towards a democratic media - strategic media planning v3

8/14/2019 Towards A Democratic Media - Strategic Media Planning v3

1/18

The Media Insurgency: Strategic Thinking for RealSocial Change

Or'For a Sustainable, Just and Democratic World We Need to Get Real About The Media,We Need DEMOCRATC MEDIA now!'


2/18

Part 0 A Gentle Introduction (aka What We Fight)

Welcome to the the War!

This is a guide to how we can fight a media insurgency. You might have heard the term'insurgency' before especially in relation to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It brings to mind

AK47 toting men in a mix of military cast-off uniforms and jeans with covered faces anddetermined stares. But what is an insurgency? I like the definition used by the BBC back in 20041;people 'rising in active revolt' it has all the ingredients;

People, as in nobody is forcing us to act we do so for our own reasons of conscience. Rising, as in we are not petitioning the powerful to act on our behalf, we are doing it

ourselves. Revolt, as in our guide is our own moral compasses.

This definition misses a crucial point though if the sides in a war are evenly matched, it is not aninsurgency, but a battle we would fight. However when one side is less powerful than the other

however that is measured in soldiers, tanks, money, resources it is not classical warfare bu whatthe military thinkers call 'asymmetric warfare'. In this case they have the money, the resources anda well established media machine. We lack resources and money but we hame imagination and awhole bag of other tools and tricks (I will return to) and so this is a struggle between their way ofdoing media (top-down, corporate, controlled and money-led) and our way of doing media thedemocratic way. We're the insurgents and they are the occupying power they occupy our mindsand the thoughts of our friends, families and communities. We must free our minds.

But I Don't Want to Fight in a War?

Tough luck the war for your mind is already ongoing. Victory for the occupying powers is for

you to do nothing but carry on consuming as normal. Victory for the insurgency is a vibrant, freethinking democratic media.

About This Guide

tbc

1http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_4010000/newsid_4019000/4019065.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_4010000/newsid_4019000/4019065.stmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_4010000/newsid_4019000/4019065.stm


3/18

Part 1 Farewell to Corporate Media (aka Why We Fight)

Understanding The Media

If you want to get technical,'media' is the plural of

'medium' and a medium is ameans of exchange. If wewant to get real, Media, iswhat surrounds us every daywhether we like it or not. It isthe billboards, newspapers,TV, films and websites thatsurround us physically andmentally. It is persuasive andpervasive. My premise is this;as soon as you have a group of

people too large to informeach other face-to-face onwhat is happening, you need torely on third-party source todiscover/convey what is goingon.

In our society, we are talkinghuge numbers of people from hundreds and thousandsin our local communities, town

and cities, to millions andmillions nationally; that thirdparty we have come to rely onis 'The Media'. 'Media' isshorthand for the corporate media institutions that form the mass of newspaper, TV, Internet, film,books, games we see, consume, interact with, ignore, are informed by, rage at or laugh with eachand every day. As we rely on The Media to inform us, they therefore play a pivotal role is thesupposed democratic system under which we are governed. Whether is in the decision of who tovote for or where to spend our money, they are the channel by which our world-view is shaped.However, The Media are (with a few exceptions, but Ill come to that) businesses whose primaryfunction is to make money. Therefore it stands to reason that they will operate with a strong bias

towards the maintenance of a world-view that provides the best conditions for them to aspire to thisprimary function. This is the zero-point of the media and from here the discussion can begin.

My Bias

I have just accused the media of bias. Don't I have a bias.? Yes I do; I am going to state my biasand premise upfront so you (as the reader) know what angle this writing is coming from. By beingexplicit about what my opinions and ideology are, I am attempting remove any unspoken spin fromthis section and by doing so lay a clear path of communication between myself (as the writer) andyourself (as the reader.) I am doing this to avoid propagandizing which is where you attempt tohide your bias and angle and present opinion as truth.

My bias is that; I lean towards the anarchist view.2 This is a political point of view whereby I

2 If we want to drill-down even more, I am strongly influenced by the ideas of eco-anarchism. See

Australian Media Ownership Relationships (source; Laurie Lock Lee,Optimice)


4/18

believe the best method for organising the society we live in is though non-hierarchical means. Ibelieve in grass-roots democracy where people are able to exercise control over their lives andenvironment. I believe that power corrupts and the best way to avoid this situation is to bothunderstand power structures and be in a position to control any authority we cede to other people orinstitutions.

The Media Bias

Having stated my premise up front, the first point to consider from here is our role in The Media.Our roles as citizens, consumers, activists even just as people. As people we are, whether wechoose to acknowledge the fact or not, part of the media machine. We become the mediacommodity of exchange; audience, simply by watching TV, browsing the Internet, reading a bookor magazine or simply glancing at a billboard. This audience offers the media that harvested it

considerable politicalcapital. Once you seethis is a reality, one ofthe few defenses you

have against the well-honed systems used tosnare you is tounderstand them. Thisunderstanding canblunt theireffectiveness.

