There are anniversaries of all kinds, we remember, we celebrate, we
celebrate events even very distant in time, both happy and sad,sometimes even forgotten (or unknown) by most people and even facts that
historically have no foundation. Sometimes these occasions can be a way
like any other, to remember a known past or to make it known to the
younger ones. When it goes well, useful lessons can be drawn from these
stories, as in our case. ---- At the end of November, among who knows
how many other anniversaries, 25 years will have passed since the
creation of "Indymedia", something that for anagraphic reasons does not
belong to the personal memory of those who are between 20 and 30 years
old today but that is truly worth remembering.
It all began, not entirely by chance, in the final months of the last
millennium or, if you prefer, of the last century, one of those moments
that have the charm of the end of an era, an event that in distant
history was associated with apocalyptic events, often linked to the end
of the world. And, in a certain sense, something similar hovered in the
context. For a few years, a transnational movement had been roaming the
globe that had brought to the fore a generation that was protesting
against a globalization that was worsening social inequalities and
accelerating the destruction of the ecosystem. This movement was clearly
connected to and in continuation of the others that, starting from the
end of the 1950s, had traveled kilometers in the streets and squares of
the entire planet. Movements that were born, had grown and then
disappeared more or less quickly from the stage of History, the one with
a capital "H".
In November 1999, in a context where among the main innovations had
appeared - with all their disruptive novelty - the Internet and
especially the Web, it was precisely from the mixture of these two
ingredients that the first and until now only attempt to turn the
traditional system of mass communication upside down took off.
It would be too long and complicated to tell the story of "Indymedia",
for those who are interested we refer to this old article and to the
resources (good and bad) that are easily traceable on the Web, in this
case we limit ourselves to pointing out some of the reasons why that
story should still be remembered in 2024 when a quarter of a century has
already passed.
Then as now the system of mass communication was in the hands of a few
economic, political and power centers that were the only ones with the
resources necessary to print a newspaper, to manage a radio or
television network. Tools capable of transforming facts into news, of
building a narrative of the present (but also of the past) functional to
the system of capitalism that in those years celebrated its victory over
the alleged "real socialism".
The creation of "Indymedia", starting from a simple website set up to
document what was called the "Battle of Seattle" demonstrated,
irrefutably, that even a small group of people with ridiculous economic
resources compared to those available to the communication giants
managed to set up a project capable of producing and disseminating
independent information. The initial idea in the space of a couple of
years transformed into a real international network that came to have
more than a hundred nodes spread, even if in a non-homogeneous way,
across all continents.
Contrary to what had happened previously, in 1999 the movement had
managed to equip itself with a communication and information system,
fast, modern and that used telematics in an absolutely new way. In the
years to follow, there will be numerous commercial and non-commercial
initiatives that will copy many of the technical innovations used for
the first time by "Indymedia".
Good stories do not always have a happy ending and this one did not.
After about ten years, the Internet that had tried, often succeeding, to
counter the power of the official mass media lost strength, mainly
because the movement that had provided it with lifeblood weakened,
almost to the point of disappearing. But there are also other reasons
for this disappearance and they fall, in large part, within the
characteristics of all social movements and which are significantly
affected by the transformations of the different historical contexts in
which they have operated.In recent years, the official media system has
almost completely colonized the Internet and many passively suffer this
invasion, unable to imagine alternatives through which they can try to
escape the widespread control that characterizes the digitalized society.
The history of "Indymedia", defects included, even if 25 years old, is
an anniversary worth remembering and that still has much to teach those
who want to learn.
pepsy.noblogs.org
The current panorama is characterized, among other things, by an extreme
fragmentation of the forces that work for social change and, within this
situation, there are also differences that concern the way of relating
personally and collectively to digital media.
https://umanitanova.org/cera-una-volta-indymedia-un-esempio-di-comunicazione-militante/
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A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
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