Elaine — The Task of Activist Media
Topic(s): Activism | Comments Off on Elaine — The Task of Activist MediaThis is in regard to last nights discussion post Winter Soldier films on the
subject of access to alternative media and bridging networks for access. I
found it online just now. -ea
The Task of Activist Media by Ellen Andors, Ph.D.
Alternative Media: an Activist Approach
Alternative media has several meanings. In one sense, it refers to
presenting points of view and information that offer alternatives to
corporate media indoctrination. It also refers to presenting people with
real alternatives to the way things are in this society and alternatives to
how people perceive and conduct their own personal lives. We live in a
critical time. If people do not radically change prevailing social
processes, the world will be uninhabitable in the not so distant future.
Many of the worlds problems, like famine, war, poverty and ecological
disaster, are inevitable outcomes of the ever increasing competition for
profits generated by capitalism. In a recent book, When Corporations Rules
the World , David Korten notes, “…we are experiencing accelerating social
and environmental disintegration in nearly every country of the world–as
revealed by a rise in poverty, unemployment, inequality, violent crime,
failing families and environmental degradation.”(1) Manning Marable, in the
series, “Along the Color Line”, comments on the vastly increasing
“polarization of classes, the unprecedented rise in personal incomes and
profits among a small minority of American households and the expansion of
social misery, falling incomes and inequality for the majority of the
population of the country.”(2)
According to Executive Pay Watch,(3) in 1995, the pay for top corporate
executives went up 30%, while those of factory workers went up 1%, lagging
behind the 2.8% inflation rate. In 1965, CEOs made 44 times the average
factory workers salary. Today, CEOs make 212 times the average workers
pay.(4) Also, while hundreds of thousands of workers were laid off in 1995,
the CEOs of the 20 companies with the largest announced layoffs saw their
salaries and bonuses increase by 25%. (5)
None of these accelerating and significant trends are given much exposure in
the mainstream media precisely because the corporations that own and control
the media control whats presented there. It is urgent that an alternative
media not only expose these problems, but offer a means for people to
organize and radically alter the direction in which things are going.
because every day, the corporate media’s control over information
intensifies.
As for the possibilities for living in a peaceful society in the future,
this is probably the most dangerous time in human history. As this
profit-driven logic of capitalist evolution moves along at an ever
accelerating rate, corporate mergers, mass layoffs and huge cuts in social
programs also raise the potential for massive discontent and unrest. It is
not a coincidence that the repressive apparatus of the state–the
incarceration rate, the so-called anti-terrorist bills, the return of the
death penalty, attacks on affirmative action, welfare and immigrants–are
increasing.
As Manning Marable has described, when the top 1% of U.S. households has
more net wealth than the bottom 95% of Americans, it is no accident that
prisons are the largest growth industry in the country.(6) Nor is it a
coincidence that the death penalty has returned, and that the number of
offenses that warrant the death penalty has been expanded from 2 to 58.
According to recent crime statistics, the number of prison inmates is
doubling every 7 years. In 1983 there were 650,000 people in jail compared
to the present figure of over 1.5 million.. They are building 200 cells
every day.(7) Prisons have become “vast warehouses for the poor and
unemployed.”(8)
At the same time as many industries are laying off thousands of workers,
they are increasingly turning to prison labor to increase their profit
margins. “private businesses have contracted with at least 25 states to set
up business inside prison walls to take advantage of state-supplied
facilities and low-wage non-union workers.” Companies like Boeing, buy
aircraft components, and clothing chains like Eddie Bauer and Planet
Hollywood buy clothes, all subcontracted out to prison labor where wages are
much lower than on the outside, and there is no overhead as the prisons (c/o
taxpayers) provide the factory space and equipment. In addition, they dont
have to pay pesky benefits or worry about strikes.(9)
Noting all these developments, one might justifiably assume that the
corporate elite are very well organized, and that they plan ahead. Even
though members of this ruling elite may have ideological disagreements about
certain issues, they cooperate as a class–in terms of their attitudes and
decisions, not to mention through their organizations, lobbies, and
financial influence– for their own survival. It is imperative for our own
survival that an activist alternative media take on the job of mobilizing
people to organize against these processes. As the history of fascism has
shown, increasing social instability and state repression go together. The
danger is, that if people feel they have no real alternatives to their
deteriorating social and economic conditions, fear can push them to accept
extreme authoritarian-type solutions.(10) If we dont organize ourselves,
extreme authoritarian-type solutions will organize us.
Transcending Ethnocentrism in order to Change Things
As an anthropologist, teacher and activist, I use a lot of visual media. I
have always made abundant use of film and video to show students things they
themselves do not experience directly and often find hard to conceptualize,
such as the variations in marriage customs, and in religious or economic
practices in other cultures. My underlying motivation is to show my students
that they are not limited to behaving according to their own ethnocentric
socialization, that there are many different paths other than the ones their
own lives have taken. In order to figure out alternatives to the way human
society is going, they have to step outside of themselves and their
cultures. That is, one cannot derive ‘human nature’ by looking at the way
people tend to behave in ones own culture.