It is as 'consumers' weare of the greatestvalue to the media.The corporate mediamodel operates bygathering audience tosell to othercorporations(advertising). Themedia wishes toharvest, divide,process and packagesegments of the

audience for other corporations to use in conveying the right message to sell their products. Don'tthink this is the case? Well this is not the only place you are going to hear this point articulated, as

media commentator Alexander Cockburn argues;3

The role devised for itself by the New York Times was to be the credible organ ofcapitalism ("newspaper of record"), with its reports and editorials premised on the beliefthat American capitalism can produce a just society in which all can enjoy the fruits of theirlabor in peaceful harmony with their environment and the rest of the planet. ...The evidenceis in. The case is proved a million different ways. American capitalism can't do that. It's

produced an unjust society run by a tiny slice of obscenely rich people (including the realestate developers owning the New York Times) with a vested and irreversible interest in

permanent war and planetary destruction. ...Given those premises, how can the Times everget it right? Why would we want the Times to get it right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_schools_of_thought#eco_anarchism3 http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05142005.html and in his book with Jeffrey St.Clair 'The Death of the

Fourth Estate'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_schools_of_thought#eco_anarchismhttp://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05142005.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_schools_of_thought#eco_anarchismhttp://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05142005.html


5/18

Now substitute the New York Times for your main national paper, or the main local paper or anymajor media news outlet and you get the picture. Take an example, that of Adbusters theCanadian media activism foundation who raised the money to take out a series adverts in TheMedia urging people not to consume, but instead to think about the environment and to turn offtheir TVs. The response from The Media? Almost total rejection, major media company

spokespeople replied that they reserved the right not to show such 'social adverts' because they werebad for business or that they would be received "like a lead balloon" with the companies majorretail advertisers.4 This is not the freedom of speech we are told the 'free' media represent. Forthose who believe in a just and sustainable world, there needs to be a deeper search for informationthan will be offered by the media.

Let us take another example;Make Poverty History. I amsure you remember it; in 2005Britain was hosting the G8summit and a hugemovement, pushed by themajor charities, was started toget a better deal for the poorfrom the politicians at theGleneagles event. I wouldargue that perhaps the moststunning omission of themedia coverage was the lackof analysis of the actual issuesthat were being raised. Allthe world leaders attendingwere on hand to deliver sound

bites about their concern forthe poor and the environment.Gordon Brown even joined a protest. Rocks stars and celebrities were wheeled in to praise the G8and Make Poverty History. The huge concerts of Live-8 sucked in the media coverage. Thisresulted in an overall positive vibe for the G8, as research by Professor John Kirton shows5;

"In the two weeks leading up to the start of the Gleneagles Summit on July 6, 2005, themajor elite and mass-circulation, quality British and Scottish newspapers gave prominentfront-page attention to the G8 and its associated events. Over that period, almost all theireditorial pages came to approve and applaud what Tony Blair, Britain and the G8 as aninstitution were doing. Even more strikinglyeditorial opinion of Blairs G8 performance

and that of his British colleagues, of his G8 partners, of G8 processes and of policies andpressures all moved to become strongly indeed almost unanimously positive, pulled bya unifying enthusiasm in the wake of the Live 8 concert and Make Poverty History march onJuly 2."

This is what was spun in advance and during the event. While the subsequent terrorist attacks inLondon on 7/7 removed the focus from the G8 there has since not been the same level of attentionshowed by the media to the reality of the G8's real progress that contrasts sharply with its spin: TheUS has since admitted its G8 announcements include no new aid commitments.6 The much hypeddebt-deals reached have since been found lacking. Bush blocked efforts to agree on specific targets

4 http://www.adbusters.org/metas/psycho/mediacarta/legal/inthenews.html#pressrelease

5http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/evaluations/2005gleneagles/coverage.html6http://www.oxfam.org.uk/applications/blogs/g8/ and http://www.actionaid.org/docs/mission-unaccomplished.pdf
http://www.adbusters.org/metas/psycho/mediacarta/legal/inthenews.html#pressreleasehttp://www.g7.utoronto.ca/evaluations/2005gleneagles/coverage.htmlhttp://www.oxfam.org.uk/applications/blogs/g8/http://www.actionaid.org/docs/mission-unaccomplished.pdfhttp://www.adbusters.org/metas/psycho/mediacarta/legal/inthenews.html#pressreleasehttp://www.g7.utoronto.ca/evaluations/2005gleneagles/coverage.htmlhttp://www.oxfam.org.uk/applications/blogs/g8/http://www.actionaid.org/docs/mission-unaccomplished.pdf


6/18

for reduction of greenhouse gases.7 Perhaps the most sickening outcome of the anti-povertycampaign of 2005 is the increased profits to media corporations thanks to the Live8 events.Michael Chossudovsky, a professor of economics and director at the Centre for Research onGlobalization noted8,

"Live 8 is a multimillion dollar undertaking, which will result in huge profits for its

corporate sponsors...By far this is largest media advertising operation in history, which willline the pockets of the promoters, producers, corporate sponsors, not to mention theroyalties accruing to the performers and 'celebrities'. A small percentage of the proceedsmight accrue to charitable organizations involved in developing countries but this is not thestated objective of Live 8....More generally, the event instills an atmosphere of ignoranceamong the millions who listen to the music and who have the feeling of doing something

positive and constructive. But none of the core elements needed to understand the causes ofglobal poverty are presented." The Major global sponsors of the event were AOL, part ofthe media giant Time Warner. Time Warner was removed from the ethical investmentlisting FSTE4Good in September 2004 for failure to meet the correct human rights criteria.

Also supporting Live8 was mobile phone company Nokia, who along with other high-techcompanies, have been accused of using minerals obtained at cut-price thanks to the povertyand war in the Congo, "The links between the cell phones and computers we use every dayand the devastation taking place now in the Congo can no longer be ignored.

