M For Media Malarkey — SchNEWS Alternative Media Gathering 2007

M For Media Malarkey — the SchNEWS Alter­na­tive Media Gath­er­ing 2007

May 11–13th 2007: Cow­ley Club, 12 Lon­don Rd, Brighton, BN1 4JA

You are invit­ed to SchNEWS’ first mul­ti-media-activist gath­er­ing. As well as a com­ing togeth­er of those already involved in web, video, print, pho­tog­ra­phy, and radio in alternative/independent media – as well as activists who use this media — this event will also be for new peo­ple want­i­ng to get involved. Start­ing on Fri­day evening and going through to Sun­day evening, there will be a range of dis­cus­sions, hands-on prac­ti­cal work­shops in the var­i­ous media, as well as stalls and screen­ings through­out the week­end to show­case what’s cur­rent­ly being pro­duced.

M For Media Malarkey — the SchNEWS Alter­na­tive Media Gath­er­ing 2007

May 11–13th 2007: Cow­ley Club, 12 Lon­don Rd, Brighton, BN1 4JA

You are invit­ed to SchNEWS’ first mul­ti-media-activist gath­er­ing. As well as a com­ing togeth­er of those already involved in web, video, print, pho­tog­ra­phy, and radio in alternative/independent media – as well as activists who use this media — this event will also be for new peo­ple want­i­ng to get involved. Start­ing on Fri­day evening and going through to Sun­day evening, there will be a range of dis­cus­sions, hands-on prac­ti­cal work­shops in the var­i­ous media, as well as stalls and screen­ings through­out the week­end to show­case what’s cur­rent­ly being pro­duced.

After dis­cus­sions amongst SchNEWS, as well as oth­ers’ imput, about what aspects of inde­pen­dent media should be high­light­ed dur­ing the gath­er­ing, sev­er­al key points have emerged:

* Pro­mot­ing cam­paigns and mobil­is­ing com­mu­ni­ties: eval­u­at­ing and improv­ing the way inde­pen­dent media helps the cam­paigns and actions it cov­ers, as well as how cam­paigns use var­i­ous media them­selves – with speak­ers from cam­paigns talk­ing about their expe­ri­ences, and those work­ing in alter­na­tive media.

* Improv­ing Skills: Acknowl­edg­ing that many peo­ple in alter­na­tive media come from ‘activist’ back­grounds, and are often get­ting by with very lit­tle ‘train­ing’. For video activists it may be about the bat­tles with tech­nol­o­gy to pro­duce and dis­trib­ute video, for writ­ers it may mean they have lim­it­ed research or ‘jour­nal­is­tic’ skills, and those cre­at­ing leaflets/flyers/publications would often ben­e­fit with more knowl­edge about design etc. There will be work­shops and dis­cus­sions to help improve skills in these and oth­er rel­e­vant areas.

The gath­er­ing will accom­mo­date for the fact that while both these top­ics, and many oth­ers, are com­mon to all media, and many peo­ple work in sev­er­al media — there is also areas spe­cif­ic to each — so there­fore some of the key ses­sions will start with the whole group togeth­er, then split off into the var­i­ous types to dis­cuss aspects in more detail.

As well as this there will be talks from those involved in Pirate Radio, mobile Indy­media set-ups for such events as the G8 protest in Scot­land, and more to be con­firmed.

While some speak­ers are con­firmed, if you have rel­e­vant expe­ri­ence in these areas and would like to be involved, please con­tact SchNEWS now.

Like­wise if you want to come along, and need accom­mo­da­tion, con­tact SchNEWS — we need to know num­bers as soon as, so please give us fair notice.

The event will be free/donation, and veg­an food will be avail­able dur­ing the week­end in the Cow­ley Club.

email schnews@brighton.co.uk tel 01273 685 913
Keep check­ing www.schnews.org.uk for updates.