In-media

Hey all –

Just a quick response to some of Lisa’s questions –

I believe one of the most interesting features of in-media is the ways it challenges the normal discursive structure of mainstream commercial news and current affairs. Mainstream news is always constructed as being authoritative and completely objective – opinions of ‘experts’, ‘officials’ and celebrities are used to legitimise and objectify events. as cultural studies students we’ve all probably spent countless hours reading and writing about discourse, ideology and power, of Foucault and Co., so we all know how dangerous assumptions about objectivity can be.

In-media on the other hand makes no such claims to objectivity – rather it exposes the subject position of its author, forcing audiences to realize that what they are reading are mediated stories about reality – not reality itself. Audiences are not subject to the same indoctrination as they are in the mainstream media – they are encouraged to critically engage with the content of what they are reading.

Consumers of in-media (and of the new media in general) tend to use the medium in a very different way to the traditional media – instead of relying on one or several major ‘objective and authorities’ news sources, users are encouraged by the very structure of hypertext to jump form link to link – opinion to opinion – they are exposed to a much greater range of voices, all with vastly different agendas. Ideologies of authors and contributors are more obvious and exposed, and are thus easier to critically engage with.

A lack of objectivity in In-media is not something to be scared of. Postmodern and poststructuralist theory has proved time and time again that objectivity is a ghost – discourses of ‘truth’ are mobilised by the powerful to reinforce ideological structures and define discursive boundaries.

Indymedia seems so much more honest when placed next to commercial mainstream media. Its honesty is its greatest appeal for me.

- jon