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Media Reform- White Men In Suits? The Case For Building Our Own Media |
Current rating: 0 |
by David Garcia (via Sascha)
Email: dgarcia (nospam) arkansas.indymedia.org (verified) |
12 Nov 2003
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Corporate media is a tiny handful feeding information to the passive masses. Unfortunately, much of the Media Reform Conference was just the same.
In spite of its flaws however, the National Conference on Media Reform, along with the independently organized BE THE MEDIA Conference running at the same time, did highlight the very real infowars now underway. Moreover, the two conferences, taken together, did offer a dazzling glimpse of the potential for building our own media. |
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The National Conference on Media Reform drew some 1,600 registered participants and 200 volunteer workers to Madison Wisconsin over the bitterly cold weekend of November 7-9, 2003. At the same time, Madison IndyMedia, WORT Community Radio, and the Madison Infoshop sponsored a BE THE MEDIA conference, to run concurrently with the other gathering.
Democracy Now activists, NPR affiliate staffers, corporate journalists, CAT producers, microradio activists, FCC members, musicians, Pacifica staffers, street theater folks, communist party members, culture jammers, media professors, members of Congress, and lots of indymedia people came together in both conferences for three days of workshops, speeches and discussions about the struggle for control of the media.
Both forums opened a space for intense discussions on a wide variety of media issues. The contrast in the way the two conferences were structured underscored very real differences in approach to organizing and to media. And many of the people involved in both conferences had solid, practical ideas about how grassroots media activists can move forward. Let's look at each of these points in turn.
Media Issues: The Infowars Now Raging
The FCC and Media Consolidation
Much of the discussion at the Media Reform Conference was about the struggle over media consolidation being fought out in the FCC and in Congress. http://mediareform.net/ has indepth background information but the issue can be summarized simply. There has been a movement underway for years to change FCC regulations to allow fewer and fewer corporate media conglomerates to own more and more newspapers, televison and radio stations, cable companies and even internet portals.
The latest efforts along those lines, spearheaded by Colin Powell's son, now the chairperson of the FCC raised such public outrage that over two million Americans registered their opposition. When the FCC ignored this unprecedented public outcry and went ahead with changing the rules in favor of the giant media corporations yet again, Congress jumped into the fray. Even as this article is being written, the media giants are trying to bottle up Congressional efforts to override the FCC rule changes. You can get updates on this struggle here: http://mediareform.net/congress/updates.php There is however, an even deeper issue underlying the consolidation battles.
Control Of The Information Flow
Whoever controls the information flow controls the news we see, the political debates we engage in and even the very culture we live in. The two media conferences provided example after example of the corporate media ignoring, distorting, or even lying about indivduals, organizations and movements that threaten the corporate agenda. The war in Iraq provided a rich vein for such examples, with the corporate media ignoring the peace movement until so many millions of people were marching in so many cities around the globe that it was becoming ludicrious for CNN and the others to try to pretend that no such thing was happening.
All of this has been well documented in many places. Again, http://mediareform.net has indepth information that provides an excellent starting point from which to study this issue. Let me provide just a couple of examples from Arkansas that graphically illustrate the local impact of corporate media control.
Several years ago, Students Against Sweatshops brought Charles Kernaghan, of the National Labor Committee, to speak on the UA-Fayetteville campus about sweatshops. After his speech, Kernaghan was interviewed by a local television reporter. As long as he spoke in general about sweatshop issues, everything went smoothly. However, as soon as Kernaghan began talking about WalMart's sales of sweatshop produced goods under the label "Made in America", the reporter literally lowered her microphone and signaled for her cameraman to turn off his camera. In an Arkansas dominated by the Walton, Tyson and Stephens families, certain topics are simply forbidden for the local corporate media to cover.
Another graphic example is Tyson and the labor strike against it's plant in Jefferson Wisconsin. Both a LexisNexis and a Google search under the keywords Tyson and strike failed to turn up a single hit from any media outlet in Arkansas. The news blackout in Arkansas on unions challenging Tyson is virtually complete- except for Arkansas IndyMedia of course. We repost articles on the Jefferson strike every time we can grab one from Madison IndyMedia.
That does bring us right to the front lines of another info war though, one that unfortunately was only briefly addressed in these media conferences.
Technical Wars
As digital technology becomes increasingly cheaper and easier to use, grassroots activists around the world have been going digital to build their own media networks. Internet networks like Indymedia, http://indymedia.org/ are springing up everywhere. Audio streaming is extending the reach of radio networks like Pacifica, http://pacifica.org/ far beyond traditional broadcasts over the airwaves. And while video streaming is still slow and clunky for those without access to satellite uplinks, technology should be bringing television networks within reach for grassroots activists in the near future.
