I’d like to mention something that is going on at the moment and which I’m contributing to with a number of bloggers, academics and activists. It’s called Budgetjam, an attempt to disrupt the debate lead by the rightwing around the economy and to provide a resource for people opposing the bankrupting of Ireland.
First of all, for what is happening on it now, check out the Myth Watching liveblog.
What is Budjetjam?
Hosted on politico.ie, Budjetjam is a media intervention aimed at challenging the myths and – shakey – consensus on which the current downsizing of society in Ireland is based.
Over the course of the next week it aims to provide a focus for myth-busting, alternative analysis, intensive intervention in media debates, and for organising actions and resistance on budget day and beyond.
What will it involve?
Over the last weeks a loose network of activists, bloggers, media workers, academics and many others have worked to organise an intensive media intervention in the run up to the neoliberal crib sheet formally known as the budget. The portal is hosted on politico.ie, where you can access:
- ‘key myth’ sections, targeting many of the ideological assumptions propagating ideas that ‘there is no alternative’ and that ‘we are all in this together;’
- Key analyses that offer information, data, analysis and critical perspectives on current events;
- A daily live blog that will coordinate media monitoring and responses
- the contribution of content from a wide variety of bloggers, networks, activists and commentators
- News on protest and resistance events
- A twitter feed: #budgetjam
What can we do with this?
The impact of this intervention depends on sustaining its intensity and its diversity of content, forms and opinions. Other than being coordinated by Politico with a live blog editor at any one time, the portal is open for:
- pooling content and responses;
- providing and linking in useful analyses and background information that can inform people;
- taking part in the ‘media monitoring’, directing people to the site to use the resources in emailing, calling, twittering the media coverage as the week goes on;
- linking, commenting on (even translating) global coverage and perspectives on the crisis;
- Internationalising the crisis, with a special emphasis on how Portugal and Spain are being drawn into the ‘contagion’;
- Multi-media content, photos, videos, interviews, flagging events.
And of course, we want to engage people in a wide variety of ways, with writing that is clear and incisive but that can be humorous, satirical and provocative, and with media content that manages to stop us in our tracks midst the incessant informational flow that surrounds these issues.
So let’s go for it. Jam as much of the usual lazy thinking as possible, make them work hard for their TINA world views, draw out ideas, perspectives and possibilities that are collectively so important right now, and work towards making budget day an event that sends out very wrong messages indeed.
If you would like to contribute email budgetjam here budgetjam@gmail.com
Latest posts by Donagh (see all)
- The policy of transferring incomes to capital and the rich - September 6, 2012
- ILR Will Not Blink While Facing Down the Jaws of Excessive CPU Usage - September 6, 2012
- Dan Froomkin | The Jobs Crisis Obama, Romney and the Low-Wage Future of America - August 29, 2012
- Money as a Social Construct – Talk Given by Mary Mellor - August 27, 2012
- - August 23, 2012
December 1, 2010 7:51 pm
Dear friends,
Would you be good enough to include my name in your e-mailing list ?
Thank you very much in advance.
Yours sincerely,
Prof. V., G. Venturini,
RMB 4829 a
HAZELWOOD NORTH 3840, Australia