Our current groups doing alt/grassroots media are too limited in there idea of what media could/should be in this the is either a naivety or a dishonesty . The most successful act and think they can be “big media” with out controlling the distribution of there content in any meaningful way. This is of course not unusual, the mainstream media is continually making this same mistake. All of them rely on the the #dotcons which nowadays is largely the Facebook algorithm for the there content distribution.
Our current grassroots/alt media have web sites so already have one foot in the openweb, but non of their sites prominently link in any meaningful way to each other. They do podcasts so anther foot in the open web, but all their effort for outreach is inside the #silos such as Apple itunes etc. it’s hard to directly blame them, though we should and will, for this sorry state.
So why are we here? On the one hand we have the #fashernista embrace of the #dotcons which almost all the current crew built there careers inside. A capitalist main-streaming.
On the other we have the suicidal embrace of #encryptionists complexity and parallel “standardisation” into a pointless/shrinking to nothingness alt-tech ghetto were our alt-geeks are and desire to stay. A liberal/libertarian main-streaming.
With these issues in mind I have been outreaching to these groups for the last year, and building real working openweb linking tech as part of the #OMN project. This currently is not been getting past the crews naivety/self interest/career focused thinking. Fair anufe if that is as far as there imagination/aspiration goes, but this is a clear problem for working alt/progressive/left media that urgently needs to be addressed.
So our current alt/grassroots media are irrelevant to rebooting a healthy society from a technical/social point of view. The is some good content but no realistic path for this media to be seen or spread in a way that can be affective for social change.
One simple and practical path to change this is a basic. To move on with alt/grassroots media producers linking to each other on the #openweb Currently they pointlessly do not do this, even though they have repeatedly stated they do over the last few years.
What action have I been taking over the last 10 years:
1) Keep private messaging them on steps they can take, this works to an extent, as last year I asked them to add more tags to their posts and they “broke” the User Interface on the #OMN software we are using by adding lots more – which is a good problem to have. A small step.
2) Publicly talk to them as a alt/grassroots media group in blog post and their social media – this currently has little affect.
3) Talk to them in public as producer groups – this has had a limited affect with some of the groups, will try this more.
4) Public talk to them as individual’s, this will generally get a private response and little/no action just words so far.
5) Name and shame them as groups who do not link/share with other groups in public, this might be needed for some of the groups, but this is a negative.
6) Name them as individuals within the producer groups and push for linking directly to them in public, name and point to the individual that this is a clear negative #fail a last stage.
Its a shame that this escalation is needed/not working – linking is a clear path to success on the web – the right-wing blogs/producers do this, its a simple #fail that the left/progressive do not now and generally never have link to each other.
“Make the world you wont to see” LINKING is the bases of the #openweb and a strong path to #rebooting the grassroots internet itself. Looking for helpful/happy people to crowed source the active conversation to make this happen, maybe we need a “new” alt-media content #reboot to pull the current ones onto a sustainable path, lead by example.
For this to be relevant we need working open media tech, the best example of this is mastodon/activertypub. The #OMN project uses this and is simple #4opens based on linking, its a “first step”.
