Draft version 0.2

ImcUkWritingAltMedHandbook3

You are welcome to add and change parts, but if you think about fundamental changes, please keep the original version below and contact clara and ionnek online for further discussions.

We have been asked to write an article on the Independent Media Center during the protests against the G8 in Scotland, a practical piece for people who want to make their own media, in 4000 words. The remit is interesting, but difficult. What is there to learn about Indymedia from a social science book? Don't these books give a distanced view on actions, with the "I'm the expert and I tell you (1) what others do, and (2) how you should do things" approach? So - lets see what you-the-reader and us-the-writers can do in 4000 words. Maybe our conversation will continue somewhere on planet indymedia, on a mailing list, a wiki, a chatroom, a local meeting, or maybe a convergence or media center during a protest near you. Maybe you'll write an article about that protest, or publish some photos, or you'll pick up a flyer with the indymedia dispatch phone number and call in to give us the news of what happens in the streets? Maybe you have a wireless hub kicking around that you could lend us when the next physical independent media center is set up? Like the neighbour, who turned up at the convergence space in Glasgow during the G8 protests, and offered us his broadband connection to run the media center from? And while you are doing all this, you are part of the process of building an "intercontinental network of resistance against neoliberalism, an intercontinental network of resistance for humanity". This is what the Zapatistas declared in 1996, and what inspired the "people of Seattle" to set up the first independent media center:

"This intercontinental network of resistance, recognizing differences and acknowledging similarities, will search to find itself with other resistances around the world. This intercontinental network of resistance will be the medium in which distinct resistances may support one another. This intercontinental network of resistance is not an organizing structure; it doesn't have a central head or decision maker; it has no central command or hierarchies. We are the network, all of us who resist."

When you start "doing indymedia", you'll find that there are no limits to how much you write on an email, a wiki or an article, other than the attention span of those you want to reach - a text is as short or long as it needs to be. And when something comes up it gets longer. No set format such as "4000 words for a book chapter".

Setting up an Indymedia Centre is like that as well. No clear lines of what to do, no milestones to reach, no project management that keeps track. Only a vision and the ability to do long-term planning as well as dealing with problems ad-hoc. A lot of things get done, other don't; some appear not to be necessary, the fact that others are neglected can raise problems. Some problems come up only in the heat of the moment, and are solved nonetheless. Most of the time, things to turn out alright in the end. At the independent media centers in Scotland for the G8 2005, all of us did many different things, and most of us did things that others didn't even know about. This decentralised mode of organising means that there is never a script for the next time. It also means that we all experience a steep learning curve. Programmers are getting caught up in police pens while taking pictures, Germans struggle with Scottish accents on the phone, writers are setting up computers, radio reporters clean up the mess in the morning.

Okay, practical issues: The G8 meeting in Genoa 2001 was the last one that took place in an urban environment. Hundreds of thousands determined protesters were just too many for the police, even though they acted with murderous brutality. Some of them are still in court at the time of writing this. Since then, the G8 meetings take place in remote landscapes, like in 2005, in Gleneagles in the highlands of Scotland, between the cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling.

How do you organise an independent media center for instant reporting when you don't know in advance where exactly the protests will take place, where the convergence centers and crash spaces and therefore the reporters will be? We decided to have physical media centers, or at least internet access everywhere, even in the rural campsite "horizone" near Gleneagles where no broadband connection can be bought. The rural campsite was connected via satellite, with a bunch of very old laptops. A few computers were set up in the old hat factory in Glasgow which had temporarily become a convergence center. Faslane?? and finally, there was a big imc in a former church in Edinburgh, which is now a cafe and a focal point for local activists and artists.

The setup sounds simple: find a space, get enough computers, and then all the people will come and write their reports, post their pictures and phone the dispatch centre to report from the streets and protests. In practice that's of course much more: getting enough tables to put the computers on, getting transport to get all computer gear and all the other material up to scotland, setting up the machines, making sure the telephone lines and cables are working, - making ethernet cables to start with -, flyers with the adress and the dispatch number, a safe place to sleep (amazing how many people one can squeeze in a tiny flat), food and coffee for those who don't have time to leave the building, putting up a wireless antenna, getting a map of Gleneagles...

And of course the physical media center was supported by people all over the world, sitting at home in front of their keyboards, writing up articles, processing news, updating websites, translating or maybe just cheering everybody up.

Indymedia has no central organisation. People find one another when an event is coming up, and they rely on earlier experiences as well as doing things for the first time or just different because the circumstances are different. Quite often people will do things because they appear necessary at the moment. Looking at, for example, the Edinburgh IMC from the outside, it might appear like a professional media center. It might give people the impression that organisation in fact isn't necessary because things will happen in the end. In fact, setting up an Indymedia centre is a lot of unseen work. It's also absolutely empowering, because it means doing what you are good at.

Enough general talk. Here are some descriptions of what went on. Most of them come from articles, blogs or wikipages written up during or shortly after the event. If you are looking for statistics, or an "unbiased, objective" account, you will be disappointed. This article is pure propaganda - we want to seduce you. If you are looking for a script of how to organize your own event, you better stop reading here and log on to your local imc.

*Some tech stuff...: * bits from ekes article and from the tech review

Dispatch...: bits fro clara's article

Get the place running / self-organisation: How is it possible that roughly 1000 people, most of whom have never met before, use and run a media center for 10 days? Just one sceene... Afternoon in the Edinburgh media center. People busy writing, typing away, uploading fotos. Everybody is busy. Then the silence breaks: A woman shouts: We need volunteers for the welcome desk! The people who are doing it now are leaving in 5 minutes!. Nobody reacts. five minutes later, another announcement: If nobody volunteers, we'll have to close down now! Somebody finally volunteers... More often then not somebody who isn't involved in a local IMC but has been using the Indymedia space in Edinburgh on that day. The welcome is propbably the job that is the least "media activism" in an IMC: it means to register people, to give them a short intro (like this is not an internet cafe), make sure people don't dump their luggage. It can appear like a waste of time if you really want to write something up, but on the other hand: at lot of people were willing to take it up – an exchange for using the space, and an excahnge for the time that other people spend on setting it up. Roosters however – especially of those people who already spend hours on other tasks - don't seem to work at all in an unplannable situation like a big mobilisation. But it does work to give up tasks and responsibilities to people you don't know. It's actually kind of funny when you have been working in the IMC for ages, and you go out for a moment to catch a bit of fresh air, and on the way back you are stopped by somebody who wants to explain you how the IMC works... and of course it's once in a while somebody might take up a job they are not really fit to do. Tough luck, but no disaster.

Field camp...: an imc running on even less...

Radio and video: reports

These are only snapshots, examples of how things can be done, not of how they have to be. Other places have other problems, other solutions. Like the G8 2003 in Evian, that was spread over two or three countires.

Some example from G8 in Evian maybe pointing out on things that were different

Anybody who has been organising a big event might recognise bits and pieces in this. To some degree our skills come back in different events, no matter whether it's an IMC, Reclaim the streets, or maybe just a way-too-big birthday party... Indymedia is not run by experts, not run by professionals, but by people doing what they can. Of course gathering experience over the time and improving the way we do things is part of it. None of us would have started anything like that if nobody there had any experience. But there is always space for people who do it for the first time, space for people who come along because they are good at doing one thing, and end up doing other things, people with an open mind and confidence.

If you read this and have ideas how things could have been done different: we are already looking for people for the next event like the G8 in Germany in 2007.

-- ClarA - 26 Jan 2006 -- IonNec - 26 Jan 2006 changed numbering - this is now version 0.2
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