The global movement's media strategyThe thousands of proposals put forward on communication at Porto Alegre can be divided into five main categories : 1) The First World Audiovisual Forum, the principle aim of which is to put a halt to the capitalist globalization of the information and cultural industry ; 2) The CRIS campaign in preparation for the forthcoming World Summit on the Information Society, convened by the United Nations ; 3) the setting up of Media Watch Global to analyze and denounce corporate communication media ; 4) the strengthening of the networks of alternative media ; and 5) the new technologies (computers and internet) which reinforce information and coordination networks, both about the movement and originating from it, with both a global and horizontal reach. The movement has shown that it is aware of all these challenges and that it has the energy to tackle them. As we examine them, we also see some risks.
1. The First World Audiovisual Forum brought together all professional bodies and industrial sectors in the audiovisual field together with the educators and artists present in Porto Alegre. They advocated coordinated international action so that civil society and governments can progress towards a « genuine world audiovisual democracy. ». Looking beyond principles and the somewhat abstract overall objectives, in practical terms the main aims can be summed up as follows : (a) encouraging a « high-intensity » democracy that provides for participation and deliberation ; (b) creating alternative systems of production and distribution ; (c) fostering multi-culturalism and making equality compatible with diversity ; (d) promoting collective knowledge and counter hegemony, and consequently (e) helping to build the concept of the global citizen, understood as an active actor both in international institutions and at lower levels.
In the Forum the somewhat stale rhetoric of « cultural imperialism » was revived. But the above-mentioned objectives address new problems. Some reflect the crisis of representative democracy and conventional journalism, now muzzled in the « developed » world because of restrictive laws on the right to information (for example, the Patriot Act). Then there is the oligopolistic domination of corporate communication, which is not only limited to US-based production. Paradoxically, the extension of a global and homogeneous mass culture coincides with the emergence of an infinite number of alternative communication initiatives. And a « global public opinion » is dawning, but it can count on very little institutional support in giving it an effective voice.
The extraordinary campaign of disinformation used in the permanent global war that has been unleashed since 11 September is a good example of all this. The international governmental institutions were put out of action and the credibility of the corporate media was damaged as it transformed into an impressive war propaganda machine. In spite of this, millions of people all over the world descended into the streets against the war. But they were unable to stop it. They were unable even to penalize electorally the national leaders that had conducted it. The warlike and xenophobic hegemony (against the Arabs) has perhaps never reached such levels in the conventional media. But their weaknesses were perhaps never so evident either, thanks to the emergence of an alternative public sphere, facilitated by the Internet. Even the « free market » promoted the « glocalization » of new media hostile to US hegemony. This would have been unthinkable in the past, but the satellite television chains Al Jazeera and Abu Dhabi are good examples. Nevertheless, the Global War went ahead. It seems that the communication aims of the movement need more backing from institutions that are impervious to corporate pressures and the governmental manipulation of the public radio stations. The CRIS initiative, described below, is a step in this direction.
2. The CRIS campaign (Communication Rights for the Information Society) was also present at Porto Alegre. It assembled the various initiatives in the communication development policies of the world social movement, in preparation for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), to be held in Geneva, 10-12 December 2003, and in Tunis in the spring of 2004. The WSIS aims at producing two basic documents : a Declaration of the main ethical principles and rules of conduct, and an Action Plan, with operative priorities and concrete measures to ensure equitable access to the opportunities provided by the information society.
The United Nations has invited member states, private enterprises and civil society to take part in this intersectorial dialogue. The invitation includes the academic and education world, the scientific and technological community ; business and cultural creators and promoters ; municipal and local authorities, unions and parliamentary bodies. Priority is being given to NGOs and social groups that are traditionally marginalized by the media and/or with little access to technology (young people, women, indigenous peoples, the handicapped).