The event's 'Corporate Public Relations Consultant', Matthew Freud, is a friend of Tony Blair andruns Freud Communications PR Consultants which works with many major corporations such asNestl, Pepsi, Sony and...you guessed it, AOL. Even the merchandise tells its own story, thewristbands linked to the event and personally endorsed by Sir Bob Geldof were branded with thelogos of companies accused of violating workers' rights in developing countries; the very peoplethis campaign was supposed to be giving a fairer deal to.

So the question becomes; when The Media is part of the story, who is holding it to account? The

truth is that The Media is always and will always be a tool of money and power;

The centrality of communication to political life has made a massive investment into mediaculture by corporate actors and institutional parties both rational and inevitable. It issimply a matter of capital expenditure: it pays of to control the media, and after all, if youhave money and power, access to the media almost comes automatically. Communicationand media culture reproduce the opinions of their owners and it is no wonder that theyshould support conservative ideological formations. With the control of the media firmly inthe hands of the ruling classes, the masses can be seduced into a consensus. ...Themanipulation of public opinion today is no amateur business but is a field of systematicresearch, corresponding to the development of specific techniques that make the formation

of hegemonic consensus an affair for professionals.9

I hope you can see that with the media operating as it does now, major social change is almostimpossible. If you wish to think independently and wish to campaign for a change to the waythings are, almost every struggle you will undertake will be a media struggle.

Independent Media

7http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/bush-mugging-the-g8-200706318http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/g8summit2005/outcome.asp9 p.133 of Terranova T (2004) Network Culture: Politics for the Information Age, Pluto Press, London
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/bush-mugging-the-g8-20070631http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/g8summit2005/outcome.asphttp://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/bush-mugging-the-g8-20070631http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/g8summit2005/outcome.asp


7/18

There are exceptions to the premise that I have stated: Most of these exceptions exist within therealm of Independent Media. Also known as Alternative Media, by this term I mean media

produced by peopleoperating either asvolunteers or on ashoestring budget.

This is mediaproduced by peoplewith a mission toinform rather thanprofit. There is astrong bias in suchmedia but it isoften at the fore andin plain sight. Thiscategory of mediavaries fromindividuallyproduced newsletterson a specificcampaign, to blogs,to larger globalprojects. The coreidea of independentmedia (and others

forms I will describe) is to be independentfrom the norm, to question the accepted view;

In a consumer society, anything that puts people off their shopping is dangerouslydisruptive...In the Soviet Union, there was something calledsamizdat, or self-publishing:

with the help of manual typewriters and carbon paper, Russian dissidents managed tocirculate enough material to neutralize the effects of enforced normalcy. In thecontemporary United States, we have websites and bloggers; different technology, samedifference. These are writings for which the enforced normalcy is no longer the norm; thenorm is the truth or at least someones approximation of it.10

This idea of rejecting the consensus is a powerful one, and a point I will return to later. As anexample of a newsletter I would offer 'The Bristolian'. This is an A4 photocopied newsletterproduced in the city of Bristol, UK. It was, for a time, produced fortnightly and funded solely fromdonations. Its content was written by one or two people and it was distributed by a larger networkof supporters. It has a very tabloid style and a radical agenda and has managed to break some pretty

major stories that the mainstream press missed. At its peak its producers believe its distribution wasaround 40,000 and it ended up being shortlisted for an investigative journalism award.11 Not badfor the self-proclaimed 'gobby little paper with a big impact!'

Another good example is that of a news blog, Empire Notes.12 It is written by Rahul Mahajan. Hissite has a clear biography where its states enough about him so that his bias is clear (remember, allmedia is biased, whether is obvious or not to the reader!). It is also fairly clear where his fundingcomes from - donations from the site, sales of his books and some teaching. This is allows us toplace the news source easily in its correct context. His writing is articulate, impassioned andintelligent - the complete opposite of the shallow, sound-bite culture of mainstream media. Rahual

10 p.128 of Orlov D (2008)Reinventing Collapse, New Society Publishers, BC Canada11 http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/article/24286

12http://www.empirenotes.org/
http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/article/24286http://www.empirenotes.org/http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/article/24286http://www.empirenotes.org/


8/18

comments on this description of his work13;

"I believe one can be biased (for example, I am strongly biased in favor of the ordinarypeople of the world rather than of American imperial interests) but still objective (whichdoesn't have to mean strictly neutral or lacking in identity).The place of my blog hasvaried a lot. I'm not really part of the liberal blogosphere [the more mainstream network of

liberal-bias blogs], which almost never links to me any morewhen I was reporting fromIraq in April 2004 and also when I wrote about Fallujah in November 2004, I got majortraffic, with several days going over 10,000 visits, and lots of people did pay attention."

Reporting on what was happening during the first siege of Fallujah is a great example of whereindependent media succeeded and The Media failed to inform us of what had happened and why ithad happened.14 Indeed you could extend this critique to The Media in its entirety in the run-up toand coverage of the invasion/occupation of Iraq. For example this revelation, of a military programdesigned to create a massive bias within the corporate media coverage revealed in 2008; 6 yearsafter it began;15

The Pentagon military analyst program was launched in early 2002 by then-AssistantSecretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke. The idea was to recruit "keyinfluentials" to help sell a wary public on "a possible Iraq invasion." Former NBC militaryanalyst Kenneth Allard called the effort 'psyops on steroids.'...Internal Pentagon documentsrepeatedly refer to the military analysts as 'message force multipliers' or 'surrogates' whocould be counted on to deliver administration 'themes and messages' to millions of

Americans 'in the form of their own opinions.' [via the corporate media]

Such a tactic could only have worked with complicity from the corporate media in engaging with it,hiding it and not proving balanced opinions that ran counter to the psyop pundit's 'message forcemultipliers'.

