Media

After recently reading Flat Earth News by Nick Davies about “churnalism”, distortion and propaganda in the global media, I thought hard about choosing the “Getting the most from the mainstream media” workshop at the Rebellious Media Conference, among all the opportunities at the RMC for learning about new (to me) ways of communicating for activists. As an anti-war activist not based in London, I feel that the local press and broadcasters still provide ways of getting the message out beyond…

After two years of preparation, the Rebellious Media Conference (RMC), featuring Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Michael Albert and many others, finally happened on 8-9 October. It was a storming success. Details of what happened, and recordings of various sessions, are available on the RMC website (see end of article).

The RMC began life two years ago, as Peace News staff tried to think of ways to celebrate our 75th anniversary as an activist publication. Our first idea was a dayschool…

The final plenary of the Rebellious Media Conference at Friends House

The RMC opened with a keynote speech by US media critic Noam Chomsky, who was introduced by his long-time friend and radical media pioneer Michael Albert, co-…

The very first version of the event was PN promotions worker Gabriel Carlyle’s suggestion that we could call together 40-50 people connected to or sympathetic with Media Lens, to try to improve how we all put pressure on the mainstream media. (Given this origin, we very much regret that Media Lens were not able to make the dates to be part of the RMC.) The scale of the event ballooned as we quickly realised that we would really like a radical media conference to do three things that we didn’…

Taesun Kwon co-founded South Korea’s radical national daily newspaper, the Hankyoreh, born of South Korea’s democracy movement in 1988. She is now executive editor of the paper, which has a circulation of over 500,000.

PN : How is the Hankyoreh different from other South Korean newspapers?

TK: There are many differences between the Hankyoreh and other newspapers in South Korea. The first difference is the birth of the Hankyoreh. The Hankyoreh was established with the help of…

1) Why do we need “radical” media?

Anne Beech: Most recent reasons? Phone-tapping scandals, reportage (and analysis) of the disturbances in Tottenham, Hackney et al, the ongoing misrepresentation of events, individuals and communities (Dale Farm, anyone? Palestine?), the sclerotic hardening of information arteries online and in print, in media and in book publishing, the continued conglomeration – but all at a time when new start-ups (the ones that want to retain their independence,…

According to Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s Propaganda Model (PM) of the media, the mainstream media do not operate as a fourth estate. Although they may challenge individuals and even governments, they do not challenge the edifice behind which the concentrations of economic and political power are maintained. Events that might threaten established interests are either ignored or treated with indignation, whereas events that bolster support for the status quo are given a lot of attention,…

Taesun Kwon was a co-founder of South Korea’s only non-corporate national daily newspaper, the Hankyoreh, born of South Korea’s democracy movement in 1988. She is now executive editor of the paper, which has a circulation of 300,000 (South Korea has a population of 49 million). Taesun Kwon will be speaking at the Rebellious Media Conference organised by Peace News, Ceasefire, the National Union of…

The following is a brief listing of helpful publications, books, websites and radio stations that are alternative sources of media, or offer a means of communication that leaves the mainstream. The list covers independent media sources from around the world.

The Association for Progressive Communications, or APC, is an international organisation that is dedicated to helping groups learn to use information technologies to…

Anti-racism

http://www.united.non-profit.nl/pages/info18.htm
Accessed via the website of UNITED, a network of 550 European antiracist groups, this online guide contains a few detailed paragraphs on several aspects of working with the media, from drafting a press release to establishing your own magazine or radio station. Much of the information is relevant to other kinds of campaign groups. Also available in leaflet form,…

In a world of increasing regulation and control, deviance from established modes of behaviour are tolerated less and less. New ways are constantly being discovered by governments to discourage such behaviour. In addition to being regulated by governments, much of the broadcast community is controlled either directly or indirectly by a small group of people who use them to further their own agendas. Pirate radio is controlled neither by the government nor by special interests and so enjoys…

The 15 February 2003 demonstrations, showed, as The New York Times observed, that “there may still be two super- powers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion.”

On the other hand, the grassroots mobilisation failed to prevent the invasion of Iraq. Media support? The heavy reporting of the British demonstration on 15 February seems to disprove the idea that the mainstream media opposes, under-reports or belittles grassroots movements. A Daily Telegraph columnist was…

Since setting up the Media Lens website in 2002, David Edwards and David Cromwell have been publishing regular free Media Alerts “correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media”. Dissecting the reporting of issues such as Iraq, Iran, Venezuela and climate change in the liberal media (the BBC, Guardian, Independent and so on) Media Lens encourages readers to email individual journalists to take them to task, always urging those that do “to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non…

PN: Tell us a bit about yourself, what kind of work you do and what your focus is - in terms of the reports or opinion pieces you write.

BS: I am a full-time journalist with a visual arts background, but over the last decade the painting has been sidelined bymy professional involvement with journalism - as well as activism in human rights issues, which includes, of course, women's issues and peace issues - and, for the past couple of years, television documentary. (I did an…

On 21 June, anti-cuts activists found themselves unable to use Facebook to share news of a new website promoting the public sector strike on 30 June. When Facebook users tried to share a link for www.j30strike.org, they received an error message: “This message contains blocked content that has previously been flagged as abusive or spammy.” The links were unblocked after the Morning Star and US-based news site Mother Jones contacted Facebook for an…