The People's Media Manifesto

THE PEOPLE'S MEDIA MANIFESTO


Do you ever wonder about the mass media you consume? Whether it is
giving you the information you need to hear, or whether the corporate
media is in the habit of hiding as much news from us as it reveals?

We live in a world with massive media conglomerates like News
International and AOL Time Warner telling us everything we know about
the world outside our own immediate social relations. Sites like
Facebook and YouTube do exist, offering hope in the form of
distributed information sharing networks. But both are corporately
owned and may someday, if they do not already, exercise editorial
control over the content on their sites, just as Google Groups
allegedly deletes USENET posts from their archive on request from
governments, the military, and media conglomerates. What is needed is
a media network that is completely anti-corporate: anti-organisation,
bottom up and distributed. This is the People's Media manifesto.

The People's media is a brand. Its brand logo is the green circle in
the blue square. By having a logo the People's Media have a brand
identity. All People's Media video files should start with the brand
logo displayed for five seconds, to create a sense of brand identity
to all People's Media work. There are very few distributed, anti-
capitalist, anti-organisational brands in existence, and there are
certainly none in the media. If the People's Media ever emerged as a
media brand alongside the BBC or the New York Times, it would be an
great achievement for those who wish to bring back control over the
means of production of information and news to the democracy and
wisdom of the crowd.

Anyone can work for the People's Media, making films of any length.
All you need is a DV camera and some black clothes. The People's Media
always wear all black clothes - this is also part of the brand
identity. A well known way of organising people for rallies in a
distributed way, to avoid the police from stopping you from meeting
up, is known as the black block. European political dissidents used to
organise in the 1920's by wearing black clothes, and looking for other
people wearing black clothes. Groups of people wearing black clothes
would form, and would find each other and form larger groups, until
eventually a black block would be formed, an impromptu rally, a block
of people that had self-organised without the need for meeting places
or leaders. The People's Media, like the black block, is distributed
and self-organising, and it wears black clothes as a mark of its anti-
organisational belief system.

To start with, the People's Media should post their material to
YouTube. As interest in the brand grows, and more people start
creating content for it, a USENET group should be set up for community
discussion and for posting links to People's Media content hosted all
over the Internet. The People's Media should aim never to own a
website or domain, in keeping with its distributed, anti-organisation
structure.

What should the People's Media report on? Well, that is for the people
to decide. It must be said that many people will read this and never
make a People's Media film. Then again, many people see adverts for
political protests and don't bother attending. By the same token, some
people see adverts for protest marches and do attend, even if London
is several hours away by coach. It is these kinds of people who could
and should use the People's Media. If they did, the People's Media
would grow into an anti-capitalist media brand, reporting from anti-
war rallies and G8 summits. If you like making films, making your
films People's Media films will eventually mean they are more likely
to be watched by people, who are likely eventually to start searching
for People's Media content on the Internet, and so are more likely to
come across your material. Whilst initially likely to appeal to
activists, once established in the mainstream the People's Media will
naturally change in nature. It will truly have entered the mainstream
when the first People's Media pop video is produced.

Start making a mark! Create the People's Media!

Majid Salim
geniusohyeah2006@yahoo.com


[a PDF version of this document can be downloaded, along with the
logo, from http://www.geocities.com/peoplesmedia/]
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