Another example of a global independent media project is Indymedia. This is a network ofwebsites run by volunteers that allows anyone to post their own news, views, videos and audio.The site uses this 'open publishing' principle to break down the barriers between audience andproducer. Based around the global portal Indymedia.org, it has over 150 local, regional and topicbased projects. Each of these, while subscribing to a common set of values, has considerableautonomy to run the localised version as they wish. The Indymedia movement has been wellrepresented, indeed has it roots in street protests at major political events such as Seattle protestsagainst the World Trade Organization and The J18 Carnival Against Capitalism.

13 By correspondence with the author.14 http://www.empirenotes.org/fallujah.html15 http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pentagon_military_analyst_program
http://www.empirenotes.org/fallujah.htmlhttp://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pentagon_military_analyst_programhttp://www.empirenotes.org/fallujah.htmlhttp://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pentagon_military_analyst_program


9/18

Part 2 Thinking Like Rebels (aka How We Fight)

The Classical Insurgant

tbc draw on thinking about gurella conflict


10/18

Part 3 A Path Forward (aka An Insurgent's Toolkit)

Why Fight Now?

Upon reading this you may feel a sense of urgency for action and there is, we have an opportunityto do something we have not had for hundreds of years, as Alexander Cockburn points out16;

On the left we've always said that the corporate press tells lies and now, for a variety ofreasons, most people believe us. The corporate media are discredited, the same way thecorporate political parties are. They have zero credibility. Newspapers are dying. The maintv networks have lost a third of their audience over the past twenty years. There's no needfor whining that the problem consists of narrowing ownership. The corporate press was justas bad when there were five hundred different newspaper owners instead of five. And, fornow at least, we have the web. We're infinitely better off than we were thirty years ago. ..Theonly trouble is, the Left hasn't got too many ideas. We should stop bitching about thecorporate press and get with a new program.

I concur. When the printing press was invented, there was a time when radical ideas spread likewildfire and the dominant powers struggled to understand this new technology. With the web weare in the same position again as the dominant media forms struggle to understand and adapt. Untila few years ago. the dominant thinking in media circles was the top-down 'patrician' model of mass-media. We were seen as 'consumers', passive targets for their efforts to create a captive audience.Our only accessible means of interacting with the mass media was by watching it, buying it andoccasionally writing letters or phoning the customer helplines. Technological developments such asphotocopying and VHS did provide us with an easy and relatively accessible means of creation forour own media forms, but distribution was still subject to concerted requirements in replication anddistribution. The advent of the Internet has changed this dynamic. Digitisation and cheapaccessible network computing have somewhat broken down the top-down hierarchy. The ease of

creation, replication and distribution online means a change in the power structures of the media.We can no longer be corralled as easily. Mass-media is still trying to do this; offering us channelsto create our own media that still serve their adverts at us and where they own the fruits of ourlabors thanks to onerous copyright terms & conditions, (know as Web 2.0 e.g. YouTube). There isalso still the differential in resources and marketing that means our media is potentially less visibleand captivating as theirs. Nonetheless, the digital age has given ordinary people a huge opportunityto communicate, share and exchange in a manner impossible in ages past.

Note:It still has its dark-side, the vast amounts of energy used by servers that power the web, thetoxic chemicals used in the creation of computer hardware such as PCBs and the sharp-end of theproduction of devices that power the digital age from the Coltan mined the war-torn Democratic

Republic of Congo used to make chips for mobile phones, to the sweatshops of China producingmotherboards and modems. We will also need to somehow address these issues too!

Defining The Enemy

Our first step must be to understand where we are now. To do this we must understand and definewhat we face: The enemy is the lack of democracy in the mass media. Thus the enemy is thecorporate domination of the mass media. We need a new program to make democratic media thedominant form of media to the extent that, as we now view slavery or feudalism, organising mediausing anything other than a democratic model would be seen as an embarrassing and shamefulbackwards step.

Democratic Media Now!

16 Again,http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05142005.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05142005.htmlhttp://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05142005.htmlhttp://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05142005.html


11/18

Then we need to look at where we are going to from this point. What is the path we wish to follow?We want democratic media:

A democratic media is a primary condition of popular rule, hence of a genuine politicaldemocracy. Where the media are controlled by a powerful and privileged elite, whether of

government leaders and bureaucrats or those of the private sector, democratic politicalforms and some kind of limited political democracy may exist, but not genuine democracy...Ademocratic media can be indentified by its structure and functions. In terms of structure, itwould be organized and controlled by ordinary citizens or thier grass rootsorganisations....As regards function, a democratic media will aim first and foremost atserving the informational, cultural and other communications needs of members of the publicwhich the media institutions comprise or represent.17

This is a step forward, that builds on the Independent Media I have already talked about. This is amedia who's primary objectives are to inform, be open, independent and be accountable. To informmeans that telling people the unvarnished situation as far as is possible, to give a full account of anevent, its history and/or its context unsullied by commercial imperatives. To be open means thatboth the structures of the media itself are open to people to join in and take part, and the medium isopen to people to create and disseminate their own news stories. To be independent means to beaware of, and in control of your own agenda, so while your media project is not an island and willwork alongside other like-minded organisations and individuals, it will not adopt their agendas asits own. Accountable means that there is transparency of the media; what rules it operates to, howthe rules are created and what money it has and spends.

