Grassroots, Netroots, and the End and Beginning of Politics

 

Wednesday, May 31, 2006, 11:00am-12:30pm

 

Speakers:

Joan Blades, Co-founder of MoveOn.org

Amy Goodman, Host and executive producer of Democracy Now!

 

Immoderator:

Micah Sifryj, Co-founder and executive editor of the Personal Democracy Forum

 

Note Taker:

Amit Asaravala, Manager of Editorial & Content Strategy, TechSoup

 

Key Points

Media Is Powerful

According to Joan Blades:

°      The media helps shape public opinion -- that's how we need to participate in part.

 

According to Amy Goodman:

°      I think the media are the most powerful institutions on Earth. More powerful than any bomb or missile.

Independent Media and Grassroots Action Can Be More Powerful

According to Amy Goodman:

°      Indymedia.org got more traffic to its Web site than CNN.com did (during the WTO protests in Seattle.)

°      ...because CNN was giving a voice to officials who were saying that they were not using rubber bullets while Indymedia was showing rubber bullets by the handfuls.

°      "It's absolutely critical" to support independent media right now.

°      "These [independent media organizations] are our public universities and libraries."

°      Independent media can make a change by encourage "trickle-up" journalism: Journalists at corporate media outlets keep an eye on independent media sources (and bloggers) to find story ideas. For instance, Democracy Now!'s transcripts get used by other media outlets and reporters and those stories continue to get picked up by more and more mainstream levels of media.

 

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But Not if Data Is No Longer Treated Equally on the Internet

According to Joan Blades:

°      The Net Neutrality issue: A ruling came down recently that ended a law saying that there had to be net neutrality (all packets from various providers on Internet delivered equally, without regards to who created the content.)

°      If it's gone (net neutrality), things like MoveOn and the next MoveOn isn't going to happen because all of a sudden it'll be a pay-to-play scenario (where corporations running the Internet decide to favor other big media players because they have more money than the little guys.)

 

According to Amy Goodman:

°      Suggests that the companies that cooperated with the NSA on wiretapping are being paid back via abandonment of net neutrality now.

 

Web 2.0 Technologies Enable Independent Media and Grassroots Action

According to Amy Goodman:

°      Democracy Now! reporters can send large video files back to the office using Split and emails rather than million dollar satellites.

°      Army of volunteers around the world transcribe portions of show every day.

°      The transcripts allow the video to be searchable.

°      Democracy Now! is working with collective in Uruguay that translates its text and audio into Spanish.

But How Do Nonprofits and Activists Find Resources to Stay On Top of New Technologies?

According to Joan Blades:

°      It's okay to experiment and not be afraid of trying new technologies. Try, listen, and if it's not working, try something else.

°      Sometimes you have to accept that you need to spend your time serving the mission more immediately and forego the new technologies. For example, MoveOn doesn't have a blog.  Joan says the reason is because they have limited resources. You have to decide whether you're going to get the next mailing out or whether you're going to post to the blog.

 

According to Micah Sifry:

°      Do the evaluation and learning collaboratively: Take what we separately know about tools in silos and share insights so that knowledge learned from experience is used be others.

 

Further Reading/Research

Web:

Democracy Now!

http://democracynow.org/

 

MoveOn.org

http://www.moveon.org/

 

Moms Rising: Breadmakers and Breadwinners

http://www.momsrising.org/

 

Indymedia: Independent Media Center

http://www.indymedia.org/

 

Save Access: Save PEG Community Media! Keep the Internet Open!

http://www.saveaccess.org/

 

Save the Internet: Fighting for Internet Freedom

http://www.savetheinternet.com/

 

Verified Voting

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/

 

Personal Democracy Forum

http://www.personaldemocracy.com/

 

Tim Russert's Meet the Press podcast

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8132577/#mtp

 

Democracy Now!'s podcast

http://democracynow.org/podcast_help.shtml