[Imc-communication] Research about Imc

[ionnek]

Hi all,

I don´t know if you feel the same - but here in the UK, I am under the 
impression that imc has become a very en vogue research topic. We are 
approached by teams from Universities, PhD-researchers, critical 
publicists, MA or BA students. Some inform us about their research 
design, research questions etc, most don`t. Many want us to fill in 
questionnaires, one research team from nijmegen bluntly put their 
questionnaire on the newswire, another one from Wales wants us to link 
to their questionnaire from a feature (!). Many are also asking for 
interviews with individuals.

I would be very interested to hear how other collectives deal with this 
academic interest in indymedia. Because I do believe we could get a lot 
out of academic research, project that gather, systemise and interpret - 
but on the other hand, it can be a nuisance, disappointing, annoying and 
even dangerous. It is a fine line between a fair relationship between 
researcher and researched on one hand, and an exploitative relationship 
on the other.

How do you make decisions about how to participate or not to participate?

I can think about some formal responses to researchers:

- be our guest in studying the newswires, middlecolumns, publicly 
archived email lists and the twiki (not sure if i`d even mention the 
latter - if they are seriously interested, they will find it).

- we consider it appropriate that publications about indymedia are 
published under a creative commons licence and made accessible on the web.

- If you use indymedia as a research topic, we expect you to provide a 
link to your work on 
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/ImcEssayCollection

I am also tempted to collect some guidelines:

- if you wish a more intensive collaboration with your research object, 
please send a description of your research design, methodology and 
research questions, including planned proceedings with the results. More 
intensive collaboration includes for example: interviews with indymedia 
volunteers (per email, on the phone, f2f, chatrooms), participating in 
meetings (f2f, irc), extensive lurking on lists, participant observation 
online and offline, using imc resources to find more guinea pigs for 
questionnaires etc.

- Indymedia is a network of volunteers dedicated to social change. Our 
core interest is to run the indymedia websites and promote the indymedia 
network online and offline. Therefore we only participate in selected 
research projects. Our decision depends on several factors: Is the 
research likely to create debates and results that are interesting for 
us as a collective or a collective? Does the researcher make his/her 
motivation, methodology, theoretical framework transparent? Will results 
and theories be discussed with indymedia, before publication? Openness 
for collaborative research models? And finally - does anyone feel like 
spending time on this project right now?

- etc etc

best
ionnek