That there is a range of human possibilities of thinking, feeling and
acting, very different from the societal assumptions we live by, is
demonstrated by the diversity of cultures that have been around much longer
than ours. In fact, the types of societies that represent the bulk of human
history are small-scale classless societies that “obviously [have] a long
history of satisfying human needs in a very egalitarian way that provides
great security.”(11) These types of societies flourished even after the
development of agriculture, starting around 10,000 years ago, and the rise
of class (state) societies. They were numerous, even up until 250 years ago
with the transformation of the global economy brought about by the
industrial revolution.(12)
Moreover, these cultures were quite aware of civilized societies and thus
had the opportunity to reject their own egalitarian values in favor of
progress. Most resisted, and were forcibly taken over. If not exterminated,
they often became the most exploited and marginalized portions of the
population. The successful longevity of these types of cultures strongly
suggest that we are not condemned to the competitive dog eat dog class
structured materialistic societies dictated by what some would have us
believe are inherent human propensities.(13) Because the type of capitalist
society that we live in today represents a fraction of human history, it is
extremely naïve, ethnocentric and in many cases, demented, to claim, (as we
are endlessly told since the disintegration of the Soviet Union) that we
have reached the end of history. Perhaps if we do not radically alter the
direction in which the global economy is going, it may indeed be the end of
history in terms of life on this planet.(14)
Challenging the Status Quo
For Anthropologists, it is a given that most people within any society have
been socialized to take their own cultural norms for granted. People don’t
have much of a perspective on why they do most of the things they do in
their lives. This may include the norms that surround ‘love and marriage’,
religion or gender roles. In our case, it is also the acceptance of a class
structure that generates extreme racial discrimination and enormous
differences between rich and poor. One would think, however, that the
injustices of the society should be painfully obvious to everyone but the
most insulated individuals every day of their lives. But many people who may
or may not experience the brunt of these injustices directly, don’t
necessarily perceive the society as unjust. Or if they do, they don’t always
experience the outrage that would prompt them to mobilize to change things.
Many do not possess the skills or knowledge of how they might channel their
outrage into effective action.
What keeps the majority of people from getting together and changing things
in the direction of making their lives better? How do people become
compliant in their own and other’s oppression? Much of the problem lies in
the way people are socialized by the popular culture through the media, by
historical misinformation through the educational system, and by the familys
understandable emphasis upon economic survival and conformity to social
norms. These institutions bombard people with messages that serve to
immobilize them.
Out of a similar need to present alternatives to current political
developments, I am also a member of an activist video collective, the
People’s Video Network, which documents events and topics such as labor,
local community and international struggles. We produce programs that give
people information that is often censored, and with a perspective the
mainstream media systematically ignores. These deal with cases and issues
surrounding the numerous political prisoners in the United States, such as
the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, an outspoken radio-journalist who has been on
death-row since 1982 . We produce behind the news coverage and analysis of
ongoing struggles such as strikes, and demonstrations held by unions,
students, welfare workers, and parents against police brutality. We analyze
and expose the effects of U.S. foreign policy and wars. A recent documentary
deals with the use of radioactive weapons (which used depleted uranium) in
the Gulf War and its tragic health consequences for people in the Gulf
region as well as U.S. military personnel and their families. We travel to,
and cover important events and issues in Cuba, Russia, Chiapas, South
Africa, and Iraq. These programs are broadcast nationally on a weekly basis
on public access stations and sometimes by satellite, and many of them are
increasingly available over the Internet as well.(15)
Corporate Media Misinformation
A large part of the corporate media’s job is to misinform people, and to
cover up the nature of the power structure that rules peoples lives. The job
includes obfuscating the real reasons for unemployment, budget cuts,
invasions and wars, and ‘blaming the victims’ like ‘welfare mothers’,
immigrants, and youth for all the ills of society. The corporate media slant
has been brilliantly analyzed and exposed by many media critics.(16) Besides
outright distortions, boldfaced lies and cover-ups of facts, the corporate
media promotes the following less obvious but important underlying messages
that function to produce in people an apolitical obedience to the status
quo.
One message they promote is that it’s not necessary to make radical changes
in society. Whatever the problems are can be fixed piecemeal. After all,
they reason, as bad as this society is, it represents the pinnacle of
thousands of years of social and technological evolution. Every other
society, past and present, has had worse problems. Another message hammered
into people’s brains is the following: “Capitalism is the only workable
economic system. Socialism doesn’t work. Look what happened to the Soviet
Union. Every experiment with socialism has failed. They are all
dictatorships. A socialist society can’t work, because it ‘goes against
human nature’. Only a Free Enterprise system represents the true expression
of human nature.”
