[IMC-US] NCMR reportback - another addition

[sheri at speakeasy.org]

hi everyone,

here's another report back from todd who is not yet on this list and he asked me to forward it for inclusion in the feature/compilation.

sheri

------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:  Todd Wolfson <twolfson1998 at yahoo.com>    

I wanted to introduce myself and also make a few
comments on the NMRC. My name is Todd and I am with
Philly IMC and also helped with the table set-up on
sat night at the Media Reform Conference. I really
appreciate all that has been said on this list,
especially the attempts to disentangle the different
?factions? or aspects of the larger critical media
movement and the attempts to build a strategy. My
feeling was that in many ways the conference was a
powerplay by The FreePress reform types to forge a
large and diverse movement under their rather narrow
banner. I don?t think this is anything new in social
movements, often the richest and most powerful parts
of a movement move to set a centrist agenda that
serves their cause. It seems as though the prevailing
feeling amongst media reformers is one of
disenfranchisement by the current system and belief
that if we tinker around with a few things all will be
fine once again, of course conspiculously leaving out
the overdetermined role of the state or the market and
focusing on smaller issues. This is a huge problem, as
Malkia argued in the opening plenary and many people
have said on the list so far. This is not to say that
media reform is not important, but as has been said,
it is quite empty without linking it to more profound
notions of oppression, capitalism, neoliberalism,
racism, patriarchy etc. 

My thought however would be we have to stay fully
engaged with this movement as ultimately it may well
represent a huge constituency down the road, some of
which would be more sympathetic to a radical position.
However there has to be strategic thinking about how
this can be done effectively (In some respects the
fact that IMC was not more visible on the program has
to be the fault of IMC strategy and organizing and not
the fault of the freepress alone) so that there is
space to fight over the direction of this larger
critical media movement, articulating our position in
public forums and making sure there is a place for
this position in the larger discussion. One example is
perhaps we need to link up with people from Media
Justice and Media Reform and propose a Journal
specifically devoted to the growing critical media
movement. Here people involved in the movement can
articulate positions and strategies and their can be
open discussion and debate over the directions of the
larger movement that is not managed by FreePress or
Common Cause, but these groups along with others are
at some level bound to answer to ideas brought up in
the journal. These sorts of journals of record for a
movement have been quite successful for the less
powerful factions of a movement in the past. 

With respect to much that has been discussed, it seems
to me that IMC, or the Media Democracy movement (which
as a name I am not very comfortable with), is a
natural ally to Media Justice (also a questionable
name given the natural ties between justice and
liberalism). The oversight I find is that there is not
enough discussion of labor, class and poverty
directly. If anyone went to the Globalizing the
Movement panel, there was a guy from South Korea who
discussed the relationship between the militant labor
movement and the media movement in South Korea and
this seemed vibrant and successful. This is not to say
that class is the sole way to understand oppression,
but rather that capitalism is the vital prism through
which patriarchy, racism and heterosexism flow. Along
these lines, i would hope that within IMC's we could
have a discussion about employing some sort of
organizing frame (local, national, global) that can be
used in conjunction with the formation and maintenance
of the network, as some IMC?s have been doing, as this
will necessarily lead to a larger more diverse
movement. Anyway, these are some of my thoughts.
Todd

> -----Original Message-----
> From: onto [mailto:onto at riseup.net]
> Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 01:07 AM
> To: 'Working Group for IMC-US.'
> Subject: Re: [IMC-US] NCMR reportback
> 
> Carly's photos:
> http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2005/05/108954.shtml
> 
> Again, muchas gracias for sharing the experiences and stories of this 
> conference. For those of us who weren't there, it really helps us to 
> hear the critiques, the meetings, the actions, the people and the process.
> 
> Without taking this of track, I want to share with the imc-us crew this 
> piece that was written after the Media EmergenC conference in San Diego 
> last October. Members from San Diego Indymedia, radioActive sanDiego, 
> and the Prometheus Radio Project helped write it.
> 
> "Towards a Critical Analysis of Media EmergenC"
> http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2005/02/107671.shtml
> 
> What we (inconclusively) concluded was that all the faults that everyone 
> is mentioning about the NCMR are also possible at an Indymedia 
> conference. Although there can be radical counter-hegemonic content at a 
> conference, the FORM of the conference itself can be alienating, i.e, 
> Speakers vs. Audience, Organizers vs. Organized, 
> Experienced/Wise/Teachers vs. Ignorant/Common/Students. To really 
> challenge the big picture (i.e., to do media justice), new forms of 
> knowledge sharing, interacting, meeting, and conferencing are needed. Or 
> perhaps there are indigenous forms of conferencing that we can learn 
> from . . .
> 
> Also, there was the problem of 'attracting outsiders' by bringing in big 
> names (ie, liberals) at the expense of having a smaller conference with 
> more grassroots presentations.
> 
> Also, race, gender and class can be emphasized in the content of a 
> conference while still avoiding and alienating those communities (locally).
> 
> That all said, it still rocked.
> 
> thanks again,
> onto
> 
> http://sandiego.indymedia.org
> 
> (p.s. bienvenidos aymara!)
> 
> 
> 
> bht wrote:
> > heres my 'officail' reportback.
> > http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/05/317554.shtml
> > 
> > please people that have contact with carly in SD email her to remind her 
> > of the importance of getting the images she took online asap.  also, 
> > kat, someone said that you captured audio of indy things that would be 
> > useful.
> > did anyone get contact info for the woman that was videotaping the 
> > indymedia caucus, and what about dee dee i beleive she was shooting 
> > video as well.  before i posted that article i searched desperately for 
> > an image of indymedia at the conference and came up empty handed, it 
> > sure would be great to get one or two.
> > 
> > betsy, can you and gina get your sets of photos up soon as well?
> > and again, anyone else that want to write a reportback article, or post 
> > media that they captured that would be excellent.
> > bht
> > portland imc volunteer
> > 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> IMC-US mailing list
> IMC-US at lists.ucimc.org
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/imc-us
>