Note: By being open, your systems are open for abuse a democratic form of media is not a free-for-all. It must balance the need to be open and independent with both the rights of the individualand its own self-defense from those who would seek to destroy democratic media.

A Word on Democracytbc what do we mean by democratic

The Media Conflict

To create and sustain democratic media will be one challenge. To replace corporate media withdemocratic media will be an asymmetric struggle because the dominant forms of media whocurrently occupy the mind-space of the population are, in the main, large and powerfulorganisations with the kind of money and resources that democratic media does not have. Thus ourtactics should be based of attrition/guerrilla ideas and tactics;

Understand the core idea Democratic Media; this is a major point of the mediastruggle. This is not intended to be an investigation to the power of ideas, but is here to helpus to understand the broader context of how we operate. We need to define what we meanby our ideas and ideals. We are about an idea an ideal that of democratic media. Thisidea is one of an ecosystem of ideas floating around our culture. The media is saturated withideas. This will be an idea-war as we strive to replace the exiting idea of trust residing incorporate media with the reality that all media has an agenda and it is only by beingtransparent that we can see it and so process it.

Deep Focus Once we know what we want we need to bring all of our energy and ideasonto the target with a laser-like focus, we know what we want and we go after it. Why do

17From the Wikipedia page on Democratic Media,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_media but the quote isfrom Herman, Edward (1997) Triumph of the Market: Essays on Economics, Politics and the Media. Montreal, BlackRose Books. p.213-5 Also try Nick Joness excellentFlat Earth News.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_mediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_mediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_media


12/18

we need to focus, well think of what we can achieve if we put our minds to it, to buildsomething amazing and to chance our societies for the better for ever;

If recent years have shown us anything, it should be that "very simple small eventscan cause real havoc in our society". A few hooded youths play cat and mouse withthe police: bang, thousands of burned cars put all of Paris into a complete state of

paralysis, mandatory curfew and the entire system in shock and horror. My firstthought was: what if any really smart set of people really set their mind to it...18

Deep Commitment The two things that seem to characterise progressive projects is lackof money and lack of longevity (money is dealt with later on...). With good plans and focuswe can achieve a lot, but we are not prepared to see our ideas though till the end, we will(and do) fail. Change takes time and serious social change ill take serious time andcommitment. Take a campaign like SmashEDO, they have set explicit aims to shutdowna Brighton factory that makes bomb components and have gone about it with deepcommitment, declaring;

We will not rest until these war criminals are brought to justice!19

And so the campaign has gone on and on for years, achieving significant victories on theway, yet never wavering in their commitment to the aims of their project. Will they win?Well having seriously dented the companies share price by 2007, I know who my money ison...20

Use corporate media to promote Democratic Media and its ideals; This means weshould use systems such as social networks, video websites, local news listings etc as part ofan outreach strategy. However while doing so we must ensure that they are only this; oneway, and that we do not inadvertently end up bolstering or relying on them too heavily.

Innovate and adapt; Large organisations, such as corporate media outlets, have hugechains of commands and so adapt to changing social, political and technological contextsslowly. By contrast, democratic media is independent and has a short decision-makingchain. This is a huge advantage as we can change what we do, adapt and alter both ourworking structures and the form of our medium (or media) rapidly and effectively.

All Fronts Media; A media battle is one of hearts-and-minds, as in where the peoplechoose to invest their emotions and utilize their minds. We need to be there at all places;print, web, video, audio that people turn to. We need to be represented in all areas that thecorporate media is, and more.

Engage the Dynamic; Any city, region or community has a dynamic cultural flows,innovations and shifts responding to, and sometimes challenging social, political andeconomic power. Democratic media, being of, by and for the people taps into these currentsbefore anyone else. Democratic media, being of, by and for the people is tapped into thesecurrents before anyone else. Go with those currents that support democratic shits, nurturethose flows that offer openness and freedom. The corporate media, by contrast is locked inrigid structures of trying to pump-up ever-increasing profits and elitist hierarchies that aredisconnected from everyday life. Corporate media has become 'churnalism'; churned-

journalism that simply recycles PR and press-releases.21 Corporate media has becomeobsessed by celebrity. Corporate media has to follow the diktats of its owners and its

18 http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_9.html#krause though I am more interested in Krause's belief that a few peoplecan change a lot, rather then his focus of the piece which was about destruction per-se.

19 http://www.smashedo.org.uk/whoareedo.htm20 http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news606.htm21 http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,,2251390,00.html
http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_9.html#krausehttp://www.smashedo.org.uk/whoareedo.htmhttp://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news606.htmhttp://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,,2251390,00.htmlhttp://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_9.html#krausehttp://www.smashedo.org.uk/whoareedo.htmhttp://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news606.htmhttp://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,,2251390,00.html


13/18

profits. These have created a distance between corporate media and ordinary life. We arenot bound by any of these things. Move into the space created by their distance and occupyit.

Public Positivity; The democratic media form must be open to people and seen as open topeople. Don't engage in tit-for-tat public rows with other groups, media outlets or

individuals, even if they target you. That does not mean you sit in silence enduring theattacks. The right of self-defense, natural to any living being, gives to the right to hide,remove and delete (via your guidelines) the nasty attacks, while there will be other voices,not your own, who will rise to defend the democratic media space; let them help you. Makeyour medium open to their voices.