This will be an excellent opportunity (as has happened in other world summits) to participate in the official meeting and, at the same time, to hold a counter-summit like the « Tidal Wave Cancún », coinciding with the WTO meeting in September 2003. Taking part in the official meeting and organizing parallel summits or its own forums is essential for the movement, in spite of the tremendous efforts that this requires. Communication is seen by the movement of movements as a global public good, a right to collective possession and enjoyment, on equal terms. In contrast, the information and voter market (the private communication enterprises and the state radio/television systems) promotes privatization, commercialization and homogeneity of the public space. The difference in these viewpoints makes it necessary to create alternative forums to the institutional summits. Is it, in fact, worthwhile to participate in the summits at all ?
The pessimists maintain that a a charter of the rights of peoples to communication cannot be forced through legally and that it will therefore not affect the structures and inequalities of the information society. In any case, they add, it will be used as rhetoric to cover up the practices that we know all too well. In fact, the corporate media sell commercialized information as a public service and « inter-action » of the media as « teledemocracy », even if the audience has no other rôle than being consumers and spectators. The instrumentalizing rationality of communication as simply business is all too often used by governments when they use public radio/television system for electoral purposes. When these systems are privatized, they fall into the hands of media corporations that are close to governments (as happens with almost all neoliberal privatization).
The recent veto of the United Nations preventing Reporters without Frontiers from attending the WSIS, on the instigation of certain governments in the South (Cuba and Libya) is certainly bad news. The dangers do not always come from the North, as can also be seen in
the votes of the « liberticide » governments of Algeria, China, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Syria, Sudan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe, all of which impose restrictions on the freedom of the press and access to the internet. There is a certain irony in the Summit also being held in Tunisia, a country which has a number of journalists in prison. Its organization will be the responsibility of Abib Ammar, a general who has been accused of being a torturer by the UN itself.
The calmer spirits, although they are aware of these contradictions, join in the CRIS campaign in the belief that it provides an opportunity to present formal arguments to those who want to democratize the information society. For human development must come before technology or, better still, the latter should be seen in function of the former. The lack of the « social » in the summit means it will be an open field for those who are pushing the corporate and privatizing development of the internet, while imposing censure and suppression of its socio-political usage. The (counter) World Summit on the Information Society will therefore once again take up the twofold strategy that has become essential to the movement : interacting with the more open international institutions and utilizing them as legitimizing platforms without, however, allowing itself to be coopted by them.
The Charter of rights for the information society will be important if it is the result of a real communication process. In other words, if it questions the institutions that are examining it. This could start with the United Nations (bypassed, but finally strengthened by the failed occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq) playing the rôle that Unesco once played in commissioning the MacBride report, which was the reference document on anti-cultural imperialism in the third quarter of the 20th century. Member states would be called upon to recompose their national public spheres which have fallen into decline, and make them more plural and open to civil society, which now has its own communication resources. Private communication corporations would come up against new anti-monopoly legislation to preserve communication spaces that are linked, not only to the nation state, but to regions, municipalities and communities.
The movement’s communication strategies will continue to give weight to national and local interests (as in other fields). Nations without states and communities without rights will continue to be the concern of the peoples who are demanding emancipation. They are also the priority issues in the international struggles in which the social organizations, parties and unions that meet within the movement have their own roles and can make their voices heard. The (counter) WSIS must give greater strength to these actors, eager as they are to bring about change, benefitting from the coordination of efforts at the global level. This is the sense in which independent observers of the media and the new networks will be working, bringing together the communication experiences of the movement.
3. The Media Watch Global was presented in Porto Alegre by Le Monde Diplomatique and publicized by that journal in their October 2003 issue. The idea of a media watch originated in the United States of America, resurrecting the figure of the Ombudsman, as defender of the readers, and academic criticism. Two organizations have been important pioneers in this respect. One is FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), which was created in 1986 during the Reagan era and has a bi-monthly journal called Extra ! Its conservative counterpart is Accuracy in the Media (which is more inclined to call attention to « liberal » deviations and criticism). In France, the Observatoire de la Presse was set up in 1995, but it is more concentrated on the training of professionals. The Observatórios da Imprensa of Portugal and Brazil combine professional criticism with a civic dimension. Almost all these are linked to university centres that train journalists.
