Sociology of the Anarchists - Gozips.uakron.edu - The University of ...

Since many anarchists were engaged in the construction of the early IMCs and later the
Global IMC Network, it is also entirely predictable that its structure would contain many
anarchist values. I will try to briefly detail these values now.
Table 11. Anarchistic Values of Local IMCs and Global IMC Network
Local IMCs Global IMC Network
● Autonomy: Collectives each have their own
principles of unity, missions, policies
● Consensus: Decisions are made in a cooperative
and non-hierarchical fashion
● Direct action: Instead of asking the existing
media to reform itself, IMCs do-it-themselves.
Utilize and publicize direct action as a method
for social/political change
● Freedom: Open-publishing newswires allow for
personal expression and individual
empowerment to tell one's own story
● Solidarity: Integrated into local activist
communities; they are involved, yet fair and
honest
● TAZs: Editorial policies of local collectives keep
freedom on newswire, insofar as
racist/sexist/homophobic/classist/anti-
Semitic/etc. speech does not appear—definitely
a pro-active, anti-authoritarian practice of
keeping a “safe space” for activist news [quote
from the Rogue IMC's editorial policy?]
● Transparency: Users have the ability to
comment on newswire posts, which encourages
active dialogue, debate, discussion, information
sharing (information is free; challenge/criticism
is accepted)
● Voluntary association: IMC volunteers network
themselves amongst existing alternative media—
not as a centralized power, but as a conduit for
collaboration, resource sharing, cross-pollination
of mediums, etc.
● Anti-authoritarian: Software used is open source
code that is transparent, and open to both
criticism and improvement; no one controls the
code
● Autonomy: All work for the Network is done in
independent committees/working groups (via
open-to-the-public listserves)
● Cooperation: Software encourages collaboration
between developers and users
● Decentralization and federation: the Network is
a collection of dozens of independent, local
collectives
● Mutual aid: Share resources, such as tech skills:
website set-up, web-hosting
● Solidarity: Network volunteers practice strong
multi-lingual solidarity, bringing new IMCs
through beginning (“New IMC”) process
● Voluntary association: Working groups must
sync their decisions together—via consensus—in
order to make global decisions
As further evidence of the Network's anarchist sympathies, witness the “New-Imc”
working group's description of the theory and practice of the Network:
NETWORK OVERVIEW - THEORY AND PRACTICE
The strength of the IMC as a concept comes directly from
its organizational structure; namely, a decentralized
network of autonomous collectives whose shared resources
allow for the creation of a social and digital infrastructure
that is independent of state and market forces. It is our
intention as a media movement to build out this structure so
[ Williams 83 ] [ this is a draft. do not cite. ]