Dedication to horizontalism is real…and it needs to taken seriously

To say that mainstream media has been perplexed by how to report on the Occupy Wall Street Movement methods is an understatement, especially if you haven’t seen it in person. The AlterNet article from Sarah Seltzer, “Blatantly Biased Tabloids and Clueless Mainstream Media Keep Missing the Obvious Big Story at OWS”, is a telling chronicle of the divergence of participating in media and reporting it.

This excerpt is revealing “how quickly the Internet has allowed the horizontal, leaderless, goal-less ethos of the movement to catch on, so that first-timers marching to Times Square or Foley Square were already using the human mic (they’d seen it on YouTube) and carrying signs that said “The Movement is the Message.” Newcomers at GAs are embracing hand-signals. If all these people can understand and accept the direct democratic ideals of the movement, surely the media can.

The parallel to Marshall McLuhan’s “The Medium is the Message” is striking. What also is striking is that this model has worked to energize a movement in ways that vertical reporting and information dissemination has long yielded diminished activist mobilization. This is a worthwhile look: www.alternet.org/story/153001/blatantly_biased_tabloids_and_clueless_mainstream_media_keep_missing_the_obvious_big_story_at_ows/?page=3

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