Like the energy corporations suppressing research into alternative energy, however, the corporate media giants are not unaware of these threats to their control. They are already moving to head off such digital anarchy. Major infowars are already raging in obscure technical and standards committees over who will control the emerging digital domains.
Howard Rheingold's book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, which should be required reading for media activists anyway, is a primer on these infowars. His website at: http://www.smartmobs.com/index.html provides ongoing coverage. http://mediareform.net/ once again provides indepth briefing papers, accessible off their front page.
However, these efforts to build independent digital networks brings us face to face with another issue raised in both conferences- money.
Those Who Control The Cash Control What?
Even though the cost of digital technology is steadily dropping, it still takes money and technical skills to acquire and use such technology. At the Media Reform Conference, a panel discussion on New Initiatives in Media Funding brought together representatives from a number of different foundations to talk about their interest in underwriting media projects.
Such discussions raise an immediate question: Can activists take foundation money without going down the road of compromise that leads to NPR like pablum reporting, or worse?
Several years ago, The Ford Foundation, also present at this panel discussion, offered substantial funding to the indymedia network. After bitter internal debate, the money was refused, at least in part because of the historical ties between the Ford Foundation and the CIA. (A google search on the keywords Ford Foundation and CIA turned up 19,300 hits. You should do such a search yourself and draw your own conclusions from the various sources.)
The impact of such questions are very direct and real. This reporter was only able to attend the Media Reform Conference at all because of a full scholarship from the FEX Media Justice Fund. It was not until the Conference that I found out the Media Justice Fund got its original money from the Ford Foundation.
The BE THE MEDIA Conference offered a very different funding model for truly independent media- one drawn from Pacifica's "listener supported" strategy. We'll go into more details about that approach under the strategy section, after looking at some of the flaws in the Media Reform Conference itself and what they tell us about how we need to proceed from here.
Structural Issues: White Men In Suits And The Flaws In The National Conference On Media Reform
In an extremely revealing irony, much of the Media Reform Conference duplicated the broadcast model of the very corporate media we are trying to reform. Examining that irony can tell us much about how we should proceed from here.
Before critiquing the Conference however, the tremendously postive results of the Conference should be acknowledged. For the opportunity to come together with such an incredibly broad and diverse array of media activists will have a very direct effect on the work of Arkansas IndyMedia for one. Ideas, information and contacts gathered at both conferences will enable us to reach even further in our work. Due credit and thanks need to be given to the organizers of the Media Reform Conference, as well as those of the BE THE MEDIA conference, which extended the work of the first gathering.
There are some serious issues in the media reform movement however, problems exemplified in the structural flaws of the Media Reform Conference, which do need to be addressed as we all try to move forward together.
Top Down Structure Versus Circles
Virtually all of the Media Reform Conference events I attended had the exact same structure. A tiny handful of speakers held the microphones while the large audience sat there, expected to passively receive the information being transmitted from the top. There were few opportunities for questions and almost none for interaction with other conference attendees.
Indeed, it was not until halfway through the second day that I finally arrived at a Media Reform workshop that had a space built in for conference attendees to talk with each other. And it wasn't until near the end of the third day that I found another workshop providing such an opportunity within the Media Reform Conference structure. Even as the "approved speakers" touted the wonderful networking opportunities of the Conference, precious little time was made avaliable within the structure for people to actually interact with each other.
This is of course a perfect reflection of the corporate media broadcast model. A tiny handful controls the information flow while the mass audience just sits there and passively consumes what they are given. It is the standard model found throughout the corporate and academic worlds, for it restricts the flow of information, it chokes off true dialogue among the "masses", and it keeps power, unchallenged, in the hands of the few.
That is not the only possible model, however. The very first workshop I went to at the BE THE MEDIA Conference started with a circle, where all the participants introduced themselves and listed the concerns they'd like to see addressed in the workshop. The "presentors" took less than half the avaliable time to transmit information relevant to those concerns. The rest of the time was given over to a free flowing discussion among all the particpants about the various issues those present had raised.
The Indymedia caucus on Saturday afternoon was an even clearer example of such a circular structure, without "topdown" leaders. In a two hour lunch break, everyone introduced themselves, a facilator was chosen, an agenda was drawn up, and an open discussion ensued which addressed all the issues raised.
