Media Commons and the Sad Decline of Vancouver Indymedia

Abstract

Abstract The author argues that the concept commons is a productive way of thinking about and practicing democratic and participatory media. He begins by defining media commons in such a way as to emphasize the relational and regulated nature of commons. Such a definition critiques the idea that commons are resources available to a public without limits as well as the tendency to define commons in terms of the essential characteristics of the resources in question. Next, the author's experience in the Indymedia movement is summarized to suggest that the failure of Vancouver Indymedia was due, in part, to the general inability to establish effective commons within the collective and over the website. He concludes the article by offering a survey and critique of tendencies in the formulation of the commons within wider academic and activist literatures, as well as its use in work more specifically focused on media and communication. Notes 1 Democratic media here is roughly analogous to alternative media as used by authors such as CitationAtton (2002) or CitationHamilton (2000) in that it refers to media practices that are democratic in their organization, administration, and communicative processes (e.g., participatory, egalitarian), as well as in their intended effects (e.g., enhancing freedom and equality). 2For example, institutions of governance such as the International Monetary Fund or trade liberalization agreements such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas. 3This participatory action research and activism subsequently became the focus of my master's work (CitationUzelman, 2002). 4For example, Advantage Consultants offered paid trolling services to attack left-wing bloggers and no doubt left-wing sites that allow for open publishing and commentary. For details, see http://www.politicsandtechnology.com/2007/07/make-no-mistake.html. 5 The Commoner is an online publication routinely featuring writers loosely associated with the autonomist tradition like Massimo De Angelis (editor), George Caffentizs, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, and Nick Dyer-Witheford; it provides a useful point of entry into debates within the autonomist tradition regarding the commons. 6Rennie neglects to include a sustained political analysis in her assessment of commons. That is, she neglects to ask questions such as the following: Who gets to decide what best outcomes are? How are these decisions made? And by what measures? How are minority interests reconciled? Aside from the democratic justifications for commons regimes (i.e., increasing public participation), she also asserts that commons regimes are also legitimate because they can be used to stimulate innovation. Again, crucial political questions are left unasked: What kinds of innovations and for what purposes? Who benefits from them and who might be marginalized or even lose out? 7Nonsubtractable resources are those in which expanded use does not physically degrade resources (e.g., digitally and thus potentially infinitely reproducible resources like music) or even enhances the usefulness of the resource (e.g., information commons such as Wikipedia). 8In economics, public goods is used to define resources that are nonrivalrous (use by one user does not reduce availability to other users) and nonexcludable (it is not possible to exclude users). By contrast, I use public goods as a political concept rather than according to the characteristics of the resource in question. 9The International Telecommunications Union estimates that only 30% of people worldwide have Internet access, with Europe (65%) and the Americas (55%) leading the way (http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics). 10We can also see this as a form of commodity fetishism where the resource (commodity) has within it special powers to determine social relations.