Costelloe-KuehnMemo5

latest title: Articulating Media and Ecologies in India and the U.S.: Experiments in Translation

Working titles: Dissertation Tactical Translations: New Media in Social Movements in India and the United States.

Working Titles: Book Tactical Mediations: Alternative (New) Media Technologies, Practices and Communities Tactical Translations: New Media in Social Movements in India and the United States. Translating the Multitude: Articulating Communication and Community in the New World Order / Newest Social Movements Tactical Mediations: Alternative Media Technologies, Practices and Communities Tactical Translations: Mediating/Articulating Communication/Community in the Newest Social Movements. Beyond the Hegemony of Hegemony: Anti-Hegemonic Currents in Tactical New Media Tactical Translations: Anti-Hegemonic Currents in Tactical New Media Communication and Community in/between India and the U.S. [thoughts on title?] a) “The Multitude” references Hardt and Negri’s book, which I like, but think it suffers from a lack of attention to “translation,” especially between the global South and North. [I don’t yet talk about “translation” in this proposal, but I love the trope, can cite Marcus 1995 on translation work done by “subjects” of ethnography. b) Finding it a bit hard to work in “transnationalism” cohesively, but I want to remain in that conversation. Multi-sited ethnography is one way to get at it, and some of the projects I want to study empirically are networked intra- and trans-nationally. c) The “Newest Social Movements,” “the Hegemony of Hegemony,” and “anti-hegemonic” come from Richard Day’s (2005) //Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements//, one of my favorite reads of the past year and one that I would like to be in conversation with/around for a long time to come. d) “Articulate,” as a verb, refers both to enunciation/description and the joining of disparate elements. Need to explain the second, less common meaning? e) None of these titles mention environmental and/or global justice specifically a. Possible neologism: “strategic media.” 1) Lets me pick and choose what I like about tactical, community, alternative, and independent media. But I can also take those 4 types of media as emic categories to be filled in empirically. b. Or just switch to “activist media,” or “media in advocacy,” or something else…
 * f) ** For Graham Meilke, Tactical media is 'less concerned about building better models and more about "mobility and flexibility, about diverse responses to changing contexts" (119)' ([|book review]). While I am interested in mobility, flexibility, diverse responses, changing contexts, **I am also interested in "building better models," so maybe tactical media shouldn't be my "object” of study, at least not in the title…… throughout most of this proposal it appears as my primary object. I discuss this in my “conclusion” (to be added, at bottom).**

Keywords: tactical media, alternative media, independent media, community media, global justice movement, neoliberalism, environmental justice, ICTs


 * topical area || data sets || social theoretical questions (research questions) || why now? || how prepared? || bias? || fields of work || funders ||
 * "alternative media" production. but what do they mean by "alt. media" [|here]?


 * or "tactical media" might be a better focusing device for what i'm interested in.**

refers to a wide range of practices including:

a) [|Indymedia] citizen journalist work

b) "old" media: community-based radio, television, print, etc. and "new": blogging, youtube, interactive webspaces, etc.

c) community informatics (CI) projects that use various ICTs to present technoscientific information in more artful, accessible and usable ways. many of these projects are related to health issues. but when framed this way, there is often a stress on quantitative, statistical data collection and my interest in "art" is sometimes left out.

a) environmental justice and/or b) the "global justice movement" (and the building of translations concerning knowledges, actions, and memories) and/or the media reform/justice movement** || interviews, advocacy work, participant-observation with alternative media producers, "mainstream" journalists, policy-makers...
 * i would like to look at alt. media production as it relates to

a) the Sanctuary for Independent Media (Branda on organizing and video, Steve on radio, Andrew on alternative economies)

b) Manhattan Neighborhood Network

c) Suro's projects in India (Ring of Blue, the Catapult Arts Caravan)

d) The Deccan Development Society (DDS)

e) witness.org. documents human rights violations, do an internship in their brooklyn office?

f) culture jammers (i.e. Yes Men) **not so much "the media" or even "alternative media," but "mediagenic" activities and processes**. see [|article] on performative forms of eco-protest

g) Italian "pirate" radio and TV producers (i.e. "Telestreets" - [|video])

h) conference and skill-shares, like [|infoactivism] (will miss 2009 in India, maybe 2010)

i) The [|Prometheus Radio Project] - go to a "radio barnraising"

j) monitor discussions at [|Our Media]/ Nuestros Medios network and attend conference ( July 13-19, 2009, Colombia). k) [|OpenFSM] - a platform for social activism provided by the World Social Forum

l) action research and art (i.e. the [|Beehive Collective])

m) Beyond Broadcast conference (2008 on "mapping public media") Tad Hirsch (Smart Cities Group @ MIT Media Lab, Institute for Applied Autonomy) attended in 2007.

n) The MIT Center for Future Civic Media (a collaboration between the Media Lab and Comparative Media Studies). || how does "resistance" interact with "power?"

how is collective, radical commitment to communal liberatory action "possible" within a theoretical horizon structured by difference? is Marxism a form of domination complicit with modernism?

what are the double-binds presented by the "state" to anarchist-inspired movements or movements for "radical democracy?" (what is the role of anarchist ethics and practices in alternative/progressive media production?)

in what ways do the interactions between nation-states and social movements shape local practices - "local strategies for making sense, making names, making stories" (Traweek, Border Crossings, 446)? (how does the national policy context constrain and enable particular orientations and forms of "alternative" media?)

besides (or in interaction with) the state, what institutions, discourses, formations of expertise, etc. present the most influential double-binds to the newest social movements, and in what ways?

how do "dominant" discourses interact with "counter-" or "parallel" accounts in different media? what are the most effective forms of counter-hegemonic discourse?

