In a feature by student journalist Susan Cahill, the UCD based College Tribune carried an interesting piece on the rise of alternative media. The article focussed its eye mainly on the main Irish chain in this emerging phenomenon by interviewing a member of the Irish Irish Indymedia Internet Collective, Robbie Sinnott. Left wing UCD students have proven particularly adepth at using adept at using Indymedia to cover their activities over the years. This article will hopefully lead to some more use of the site down in the LG's where it is more common to see tortuous hours spent poring over social networking sites like Bebo.

In the past the UCD Students' Union have used the Oscailt software developed by the Irish wing of the Indymedia network to host its website. An evening of film screenings called 'Reels of Resistance' was also organised in 2004 by Global Action to showcase the visual work carried out by Indymedia activists in documenting the Mayday demonstrations over the EU summit weekend and the activities of the Ambush camp during Bush's visit to Shannon.

For many on the right wing within the college, Indymedia has been used as something to tag on to sneers directed against the student left. This approach was best exemplified by then University Observer (The Snobserver) editor Eoin Casey, who rushed to defend traditional models of journalism against open publishing concepts he viewed as 'dominated by left-leaning participants.' Ridding itself of the tedious hack gossip column that was Faustus, in its first few issues this year the Tribune is showing real signs of finally overcoming the difficulties of being the only financially independent paper on the campus to finally surmount the dominance of the arse-licking Observer. On another level the weight of seriousness attached to the piece reflects in one way the growing respect for Indymedia outside the bastions of power it so regularly attacks.

Labels: Indymedia, Internet, Politics, Social Movements, UCD