Indymedia - Networked Aspects

Discussion

The Networked Aspects of Indymedia

From a discussion in the nettime mailing list, by Michael Cardenas, at http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0605/msg00046.html

"Indymedia defines itself as a non-hierarchical network, not as a federation, coalition or collective. Networks are defined by communication among a disparate set of nodes. As a network, Indymedia can itself be seen as a population of collectives, or as a multiplicity described by the characteristics of the collectives in the network. The Global Indymedia Points of Unity, agreed to by all collectives in the network, state: ?The Independent Media Center Network (IMCN) is based upon principles of equality, decentralization and local autonomy. The IMCN is not derived from a centralized bureaucratic process, but from the self-organization of autonomous collectives that recognize the importance in developing a union of networks.? (Independent Media Center, Global Indymedia Principles of Unity) As such, there is a wide degree of play across a number of variables such as number of participants, focus on various mediums, degree of cooperation with local communities, degree of transparency of process, openness to differing political viewpoints, amount of finances and more. Systems with many degrees of freedom can be seen as complex systems or dynamical processes. In addition, although there is an official collective that approves entry into the Indymedia network, over time some collectives fade away while others are closely integrated with projects outside of the network, making the strict definition of the network even harder.

Within the network, different collectives can also be seen as multiplicities, some more so than others. In particular, Portland Indymedia defines itself as ?not a membership organization; it is a tactic, a concept, and a movement that can be effectively utilized in many different ways.? While some other Indymedia centers do have official membership, many do not and are based on loose affinities and degrees of individual participation. Unlike traditional unions or other forms of political organization with rosters of dues paying members, Indymedia is defined by a process of communication, affinity and participation. Delanda sums up Deleuze's view of things as processes saying ?the alternative offered by Deleuze is to avoid taking as given fully formed individuals, or what amounts to the same thing, to always account for the genesis of individuals?. Further blurring the definition of membership in Indymedia is its Open Publishing policy where anyone can post to Indymedia websites, many people do and consider themselves part of Indymedia. As many Indymedia sites say ?you ARE Indymedia.? (San Diego Indymedia)

Open Publishing was a founding concept of Indymedia in 1999, before blogs and myspace were commonplace. Open Publishing has been defined by people within the Indymedia network as ?mean[ing] that the process of creating news is transparent to the readers. They can contribute a story and see it instantly appear in the pool of stories publicly available.? (Arnison) The actual implementations of this vary widely and opinions on how open Open Publishing should be very widely even within local collectives.

Unlike organizations that choose a linguistic statement of truth and promote that statement, Indymedia seeks to create a space for open publishing, diffusion of a variety of varying ideas and debate. The network does engage in editorial work on their sites, based on the Points of Unity which reject hate speech, but within that framework, they seek to ask questions, not provide answers.

The problematic approach is further exemplified by Indymedia's non-hierarchical structure. Since the Indymedia network ?is not derived from a centralized bureaucratic process? (Independent Media Center, Global Indymedia Principles of Unity), there is no single set of statements that define the truth of what Indymedia is. There are principles that collectives in the network have agreed to, but those principles are subject to local interpretation and to change at any time by a network wide consensus. Indymedia is defined by a set of problems it is trying to address simply stated as corporate controlled media, not by the theories of any individual or the policies of any bureaucracy. As Richard Day states in Gramsci is Dead, there is ?a shift away from hegemonically-oriented 'movements', and towards non-branded strategies and tactics such as Independent Media Center?. (Day 9) The Indymedia network is an example of a tactic for creating change which does not strive to promote a simple set of truths but a set of questions, an invitation." (http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0605/msg00046.html)

Source: Deleuze's Ontology as Expressed in the Global Indymedia Network By: Michael Cardenas

More Information

Independent Media Center. "About Indymeda". Independent Media Center. May 1, 2006. http://www.indymedia.org/en/static/about.shtml

