Media

“When you ask youth – particularly ethnocultural youth – and they say that the biggest missing link to them feeling a sense of belonging in broader society is the media, you (should) pay attention. Maybe even do something about it.”

Includes links to 10 videos (panel discussion, spoken word performers, and interviews with program coordinators) from the Ottawa launch of the M&M project.

As Robert McChesney states, “regardless of what a progressive group’s first issue of importance is, its second issue should be media and communication, because so long as the media are in corporate hands, the task of social change will be vastly more difficult, if not impossible, across the board.”

This is advice that could be heeded by anyone looking to change the world for the better. Media activists have long been involved in creating alternative media, but there are other forms of activity that are also important in dealing with the problems we now face in our communication structures.

Notes taken from a discussion on independent media as part of the ‘open space’ part of the open university summer program at Concordia University, Montreal, on June 19, 2008.

Ideas from a workshop I put together, based on my experiences in the Indymedia network, and presented at teh Un-censoring: MediaMorphosis conference at Carleton University, 2004.

“It is frustrating to see so many people concentrating so much energy on the mainstream media. Once we’ve established that there are serious problems there, it doesn’t help to keep saying what is wrong with it. We can decide we need to build something new, then put our energy into that effort.”

Comprehensive notes developed from discussion in different Independent Media Centre workshops held in Toronto in 2002 & 2003 – at the Anarchist Bookfair, and Social Forum(s).