Mutual Aid; We are often so used to behaving as the robotic consumers that The Mediawould like us to be that we often forget ourselves. This powerless method of thinking canoften infect us at a subconscious level of thinking that we don't even notice. Things changebecame we want them to change and become we make them change. Extend the publicpositivity into action mutual aid we help each other became it helps us.22 Where we seea problem or something not being done well, get involved to change it. Donate our time,money, expertise and enthusiasm to create change rather than complaining. The only goodthing about the precarious position we are in is that there is no shortage of good work to bedone!

We should also note that the struggle for a more democratic media cannot exist in a vacuum. It isdesirable that, indeed it must, move hand-in-hand with other democratic and progressivemovements that strive to put people and planet before profit and power.

Any point at which powerful vested interests meet a desire for change there will be conflict, and themore precarious the position of the vested interests becomes, the nastier and more vicious theirtactics to survive will become. Democratic media must be prepared for this onslaught and not be

caught off-balance by it. When corporate media feels under threat from its readers and consumersabandoning it to become people with the democratic media ideal, they will strike back. This willtake a number of forms; they will seek corporate models that use the ideas we generate to keep theirpower (not unlike what is happening with so-called 'Web 2.0' and social networking sites). Theywill seek to discredit how we operate. They will use our structures to undermine what we do andhow we operate. They may lobby to change the laws to interfere with democratic media and therewill certainly be legal and cultural challenges to the content that will be published in the course ofour social struggle. They will try to stop us, but when they do we know we are winning andvictory is within our grasp!

22 There is a great article that explores these issues in more depth here; 'Sustaining Alternative Media'http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/26979
http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/26979http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/26979


14/18

Part 3 Building Ideas

Now we need to build on the ideas that have already been discussed and bring in new angles toexamine them. All these ideas need to be translated into real actions that we can take to enablechange.

The Power of Language and Ideas

The use of language is a major battle ground. The language we use frames thoughts and ideas inour head. Take an example; I want you to imagine a top surgeon, a real professional about to gointo an operation, putting on the medial overalls and face mask ready for work. Can you picturethis? Is your surgeon a man or a woman? I am willing to bet that 95% of the time a reader willhave imagined a white older and middle-class to upper class man. This is the media archetype of asurgeon and this is the image we have lurking in our heads. When we expect a surgeon to be awhite man, how often does this make the reality of our society come to pass? In our brains weconstruct ideas from a complex interrelation of imagery, language, emotions and memories. Itsexact parameters will be different for all of us but it will also have common cultural reference

points. It is our job as proponents of democratic media to open up ideas and language to question,and allow the questioning of the cozy assumptions that our society is built upon.

This means looking at the language we write for hidden assumptions. Another good example ofthis is by the writer Derrek Jensen;

It is customary when writing to hide ones presumptions. The hope is that readers will flowalong with the narrative and get swept up by the language until by the end theyve reachedroughly the same conclusions as the author, never realizing that oftentimes the unstatedstarting point was far more important to the conclusion than the arguments themselves. Forexample, you hear some talking head on television ask, 'How are we going to best make the

US economy grow?' Premise one: We want the US economy to grow. Premise two: We wantthe US economy to exist. Premise three: Who the hell is we? Im going to try to not slidepremises by you. I want to lay them out as clearly as I can, for you to accept or reject. Partof the reason I want to do this is that the questions Im exploringwhether we should orshould not take down civilization, and if so how we should do itare the most importantquestions we as a culture and as individuals have ever been forced to face. I dont want tocheat. I want to convince neither you nor me unfairly (nor, for that matter, do I want toconvince either of us at all), but instead to help us both better understand what to do (or notdo) and how to do it (or why not). This goal will be best served by as much transparencyand honestyas I can muster.23

When you start to think about it, it is scary how much The Media is framing our thoughts.Democratic media gives us a chance to break these assumptions and free our minds but only if wechoose it to happen. We can also use the power of assumptions against themselves; a good exampleof this is subvertising, where the power of a brand, image or logo is twisted so a new meaning iscreated based on references to the existing idea. For example, when the Adbusters MediaFoundation wanted to push some of the ideas of media democracy, they created the 'Media Carta' a subverting of the Magna Carta' declaration from 1215 and an idea that in many people mindsequates with powerful and historical cultural ideas of freedom, even though I am willing to bet mostof us have never read it!24

23 These ideas are fully explored in his two volume book series, 'End Game' but I have taken it from here;http://ill_logik.gnn.tv/blogs/13564/Derrick_Jensen_coming_to_Toronto_April_5th

24You can read the Media Carta here, http://adbusters.org/metas/psycho/mediacarta/pdf/MediaCarta.pdf and theMagna Carta here - http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Magna_Carta The Adbusters people also talk about 'memes', this isthe concept of genes as ideas, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme and have a look at 'Meme Warfare'http://stream.paranode.com/imc/portland/media/2005/03/314249.pdf
http://adbusters.org/metas/psycho/mediacarta/pdf/MediaCarta.pdfhttp://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Magna_Cartahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memehttp://stream.paranode.com/imc/portland/media/2005/03/314249.pdfhttp://adbusters.org/metas/psycho/mediacarta/pdf/MediaCarta.pdfhttp://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Magna_Cartahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memehttp://stream.paranode.com/imc/portland/media/2005/03/314249.pdf


15/18

Planning for Victory

Too many good intentions are lost to a lack of planning. When we see injustice it often creates anemotional response that pushes us to act, and act now. However acting without thought andplanning can often waste the actions all together. We need to engage with the emotion as it gives us

strength and purpose, but we need to take the time to think and plan as it leads to success. Ourplanning should cover aspects such as;