Progressive movements from the anti-globalization struggles to the indymedia network have spent years developing models for participatory democracy in consensus based groups working together collectively, without leaders, hierarchy, or top down structure. They have spent so much effort in an attempt to break through the power inequalities and the gender/race/class differentials inherent in this society's traditional top down structures. And the need for such progressive models became clear as hard questions emerged about the way the National Conference on Media Reform was being run.
Gender/Race/Class Issues At The Media Reform Conference
One activist of color told me that they had talked for months with the Media Reform Conference organizers about getting people of color involved in the decision making and resource allocation of the Conference, all to no avail. While colored faces were readily apparent among the speakers and the conference attendees, it's not clear if any had any real power in the conference by being involved in the actual decision making and financial processes.
Volunteers involved in the Media Justice Lounge, intended as a safe space for people of color, reported that they were under verbal assault all weekend for trying to maintain a "people of color only" space.
A white working class woman from another IMC reported that in the Issue Salon about media ownership, one of the few designated Conference opportunities for attendees to talk with each other, she was repeatedly interrupted, cut off and ignored, whenever she tried to speak.
All of this is not a matter of fingerpointing or name calling, for none of us is immune. When I went to the Media Justice Lounge, I came in like a typical unthinking male, assuming that my concerns and issues would be addressed immediately. The women of color staffing the room whom I approached in that heavy handed manner and who had been fighting to defend that space for days, felt like they were once again being attacked and reacted appropriately.
As there had been no delineation in the Conference program ahead of time that this was a people of color only safe space, a white member of our IMC's collective casually came walking into the Media Justice Lounge looking for me at that point. There was an immediate reaction against her presence as a white woman that increased the tension I had already generated.
Since this member of our collective is visually impaired to the point of being legally blind and thus would not have seen a warning sign if it had been posted on the door, I didn't notice such a sign myself, she had no way of knowing that she had transgressed a boundary. Implicit in the reaction of the other colored folk is the unconscious assumption of sighted people that everyone else can see as well as they can, an assumption that frequently causes problems for visually impaired folk.
Thus, a couple of minutes of unthinking assumptions set off a confusing swirl of gender/race/disability issues that took a while to unsnarl. Moreover, it's an interesting question why this intended safe space was not clearly identified as people of color only in the Conference program.
That's why I'm raising these kinds of issues in this article. Not to point fingers or make accusations against anyone, but simply to say that these are serious issues we have to address if we are going to work with each other. For working together is hopefully one of the long term benefits that will come out of these two media conferences.
Strategic Issues: Where Do We Go From Here?
Reform The Corporate Media Or Create Our Own?
While this question was never seriously addressed in either media conference, the weekend of conferences crystallized my own answer to that central strategic question. Personally, I do not want to reform the FCC, I want to see the FCC abolished. I do not want to reform the corporate media, I want to help create our own media and watch the corporate media wither away. While I can and will support the work of the reformers, my own passion is to help us all become the media. And these two media conferences together made it clear that this is a real option, already well underway, not some activist pipe dream.
Networks Of Autonomous Working Groups
Much is being made of networks these days, and rightly so. From the Battle In Seattle to the Chechyan rebels, to the global indymedia movement, the strength and power of small, independent working groups linking together in flexible networks is being demonstrated over and over again.
We have the web-based networks already in place and growing. Streaming audio, microradio and wireless technology give us the capability of radio networks which, again, are already in place and growing. All the rest of us have to do is link up. Parts of the television network are in place, and more is coming.
Arkansas IndyMedia is one small, independent link in a growing IMC network. To move forward from here, we will continue to work on strengthening our own internal processes along collective, consensus based lines. We will continue to develop our own autonomous working groups, doing website, radio, video and print projects.
We will use the opportunities offered by these conferences to link with other networks, thus expanding our reach and theirs. When allies put out a call for support, we will respond as best we can, be it emailing the FCC and Congress or coming out in the streets.
Oh, and we might even crib a funding idea from Pacifica Radio, by way of the Urbana-Champaign IMC. The idea is a simple one, easily replicable everywhere. Start a funding drive asking everyone you know and anyone you come in contact with to make a monthly pledge from $5-$100 a month. Then get back in touch with them every month to collect the pledge. If your project is doing work that builds and supports community, then the community will support your project. It really is that simple.
Finally, both conferences made it clear that it's time to update one hoary, old activist chestnut. Contrary to earlier reports, this revolution will be televised and it's our media networks that will televise it.
Paz
P.S. There was so much information avaliable at these two conferences that it will take some time to sift through it all. As we sort out the material, we'll post specific links and contact information that others may find useful in a seperate article. And since each of us only got to meet a tiny fraction of the people there, we hope the other IMCistas who were at the two conferences will do the same. |
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