Community Media
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Panelists
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Panel Description
People in both 'developed' and 'developing' countries are using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to promote cultural diversity, social justice, and political democracy, as well as for economic growth and sustainable development. ICTs provide important alternative spaces for marginalized local voices to be heard. People are using newer technologies such as the net alongside older tools like radio to (re)create and liberate public spaces, circumvent the high costs of print publication and large scale broadcasting, and evade censorship by the state or by corporate media. Community media are usually discussed in the context of small scale, grassroots activism, yet many community based organizations have become linked to larger civil society networks, in a sometimes tense interface between local and global goals and concerns. This panel will explore the relationship between community media, the global public sphere, and the movement for A2K. We will discuss questions such as:
- What do ICTs mean for the cultural imperialism/cultural protectionism debates? In what ways do they contribute to the unique nature of local communities, and in what ways do they contribute to homogenization?
- Does the transnational conversation of previously isolated local media bring major media owners (states and companies) to foray further into ICT regulation in order to censor and block them?
- How do we ensure that the benefits of ICTs are extended equally to sub-groups of the world's poor, such as women, children, and ethnic and religious minorities, even when local communities/cultures are not interested in challenging access inequality?
- What is the role of international institutions in promoting or regulating this global diffusion of local production of knowledge and conversation?
- Content aggregators are increasingly becoming knowledge providers. What does this mean to local people in terms of access to knowledge and ownership?
- What do community media makers need from the A2K movement? What policies will best promote community media?
- What does the A2K movement need from community media? Community media is already playing a major but largely unrecognized role in the discursive/frame war over IPRs and A2K. How can the A2K movement support, nurture, and grow stronger together with community media makers?
Speaker Presentation Slides
Remote Questions for Panelists
Notes
5:01: Fazila Farouk begins by reading the most recent version of the panel description, which she says is the result of a "war between the ideologues and the pragmatists." She says that this afternoon we will be exploring the relationship between the media, the global public sphere, and the movement for A2K. Fazila says that, in her view, the A2K movement presently lacks focus in terms of defining its development agenda. She comments on the idea that it is important to consider that as a social movement A2K comprises different stakeholders with varied interests, and while that may encourage democracy, it does not always inspire partnership. That point is especially important when we're talking about A2K in terms of a social movement.
Fazila introduces panelist Sasha Costanza-Chock.
5:09: Sasha begins with a video clip from the intro to a documentary called "Copyright This." He explains that he wanted to play the clip because, in the context of movement-building, we have to acknowledge the fact that this is a polarizing debate. Sasha wants to address two main points: 1) How is it that community media all over the world are engaged in the war of ideas between monopoly rights-dependent industries and social movements? 2) How, given the framing of this weekend's conference, can we start to think about movement-building in the context of A2K?
Sasha shows some more clips by "thought-thieves," which were inspired by Microsoft's idea of the horror of having one's intellectual property stolen, devoted to the RIAA, trust computing, and the history of copying in the world's intellectual tradition.
5:22 Fazila introduces panelist Wijayananda Jayaweera.
Wijayananda relates a story about the hostile takeover of a country's government by its king, wherein the first directive was to forbid broadcasting news, but not songs. The community media group got together, and decided that they could sing news. That created a mass movement that eventually forced the king to back down without violence. If the group didn't have that kind of community media system, they would not have gotten the same result.
Wijayananda thinks it's taken a given that ICTs are useful for solving many problems, and that that attitude has been advanced by the purveyors of such technologies, but that they are not necessarily an answer given particular social climates.
Wijayananda discusses barriers to A2K through the Internet: The access gap (availability of access) The market efficiency gap (affordability of access) The capability gap (language barriers)
He also discusses a possible solution, community access and engagement through community multimedia centers, and problems with such centers (gender gaps in particular). He emphasizes "scaling up" -- seeking a larger impact on people, and briefly gives examples of such efforts. Currently efforts for community multimedia centers are centered on a handful of developing nations. The average establishment costs for a CMC are $22,000 -- for a radio and a handful of computers. The directs the audience to the UNESCO portal for more information.