Independent Media Center. "Global Indymedia Principles of Unity". Indymedia Documentation Project. May 2006. May 1, 2006. http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/PrinciplesOfUnity

Independent Media Center. "Indymedia FAQ". Indymedia Documentation Project. Jan 2005. May 1, 2006. http://www.indymedia.org/en/static/about.shtml

San Diego Indymedia. "About Us". San Diego Indymedia. Feb 2005. May 1, 2006. http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/static/aboutus.shtml

2008 Status Update

Jeffrey Juris, author of Networking Futures, in an interview by Geert Lovink:

GL: One could easily write a separate study of Indymedia and the Independent Media Centres, which were erected during all these protest events. You have not gone very deeply into internal Indymedia matters. These days, almost ten years later, Indymedia is not playing an active role anymore, at least not the international English edition. How did it lose its momentum and is there still a need for such news-driven sites?

JJ: Although I do address Indymedia and other forms of collaborative digital networking, it’s true that the main ethnographic focus of my book revolves around broader global justice networks such as MRG in Barcelona or PGA and the WSF process on a transnational scale. Largely for that reason I was not able to provide more in-depth coverage of the fascinating and very important internal debates and dynamics within the Indymedia network. Tish Stringer’s dissertation on the Houston Indymedia collective called, “Move! Guerrilla Media, Collaborative Modes, and the Tactics of Radical Media Making,” comes closest to this kind of analysis. I’m not sure what you mean when you say that Indymedia is not playing an active role anymore. If you mean that the novelty of the network has worn off, that particular collectives are not as active as they once were, or that it is no longer on the cutting edge of technological and/or organizational innovation, you may be right. But if you mean that Indymedia has a lower profile on the web than it used to or that activists no longer read or contribute to the various local and international sites, then I’m not so sure. Indymedia is nearly ten years old and certainly much of its novelty has worn off. At the same time, it continues to fulfill a key role of providing a space for activists to generate and circulate their own news and information, facilitating mobilization and continuing to challenge the divide between author and consumer. There have been heated debates within the network about the need to generate more reliable and higher quality posts, and I think this goal still remains elusive. In this sense, Indymedia remains very good at doing what it was initially set up to do, but it has not advanced much further in terms of pushing the bounds of its grassroots collaborative production process to generate the kind of deeper and more insightful reporting that some might wish for. For example, there had been a proposal to develop a kind of open editing system that would generate more accurate, higher quality posts without the need for a more centralized editorial process, but that proposal has yet to yield any concrete results, as far as I know. If this is what you mean by losing momentum, then I suppose it is true. However, this might be expecting too much. In my experience networks are often good at achieving the specific goals they were established for, but efforts to reprogram them midstream are often extremely difficult. It is generally much easier to simply create a new project or network than try to retool an existing one. In this sense, I would expect that further innovation with respect to alternative, decentralized news production is happening elsewhere. Indymedia thus continues to play a critical role for grassroots activists in many parts of the world, and, in fact, I think it is one of the most important and enduring institutions the global justice movement has left behind. At the same time, I think the desire to see Indymedia become something else, resolve all of its internal tensions, or forever remain at the vanguard of innovation is misplaced. Indymedia will continue to fulfill a key role in terms of creating alternative, self-produced activist news and information, but I think it is important to look elsewhere for new innovations, practices, and strategies. In my own case, I have recently become fascinated with the burgeoning free media scene in Mexico, which includes not only online news sites, but also a rapidly expanding network of Internet/FM radio stations, web-based forums and zines, digital video collectives, free software initiatives, etc. (my current research focuses on the relationship between alternative media, autonomy, and repression in Mexico). Some of the most exciting developments are happening within the free radios, many of which combine FM and Internet broadcasts to reach out to activists on a global scale, while at the same time more deeply engaging local populations outside typical activist circles. Many of these projects combine an open publishing component on the web with live streaming as well as more focused and directed reporting about local issues and wider national and international campaigns." (http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/geert/inside-networked-movements-interview-with-jeffrey-juris/)