Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

192 Video Vortex Reader II Moving Images Beyond YoutubeAsia online193common identities and build collective endeavours that create the foundations for strongermovements towards social change.Concerns over the lack of an effective model became one of the main obstacles in translatingexisting local frameworks into a network of movements. Ade Darmawan of ruangrupa, for example,has qualms about the idea of realizing a digitally based network without more groundwork,especially considering how new virtual communication is in comparison with traditionalpatterns of communication. This conclusion clashes with theories which view the internetas the perfect tool for facilitating the formation of a networking structure that supports ahorizontal organizational logic. 32 To argue about whether offline or online development mustcome first would throw us back into the classic dispute concerning eggs and chickens. Wefeel that different technological applications need not be framed as substitutions for preexistingrelationships; more often than not, online and offline modes can complement each other.It is interesting to compare the above projects to the Indymedia experiments, 33 which havebeen emblematic of the effective configuration of a wide-reaching social-justice network, usingdigital technology that complements and contributes to a movement’s work as a whole.The Indymedia experiences of networking at a global level have demonstrated digital repertoirescharacterized by participatory principles, independent infrastructures, open-contentand resource sharing, which have radically contributed to the strengthening of movementson the ground. How can we learn from the successes and failures of these previous attempts,and create future iterations of effective networking in Indonesia and beyond?logic of networking discussed above. Neither one single approach to the internet, nor thecreation of a single network, will improve the distribution and effectiveness of activist video inIndonesia. As the groups described in this research continue their important work of usingvideo as means of addressing social justice, human rights, cultural and environmental issues,online distribution of such video will undoubtedly be part of their future. The last 10 yearshave shown that adjusting to internet-distribution models, for politicians, commerce, creativeindustries and mainstream media, among others, is absolutely necessary to establish andmaintain a global and local presence. We believe the same to be true for activists.Networks are needed to enable people to come together to overcome many of the obstaclesdiscussed above, as well as functioning as a strategic end in themselves. The networkingframework can allow for diverse modes of distribution, that effectively respond to burgeoningforms of media convergence and the different capacities of participating groups and individuals.Networks should encourage the sharing of knowledge and skills and the pooling ofresources, in order to enhance the effectiveness of political formations and to apply politicalpressure to achieve improved social or environmental conditions. In that sense, networksare both the outcome of improved communications and political effectiveness, and also thenecessary basis for them.A network of video-makers could enable the creation of a locally managed activist videosharing space, which might prove more responsive to local needs than the variety of internationaloptions and commercially oriented spaces. These possibilities will be explored asthe experiences and insights of those experimenting with online spaces and their networkingpotential grow. We anticipate that the future of video activism will involve a strategic andtactical approach to online video distribution, as a way for video activists to move toward the32. See for example Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1996;and Jeffrey S. Juris, ‘Networked Social Movements: Global Movements for Global Justice’.33. Jeffrey S. Juris, ’The New Digital Media and Activist Networking within Anti-CorporateGlobalization Movements’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science597 (2005): 189–208. See also Victor W. Pickard, ‘United yet Autonomous: Indymedia and TheStruggle to Sustain a Radical Democratic Network’, Media Culture Society 28 (2006): 251.