision-making processes. The network therefore sometimes seems stuck, incapable of taking coherent steps forward. Often, it even feels as if it's waning or threatening to crumble.

Indymedia has also proven both unable and unwilling to come to consensus over explicit political principles that might enable it to consciously transform it into a more effective force for change. Throughout its existence Indymedia has balanced its blanket support for free speech on its open newswires with an often unspoken commitment to use its resources to consciously inspire a particular type of progressive social change. There are repeated, evolving discussions within the network about the benefit of declaring Indymedia unambiguously as a tool to bring about global justice, rather than just an open platform for free speech. Proponents of overtly political proclamations about the goals of Indymedia have admitted such language might isolate apolitical participants, but they also feel a more consciously radical orientation would inspire activists worldwide to recommit to using Indymedia as a tool to achieve progressive ends.

Finding global processes frustrating at best, local IMCs are innovating new ways to reach their communities that don't involve the Internet at all. Some African IMCs, for example, which operate in an environment with minimal or nonexistent computer access, have learned to rely mainly on off-line communication, like distributing handbills or pursing low-power radio, to serve their communities' needs. These innovations, if other IMCs choose to apply them, could empower local IMCs around the world to reconsider how they interact with the part of their communities that don't communicate on-line. Other local collectives, like the Philadelphia IMC, of which I'm a small part, have prioritized projects that actively approach disempowered communities and provide hands-on tactical media training that enable the groups to create their own media during activist campaigns. The Urbana-Champaign IMC has turned its organizing space into a central hub for its community, hosting a substantial diversity of arts, cultural and progressive political events, as well as a local community radio station, that integrate it into most aspects of Urbana community life.

In the network's early days, Indymedia's technical backbone was fluid and exciting. Indymedia's open publishing newswires and source codebases were dynamic and empowering, inspiring activist techies from around the world to flock to the project in order to try something new. In today's era of collaborative communication, however -- blogs, wikis and social networking ~V mere "open publishing" seems almost quaint. Indymedia's "radical" vision of an empowering, participatory media has become so mainstream that today one doesn't require an IMC newswire to claim his or her own public voice. Some local IMCs have reacted to this by redesigning their web sites to include "blogwires," syndicated news feeds and ample space for community members to contribute front page features. Internationally, IMC "techies" are working to develop a unified, viable content management code that will again encourage activist coders to innovate and apply those innovations to improving Indymedia.

Elsewhere, the "imc-alternatives" project is hoping to inspire a fundamental shift in the way activists relate to Indymedia by creating a web site that is fully participatory, combining social networking with collaborative content-building, providing practical Internet-based tools for organizations and individuals that are working in real life to make a better world. The Alternatives-IMC wants to create an inviting space that will enable users to connect with each other on-line, using their social networks and the information they gather through the site about sustainable alternatives to current social, economic and political systems to create change in the off-line world. The project hopes this will redefine their site not just as an Indymedia news source, but as an empowering environment in which bright-eyed world-changers like me can connect.

Whatever way Indymedia moves, the only thing that can be guaranteed is that, unless an unexpected crisis arises again to focus the movement for justice, parts of the network will advance while others will wither, some local IMCs will revive and others will fail, some global network processes will come into focus and others will continue to churn until the people involved reach consensus, or simply give up and move on. All the while, some will declare Indymedia "dead," which it one day may be -- but not yet, not while people worldwide continue to wake up each morning, check their local IMC newswires and find inspiration in them to make the world a better place.

Today's Indymedia is such a massive beast, composed of so many diverse and disparate volunteers with so many different views, that no one idea or force within it can compel the whole network to change. Instead, any change that happens will have to happen organically: one IMC will build a new site that works a new way, or do something groundbreaking to fulfill an unfulfilled need, and over time others will follow suit. In its earliest days, Indymedia organizers consciously built an open, inviting network ~V flexible, non-hierarchical and decentralized enough that independent media makers around the world embraced it because they felt as if they could claim it as their own. Today's Indymedia is a victim of that success. It is impossible to easily categorize, let alone control.

This lack of central organization makes Indymedia infuriating to grasp and wholly frustrating to predict. It also determines the network's most likely path: spurts of brilliant growth that will inspire us all if we allow it, waves of disappointing stagnation that will threaten to bring us down, and, if we all keep plotting, scheming and stumbling, a future full of empowering change.
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