The Myth of Individual Responsibility
The corporate media also pushes the illusion that the individual, not groups
of people, is the source of power in society. It places the focus of blame
for social problems on the individual: If people are poor it’s their own
fault. If they just applied themselves, they could pull themselves up by
their own bootstraps. This analysis makes the individual the locus of power
and responsibility in society and has the effect of making individuals feel
powerless.
The promotion of this myth of individual responsibility outside of a social
or historical context pervades every aspect of the culture. The educational
system promotes individual competitiveness over group cooperation. In our
society education is not a right. Since access to higher education is so
limited, the many have to compete for grades and honors in order to proceed
with their education. Resources are unequally allocated. In New York State
for example, public school students in poorer areas receive substantially
less money per year than students in wealthier areas. Moreover, getting a
higher education, even a Ph.D., is no longer a guarantee of employment.(17)
Another way the educational system promotes elitism and the myths of
individual importance is by glorifying the so called heroic leaders of the
past, e.g., the kings, the queens, the presidents and the Generals. They
distort what these ‘leaders’ really did, as well as the class they
represented. Left out are the historical contributions of people not in
positions of wealth and power, especially women and minorities. Also ignored
is the truth that any social change benefiting the majority of people was
not beneficently handed down from on high. These changes came about only
when mass struggles for better working and living conditions became strong
enough to threaten ruling class power. [See Howard Zinn’s The Peoples
History of the United States as an antidote to the mainstream presentation
of U.S. history.(18)]
Corporate advertising and the popular culture push the notion that if you
are not rich and famous, youre worth nothing. It holds out unattainable
goals of beauty, power and material wealth as the ultimate goal in life, in
order to get people to consume more and more. As a huge neon sign in the now
Disneyfied Times Square area of New York loudly proclaims, “TOO MUCH IS NOT
ENOUGH.” The popular Hollywood culture pushes the notion of heroes and
heroines single-handedly taking on all the bad guys. This even happens with
more socially conscious mainstream films like Norma Rae, which tells of a
textile worker’s union struggle from the view of a heroine who fights all
odds and wins a victory against the bad guys. The other workers are in the
background. The fact is, that all social struggles have been fought and won
not by one person leading the rest to victory, but by organizing many people
together, by meeting, talking, strategizing and by many individuals often
times risking their lives. This process of how things are won is left out of
the corporate media.
Natural Human Development Denied
There seem to be so many obstacles to change, not the least of which is the
way people are socialized from a very early age. In addition to whatever
economic deprivation and injustice they endure, people put up with a fairly
low level of interpersonal satisfaction. Some basic human needs, which
should optimally develop and expand throughout one’s life-span are
curiosity, creativity and the capacity to care about others and to be cared
about in return. Many people learn through their experience within the
family and the wider culture to expect very little fulfillment of these
basic human needs. Curiosity about other people, especially those from other
economic and ethnic backgrounds or other cultures, is not generally
encouraged. Creativity is often channeled into training to get a job or just
learning how to survive in this society. A high degree of isolation,
alienation and loneliness is considered normal, while participation in many
group activities such as unions or political organizations is denigrated by
the media and wider culture.
Apathy Reinforced
Low interpersonal expectations dovetail with political oppression and the
tolerance of it. The cynicism and apathy, the rationalizing that you can’t
really change things’ is a cover for this personal depression. To challenge
this depression one would have to become more curious about others and less
isolated. One would have to open one’s mind to a range of hopes and
possibilities long denied. My students reactions are testimony to the
brainwashing, carried out by the corporate media, the educational system and
the family. When I show students films or give them articles on a diversity
of issues, such as U.S. invasions, corporations polluting the planet, or the
history of the Black Panther party, the following comments are typical:
Oh, that’s so sad, so horrible. I didn’t know that was happening but what
can be done to stop, or change it? The government is much more powerful than
the rest of us. OR OK, that’s bad but where is it better? Every country does
that. Can you show me one society that’s not corrupt? OR If you try to
change things, it won’t work because people are naturally greedy, violent,
and power-hungry. Even if you took over the power structure and changed the
society, the new leaders would become corrupt so nothing would really
change. OR If you try to change things, you’ll get into trouble–put in jail
or killed. Look what happened to the Black Panthers. Look what happened to
Malcolm X. I don’t want to get into trouble or have the FBI tapping my
phones. OR I’ve gone to some demonstrations but it didn’t change anything.
OR I don’t have time to go on a demonstration or go to a meeting. I have to
work and go to school. Things will get better. The economy is just in a down
cycle. OR I know we are massively polluting the planet–but doesn’t nature
just regenerate itself? In other words, I don’t have to do anything because
it’s really not so bad and nothing you do makes a difference anyway. Besides
I might get into a lot of trouble and people might think I’m weird. Maybe if
I dont look at the problem, it will go away by itself . These are usually
initial reactions people have when they become aware of something they
didn’t know before. However, with repeated exposure to the problems, peoples
curiosity and concern are stimulated. Then they get hungry for more
information about the problems and what they can do about them. This hunger
is what an activist media must stimulate and feed.
