How Far We’ve Come

It wasn’t very long ago when I was convinced that the open publishing websites known as Indymedia were the ultimate radical media tool for social change. Of course, there was tons of other ‘media’ activism that did not fit as neatly into that category, but the (relatively privileged) communities of activists that came out of the anti-globalization movement did not necessarily recognize them as such. The definition of radical media as conceived by the Indymedia activists was in need a serious update, and we got it with this year’s Allied Media Conference.

This year’s Allied Media Conference broke new ground. The areas of independent media, media justice, and movement media were connected in ways that I have never seen before. I managed to attend some great sessions and I know from talking to other people that there were many other excellent ones that I missed. I caught a few minutes of D. Blair’s “History of Black American Through Music.” I learned a lot even in the brief period that I was there. He explained about the deeper meanings of the lyrics of slave songs and how his academic research in that area made him able to connect to an elderly group who knew the songs, but not their meanings. Of course he also sang the songs in his awesome booming voice.

Unfortunately I didn’t make it to that much of the Pop Ed Symposium because I was ensnared in helping set up the Youth Media Lab. Not that I can complain about that. I didn’t quite know what it was beforehand and wasn’t down there the whole time, but from what I gathered I think it might have been one of the most under-appreciated aspects of the AMC. (One piece of feedback I have for next year is to promote the Media Lab more so that people besides the participating organizations know more about it). Basically it was a hands-on workshop for different youth organizations. So, some of went on there included Detroit Summer, the Prometheus Project, and other organizations building an educational FM transmitter. Elementz ran an audio studio and by the end of the weekend had produced five full tracks were produced (hope to hear these on the AMC website soon). They even used the tables and sheets that were already in the room to make a makeshift sound-proof booth to record lyrics.

On Saturday we had the Print Caucus (workshop/caucus/meeting, whatever you want to call it). It was interesting but not quite as productive as I thought it could have been. Of course as a co-facilitator I take some responsibility for this. I was pretty tired and out of it and Jen did most of the actual facilitating during the meeting. But the meeting made me more aware of the significant differences between projects with national distribution like Bitch and Left Turn and projects with local distribution like Critical Moment and Fault Lines. We definitely can learn from each other’s experiences but there are also going to be huge parts of our operations that don’t apply to each other. One cool idea that came out of this was Jordan Flaherty’s suggestion of a national print media tour. So local and national projects would go on tour to get people hyped up about print. Yeah, whatever, you think it’s boring, but I want to go on tour. Plus we need creative ideas to keep print alive (for example becoming a Critical Moment issue sponsor).

On Sunday was the presentation on Political Murals in the North of Ireland. Damn we didn’t record this one! Had no idea how this was going to turn out, but Eoin Ó Broin most definitely rocked it. Mike mentioned that the look on everyone’s faces was, “This is so incredible and how did I not know all of this stuff before!?” I’m going to post the pictures Eoin used in his presentation and will maybe write about that presentation a little more then.

I first came to the AMC because of my involvement in media. But independent media is not revolutionary unless it is intimately tied to movements and movement building. I don’t think that a lot of projects are aware of this, and even if they are, it’s hard to actually incorporate this into your work. Many of the projects featured at the AMC were on the cutting edge of this kind of community based, community empowering media work. Congrats to the AMC organizers and see you next year if not sooner.