The Media Watch Global aims at covering the three classic fields of mass communication : information (the press), mass culture and publicity. It believes that private commercialization and the expansion of multimedia oligopolies have broken down the frontiers that previously existed between these different fields. It intends to restore power to the weaker parties : to give a voice to citizens rather than consumers and to independent journalists rather than to fettered journalists who are employed on a precarious basis. It means to provide a critical platform of the « superpower of the corporate media », which is a « power without counter power ». It plans to bring together media professionals and specialists in media studies, as well as active members of the public. In sum, it wants to establish criteria for an « information ecology », which can be used to establish an « organic information » label, based on accuracy and social responsibility.
This initiative describes its strength as being « above all, moral : denouncing, in terms of ethics, and spotlighting dishonesty in the media through reports and studies that it will prepare, publish and disseminate. » Its immediate objective is to make itself heard at the World Summit of the Information Society. Those objecting to this praiseworthy initiative feel that it runs the risk of a certain intellectualism, in two ways: firstly, because importance is given to the professionals and researchers rather than to the associations using the media (they are always mentioned last of all, as « persons recognized for their moral stature ») ; and, secondly, because it is very dubious whether « moral » criticism is in itself enough to bring about change.
In other words, there is a danger that Media Watch Global will become an elite circle with a « self-referential » critical discourse, concentrating on the « prestigious » communication media and contents and thus emphasizing the voices in the global movement that already have media visibility. But the « consumers », thanks to the spreading of the new technologies, are now able to move beyond the limits of their traditional associations. As well as criticizing and denouncing the media and its contents, they can start (in fact they have started) to produce materials themselves. The Media Watch Global could also confuse – as happened with most of the criticial intellectuals of the 1960s – « moral criticism » with political practice. Criticism is essential, especially as a permanent and open task that is oriented also towards the media of the movement, which (naturally !) also shows elitist tendencies. What the movements really need are platforms to make themselves heard and seen among themselves. Only in this way will they acquire the active public status that is appropriate for global citizenship. To attain this there are the two ways of media intervention described below.
4. The global resistance movement has begun to create networks of alternative media that use the classic printing and audio-visual technologies, now reinforced by the personal computer and digitalization. An interesting project is that of ALAI (Agencia Latinoamericana de Información) that wants to democratize communication from below. It is a web-based community of social movements that aims at being a forceful and strategic presence for these movements on internet. Among its publications is América latina en movimiento (Latin America on the move) with digital and printed versions. Another important network, which collects together a dense experience of local, popular and community radio, is ALER. It is closely related to Paulo Freire’s pedagogy and contributes to « constructing democratic and participatory societies in which the poor are the protagonists in their own development. » These initiatives have arisen from development communications programmes (also in Africa and Asia) and have been the driving force in setting up social movements in the South. Without them, the growth of the political indigenous organizations, the MST and Vía Campesina, would have been impossible.
These networks have managed to gain admittance into the international institutions. For example, Unesco is developing a programme of Multimedia Community Centres which brings together the local media (particularly the radio in indigenous languages). The new technologies increase the inter-action and participation of communities at different levels. The community telecentres have been devised to promote communication and the exchange of information at both the local and global level. Some are linked to community radios (low-cost, with a strong local base), so that it is possible to create data banks and audio-visual archives with libraries and documentation centres. The example of the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZ LN) has been important in helping to protect these experiences against ethnic risks (the folkloric or the anthropological) and linking the indigenous communities to global solidarity networks, to transnational campaigns and to their growing political activities at the state level.