Activism and Getting Through the Day
Of course it is true that many people are trying to survive under
increasingly difficult situations. They are often juggling jobs, school,
kids, and personal problems, and do not have a lot of time left over to
become socially and politically active. It is hard enough getting by from
day to day for a majority of people. It’s a Catch-22. As people spend more
time just trying to survive, they feel like they have less time to devote to
activities that would result in lives that were less survival oriented.
But the real dilemma is that in order to become less depressed about your
own interpersonal needs, and to change, you have to become less isolated
from other people. The moods and attitudes about what one can expect from
life are hard to shake because they are inculcated from an early age and
reinforced daily. The courage to change comes from identifying with others
who are different, yet, in many ways like you. Many people are scared of
what it would mean to their daily life if they got involved in bringing
about social change. This includes being assertive and public about having
legitimate human needs. Many people find it frightening to meet and talk to
strangers, work in a group, speak their mind, or even admit they have a mind
to speak. However, despite a great deal of despair, depression and cynicism,
everyone consciously or unconsciously holds out the hope that their life
could be more satisfying. An activist media must speak to the hopefulness in
people. One way to do this is to present examples of alternative ways to
live, to document past and current struggles, and to offer visions of what a
future society could be.
The Major Obstacle: The Corporate Media Consolidates its Power
In the last several years the media industry has become unimaginably
concentrated. According to Edward Herman, “In 1989 Time Inc. and Warner
Communications merged, creating the worlds largest media complex. The cable
TV power Viacom acquired Paramount Communications in 1994 and Blockbuster
Video in 1995.” Disney followed soon after by acquiring Capital Cities/ABC
and Westinghouse bought CBS. Then TCI (the largest cable company bought
Viacoms 1.1 million subscriber cable system and Time Warner bought Turner
Broadcasting Systems. As Herman points out,(19) the biggest recent mergers
involve firms that are not “media companies in a strict sense.” Disney and
Time Warner are pop culture giants. Westinghouse and GE (CBS and NBC) are in
the nuclear power and weapons industries. “These developments threaten the
survival of independent and critical programming, which have become merely
appendages to entertainment and weapons-seller complexes. ” (20)
The collapse of political and regulatory opposition to increased media
concentration has been facilitated by the 1996 Telecommunication Reform Act
signed by President Clinton, which removes many limits to how many radio, TV
and print media outlets an individual can own. These recent mergers will
definitely elicit further defensive mergers,- an eat or be eaten attitude.
Because entertainment, sports, toys and theme parks, are more profitable
than real news or other programming in the public interest (i.e.,
advertisers dictate the programming), there have been sharp cutbacks in news
bureau staff.(21) Entertainment companies selling movies, books, magazines,
theme park amusements and toys are not oriented to providing information
about real life, especially information that might hurt their profits.
Advertisers prefer light entertainment, not only to make more money but also
to take peoples minds away from real events. They say they cannot make money
selling informative programming. A further terrifying aspect to this
corporate media monster growth is the rapid spread of this fast-food type of
entertainment, theme-park culture to virtually every country of the world.
In addition, as Herman points out, “The entertainment-media complexes are
generally run by men of exceedingly conservative bentNBC is controlled by
GE, which sponsors the right-wing oriented McLaughlin group on PBS, and has
long supported conservative thinktanks and causes. …John Malone, president
of TCI, the largest cable company and a fan of Rush Limbaugh, has joined
with Rupert Murdoch (FOX TV) in sponsoring a new news channel to offset an
alleged “left bias in the rest of the news media.” (22) Disney has become a
huge media player. It is notorious for exploiting third world child labor
who work in sweat-shop conditions for wages as low as 11 cents an hour to
make items such as Lion King and Pocahontas paraphernalia, while Disney
head, Michael Eisner pays himself $102,000 an hour.(23) Now that Disney owns
ABC, it is busy attacking its own ABC workers in the US, replacing full-time
employees with part-time workers who get no benefits. Disney is currently
trying to force its ABC workers to give back many of the benefits they have
fought for and won over the years, citing a need to be competitive with
market forces (one worker at a demonstration outside of Disney/ABC noted the
irony of how rapidly Disneys competition is disappearing ).(24) And Disney
is certainly not the only one.(25)
Moreover, the major networks have been awarded more control over the
airwaves in the ongoing move over to the new technology of digital TV. The
FCC has allocated digital spectrum slots to existing broadcasters at no
extra cost, ( in addition to the portion of the spectrum now used for analog
transmission) This would enable them to use the same spectrum to broadcast
4-6 more channels. If a community now receives 4-7 stations, they may get
20-50 stations in the future, but all owned by the same people who own the
existing stations. McChesney describes the Telecommunications Act of 1996:
“Arguably among the most important laws of this generation, the Telecom Act
was prepared in nearly complete secrecy and a virtual blackout in popular
press coverage. It was a bill written by big business for big business. to
pave the way for eventual deregulation of all communications industry.” (26)
This digital giveaway at the present time also has no stringent public
service requirements. In other words, the general public are merely
shoppers; they have no other needs.
