Indymedia: Is this a foundation of modern internet culture?
The effort and collaboration of the IMC on the Indymedia.org Web site I feel is a grandfather to the modern era of user-controlled entertainment and information availability and dispersal.
Most of if not all the elements seen in a site such as Youtube, MySpace, Limewire, Napster, and newsgroups has its roots in a project like Indymedia.org.
The founders of Indymedia had a problem: the manner in which news was discussed, interpreted, and otherwise disemminated to the public was questionable at best. The solution was to create a Web service, in the same vein as the IMC's broadcast news, which would present issues, foster more focused discussion which was free of spin, slander, and other such interference to give the viewing public and internet user an avenue to access news.
The Web sites mentioned above work off of a similar principle in that they want to take an aspect of society, in this case entertainment, and make it not only more user / consumer friendly, but totally dependent on the interaction and desire of it's users to manage, create, discuss, and distribute content.
In the past you were at the mercy of a company or conglomerate as to where, when, and how often you could access certian information. Also, editing of such content was not only forbidden, but made objectively impossible:
--"several groups recognized the importance of making an 'end-run around the information gatekeepers' to produce their own autonomous media" (Kidd, 49)
This substantial change manifested itself not only in entertainment, but also in how all Web services handle their consumers. Companies now realize that people are, more than ever, ready to manage their own content. "Ordinary" people are able to make an informative and function web site, server, business, or program:
"Emergence of the new knowledge space to the breakdown of geographic constraints on communications, of the declining loyalty of nation-states to command the exclusive loyalty of their citizens." (Jenkins, 136)
Indymedia most importantly, brought to the forefront the element of -- what else? -- independence.
The concept of autonomy while still being able to collaborate with partners brings about the issue of self-sustainabily. In the English commons example (Kidd, 54), I believe there is a corollary to that example: the tragedy of the commons. This basically means that there needs to be a centralized authority to ensure the long term health of the existing system while the individuals themselves still could collaborate.
This is embodied by Indymedia.org and its network of sites being governed by the IMC. The IMC set down guidelines for the organization and practice of the network to make sure it did not collapse in on itself. In so doing the IMC allowed for:
"...real-time distribution of video, audio, text and photos, with the potential for real interactivity through 'open publishing,' in which anyone with access to the internet could both receive and send information." (Kidd, 50)
In the same breath, all of these services that make it possible for individuals or groups of individuals to distribute their message on the internet follows a similar construction. YouTube provides the avenue for people to display their videos and comment on them. It also allows people to post clips of other popular content to those who would otherwise not be able readily access it.
YouTube -- and indirectly Google -- makes certain rules and guidelines for fair use and ethical considerations, but they (and others like them) gives users the same opportunity that Indymedia.org did.