5:36: Fazila introduces panelist Natasha Primo.
Natasha wants to look at some of the emerging trends in the community media landscape and their consequences. She will ask whether community media is becoming redundant, or if the sector needs to be nurtured, drawing on anecdotal evidence from her work in South Africa.
We have traditionally imagined communities in terms of spacial locations and geographical proximity. With the advent of the Internet, that conception has changed; increasingly we talk about transnational communities of interest or discourse. Natasha disputes Fazila's characterization of the "wiki war." She says there is no need, for example, to discuss whether we should work toward facilitating equal access for all -- that's inherent to communication rights. Her take on the question of homogenization is that it's moot -- communities decide the elements of their culture they want to preserve. So the question is what makes community media unique. Often it's said that it's the voice of the voiceless. It's also for the community, by the community. She emphasizes that media freedom isn't the same issue as freedom of expression. We need to be open to supporting different ways in which people want to express themselves.
5:50: Fazila sums up the major points of each panelist's presentation, and opens the floor for questions.
Questions:
What is the approach UNESCO is taking to avoid the issue of copyright infringement? Wijayananda says that the issue is complicated, because there's a common misunderstanding, even a gray area, about what's in the common domain. The basic approach, though, is that the internet is a storage center for knowledge, and that people should be free to use it. Natasha adds that there are serious attempts to produce novel, community-specific content that doesn't rely on the works of others, so it's not merely an issue of intellectual property rights.
The question of whether the Internet is going to homogenize media is an interesting and historically accurate one. On the other hand, using the most appropriate media for the situation is going to have the opposite effect. No question.
6:05 Fazila introduces panelist Murali Shanmugavelan.
Murali will focus on how the spaces for each of us are blurring, and how that will have a profound effect on community media in the future. Looking back 10 years ago, there was a clear understanding of global communications and community media as separate entities. There are proven effects because of ICTs on local communities. Community media is no longer just for the community and by the community, but for everyone. The movement is heavily influenced by technologies, because they give people the opportunity to mobilize.
Murali discusses the case of a female Kenyan blogger whose content was widely posted to promote debate worldwide. He is interested in community media not as a way of opening up new voices, but new spaces. There's a fundamental shift happening, and new spaces are going to be key.
6:16 Fazila introduces panelist Ethan Zuckerman.
Ethan discusses Ohmynews, which makes it possible for citizens to send in their own news, which is then professionally edited. The same approach has been attempted in other countries (e.g. Israel). Ethan talks about blogging from Kenya and Thailand, especially the idea of "moments of journalism" by ordinary citizens. He discusses the Tunisian Prison Man, which maps the locations and prisoners of secret prisons. Zuckerman: "Censorship is the sincerest form of flattery." Zuckerman introduces the Global Voices project.
The theory behind all of these projects is the amplification of voices. In really repressive nations, there's no space at all to use such tools. In countries that are not particularly repressive, there aren't people flocking to these tools because there are other avenues for expression available. It's in moderately repressive countries that people are really beginning to take advantage of community media. The basic hypothesis: The level of offline censorship x level of penetration of the internet = the level of online censorship.
Possible responses: Make it difficult for people to be identified (handbook for bloggers and dissidents). A variety of other creative approaches are also being entertained.
6:32: Fazila opens the floor for comments and questions.
Questions:
To what extent has there been a real change in terms of freedom of information? How much does the new economy parallel the old economy? Ethan thinks it's important that people learn to advocate not only for their particular issues, but also for the idea of truly open access in general.
When non-citizen institutions appropriate technologies, sometimes they're unsuccessful (usually when they try to limit content), and sometimes they're successful (usually when they leave content as unrestricted as possible).
6:45: Fazila concludes the panel.