Vision what is it we are trying to do? You need to have a clear aim a vision. somethingsimple that can be summed up in a few words. If our vision start to look too complex, thenwe are probably trying to do too much. This vision can then be broken down into smallersteps that lead inexorably to it. Simple, achievable aims are best; that is not to say that weshould not have a grand vision, but that grand vision is made up to lots of small simple stepsand it is by mapping those steps out that we will find progress. A good example of both aclear and long term vision, the first statement by the campaign group 'Anonymous' whotargeted the Church of Scientology. Here's an extract;

For the good of your followers, for the good of mankind--for the laughs--we shallexpel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientologyin its present form. We acknowledge you as a serious opponent, and we are preparedfor a long, long campaign. You will not prevail forever against the angry masses ofthe body politic. Your methods, hypocrisy, and the artlessness of your organizationhave sounded its death knell.25

Strategy how are we going to get what we want? This in itself is a huge topic and thereare lots of books that cover this subject. In essence, it is to look for the best means ofachieving your impact. This might be by looking for the weak spot in an opponent or bydramatic action that grabs attention and your strategies and actions should link into a

larger picture all aimed at pushing your vision, In grand strategy you look beyond themoment, beyond your immediate battles and concerns. You concentrate instead on whatyou want to achieve down the line.26

Resources what resources have you got and what do you need? This means money,people and time. Estimate as accurately as possible how much of each is needed and if youare not able to get that, then you need to either think again or re-formulate your strategy toaccommodate lesser resources. This is a vital and overlooked area, to put it in perspective, Ihave been involved in campaigning for progressive causes for over 10 year and estimate thatin that time a good 50% of my time has gone directly into fundraising as it is the bit mostoften overlooked in the rush to act.

Sustainability Another key point. If your vision will take time to implement (and I amwilling to bet most do!) then are you going to be able to sustain your strategies and resourcelevels for the time it will take? Far too many progrssive actions are either one-off or briefflourishes of energy, while this can be great as part of a larger vision, all too often the hugeamounts of energy taken in getting a project or campaign moving are lost when it fizzles outdo to unsubstantially. This is especially true when you are in an asymmetric campaign thathas few resources and huge opponents to defeat staying the course is not only anattritionional strategy you can use, in of itself, it is vital for victory.

25 For the full video seehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCbKv9yiLiQ and for more on the methods of'Anonymous' seehttp://www.pbs.org/idealab/2008/02/anonymous-vs-scientology-a-cas.html

26The quote is from 'the 33 Strategies of War' worth reading! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_33_Strategies_of_WarAlso worth reading 'SHAC Attack'http://www.eco-action.org/dod/no10/shac.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCbKv9yiLiQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCbKv9yiLiQhttp://www.pbs.org/idealab/2008/02/anonymous-vs-scientology-a-cas.htmlhttp://www.pbs.org/idealab/2008/02/anonymous-vs-scientology-a-cas.htmlhttp://www.pbs.org/idealab/2008/02/anonymous-vs-scientology-a-cas.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_33_Strategies_of_Warhttp://www.eco-action.org/dod/no10/shac.htmhttp://www.eco-action.org/dod/no10/shac.htmhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCbKv9yiLiQhttp://www.pbs.org/idealab/2008/02/anonymous-vs-scientology-a-cas.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_33_Strategies_of_Warhttp://www.eco-action.org/dod/no10/shac.htm


16/18

Fighting on All Fronts

The media landscape is a war-zone. This is a desperate battle for a world-view. For our own mindsto be free of corporate domination. A battle for real democracy, for without media democracy, wecannot anything approaching a real democracy. We need to be engaged on any and all fronts. No

place is immune from our activity. I have talked about the power of the Internet, and without doubtit has power, but it is just one front that we need to consider. We should be aiming to get media topeople in any and all forms; printed, audio, video, interactive and on any platform - theircomputer, the local cinema, flyers, newsletters, mobile phones, book groups, discussion forums,community centers and more.

Fighting with Many Fronts

Not only is this a cross-media platform struggle, but it is a struggle of many voices against themonolithic mainstream. Don't think that this is the setting up of one media organization to counteranother it is bigger than that it is about setting up a million media organizations to counteranother;

A cancer of mass-produced, impersonal, prefabricated culture threatens our species. Acreature does not die of cancer a creature dies by becoming cancer, when its cells beginreproducing sameness at the expense of diversity. A culture that sets up a million franchiseswith workers in matching uniforms executing identical tasks is a cancer out of control, amonster riding the humanity that gave birth to it into an untimely grave. We need a culturethat is a dialogue, an interplay between us and the languages we speak and live in not amonologue arriving out of a loudspeaker.27

We have the advantage, unlike a business, that any independent voice is a victory. A mediabusiness must try to keep readers on its pages, tuned to its channel for when they leave, so does

the potential ad revenue. But as we are not funded by ad and care not how people experiencedemocratic media just that they do; any outlet is a victory.

Building On Our Success

I sometimes fear that we are afraid of success. There is a quote, often attributed to Nelson Mandela;Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. Those of us who believe in a radicallydifferent vision of how we should organise not just our media, but society, seem to spent a lot ofour energy in sporadic ways often campaigning for the dominant powers to do something or stopsomething. We also need to be aware that people respond to success; when we can show people abetter way, they will also act. But how do we know if what we are doing is a success? Often we

rely on our feeling which is a start, but not enough. We need to have a strong guide to success, sowe know what tactics work and what don't, so we can adapt and evolve ever forward towards ourgoal. So once we have our vision, we then need to develop a measure. For a media project thiscould be the distribution, the number of contributors or volunteers involved in the project. This isvital as once we can measure what we are doing, we then can begin to learn what works well andwhat does not, and from there we can build on our successes.

