Where trade unionists start their day on the net.
by Eric Lee
It's 2001 already -- and the movies are more than a century old. We've had movies with sound since the late 1920s, and colour films since just before the Second World War. If someone were to make a movie today in black and white, without sound, it would be rather odd, no?
Yet that is precisely what most unions and left organisations are doing with their websites. (I'm speaking about those that have websites -- I won't even discuss the others.)
Our websites are often colourless -- and always silent. Indeed, they are often simply electronic versions of printed brochures and other publications.
One of the essential differences between a website and a newspaper has been somehow been missed.
In the last couple of weeks I've come across two strikingly different examples of the way trade unions can use Internet-based video.
The first came in South Korea, where teams of workers trained to use video equipment have been documenting their struggles for some time now. Much of the material they produce is digitised and broadcast through the unions' own web pages. In fact, several Korean unions have daily video broadcasts on their sites.
The other example came from the USA. In the wake of the terrorist attack on 11 September, the leader of one of the unions involved, whose members built and maintained the Boeing jets that were turned into deadly weapons that day, delivered an unforgettable and emotional reaction. Watching him speak, hearing the intonations of his voice, conveyed exactly how he felt in ways that were unimaginable in plain text.
Looking at American and Korean trade union websites, we can see how Internet video broadcasting has become utterly ordinary. But in Britain, we lag far behind -- in fact, I think there's not even one example of a national union here which actively uses web-based video or audio.
And why not? It's not an expensive technology. Done right, it can even be done for free. With web cameras now costing less than £30 and the software needed to create broadcasts available free of charge, what's holding unions back?
The answer is, as usual, conservatism. This is not the way we've done things in the past, so this is not the way we are going to do things now.
So here we are, in the year 2001, and unions and the left are still producing silent films.
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Sidebar: Some useful links
Real Player - the software you need to view most Internet videos (make sure to click on the well-hidden link to Real Player 8 Basic, which is the free version): http://www.real.com/player/index.html
Real Producer - if you have a microphone, a web camera and a sound card in your computer, all you need is this software to make streaming web videos (make sure to select the free software, RealSystem Producer Basic): http://www.realnetworks.com/products/producer/index.html
Streaming Media 101 - an introduction to the subject, from CNet: http://builder.cnet.com/webbuilding/pages/Graphics/StreamingMedia/
Free Speech Internet TV - a terrific resource for the Left, and a free place to host your online movies: http://www.freespeech.org