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                 **  Weekly report on LaborMedia 97  **
                             **  Issue No.1  **
- published by LaborMedia 97 oraganizing committee in Seoul, Korea -
                                       written by MJ Kim and JY Lee
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* Those who don't receive this newsletter. Please send the message. *


Thanks for your showing interest in LaborMedia'97 in Seoul !

When we started organizing a conference,  we didn't know how to  manage it well. But by  degrees, we  have come to  learn what  and how to  prepare it thanks to your help.

We really hope  that the  conference will  be a  lively time  enough to share information on the challenges caused by changing technologies and how to use the old and new communication tool  for labour movement and strengthen  our solidarity on the international level.

In order to make it possible, we will publish a weekly report on the upcoming LaborMedia'97, and distribute any people and  organization worldwide who are interested in that. It will include a process of preparing for the conference, the information on workshops,  sessions and  labor video and  film festival  which have been prepared, and the issues brought up by  all the possible participants and those who are interested in these activities.

Firstly, we are going to introduce our situation in a preparing stage. On the  9th of  Sep. we  had a  starting meeting  formally. Although  all the organizers haven't   been confirmed  yet,  however those   have been  almost outlined. The list  of organizers  and organizing  sponsers as  of now  are as follows.

<Organizers>
Labor   News  Production(LNP),   Truenet,  Social   Information  Networking Group(SING), Solidarity  for Democracy   and Progress(SDP), Korea   research institue  for  worker's   human rights   and  justice(KRIWRJ),  Lawyers  for democratic society, Association  of professors  for democratic  society, Korean Telecommunication trade  union, Korean  Institute for  Labor Studies  and Policy (KILSP), Daily Labor News, Confederation of Democratic Rail Workers Union
- All from Korea

<Organizing Sponser>
Korea Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU)

<Endorsing organizations, overseas>
UPPNET (Union producers and programmers network) - USA
LaborNet-IGC
LaborTech

<Sponsors, overseas>
Vieazimut(International network of alternative and democratic communication)
Crocevia

* Obstacles...but
All the organizers decided to get responsible for the budget of this conference, approximately US$ 600  each. So we  collect a donation  from each organizer. Despite this, it is  far from the degree  of what we  need. Also, the difficulty induced by censorship have come  out. In Korea, every work  is obliged to be censored, but we have been  preparing for our event  refusing any censorship. By the way, in a case of  the Seoul Human rights film festival which  will be held right  this week,  it has  been oppressed  intensively by  the police,  the seurity police and the authority of culture and sport department. Anyway, we'll do our best,  and we  are proud of  organizing the  conference with our  own resources, despite the difficult political situation for working class in Korea.

* Volunteers !
Despite the financial and political problem, we are enthusiastic about our work. Espacially, volunteers are. They  are not many  yet. But the  number of them has been  gradually increasing  one by  one. Most  of them  are working  for translating English  script into  Korean or  the  opposite case.  They are  not professionals but students who  are sympathize with these  activities. As time goes on, workers from labour union will also join as volunteers.

* International support
Besides many helps  from inside  our country,  as we  have already  referred, many media activists  have been showing  their interest  and giving a  usuful suggestion for elaborating our conference. Therefore, this has been also a great opportunity for us  to share an  information and  experience widely. We  hope that communications betweem people who are  interested in these activities be more stimulating.   In this   sense, we   will let   you know   who or  what organizations we have been contacting. We are really thankful to all the people who have helped us to contact each other.


U.S.A
Steve Zeltzer : Labor Video Project, LaborNet-IGC, UPPNET
Larry Duncan : Labor Beat, UPPNET
Daymon j. Hartley : Detroit newspaper worker
Appalshop : Maker of <Fastfood women>
Kelly Anderson : Director of <Out at work>
Mike Konapacki : Director of <Mouseconsin>

U.K
Chris Bailey : LaborNet
Greg Dropkin : Video activist
Ken Loach : Director of <Flickering Flames>
Anne Marie Sweeney : Director of <Women on the Waterfront>

Israel
Eric Lee : Author of <The labor movement and the interent>

Palestine
Asafa Adiv : WAC

Japan
Akira Matsubara : Video press
Cineclub

Turkey
Onder Ozdemir

Brazil
Rodrigo Assump : Videazimut

India
Anand Patwardhan : Director of <We are not monkeys : mill workers>

Canada
Julius Fisher : Director of <Metro Days of Action Show>

The belows are  those who we  are trying  to contact but  haven't got reply from yet.  

Sweden
Ted Weisberg

Colombia
Luis Fernando Bacon

USA
Michael Moore

Brazil
Gorgio Schute

Netherlands
Peter Waterman

* If anybody wants to contact any of them individually, please contact us.

As you may know,  our conference is  composed of three  parts, so to  speak, session, workshop and International Labor Video and Film Festival widely.


* Festival update
Concerning the International  Labor Video  and Film  Festival, we  have been selecting some works. The scale of  this festival is not big.  However, we are trying to make  an effort so  that good videos  can be screened  as many  as possible. Anyway, we think until now, we will probably show are as follows.