The market value of these airwaves that are being given away for free is
estimated to be as high as one hundred billion.(27) These revenues could
certainly be used by the government to amply fund public broadcasting
stations, which would serve the community, not just the corporations. The
general public, meanwhile, whose minds have been busily taken up with such
momentous events as the O.J. Simpson trial, have practically no knowledge of
these vital decisions affecting their basic access to information that they
so desperately need. And, who among the politicians voting on this
legislation has the nerve to challenge this monopoly of corporate media. Any
public official who even meekly suggests that corporations have a
responsibility to the public could easily see the end of their career
through media smear campaigns.(28)
The Corporate Media Declares War on Alternative Voices
In short, the corporate media has taken huge strides in the last couple of
years to consolidate power and further limit access to alternative voices.
Struggles are going on now to see whether any type of public access TV will
survive, given the merger-mania of cable companies and the communication
industry in general, which have no interest in preserving public access. The
proposed 500 cable TV channels will offer 500 opportunities to see basically
the same mind-numbing thing; but if you are an alternative voice, you
probably don’t have the millions of dollars it takes to buy (public)
airspace to be heard.
We also see the onslaught of the mega-bookstores such as Barnes and Noble
and Borders, which offer quantity but not diversity. These two bookstore
chains now control about half of all the bookselling market. (29) They move
into neighborhoods and put small bookstores, which do offer more variety,
out of business. In these huge stores the large publishing monopolies ‘rent
space’ to promote their latest ‘picks’, hardly material that threatens the
status quo. Similarly, where there used to be an abundance of newspapers in
any particular city, many have folded up or have been taken over.
This process of monopolization is not accidental or technologically
inevitable. It is basically a declaration of war. As the majority of people
find it harder to survive, escapist entertainment will increasingly replace
information, and access to the truth will be even more controlled in an
effort to atomize and immobilize an increasingly dissatisfied population.
Collective Struggle
Many people are struggling collectively to challenge injustices and fight
against the widespread decline in living conditions, both in this country
and around the world. The mainstream media systematically censors collective
struggle because it is a very threatening topic. How many times have there
been massive demonstrations held in Washington or in other countries against
U.S. foreign policy or some other issues which barely, if ever, get
mentioned in the mainstream news? Perhaps a small picture is shown, with the
blurb, ‘thousands demonstrate’, or they may, instead, only show a picture of
the handful of counter-demonstrators. Massive general strikes held in France
and the former Soviet Union against deteriorating social and economic
conditions go unreported or are portrayed as ‘inconvenient’ to citizens
trying to get to work. This anti-labor stance permeates the mainstream
media.(30)
An example of how the corporate media deals with the struggles of ordinary
people is the following: A recent memorial held for William Kunstler, noted
civil rights attorney, was attended by several thousand people. Across the
street from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine where the memorial was
taking place, was a lone demonstrator from the Jewish Defense League
protesting what he called Kunstler’s ‘anti-Semitism’. Of course the media
totally focused on covering this one demonstrator. Barely mentioned was the
memorial itself, which was moving and inspiring–a huge cathedral
overflowing with people paying homage to someone who had integrity and stood
up for ordinary people against the power structure. Wouldn’t it have been
more interesting for people watching the news or reading the papers, to find
out why so many people were there to pay tribute to a person like Kunstler?
Of course! But that’s not their job.
Repetition: the Corporate Media Knows About It
An activist media must not be afraid to repeat the information and analysis
that would lead to people making real social changes. After all, the
majority of people didn’t get whatever ideas they do have by hearing it one
time in school or from their parents or on TV. These are attitudes that have
to be repeated constantly or else people may forget and think independently.
Why else would corporations spend billions in advertising and Public
Relations? As Noam Chomsky ironically explains, “The bewildered herd never
gets properly tamed, so this is a constant battle.”(31) In fact, when
something big is about to happen like a U.S. invasion, or plans to cut
welfare, the corporate elite use their vast media networks to orchestrate a
huge bombardment of disinformation, filling the airwaves with their message.
As an educator and as someone who is involved in producing alternative
video, I have often worried needlessly that my students or the viewing
audience might think: “Oh I heard that before; this is boring.” However,
like any new way of thinking that contradicts what you have been taught all
your life, hearing or seeing something new just one time may not have very
lasting effects, especially when same old stuff keeps bombarding you every
day. My experience, at least in teaching, is that students don’t have an
epiphany the first time they are presented with something new. It is usually
after many such presentations that they begin to make connections between
many of the things they’ve seen and heard. Don’t worry about repetition. The
new ideas need reinforcement.
