Forum Text
author: Giorgio Viali - 28.08.2002 01:52
"There was no proper Media Group in Strasbourg" ...
Is there a Media Group for the Conference of Leiden?
When [Media Group] will meet at Leiden?
[MEDIA] Media Network In Leiden
2nd European Conference of Peoples' Global Action
Leiden, 31 August - 4 September 2002
It's important!
Daily!
Open to all media people.
Independent from any communication network.
To discuss, to share something face2face outside any "paternity".
Some suggestions for some workshop:
"Even independent and alternative media activists had a hard time doing their work during the camp".
"Applying low-intensity invisible techniques in Media jobs to constantly defend and reinvent more humane ways of communication ..."
There are so many "After" "Before" in this last day discussion that a good name for the Media Group should be:
Hope it's a useful contribution to the general debate.
https://aseed.antenna.nl/mailman/listinfo/pga2002_autonom
g.
author:: SuZQ 31.08.2002 14:23
"There was no proper Media Group in Strasbourg" ...
Is there a Media Group for the Conference of Leiden?
When [Media Group] will meet at Leiden?
Well, that depends what you mean. There is an indymedia group, which is based at the ASCII cybercafe at Vrijplaats Boerhavelaan, which has a press group (for the conference-newspaper, which has regular meetings and deadlines every day at 4 pm and 8 pm, and will attempt to publish in Dutch, English, and French, see the article "MEDIA" on the newswire). It has a video collective, loosely affiliated with the European Newsreal project. It has a radio show that broadcasts 6-12 pm daily (GMT + 2) at 97.4 FM in Leiden (see http://squat.net/pgaradio.m3u), connected with the local station, Koekoeroe radio ( http://squat.net/koekoeroe/pgaradio). Volunteers are welcome to drop by the IMC and help out.
There is also a mainstream press group, which has interviews and press releases and people to answer the phone when journalists call. It appears to function independently, which seems silly to me, because Indymedia could use that information just as well, so I wish they would publish their communiques and broadcast their interviews etcetera on the Indynewswire and the local paper and on the PGARadio as well as giving the info to the mainstream press. I don't see the reason for having such a separation between indymedia and extymedia...
Those who wish to volunteer with the mainstream media group should see Anna and Marco (PGA volunteers) at the infopoint. For indymedia, there are several meetings: see the bulletin board outside the infopoint and the program. For example, we've got a meeting on Sunday at 1:30 pm at the LVC attic.
"There was no proper Media Group in Strasbourg" ...
I agree. The structures were there (a free computer/internet space, radio equipment, plenty of freelance videographers) but there was no proper IMC. There was a mainstream press group for communiques, but it didn't seem to have much contact with the rest of the camp. Perhaps if it had designated a specific place to drop off press releases and translations, and specific meeting times, it would have been more effective. There were Indymedia meetings scheduled, and even an Indymedia-DOM to meet in, but after the firs few days nobody showed up. Which is a pity. We got a news dispatch team going for the radio, after a few false starts, but it wasn't as tight as it could have been. I attribute this to the fact that Indymedia France had fallen apart a month or so earlier ("gelee," as they say) so there weren't local activists to provde a structure. It was kind of hodge-podge.
I think that the site www.noborder.org/strasbourg should simply be linked to from the global www.indymedia.org page as the new "Indymedia Strasbourg," and handed over to the local activists, such as Federation Anarchiste, the Syndicat Potentiel, or the local Il-Legal-Team/defendants'-support- collective. This would save Paul the trouble of updating the webpage all the time, and perhaps be a bit more democratic, too.
I think that the connections between the PGA media group and Indymedia NL should be more explicit and apparent, rather than trusting to the same hodge-podge approach. Nobody uses this newswire, right now, and it should be hopping with people from all over the world who want to put in their two cents on how PGA should be functioning worldwide. Perhaps we could create an "Indymedia Leiden," as a subgroup of "Indymedia NL"? And heck, who says it has to be all Indymedia? Indy's too cliquish anyway. Where are A-Infos and all the other alternative press when we need them?
We need an evolving, educational, growing self-documentation force to frame our own story for ourselves and the outside world, and go beyond the simplistic MTV-style "riot porn" a.k.a. "blackbloxploitation" that does more to get people arrested and to drum up fear than it does to raise awareness about the issues we care about.
Mediaphobia
"Even independent and alternative media activists had a hard time doing
their work during the camp".
Well, after Genoa, it's not surprising. Cops siezed our footage and film and now the prosecutor has it. That's DUMB. We need serious workshops and trainings and common guidelines on how to film from a "cop's-eye-view," how to better protect our data, and how to avoid incriminating ourselves and others with our material.
Building Media Alternatives
"Applying low-intensity invisible techniques in Media jobs to constantly
defend and reinvent more humane ways of communication ..."
I don't know what this is about, but I think it's more important that Media be democratic than that it be "humane."
Yo, keep up the good work. Esp. the techies. You all rock.
eMail: zq@krutt.org URL: http://www.phillyimc.org