-<Metro Days of Action Show> by Julius Fisher (Canada)
-<Fastfood Women> by Appalshop (U.S.A)
-Videos clips on Turkey labor movement sent by Onder Ozdemir (Turkey)
-Videos on Palestine labor movement sent by Asafa Adiv (Palestine)
-<Out at work> by Kelly Anderson (U.S.A)
-<All For One> by Larry Duncan (U.S.A)
-<Mouseconsin> by Mike Konopacki (U.S.A)
- Videos on women workers by Anne Marie Sweeny (UK)
-<Urgent report on General Strike vol2> by Labor News Production (Korea)
-<the Fired workers> by Labor News Production (Korea)
- <The night before strike> by Jang-San-Got-Mae (Korea)

 The belows   hasn't been  confirmed yet.   We are  keeping  contacting the makers.
-<We are not monkeys : mill workers> by Anand Patwardhan (India)
-<Flickering Flame> by Ken Loach (U.K)
-<The Big One> by Michael Moore (U.S.A)

Besides these works,  we are  expecting that  some more works  from Japan, Sweden, the Republic of South Africa, Brazil,  the Republic of Ireland, etc will be screened. Thank you, Steve and Larry.

* Session and seminar
Concerning the  subjects to  be  discussed, Larry  Duncan and  Steve  Zeltzer suggested some issues on the videos to  be thought and discussed. Organizing committee are now preparing whole  the specific subjects to be  discussed and these will be covered by next issue of conference newsletter. Here are some quotations on videos.

" One important issue is for the participants at the conference to begin the process of describing the current state of corporate control of global television networks. We need to have an international assessment and description of the monopoly on television which the international corporations and national corporate monopolies have. In the US we see this monopoly as being controlled by: CNN, ABC/Disney, NBC/GE, CBS/Westinghouse.
Could the participants at the Seoul conference develop a description for non-Koreans of who controlls the media in South Korea, and their interconnection with the South Korean Government and International Corporations?
Another important issue is the approach of the organized labor movement to the problem of the anti-labor bias of the commercial media. In the US, the debate has come down to this basic issue: Should the AFL-CIO develop its own, independent media targeting the masses, or should it continue to just rely on purchasing some ad time from commercial media and depending on the good will of corporate news to occasionally put on some favorable pieces about labor? For a number of us, we view this question as an expression of a larger political question in the US: should the AFL-CIO create its own political independence from the Democratic Party and build its own Labor Party, or should it continue to pursue a politically corporatist strategy of being connected to the state, via the Democratic Party, and the corporate mentality?
Yet another important issue is a technological one: The world, as far as tv technology goes, has been Balkanized into different "countries": NTSC-land, PAL-land, and SECAM-land. This slows down a lot of media communication. Consider how much more labor video exchange  would take place between the UK (PAL) and the US (NTSC) if they were on  the same system, considering that they share the same  language. As is, very little  exchange goes on now. 
This is an absurd situation!
One possible solution is through internet VDOLive and other similar technology, where videos can be viewed via websites. There are a lot of drawbacks here, though. This technology is available to only a minuscule percent of labor activists globally, and the frame motion technology is still not adequate.
Language translation issues (in addition to video signal translation) need also to be addressed. The important labor videos on the Korean General strike which we got in the Midwest were still in Korean, which limited their effectiveness. Obviously, it is a difficult thing for a labor federation to burden itself with a language translation of a video, amidst all the other problems of a general strike, but we do need to think about this problem. One consideration would be for a production group to perhaps make even a shorter, international edit of a fast turn-around labor video.
This would then be translated into, say English, and then sent to the US. There, after copies were made to get to key programmers and presenters in the US, PAL  copies could  be quickly made  in the  US to send  to the  UK (then, beyond to other PAL, English speaking countries).  Fast-turnaround is a challenge we need to face in global labor video today.
Using such grassroots resources may not be the only avenue. Under certain conditions, workers may not merely be limited to using their own cameras and the resources of small independent producers. We should not rule out considering  political opportunities for workers under certain political conditions who may gain access to and control of major television broadcasting facilities. Such opportunities will vary internationally."
(Larry Duncan)

" Out of the conference should come some proposals for joint labor video collaboration world wide. It is another important opportunity to make direct links and concrete agreements for collaboration."
(Steve Zeltzer)


==================================== end of quotation ============


As you see, we would like even more  activists to participate in the preparing process and give suggestions. We are open  to both the selection of videos  to be screened and the  making an issue to  be discussed during the  conference. Therefore, you can  recommend good videos  and give a  suggestion on what issue should  be discussed   in LaborMedia '97  in  Seoul. Besides,  whatever thought you have got on LaborMedia '97, don't hesitate to contact us, please.


** Contact point of the conference organizer
 Seoul International LaborMedia '97 Committee
 tel : +82-2-855-1913
 fax : +82-2-858-1913
 e-mail : labormedia@mail.sing-kr.org
 www : http://kpd.sing-kr.org/labormedia


** Contact point of the festival organizer
--> (Attention  !)  Those who   want to participate  in the  festival or are interested in  the presentation  related with  visual media,  please contact  the festival organizer.
 Labor News Production
 Myoung Joon Kim
 address : 102, Jihoon Villa, 482-2, Sangdo 1 dong, Dongjak-gu, Seoul, Korea
 fax : +82-2-826-0151
 e-mail : LNP89@chollian.net


** Those who want to get the updated  information can use the web site and also the mailing list. The address of the mailing list is as follows.
 : LM@mail.sing-kr.org
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     just type <subscribe lm> to the address at 
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