In the North, paradoxical as it may seem, the classic alternative media that are those of the movement against capitalist globalization, have been less effective. There are various factors at work here. The commodification of public space by the corporate media leaves little room for social initiatives. The fragmentation and individualization of the technologies (just as with life styles) have destroyed many of the social networks that used to feed some of the cultural industry and alternative media : for example, worker culture and counter culture. The press belonging to parties and trade unions has practically disappeared and the underground media has become commercial. At the end of the 20th century there still remained some media from the extra-parliamentary left, but they cannot compete with the main conventional media or compare with the media networks of the South in terms of outreach in the society.
Where civil society is more vigorous the traditional left-wing media have managed to launch combined operations. Worth noting is the cooperation established by the newspapers, L’Unitá, Il Manifesto and Liberazione in Italy. The three of them succeeded, after the G8 Counter Summit in Genoa (in June 2001), in distributing a video, a white paper and a CD-rom through the news-stands. They doubled the distribution of the weekly magazine, L’Espresso. Also in Italy, there is, since the spring of 2003, the Global Magazine, a review linked to the experience of the self-managed social centres, headed by Toni Negri. These represent the « new generation » of the intellectuals of the movement (who have been theorizing for decades), as compared with the more classic model of Le Monde Diplomatique.
Nevertheless one may well wonder to what extent the above media are representative, apart from the critical vanguard. Are they open to the plurality of the movements ? The more critically inclined maintain that they are, first of all, vehicles for the globalized elite, somewhat similar to the Financial Times (although diametrically opposite, ideologically). They project the thinking and initiatives elaborated by a small group of intellectual activists who benefit more from the opportunities of globalization than they suffer from its costs. The risks of intellectualism, already mentioned in connection with the Global Media Watch, could be repeated here. All these experiences have audio-visual or radio ramifications, although the colonization of the frequency waves by the corporate media does not give them high visibility and they therefore cannot reach a very large public. Here should be mentioned, though, the potential of some free radio networks which, in certain countries in the North, have been playing the same mobilizing rôle as the community networks of the South.
5. The telematic initiatives, based on the new technologies of personal computers connected to the internet, have become the hallmark of the movement’s communication identity which, like this technology, largely transcends spatial-temporal barriers. It is used in the following ways : a) websites that are set up specifically for the counter summits and transnational campaigns ; b) websites of classic counter information ; c) cyber activism ; d) the weblog, in which the user is at one and the same time the source, the journalist and the commentator. The Indymedia network is a shining example of this. Let us look at each of these to assess their limitations in communication strategy.
a) The counter summit websites serve as tools for convening meetings and conveying information. They are basically of three different kinds : theme-oriented, logistical and organizational, and legal assistance. Since the first counter summits, a certain model has developed in the social forums that aims at transmitting information to traditional media (printed and audio-visual), both alternative and corporate. This is reflected in A Ciranda Internacional da Informação Independente, on the Porto Alegre website in 2003. It brings together some hundred journalists and dozens of media that share information between themselves. With its six languages it has given quality coverage of the World Social Forum, attracting more than 60,000 daily visits during the event.
The copy-left principles are applied : each publication has the right to reproduce the articles of the others without payment. . To belong one has only to be accredited to cover the Forum. As a participant of the Ciranda, one can combine being reader, journalist and distributor. At the same time participants have access to the free software necessary for publishing messages, participating in chats, etc. All this puts into practice the idea of communication as a common good, reinforcing it against commercial and technological privatization plans. Its advantages are obvious : a lowering of costs, a great range of distribution, lack of editorial controls, horizontal and two-way communications.
