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R*E*P*E*A*T and the new media revolution
July 7th 2005: A series of terrorist explosions strike
London with brutal force. Immediately, a sense of gruesome fascination
draws many towards the cathode ray tube, and within hours of this defining
moment in British history, sketchy eyewitness footage has staged a hostile
takeover of the TV newsflashes. Darkness. Smoke. Noise. Panic. Confusion.
These images, shot as they happened by unfortunate amateurs with hi-tech
mobile phones, provided the most honest, empathetic and memorable documentation
of a day most Britons would prefer to forget.
Yet whilst irrefutably dramatic, these videos were simply
another manifestation of the upsurging development of citizen journalism.
The omnipresence of inexpensive, user-friendly technology in the form
of digital recording equipment, desktop publishing software, and the
internet permits the masses to document the first draft of history as
they go about their hectic everyday lives.
Weblogs, (or merely 'blogs', in the common terminology) for example,
are an increasingly noteworthy internet phenomenon. Sites such as MySpace.com
and LiveJournal.com (with 38 million and 9 million subscribers respectively)
allow anyone to share their thoughts and opinions worldwide, free of
charge, in an open-access diary. Comment and criticism from other users
is actively encouraged. In the post-September 11th world, political
blogs have emerged as a space in which to express polemics from all
points of the spectrum. There exists a myriad of blogs espousing views
which range comprehensively between the extremes of right and left.
High profile parliamentarians such as Conservative jester Boris Johnson
operate their own personal blogs as a means of interaction with their
constituents.
Richard Rose, a Cambridge schoolteacher, is a citizen media pioneer.
As editor of R*E*P*E*A*T fanzine, he has spent the past decade preaching
the three Rs: Rock, Roll, and Revolution. The publication started out
as a primitive photocopied periodical, stealing its ethos from Canadian
media analyst Marshall McLuhan, who once commented that "Xerox
make everyone a publisher". However, its attitude to technological
progress is far from Luddite. Its website, a self-proclaimed "mess
of zeroes and ones", attracts 120,000 visitors each year, and will
soon host a digital record label.
A rapidly growing audience subscribes to R*E*P*E*A*T's inimitable brand
of musical, cultural and political propaganda, and its impact has proved
to be astounding. Cambridgeshire bands have received attention and acclaim
from the national press as a result of coverage in R*E*P*E*A*T, and
the Home Counties youths have embraced the socialist, anti-racist and
anti-war ethic of the publication. Mr. Rose (or Rosey, as he is known
to his fanatical militia) safeguards independence above all things.
The closest he has ever been to jeopardising his editorial autonomy
was when he accepted a set of guitar strings in return for an advertisement.
Surely most would agree that such an incident is hardly the stuff of
tabloid scandal, but still he is defensive. "I want to be able
to say exactly what I want, and not to worry about who this offends"
he explains. "This can be so hard to do once you get sponsors and
advertisers." His editorial duties, however, are minimal, because
R*E*P*E*A*T contributors are themselves permitted a sizeable margin
of liberty. Submissions are seldom rejected. Rosey claims that the only
articles which could possibly offend his sense of taste and decency
would be those which lauded the British National Party or Coldplay.
He concedes to pedantry only by correcting spelling and grammar. "I
am a teacher, after all", he apologises.
The cynic will observe that, whilst the public are indeed increasingly
influential in directing the content of the media, the channels of distribution
remain in the hands of the same rigid, impassive oligarchs. Let us not
forget that the July 7th videos were broadcast by the BBC and ITV, and
more significantly, MySpace has recently capitulated to a $629 million
takeover by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, leaving its powerless
subscribers whispering discontentedly about their fears of censorship.
The genuinely self-sufficient enterprises such as R*E*P*E*A*T are naught
but feeble minorities.
Yet so long as the medium does not mediate to excess, and so long as
the message is not lost in transmission, citizen journalists can benefit
parasitically, exploiting the might of their hosts to persuade inform,
and influence. The citizen journalist may even make the lucrative transition
to a career in the professional media. At least one former R*E*P*E*A*T
contributor has broken into the mainstream media establishment, producing
content for BBC Radio One, and Oliver Kamm, one of most renowned political
bloggers, has also turned his pastime into a profession by writing regular
column for The Times.
Having considered these developments, we can begin writing the constitution
of the new citizen media: "We, the people of all states, united
in a global community by the progress of technology, do hereby proclaim
the existence of a new democratic media, with access and representation
for all". Us, citizens, journalists one and all, may add our own
clauses and amendments, until a new shared public media is comprehensively
established.
Benjamin Short
This piece was originally written for the Financial
Times
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