Videazimut: An International Coalition for Media Democracy
While most people in the United States were celebrating the 4th of July last year, some of us gathered for three exhilarating days on the other side of the Americas to discuss and organize for global democratic communication.
Videazimut, an international coalition of community and public media activists, convened its fifth seminar and first general assembly of its membership at the Instituto Cajamar, near Sao Paulo, Brazil. 120 representatives from around the world - including community television, community development organizations, independent producers and communication analysts came to talk about the future of alternative media and build solidarity for global community media issues. The theme for the assembly was Media for Citizenship in the Electronic Age: Community Television and New Technologies.
Why did I fly all the way to Brazil from New York City? The reasons were both personal and organizational. From the point of view of a displaced Korean woman in the US, I wanted to reaffirm my cultural and political identity as a community activist with a global vision. Bombarded by the corporate takeover of culture and frantic promotion of fragmentation, I had "blues all over my brain," and couldn't figure out who I was and what I would have to do in this increasingly apparent new world order. I was noticing more and more how people I knew were feeling a loss of identity, a loss of control in their lives, a lack of connection with their neighbors and society, and an unsettling discord between real life experiences and the fictitious images which assault us continuously. I needed a healing process while joining with colleagues to share these concerns.
As a supervisor at Downtown Community TV Center, I also thought it was about time to find a way to link local and global communities. Located in New York's Chinatown, DCTV's constituencies include diverse immigrants, youth, gays and lesbians, activists and many others. These communities come together based on geographic location, ethnic or racial cultures, peer and interest groups, regional associations, sexual preferences, and linguistic or religious affiliations. Yet with the rapidly changing media map, individuals and communities both are at risk of losing power to shape their own spaces and destinies.
I've realized that a media center by itself cannot figure out and deal with the often overwhelming issues of financing, programming and advocacy. Without a larger vision and sustained effort towards building common ground and fighting in the local and global arenas, we will simply be marginalized further than we are now. From my perspective, our concept of community needs to be imagined and formulated anew by a process of recomposing and redefining our local boundaries within a global context.
While I had known of Videazimut for several years, I couldn't be an active participant because, until recently, its membership was closed. When the coalition was founded in 1990, the organizers decided it should grow slowly in order to give themselves time to learn how to work across language, geographic and cultural distances, while defining their goals, priorities and methods of working. By 1994 however, interest was so strong that the group opened its doors, and there are now members from about 40 countries. The gathering in Brazil gave me an opportunity to become involved and find out more about Videazimut's history and activities.
After an international symposium in Montreal in 1990 on alternative communication and democratic uses of video and television, Videazimut was founded by Alain Ambrosi (Canada), Regina Festa (Brazil), Antonio Onorati (Italy), Felisberto Tinga (Mozambique), Derek Hall (Hong Kong), Rafael Roncagliolo (Peru), Mokonenyana Molete (South Africa), and Rajive Jain (India). According to their mission statement, the coalition formed from the increasing need to develop and promote "exchanges among alternative organizations involved in electronic media around the world and to examine present strategies critically in light of the rapid globalization of communications systems at all levels."
Although Videazimut is a young organization, it has accomplished an incredible amount of work. They have held several international symposia on democratic communication, published books related to the changes in the field of global communications, sponsored the Communication for Development in Latin America (CODAL) training project in collaboration with Latin American partners, raised communication policy and legislative issues on both international and national levels, published their newsletter CLIPS, and disseminated information about and provided support links for repression of all kinds. Funding has come primarily from Canadian International Development Agency and a few other European and American sources.
Since the founding members are now confident about the possibilities for an internationally organized media coalition, and the membership has opened up, I was able to join with other first-timers in Cajamar. Throughout the seminar and assembly, the idea of democratic communication was implemented. There was no hierarchy, no disrespect, no distinctions between old and new members. We all involved ourselves actively and sincerely in making the history of global community media. The Instituto Cajamar is a workers' education center far from downtown Sao Paulo, and our relative isolation from the city gave seminar participants a chance to spend most of our evenings chatting informally at the bar. In a short time we made invaluable contacts with people from all different places across gender, borderlines and cultural differences. I was able to discuss issues with colleagues from Palestine, South Africa, Cuba, Thailand, Brazil, India - you name it. We were like old-time acquaintances.
During the seminar, participants presented and explained their work. We discussed citizenship in the electronic age, and screened each other's media works. Though the status of new technologies and legislative/policy issues differed from region to region, a consensus emerged that this issue was no longer limited to any one geographic area.
After the seminar, members of the first general assembly of Videazimut met. It reaffirmed the basic priorities of the coalition and added several new ones: developing regional strategies, increasing circulation of information among members, establishing an emergency action solidarity network to support members experiencing repressive measures, and developing/deepening alliances with other international organizations working for democratic communication. We also identified as a top priority to promote the active and equitable participation of women in the organization.
In terms of action plans, we all left Brazil with homework: some participants will work on the Videazimut website, some on recruiting more women, some on fundraising, and others on distribution, production planning and expanding membership. And still others are continuing to address legislative and policy issues.
Fred Campbell from Ryakuga, a grassroots media center in Canada commented in a recent CLIPS that "working in grassroots communications in these times of the ascendency of right-wing values and agendas is, at times, frustrating and exhausting. One needs to know that that we can make human contact that is reaffirming and supportive. That, for me, may be the most important aspect of Videazimut and the Cajamar seminar."
Though we are back in our own communities, members have all stayed connected through e-mail and phone as we'd planned. Every day I eagerly open mail from other Videazimut members and find stories of activism, reports, requests for information, solidarity messages, calls for tapes, or just hellos and news from all over the world.
One of the most important tasks facing Videazimut will be to coordinate a transnational networking space across multiple layers of communities. The coalition wants to ensure that space for participatory communication is guaranteed and that the new technologies will be used to serve the lives and rights of workers, women, minorities, youths and all disadvantaged peoples wherever we are. What local, national and global media will serve the interests of the world's various populations? How can technologies best address our needs as human beings and active social agents? Which social values should be built into the changing communication system?
Through the emerging transformations we are witnessing in the fundamental ways we communicate, new possibilities are clearly opening up to rethink and reimagine our networks and solidarities across borders. We no longer have to believe we are alone with the issues we face locally.
If you are interested in being a part of this regional and international democratic media alliance, please join Videazimut. Lavinia Mohr, Videazimut's general secretariat, can be reached at: 3680, Rue Jeanne-Mance, bureau 430, Montreal, Quebec H2X 2K5 Canada. Telephone: (514)982-6660, Fax:(514) 982-6122 E-mail: videaz@web.net.
Hye-Jung Park is a curator, media activist and was the director of programs at Downtown Community TV Center in New York. She is now project director at Youth TV.
© 1997 National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture. All Rights Reserved.