However we are NOT the corporate media and success for us can be measured in may we see asimportant. For example, audience size should not always motivate. Sometimes encouraging a smallnumber of people to be active is more important. Also, if something is important, it is worthcarrying on even if 'success' is not forthcoming

Money, Money, Money

27p.46 Expect Resistance, a field manual by the Crimethinc Collective.http://www.crimethinc.com/
http://www.crimethinc.com/http://www.crimethinc.com/http://www.crimethinc.com/http://www.crimethinc.com/


17/18

The corporate media (as well as think-tanks, pressure groups and campaigns from the politicalright), being 'on-side' and part of big business and playing to the passions of the rich and powerfulare often well funded and it shows. They can buy influence and coverage and pay people to worktheir causes full-time, all of the time. They have the resources to buy creative people, to buildinfrastructure and to promote their vision far and wide. We don't really have that luxury which is

why we need to sort the money situation out. Things cost; flyers, web servers, newsletters and suchdon't come for free (or if they do they come with corporate ads attached!). It is worth spending thetime to work out the costs and how you are going to pay (with the long-term, deep-commitmentview in mind) and either find ways (or people) to raise funds for you or cut your plans to match theresources. If you don't you will spend all of your time lurching from financial crisis to crisis andhave less energy for the main aim. Until the world is a different place, you will have to engage withmoney to some extent; make sure you know your cashflow and income levels and so on, thusensuring that money does not control you. You can go for events like a big fundraiser to get cashin, but they take time to organise, so unless you have a dedicated person or group who are willing tofocus on this alone, it will become a drain on your time and focus. Smaller, more regular amounts,also taking time to set-up, but then less energy to keep running might be the answer; Gettingpeople to regularly subscribe and/or donate, having a regular event where people pay to attend are

just a couple of ideas for getting a regular income.28

Another great way forward is to build stronger links to other like-minded groups and individuals.Supporters may have resources a room, a PC access to a photocopier that they can offer. Youmight agree to distribute posters and flyers from other groups in exchange for them deliveringyours. Other local groups might like to get involved. A local Greenpeace group, for example, mightlike to send you press releases. A campaign group might have someone who could help youorganize or even share their resources. A local National Union of Journalists Chapel might be ableto advise or you could join up and seek solidarity and support. A local community group mightallow you to use facilities for free in exchange for help promoting their community events. Notonly does such activity reduce your overall costs but it also servers to build stronger links between

your project and the community-at-large.

Expand the Core Mission (without Loosing Your Way)

The way the corporate media works, as does the system it represents, is to constantly expand. Theymight not always be successful in this, but try they must, as Marx noted;

The need for a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie overthe whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establishconnections everywhere.29

We must also seek to expand what we do but in an organic sustainable way and not with theruthless and frenzied abandoned that what we are opposed to does. Before you can expand whatyou do make sure the structures of the project are intact and strong that you have the people, thevision and the resources to sustain where you are now for the long term. Once this is the case youare then ready to consider expanding in new directions. The most important point with expansion isthat in doing so you do not over-stretch and overreach the project and make it vulnerable tocollapse. Second is to not stray too far from what you do focus is vital. Areas of expansionshould build on what has already been achieved, so each new thread of the project strengthens andsupports the other threads, making the whole stronger. For example a printed newsletter is a greatway of getting news to people and if it is used to promote events that raise your funds, the mutual

28Take Bass Not Bombs http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=20705as an example of the fundraier, itwas big, great fun and well attended but took lots of time and effort to achieve and so is hard to replicate. By contrastBristol Indymedia film nights, are easier to run on a month to month basis and keep a constant income-stream into theproject: http://bristol.indymedia.org/index.php?obj_id=219929 http://www.stateofnature.org/capitalismRejected.html
http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=20705http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=20705http://bristol.indymedia.org/index.php?obj_id=2199http://www.stateofnature.org/capitalismRejected.htmlhttp://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=20705http://bristol.indymedia.org/index.php?obj_id=2199http://www.stateofnature.org/capitalismRejected.html


18/18

support strengthens the project.

Fighting Fire with Water

We can also use their techniques and ideas against them. ber-media magnate Rupert Murdochstated;30

You've got to look for a gap, where competitors in a market have grown lazy (and) lostcontact with the readers or the viewers. Viewers are a bit different: The network concept isgoing fast.

Indeed it is so for example could to obsession with celebrity and trivial news pioneered byMurdoch's media titles be simultaneously alienating people who don't case which pop-star issleeping with which footballer but instead want to know what is happening in the real world? Anopportunity for us where The Media have lost contact with the viewers and readers? Or, whileneeding to offered their audiences a degree of 'control' in the supposed Web 2.0 age, The Mediasimultaneously fears the loss of control - something democratic media does not have in its approach

again, is this not an opportunity for us where The Media have lost contact with the viewers andreaders? 31

One commentator, Jeff Jarvis, puts it this way: give the people control of media, they willuse it. Don't give people control of media, and you will lose them.

30http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=100147910831 http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/apr/14/citynews.newmedia
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001479108http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/apr/14/citynews.newmediahttp://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001479108http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/apr/14/citynews.newmedia

towards a democratic media - strategic media planning v3

Documents