There are, however, limitations. Access to the new technologies is an insurmountable barrier for large sectors of the population who have been marginalized by social class, educational level, gender, political regime, the technological development of the country or community of origin. This could be rectified with social policies to spread the new technologies and promote « technological literacy ». Copy-left and free software aim at this, but they only make significant break-throughs when they receive support from the local administration. Also, the websites of the Social Forums and campaigns seem to have a very short life. They concentrate on the event and mainly serve as tools for coordination. This is not so much a limitation of this media in itself : it raises the question of the existence of a real movement, which in fact functions around campaigns and counter-summits. It could reflect the real limitations of the « anti-globalization forces », in their present state of development and the diversity of their natures : time alone will tell. Lastly the websites could be criticized for all the publicity and promotional material they contain. Sometimes they give too much importance (like the e-economy) to the actors and organizations who use their space. But the realm of the virtual is not the realm of the real. And this is an objection that can be applied to the applications of telematics described below.
b) The counter-information websites are the way in which the vast majority of the organizations of the movement make themselves known. Economic benefits and technical simplification have helped in getting them widely adopted. It is one of the first resources adopted by a group and sometimes becomes its « foundational act » (and, unfortunately, its only one). It often happens one can visit a page that has barely been brought up to date ever since the website was created. The links with the websites weave the movement’s networks together, but there is a certain risk of compartmentalization because the coordination through mailing and distribution lists is sectorial. This, one supposes, could give rise to common agendas and identities that are in fact antagonistic. For this reason there are websites with « glocalized » portals, that act as information agencies and promote inter-relationships between organizations of the movement classified by territory, field of activity, affiliation, etc.
c) The internet is not only a shop window : it is also a field of activism. The hacker culture is composed of a network of experts that promote access to the new technologies and their free and collective development. There are many cyber actions, ranging from the « softer » to the « harder » ones. Through many of the websites it is possible to receive gifts and take subscriptions from new members. It is also possible to make massive mailings of requests or petitions through the transmission of a form. Cyber demonstrations are virtual representations of a collective action or demonstration. Mailbombing consists of sending so many messages that they saturate a server or make it break down altogether if it can host only a certain number of pages. Cracking enables people to access the information or reserved spaces of a server in order to render it unusable or sabotage it. The list of possibilities goes on and on, given the infinite variety of these initiatives. There is no doubt that some of them manage to convene more participants than direct actions, which require a physical presence. However this advantage is offset by the fact that the level of involvement decreases exponentially.
Cyber activism is a symptom of technological reappropriation by the grassroots, of a communication media that owes its widespread popularity to its virtual communities. However some reservations should be made. It can turn into mere, self-referential virtuality, without any real effects apart from the internet. It could also be argued that its effects are trivial, compared with the use made of this media by the State and the market. The keywords linked with the global movement represent a very small percentage in the searches using the main research engines, where the main use is instrumental and individual. And the flows of alternative communication are insignificant, compared with those related to financial capital and commercial transactions. Nevertheless, this does not prevent recognition of the enormous tactical potential of the new technologies. They do not guarantee media and institutional visibility but they do provide the necessary coordination to achieve it.
d) The web-log consists of pages to which we have already referred (for example, A Ciranda in Porto Alegre). However, Indymedia merits special mention. It was born during the heat of the Seattle events of 1999 (at that time it received 1.5 million visits), reaching its culminating point at the counter summit of Genoa (5 million visits). It calls itself « a collective of independent communication media organizations and hundreds of journalists covering the grassroots and who are not commercial ». Its objective is « the radical creation of real and impassioned narratives ». The network includes over 500 local centres of independent communication (mostly in Europe and America) and it carries out indispensable internal and external functions for the movement. It has become the key information provider for the counter summits and campaigns, both for sympathizers and for the conventional media.
The principle of « open publication » (instantaneous and uncensored) is the definition of Indymedia, whose watchword is « Don’t hate the media, become it yourself ». They maintain that there is no editorial committee sensu stricto, although there are collectives that have this function and which are completely open, or else closed, with an editorial line. News is ranked according to the ratings given by the users. And messages that are suppressed are withdrawn because they are duplicates or have commercial aims or « do not meet the editorial line. » However they do remain accessible as « hidden articles ». In other words, while the mediation is not absolute, there is transparency in the criteria of selection and its effects. The key to the filter is that the previous discussions in the forums, chats and mailing lists neutralize possible noise or dissonant or contradictory messages. Thus there is no monolithic model of Indymedia.