The Need to Organize: Activist Media Essential in the Struggle
An activist media has to be connected to groups that are actively organizing
so that they are well informed about political events and know what to go
out and document. These events are usually ignored by the mainstream media,
so that we are in fact providing an accurate and invaluable record of social
history. An activist media must know how to hook people up with one another
and be able to mobilize people to get out on the streets. The corporate
media is not going to run advertisements about demonstrations or meetings
that might connect people up with each other and help them to organize. Even
if they were to suddenly decide to inform their audiences about local
activism, media concentration and emerging technologies means that
newspapers and TV are becoming more centralized and run from media centers
such as in Atlanta or the west coast so that the news is more centrally
canned, making it more difficult to have any local input. The producers of
information are dangerously removed from the majority of people.
A job of the alternative media is to show people that it is in their own
immediate interest to change things. The daily increases in the repressive
apparatus of the state, the building of more and more prisons, the increase
in police brutality in poor neighborhoods, the attacks on immigrants, the
deterioration of health and educational systems, and the decline in wages
are already affecting the vast majority of people. As Wall St. profits soar,
tens of thousands of people are losing their jobs, their apartments, and
their health care.
But How do People Get Organized?
Many people are fearful of getting involved. But you do not have to be a
politically outspoken person to get in trouble. In addition, if you live in
certain neighborhoods or look a certain way, you can just be walking down
the street minding your own business and get into a confrontation with the
police. In a recent article discussing the increase in police brutality,
Bruce Shapiro points out, “The public order philosophy and neighborhood
crackdowns now in vogue seem to make violent police-civilian conflict more
likely.” (32) The increasing number of these types of incidents are not
accidental. They are happening because the economy is in decline and the
rich and powerful have been gearing up to control what they rightly expect
will be widespread discontent and potential uprisings. So “getting in
trouble” is not the issue. People are getting into even more trouble by not
collectively speaking out.
Even if people have more of the truth, it doesn’t mean that they’re going to
automatically get up and do something about it. In addition to being fearful
of getting involved, most people don’t have a lot of experience organizing
in groups to carry out collective action. How do you go about it? Where do
you start? Who do you organize with? What are your goals and strategies?
Alternative media has to be part of the struggle to organize people. It has
to present visions of alternatives and examples of real struggles.There
certainly is no shortage of inspiring examples, historically and currently,
of ordinary people heroically fighting injustices against overwhelming odds.
We must show not just successful struggles but the mistakes that many
struggles have made so that people can learn from them.
People hunger to see these struggles. They hunger to see things that make
sense to them, and to see that what they are experiencing is similar to what
other people are experiencing, that they are not alone in their problems.
That’s why so many day time talk shows that discuss the problems people have
with their children, or their love-life are so popular. Of course these
shows do not analyze the underlying reasons for the multitude of emotional
problems people have in this society. And they do not present any
alternatives. People really do need and want a vision of a kind of society
that would make sense for the majority, not just for the few wealthy
individuals.
Historical Precedents
In the early 1930s the Film and Photo League was the first activist news
organizations in the U.S. to emerge after the invention of the motion
picture camera. Their efforts created vivid and enduring images of the Great
Depression. In a period where the press denied the reality of the suffering
around them–it was not known as the the depression until after it was over,
the Film and Photo League documented the desperate conditions and heroic
struggles the Depression was known for: evictions, breadlines, strikes,
hunger and unemployment marches, the Hoovervilles, the demonstrations and
protests and the everyday life of the people.
When the Peoples Video Network interviewed Leo Seltzer, one of the surviving
veterans of this pioneering peoples news organization, he delineated the
parallels between the situation of the 1930s and today: the homelessness,
the decline in living standards, growing unemployment and economic
desperation. Then as now, the mainstream media did not speak to these
issues. The Film and Photo League could not get their newsreels into the
theaters, which at the time were owned by Hollywood studios. These movie
theaters would show newsreels that would deny the widespread economic
problems of the Depression, or they would show fluff, flagpole sitters and
the like.
