A Gang of Leftists with a Website: The Indymedia Movement

Abstract

The Independent Media Center Movement, an international media activist movement born during the World Trade Organization protests in 1999, has since grown to more than 100 local collectives in over 40 countries. It is dedicated to the production of media texts, mostly on the Internet, organized along non-hierarchical, consensual lines. Their production of media can best be understood through the radical education theories of Freire and the new social movement theories of Melucci. From a Freirean perspective, this movement educates people in creating media relevant to their own lives and frees them from a consumer-based media economy which regards them as mere objects to be exploited. From Malacca, this movement shows evidence of “hidden networks” that maintains a movement collective identity, affective bonds and periods of latency and mobilization. This study examined one Indy media collective through the use of ethnographic techniques.