The growth of Indymedia has forced them to move beyond the mere functions of the coordination and dissemination of events. The crisis of the counter summits as a basic strategy has forced Indymedia into defining their objectives more clearly. There is a certain falling back on local content except when the cycles of mobilization at this level and at state level coincide with global campaigns. The desire for continuity and permanence has led them into trying to establish themselves as a « world council of spokespersons ». But this would involve moving away from direct deliberation to delegation. The plans to set an editorial line, which is necessary to maintain coherence and eliminate noise, also present problems. Basically it is a question of the networks of the global movement, which defines itself more by what it opposes than by what it defends. It is mobilized more through opposition to common enemies than by common solidarities and interests. The need to move beyond this stage is a question to be discussed. But the objective of communication that is both diverse and unifying is the same, in terms of strategy and content, as the one facing the movement as a whole.
By way of conclusion
Internet has been presented, far too frivolously, as the public sphere of the movement. Such a description does not however fulfill the requirements of responsibility and obligations (personal and collective) demanded by communication aiming at social transformation. The movement occupies a public space at the margin of the hegemonic public space. It will have an effect on the latter when the movement reaches the power institutions and the market. Then alternative messages will be introduced into the corporate media, parliaments and international organizations. That is to say, alternative communication has the transforming value of the social fabric that supports it, and when it succeeds in upsetting the imbalances of existing power. And this happens outside (far further than) the discourse that we present in the movement’s media : in the interactions and struggles that are closest to us, in the daily challenging of the practices of dominion and oppression.
Internet articulates the collective action and cycles of protest that have succeeded in making the movement visible to the institutions and the media. And this is the image and the public agenda of the movement, as opposed to those that are woven on the Net. If the symbolic production of the movement has gained such strength and visibility, it is a response to the parallel process of mediatization of the economic and political centres that it opposes. The mediatic and cybernetic paraphernalia of « popular capitalism » and the Love Parades happen at the same time as cyber-activism and the counter summits. At both levels there are problems of banalization, representativity and manipulation. To present them in the hegemonic public sphere and ignore them in « our own » is, to say the least, a sign of self-complacency. Almost all the studies that have been made on the subject indicate that the new technologies tend to reflect and not to overcome inequalities. Another generalized conclusion is that the alternative communities and identities need more personal relationships than technological extensions.
Radical democracy is based on democratic communication, which is a necessary condition but it is not sufficient. A media victory (access to and favourable coverage in the conventional media) is not a guarantee of political success. Rapid saturation, because of the trivial commodification of the movement and the routine coverage of official sources creates indifference and silence in the short term. Our windows on to media opportunity are very small. Besides, the power centres adopt political and repressive measures to guarantee an information flow that is favourable to the hegemonic public sphere. A good example was the entry of the Zapatista March into the Zócala Square of Mexico City. This extraordinary, symbolic spectacle did not guarantee the political and juridical recognition of indigenous rights. And the EZLN returned to the communities to devise a new, socially-based strategy.
Both on the practical and symbolic level, all actors and actions that we have considered are necessary. Everyone takes action on different levels and in tasks that are complementary. Forums and watch committees, conventional media and telematics must all become intertwined, drawing strength from each other, in order to build eventual platforms together. The movement must accept that strategies to infiltrate the corporate media are complementary with the strengthening of the alternative media. It is a question of embarking on a massive communication effort to get visibility and the capacity to interact with the public and the institutions. This is not in order to become one more media product. We have to generate counter information, maintain transversal discussions and make progress in coordination, not to impose identity brands, like watertight compartments. The real network goes in and out of both conventional and alternative communication, without getting bogged down in the process. So that the « target areas » that have to surround it, remain outside.
Auteur: Victor Sampedro