In order to show their documentaries, the Film and Photo League members
would take their newsreels to union halls, farms, one room school houses,
and churches, frequently in places with no electricity. They would hook the
hand cranked projector bulb to a car battery, pin a sheet between two trees
and run their films. Seltzer described the reaction of their audiences to
seeing these documentaries. Their jaws would drop open. People were amazed
to see that their troubles were not unique, that other people were suffering
and also organizing to fight for their rights all over the country and the
world. These documentaries galvanized many people and contributed to the
organization of the many peoples movements of that era. (33)
People Like to See the Truth
A current example of how people respond to seeing more of the truth on TV is
the following: In the Spring of 1995, the National Peoples Campaign, a
political group based in New York, held a huge rally in New York City
against the then recently declared ‘Contract With America’, with speakers
from community and other activist organizations. Although C-Span does not
usually cover such events, it took up NPCs challenge to cover reaction to
the establishments move to the right. They broadcast the rally several
times, nationwide. Each time it was broadcast, the NPC phones rang off the
hook with thousands of phone calls from all over the country. People wanted
to know what they could do, how they could join or organize NPC branches in
their own cities. For once, what they saw on TV actually spoke to the
deteriorating reality of their own lives and they saw other people
organizing against these forces. As a result, many NPC branches were formed
nationwide and several months later large demonstrations against the
‘Contract’ were held in 42 cities around the country. C-Span did not come
back to cover any subsequent events.
Our Peoples Video Network office gets many calls from people watching our
shows, reacting to seeing the reality that documents their lives, not the
lives of artificial, well-off sitcom characters. In watching these shows
they find out that there are organizations out there that are fighting the
conditions facing them and others, such as the massive cuts in social
services and the increase in racist and repressive legislative policies.
They call to get more information about how they can get involved.
It takes bravery to change one’s life and to bring about social change. But
to bring about either personal or political change, the barriers of
isolation have to be broken down between people. Any type of change takes
interacting more with people. This puts a lot of demands on one’s curiosity
about new experiences and other people. In finding out how different people
are, you also find out how similar you are to other people. You can identify
with them, and that makes it possible for you to be different. Isolating
people is a key way to keep them from fighting back. There are growing
attempts to isolate people from one another even more than they already are
and to cut the possibilities of collective action. This is happening through
government attacks on public housing, the purposeful introduction of
drugs.(34) and guns, especially into the poor communities, the increase in
incarceration rates, particularly of young people and the increase in police
harassment to terrorize these communities and keep them passive.(35)
Fighting Back
The alternative media has to expose that there is a planned and coordinated
repression in anticipation of a growing resistance to increasing
exploitation and deprivation. An activist media must illuminate the
underlying structural reasons for the need for repression. It must respond
to “Oh that can’t happen here” with media that shows the historical
precedents and current parallels of the development of fascism. It must show
that “It can happen here. It does happen here. It is happening here.” And it
must help give people the tools to organize resistance to these ongoing
repressive processes.
Unfortunately, most don’t know even where to begin to find alternative
sources of information or activist groups. Even though these sources exist
in relative abundance, they may be difficult for many people to find. The
corporate media is well organized and omnipresent. The alternative media, is
as yet unorganized, scattered and divided into many different factions that
don’t cooperate with one another. Overcoming this lack of coordination, is a
task the alternative media must take on seriously. There are many people,
here and there, engaged in activist or alternative media without knowing
what anyone else is doing. There is also a lack of centralized sources of
what is available so that people can easily access up-to-date news or
alternative media sources. Media activists need to start organizing together
to get true alternative radio and TV networks that broadcast 24 hours a day,
forging national and international links.
The job of the alternative media is to make people angry and hopeful at the
same time. It should make them angry at all of the deprivation and
injustices they and countless other peoples have experienced in their lives
and hopeful that it is possible to really build a different kind of society
where human needs can be met. People are used to believing that they don’t
deserve what they really need. The experience of seeing other people
bringing about changes through struggles can have the effect of giving
someone a feeling of membership with a larger group. It is not enough to be
outraged in the privacy of your own living room or your own mind. The job of
the activist media is to turn these thoughts into action and to connect
people up with others who are similarly outraged.
Reaching the People
Alternative media activists must not be lured into devoting every bit of
their energies just fighting the erosion of free speech through corporate
media concentration. That fight is useful and urgent, but it’s not enough.
They also must not be lured into thinking they are making major headway if
they win concessions from the corporate media. They have to become part of
the struggle in organizing grassroots movements to radically alter the
direction in which the global economy is going. A real alternative media has
to be really alternative, not just content with getting a foot in the
mainstream door. There’s a war going on.
To do this, the alternative activist media must address the issue of mass
distribution. This requires creativity, and audacity. It may mean taking
videos to the streets, union halls, community centers, high schools and
eliciting public discussions. It may mean projecting videos on the sides of
buildings. It may mean crashing public events that are tightly limited to
only the ‘right’ kind of people. Alternative media needs to be used in
public settings as an organizing tool to give people information, to elicit
discussion about the issues, and formulate actions. We must also take
advantage of developments in telecommunications and become educated in the
possibilities of using the Internet to communicate with even more people.
Alternative media must serve as an organizer for change, for bringing people
together, for shedding light on the processes that create the world we live
in and what it takes to change that world for the better. We as alternative
media people need to coordinate our collective efforts in that direction.
