What type of associations does my research have with the principles of ‘community media’?

With my project, which examines in a broad context online video practice, I did not intend to make a direct link with the notion of community media. Unlike, Leo and Bruce I do not make a reference to ‘community media’ in my research summary or proposal.

In hindsight, this is because I come from a background of broadcast media experience in which I often looked for alternatives within that platform. For example, I gravitated to producing content for SBS Television because they offered the room to experiment with both content and form. So, my research interest initially was motivated by the potential to discover and test alternative approaches to the way video is produced and distributed online.

But, another influence that possibly connects me to the notion of ‘community media’ is a focus on an independent documentary practice that examined social and political issues. Within this practice, I was always on the lookout for stories that the mainstream media would not touch. I think that this in combination with exposure to academia and media as a field of study has led to being influenced by the age-old approach to examine the “ideological frameworks” that control media. Which all adds up to making connections with the principles behind community media; alternative media; grassroots media; independent media; citizen media; radical media, hacktivism and activism. In a quick glance across current definitions of these varying areas of media there is distinct similarities and differences. What they all have in common is the motivation to provide a perspective that is different from mainstream media. These “avant-garde or counteractive media” practices offer me the potential to explore and discover new approaches towards the production and dissemination of video on the Internet.

Intuitively, I like the idea of not situating myself within any of these groups. The closest I come to making a commitment is using the word ‘alternative’ and ‘independent media’ in my research summary. Why am I not committing more? Well firstly and I admit it I need to understand more context and history around these media approaches which is part of being here today. But, more importantly through research that focuses on the web, I am becoming more and more aware of a phenomenal shift in the way media is being produced and consumed. New problems and benefits are emerging as part of the potential for individuals with access to computers and the Internet having the potential to produce and distribute media content. For example the question has been raised as to whether many bloggers are merely regurgitating mass media through another platform rather than utilising the potential to provide a diverse and independent perspective. Other questions are being asked about the type of labour that user-generated content is producing around websites like YouTube, when so few enjoy the significant spoils of the sell-off to larger conglomerates.

Always interested in the ‘other’, and prepared to put ideas out that need more research and substantiation - I would like to propose that ‘community media’ now and in the future will draw from movements like open source and more recently from analysis being conducted into peer-to-peer theory. This is the type of community media that I would like to tease out in my research. But, what will not change is as Alessandro Ludovico (the editor of the independent online/offline publication Neural) stated in a recent open source workshop – is that a key element of non-mainstream media is networking and making connections with people who are interested in providing a diversity of perspectives. I was inspired by the way that he has extended this idea into getting like groups together (like in his case independent new media publishers) to discuss and share ideas, issues, and ways to survive. Collaborating in this way and being on the edge of collapse produces interesting responses to traditional approaches. Mute one of these independent publishers to stay afloat came up with a print-on-demand (POD) approach to publishing where one copy rather than the obligatory financed 500 copies can be produced on demand. Also, the consumer can remix articles and self-publish from serial publications into a magazine of their choice and have that printed. All this content is licensed ‘copyleft’ meaning it can be remixed and used for commercial purposes. Radical approaches like this are prime examples of thinking and working differently as part of maintaining independent forms of media and could be called a type of open publishing.

Working from this networking and networked perspective, I see some form of online documentary that somehow provides more of a conversational approach to the way media is produced. Adapted social software is used to create a production where the producer, the people involved in the story and other interested contributors can all participate in an open process. Situated in a location that has developing country issues.

For example, on the weekend in discussion with a colleague from ANU, I was intrigued by his story of a very large group of illiterate workers ‘The Bombay Dabbawalas’, who are coordinated in Mumbai, India on a daily basis to deliver lunches from each of the workers’ partners homes to their offices. Millions of colour-coded containers for each level of the office buildings are collected and delivered daily with a very small percentage of error in the deliveries. This is a fascinating example of ingenuity, communication and a type of networked system that forms part of the fabric of that community. Somehow, I would like to see through the use of online video technologies a similar example of media that operates at this community level. This is not YouTube, it is a type of video sharing that really utilises the potential to provide a valuable and autonomous point-of-view.

Coming back to making connections between my research and the principles behind community media, a connection that I would make is with open source culture. Recently I have been drawn into the debates and inquiries occurring around copyright on the Internet. The theorist Lawrence Lessig provides some interesting insights into the notion of promoting a read-write culture rather than a read-only culture on the Internet. He divides the Internet into four distinct areas Content, Applications, Logical (as in the protocols) and Physical (as in the telecommunication infrastructures). He uses the example of the development of open source applications as a benchmark for opening up these other three areas. Like for example, content being controlled through copyright law by large organisations like Sony, Disney, Viacom and Warner Brothers. Another example, is the issues around the implementation of broadband in Australia as part of controlling the physical developments of the Internet.

His argument is how the same innovative approaches that have made open source platforms like Linux a key part of the Internet fabric could be applied to these other areas. He advocates ‘private’ approaches to make this happen, as governments are not in tune with what is required. Creative Commons is part of accommodating both the read-only and read-write needs of the content area. All of this is about keeping the avenues open for people to not only access content but also produce and distribute content. In a broader sense I think ‘community media’ can be seen as being both local and global, where key issues around accessibility will affect media on all levels.

References:
Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture: The nature and future of creativity, Penguin: New York, 2004.

Jay David Bolter, ‘Theory and Practice in New Media Studies’, Digital Media Revisted, Eds. Guannar Liestol, Andrew Morrison, Terje Rasmussen, MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass., 2004.

Geert Lovink, Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture, Routledge: NewYork, 2007.

Trebor Scholz - What the MySpace generation should know about working for free, re-public: re.imaginging democracy, 16th April 2007,
http://www.re-public.gr/en/wp-print.php?p=138 (accessed August 5, 2007)

Lawrence Lessig, ‘Free Culture: What we need from you’, LinuxWorld.com, online video presentation, http://www.linuxworld.com/events/keynotes/lwsf06-lessig.html (accessed August 5, 2007)