Organizational Intelligence for Independent Producers

# Session 1

Organizational Intelligence for Independent Producers

Thursday 03.06. 14.00 - 16.30 / Semperdepot, Prospekthof
The content gap is encroaching the independent information providers. The ruthless market efficiency not only shapes content, the quality and depth of information content, in the mainstream channels but the pressure of a global neoliberal regime also has various effects on the not-for-profit intelligence nodes. Being able to compete in certain standards and formats of culture and knowledge dissemination requires smart, mobile and flexible solutions which make best use of the tools of information technology. Global informational networking seems too obvious to mention...but how can it be made into an actual practice and real asset for independent content providers?

Participants

Pit Schultz / Reni Hofmueller: Radio Syndication over the net
Pit Schultz (DE) Reni Hofmueller (AT)

Pauline van Mourik Broekman: The Mothership and the Flock
Some years ago, this phrase was typed in as a discussion topic on the webforum of Metamute - Mute magazine's website. Having announced its intention to decentralise and open up to its readership shortly before, the exchange dealt with the relationship between community-driven entities, those whose participation grants them their existence, and the vagaries of the general political-economic landscape. This talk will reanimate this conversation by discussing Mute's attempt to be a simultaneously self-critical and financially viable node in the emerging networks of 'independent' media culture. I will highlight what I regard as emblematic problems associated with intermediary positions such as Mute's to ask questions about the mirror images net culture likes to generate for itself. Through a discussion of collaborative networks such as MagNet, the electronic cultural publishers' network (of which Mute is a member), I will also present possible models of collaboration and interdependency.
Pauline van Mourik Broekman (UK)

Marco Deseriis: The art of causing trouble: resistance to media monopolies
It is not only a protocol or a technical standard to make the difference between a communication mode and another (broadcast vs Webcast, UHF versus TCP/IP). Power structures and historically rooted social formations shape independent networks and their relationship to mainstream media. Italian Telestreet or Indymedia Italy wouldn’t exist in their actual form without the Italian movements of the Seventies but also without Silvio Berlusconi’s media monopoly. Nevertheless, the “dictatorship of the audience”, or the “dictatorship of the majority”, has proved to a certain extent an autonomous machinery, able to affect and drive the political body (e.g. the Zapatero effect). The more the media machine models itself on the consumer-voter “desire” to participate (from reality shows to broadcasted live public events) the more media viruses and parasites have the opportunity to redirect these desires and audiences. If we want to be able to tell other stories that might interfere with the existing narratives, we need to blend the technical wisdom and the ability to open imaginary breaches that provoke a chain of reaction.
Marco Deseriis (IT)

Moderation

Menno Grootveld (NL)