(c) Ellen Andors, 1996
by Ellen Andors, Ph.D. (1946-2000) Dr. Andors was an anthropologist, adjunct
professor at The Borough of Manhattan College, The City University of New
York, and an activist videographer with Peoples Video Network. She edited
The Prison Industrial Complex, New Age Slavery: an Interview on Death Row
with Mumia Abu-Jamal and co-produced the Mumia Organizers Tape, which
activists used as organizing/teaching tools in the effort to save Mumia’s
life. She also edited the Working Women’s Struggle Series (on public access
cable), and the documentary on the Gulf War and the use of Depleted Uranium
called: Metal of Dishonor: the Pentagon’s Secret Radioactive Weapon. Footage
from that documentary was used for the updated dvd on depleted uranium,
Poison DUst. She died in August 2000 from complications due to endometrial
cancer.
Notes
(1) David Korten, When Corporations Rule the World, Kumarian Press (West
Hartford, CT, 1995.
(2) Manning Marable, Along the Color Line November 1995
(http://www.columbia.edu).
(3) “Runaway CEO Pay”, Executive Pay Watch, 1997
(http://www.aflcio.paywatch.org)
(4) Pearl Meyer and Partners, in the Wall Street Journal, as cited in
“Runaway CEO Pay”, op cit.
(5) Business Week, op cit.
(6) Manning Marable, from a Forum on the Death Penalty at New York
University, 1996
(7) ibid.
(8) ibid.
(9) (Paul Wright, “Captive Labor: US business Goes to Jail”, Covert Action
Quarterly, Spring 1997, number 60.
(10) See, for example, Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes Pantheon Books, NY
1994.
(11) John H. Bodley, Tribal Peoples and Developmental Issues, Mayfield
Publishing Company (California, 1988), p. 10.
(12) ibid, p. iii.
(13) John H. Bodley, Victims of Progress, Mayfield Publishing Company
(California, 1990), Chapter 1.
(14) One example of this demented thinking is NASAs plan to launch the
Cassini Saturn Space probe in October 1997, which will carry 72 pounds of
plutonium as a power supply. This is part of the growing militarization of
outer space. If there is an accident or miscalculation, this could
drastically affect the health of billions of people, not to mention
everything living on the planet . See Karl Grossman, Nukes in Space: the
Nuclearization and Weaponization of the Heaven, video produced by
EnviroVideo, 1995.
(15) http://www.peoplesvideo.org
(16) See, for examples the periodical EXTRA published by Fairness and
Asccuracy in Reporting (FAIR), and books by Noam Chomsky such
asManufacturing Consent, and Michael Parenti (Inventing Reality).
(17)Cary Nelson, Manifesto of a Tenured Radical, New York University Press
(New York, 1997), Chapter 12.
(18) Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the United States, Harper Perennial
(New York, 1995). See also, Richard Boyer and Herbert Morais, Labors Untold
Story, United Electrical Workers (New York, 1955).
(19) Edward Herman, “The Media Mega-Mergers” in Dollars & Sense, as posted
on http://www.igc.apc.org/dollars/may96.
(20) Ibid.
(21) Ibid.
(22) Ibid.
(23) Research done by National Labor Committee.
(24) Peoples Video Network interview of ABC workers at a demonstration in
front of one of the many new Disney mega-stores, raw footage, April, 1997.
(25) Other media conglomerates like newspaper chains Gannett and Knight
Ridder, two of the largest publishers, are busy trying to destroy the unions
that work for them and return to a labor situation that existed at the
beginning of the Great Depression.
(26) Robert W. McChesney, “The Great Digital TV Heist”, In These Times,
Volume 21, no. 13.
(27) Ibid.
(28) Ibid.
(29) Robert McChesney, Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy, the Open
Media Pamphlet Series, Seven Stories Press, New York 1997, page 27.
(30) See, for example, EXTRA, and other publications by Fairness and
Accuracy in Reporting. Also see Michael Parenti, Inventing Reality: The
Politics of the Mass Media, St. Martins Press (New York, 1986), in
particular, the chapter, “Giving Labor the Business”.
(31) Noam Chomsky, “Media Control,” in Open Fire, edited by Greg Ruggiero
and Stuart Sahulka, The New Press (New York, 1993), p. 277.
(32) Bruce Shapiro “When Justice Kills” The Nation June 9, 1997.
(33) Informal discussion with Leo Seltzer, member of the Film and Photo
League, at the office of Peoples Video Network.
(34) See coverage about CIA connection to the crack epidemic, story by Gary
Webb, in the San Jose Mercury News, August, 1996.
(35) Viz. the murders of Anthony Baez, Anthony Rosario, Manuel Mayi, and
Keshawn Watson, and the beating of Rodney King, to name only a few.
TO THE TOP
Comments and Questions?
Ellen Andors, Ph.D., ( 1946-2000) was a founding member of Peoples Video
Network.