Grassroots autonomous media practices: a diversity of tactics

Abstract

A participatory action research study of anti-authoritarian activist media practices in Quebec, Canada was carried out by the Collectif de Recherche sur l'Autonomie Collective. Analysing interviews from 117 participants in nine activist groups and networks, we have found that grassroots anti-authoritarian and anarchist activists engage in a diversity of media tactics, choosing tools consistent with their desired goals and audiences. These goals can be grouped into four categories: developing affinity, creating social movement spaces, mass mobilizations and global solidarity. These communicative tactics in the activist ‘repertoire of communication’ are informed by several important commitments to alternative content and processes, including collective self-representation, prefigurative politics and accessibility. We conclude that grassroots autonomous activists sometimes limit the reach of their media to create safer spaces, or to deepen and extend their political analysis, and they sometimes produce media for wider audiences, for local mass mobilizations or to develop global relationships of solidarity. This deepens our understanding of the specific diversity of tactics developed by grassroots autonomous media activists in their repertories of communicative action, challenging received notions that anarchist or anti-authoritarian media only ever reach a limited audience.

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number 410-2010-2257].

Notes on contributors

Sandra Jeppesen is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.

Anna Kruzynski is Assistant Professor in the School of Community and Public Affairs at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

Aaron Lakoff is a media activist in Montreal, Canada.

Rachel Sarrasin is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at Universitéde Montréal, Canada.

Notes

1. All quotes from participants are anonymized. Names have been changed, although activist group and network names are given for context. Some quotes have been translated from French to English by the authors

2. According to Principle 6 from the Indymedia or the IndyMedia Centre Principles of Unity: ‘All IMC's [IndyMedia Centre Principles] recognize the importance of process to social change and are committed to the development of non-hierarchical and anti-authoritarian relationships, from interpersonal relationships to group dynamics’ (Indymedia n.d.). Principle 1 states that they are based on the ‘self-organization of autonomous collectives’ (Indymedia n.d.), an anti-authoritarian organizational form.

3. We shift between academic and activist discourses. Activists would use the term ‘workshop’ but academics might call it a ‘focus group’. The difference in terminology also encodes a different view of power relations within the group discussion. A focus group implies that participants are discussing the questions while researchers take notes, whereas a workshop implies a participatory non-hierarchical discussion. We use the term ‘workshop’ from here onward.

Additional information

Funding

Funding: This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number 410-2010-2257].