How can manipulations of symbols provide a cognitive and practical approach to helping people understand various hidden ideologies (i.e. neoliberalism) and at the same time subvert them?

How does alternative media production, and community-based initiative more generally, play into and contest neoliberal discourses and practices?

what forces are productive of counter-hegemonic discourses (media reform movement, etc.).

does overcoming the "hegemony of hegemony" open up new possibilities for social change and "radical democracy?"

what are the roles of "media" in social movements? what new strategies and tactics are enabled by the rapid circulation of information, globally?

how can the "politics" of technologies be flipped by their "appropriation" (i.e. hardware meant for consumption flipped to transmit independent media by italian telestreet producers: consumption --> production)

how can excluded groups be included? (how can the process and products of "alternative" media democratize technoscience?)

what is lost, and gained, in "translation" of technoscientific information for "non-experts?"

"what cultural insights can be revealed through observing a culture's aesthetic values?" (Hahn, T., 50) (i.e. "DIY" aesthetics / "punk" philosophy and stance re: commodification, "transparent production" aesthetics vs. "slick" or "flashy" presentation / self-deconstructive authority vs. technological sublime & "shock & awe.")

what are the common threads in "progressive" practices, projects, networks? (the media reform movement (i.e. net neutrality) has brought together both "conservative" and "liberal" groups. "alternative" media production uses "alternative" media to inspire hate. is my focus on "progressives" missing a big part of the picture? see "the blog paper" comparing the "enabling" features between left and right wing blogs)

(how does the promise of new ICTs for progressive networking hold up against its commodification and cooptation?) (what are the possibilities and limits of "new" media (Indymedia networks, Web 2.0, blogs, youtube, facebook, etc.) in contrast to (and in combination with) "old" media forms (radio, cable, print, satellite, film, documentary, etc.)?)

how have emergent new media technologies changed the goals and practices of media reform movement/tactical media producers? are struggles over the sociotechnical configurations of "old" media still important, given the proliferation of "free" media on the internet?

(how do/could alternative media and artistic practices link up with environmental justice causes?) || increasingly consolidated, homogenized media ecology (in the U.S., especially since 1994's FCC legislation).

emerging ICTs harbor new potentials and this landscape needs to be looked at critically.

people watch, on average, something like 6 hours of TV a day! what?! the media is an important Ideological State Apparatus (ISA), using Althusser's term, and it's study can tell us about the workings of power and hegemony.

the "digital divide" scholarship needs to be problematized. the material metaphor is often a one-way bridge and I think a shifting rhizomatic network is better to think with.

"globalization" provides the impetus for story telling (environmental destruction, uneven distributions of benefits and burdens) and the tools for telling stories (cheap video cameras, internet access, etc.) || i have skills in shooting and editing video and sound/music/radio/web content production.

I'm fairly good at writing in different genres.

i have read widely and deeply about "alternative" and "progressive" media and have tried to bridge STS and communication/media studies in various ways. Still, I am a bit unsure if I am the "one for the job," compared to LLC type folks. i think a focus on production (as opposed to audience reception) would better utilize my STS background and align with my interests in "participation," creativity, and alternatives to consumption for fulfillment.

i have good contacts in the U.S. and the beginnings of connections in India and Italy. I speak Italian fairly well and a tiny, tiny bit of Hindi. I also speak some spanish and frensh.

I have done trial ethnographies of community-based groups (the Sanctuary, Cap. District Community Gardens)

I have followed a CI listserv for a few months. || i have a deep resentment towards mainstream media, especially TV, especially children watching TV. their poor young minds warped by power in a box!

I also generally pay more attention to possibilities than constraints.

i am perhaps too easily impressed by "artistic" interventions

i am drawn to anarchist-inspired practices, communities, rhetoric.

it is easier for me to see the value of disruption, unsettling, uprising, resistance, difference. harder to see the value of continuity, duration, shared national identity. || media/communication/art studies with focus on community-based production.

community informatics (as "professional field?")

STS (the particular ICTs, networks, information society, globalization...)

anthropology of media, social movements, globalization, development, India, action research.

"media and public culture... transnationalism, globalization and global issues" (Alaska, Social and Cultural Anthropology)

Loyola cultural anthropology position: "a geographic focus in... South Asia... with topical expertise in globalization and local cultures, media and cultural change"

The College of Staten Island, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work: Sociologist with expertise in media/technology. "Responsibilities: teaching introductory courses in Anthropology and Sociology, Social Welfare, Quantitative Methods, developing courses in areas of specialization... a strong interdisciplinary focus... emphasizing intersectionality and social justice..." Is this feasible? If I focus on ethnographic methods? Is sociology/anthropology/STS that blurred yet? Or would disciplinary boundaries make it extremely unlikely? I know I could teach an introductory sociology course, but not quantitative methods.

Lots of anthro. jobs seem to have a preference for south asia right now.

"...the Council of Europe recently commissioned scholar Peter Lewis to study the social impact of community media. The European Parliament also recently commissioned a private research firm to study community media policies across EU member states" ([|article]) || Fullbright

HASS

IAS-STS (Austria) focus on ICTs

Kettering Research Position for Doctoral Candidates (need focus on democratic theory and practice... requires residency in Ohio...)

NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grants ||