Project Overview: MakingHistory is an initiative within the Open Media Network (#OMN) aimed at preserving and archiving digital content shared across the network. It operates on the same principles and workflow as the renowned Indymedia project but utilizes a different template to organize and categorize content. The primary objective of MakingHistory is to ensure that…
Why fund the reboot of the indymedia project
In the midst of this upheaval, the #Indymedia project emerged as a beacon of hope—a grassroots effort to reclaim the narrative and provide a platform for voices marginalized by mainstream media. Indymedia embodied the principles of the #openweb, empowering people and communities to share stories, amplify unheard voices, and challenge dominant narratives. The Indymedia Legacy…
What people need to outreach the #OGB
The Open Governance Body (#OGB) represents a beacon of hope in the ever-evolving digital world, where governance often lags behind technological advancements and social changes. In a landscape cluttered with flawed systems and ineffective mainstream politics, the OGB offers an innovative and participatory approach to governance—a blueprint for the future of human-scale decision-making. Traditional governance…
Rebooting Indymedia: Restoring the OpenWeb and Grassroots Technology
Hamish Campbell, looking at the past and future of “native” grassroots media. In the last three decades, the digital landscape has undergone dramatic changes. I have witnessed its evolution firsthand, working in radical media and engaging with grassroots technology. But this journey hasn’t been without its challenges and setbacks. The Dawn of the OpenWeb The…
The Open Governance Body: Revolutionizing Governance with Grassroots Tech
In our ever-evolving digital world, governance is often left behind, struggling to catch up with the pace of technology and social change. Among the myriad of attempts to tackle this problem, there’s one that stands out for its innovative and participatory approach: the Open Governance Body (#OGB). This grassroots, federated project is more than just…
Politics, paper, print: reflections on the book history of the Mao era
For historians of the book, the case of modern China offers much to challenge and embellish prevailing narratives of the field. The Mao era was a particularly extraordinary period, when one of the world’s most populous and powerful states turned its attention to the dissemination of print on an unprecedented scale. In this talk, Dr…
‘The Arkenstone and the Ring: wilful objects in Tolkien’s The Hobbit’
A series of seminars to commemorate the death of J. R. R. Tolkien, to be held in 2023/2024 in the University of Oxford. The talks present an introduction and further background to Tolkien’s life, work, and legacy. They have an academic approach, but they are also aimed at those who have read Tolkien’s work but…
A cobra effect in a greening world: can Earth scientists find the antivenin?
The planned energy transition signed by world’s nations in the Paris agreement sets the target to phase out fossil fuels by mid-century. This “green reset” requires a build-up of fossil fuel-free energy capacities (in production, end-use, and storage) which will entail on an unprecedented demand in mineral resources. While the Earth crust hosts such resource…
The mess we make without blind behavior
We have to focus for activism. How to change them and how to make us better at changing them, both are valid and needed for any real change to happen. Most visible activism is the tension between fluffy and spiky, this debate is what pushes affective progressive change and challenge, dogmas of either side of…
Panel discussion: ‘Post-COP28 debrief: Does the agreement go far enough?’
COP28 closed with an agreement, that for the first time in three decades, includes oil and gas. But what does the agreement mean in real terms? And is keeping the global temperature limit of 1.5°C within reach. Join us as our panel of academics share their thoughts after attending COP28 and look forward to what…
If you do not change your behaviour: preventive repression in Lithuania under Soviet rule
Who is targeted by preventive repression and why? In the Soviet Union, the KGB applied a form of low-intensity preventive policing called prophylactic. Citizens found to be engaging in politically and socially disruptive misdemeanors were invited to discuss their behaviour and to receive a warning. Using novel data from Soviet-occupied Lithuania in the late 1950s…
Who is the change and challenge we need?
#Deathcult dilemma, over the past 40 years, #mainstreaming society has been driven by a choice between the “nice” and “nasty” facets of a #deathcult, with fear often pushing people towards the latter. This has led to catastrophic consequences, over the next ten years millions of deaths and billions of people displaced. With our society’s focus…