Re: <nettime> No Soap! Radio?

[Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com>]

> Much of the frustration felt by today's *activists* about how whatever
> they try to do it just seems to be "commodified" and absorbed by
> "late-stage capitalism" is the result of trying to  apply radio-era
> tactics in an age dominated by television sensibility. If you don't
> *understand* media, then you are doomed to make the same mistake
> over-and-over!

Long long ago (almost fifteen years!) Indymedia activists said "don't 
hate the media, be the media." They weren't worried about being 
commodified or coopted. What they wanted was proliferation through a 
multidirectional network where every receiver is also potentially a 
sender. The Egyptian revolution, 15-M and Occupy proved they were right: 
this media proliferation can become the basis for networked grassroots 
political action on massive scales.

The idea that *NOBODY* has understood media since Marshall McLuhan is 
just absurd, Mark. The transformations of the media environment brought 
by the Internet - and the emergence of a full-fledged media ecology - 
have been the hottest subject in the world over the past fifteen years. 
A tremendous amount of experimentation has occurred and a tremendous 
amount has been learned, both by those who seek to control the media 
ecology and by those who seek its potentials for liberation and social 
change. Not only that but I'd even say, despite everything, that life 
has gotten sweeter along the way.

best, Brian


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