Sunday, March 25, 2012

Raise My Voice Becomes Radical Citizen Media

In September of 2005 I attended a peace march. I brought a camera and took pictures. I posted those pictures online. This behaviour became a habit.

People looked at the photos. They looked a lot. So much, in fact, that the server I posted them on, crashed.

As a result, I purchased a domain and hosting plan. The website was called RaiseMyVoice.com and became a portal to the photos and videos I shot at rallies and events concerning human rights, social justice, the environment, women's issues, poverty, and a host of other topics, mostly from progressive and left of centre viewpoints.

After a while, the website became one of the largest historical archives of citizen engagement in Edmonton at such events. RaiseMyVoice.com needed to be updated more and more frequently, and required more categories, better organization, and a cleaner look.

This week, RaiseMyVoice.com got the overhaul it needed. It was such an overhaul that I decided to change the website entirely.

With the new look comes a new name: Radical Citizen Media.

There are more events organized by subject matter than ever. More categories. The videos are easier to find. Photo sets lost and broken have been found and fixed. The design is cleaner, navigation is easier, and updates now include embedded photos and videos.

I have been called Edmonton's Indymedia because of my commitment to documenting progressive and left-wing citizen engagement in Edmonton. That commitment is going to be met even better moving forward. Radical Citizen Media is now both a serious part of Edmonton's media scene and valuable historical archive.

1 comment:

Shawn Birss said...

Hey Paula,

I've moved on from my old blog to pirate-pastor.blogspot.com. Many dramatic changes in my living situation, jobs, and ministry have left me with fresh perspectives and a new passion for justice and change. I feel significantly different enough to "start over" in a sense when it comes to my public writing.

So, the core of the new blog is thoughts on a chapter from the New Testament almost every day, as this one became about Genesis for a while. In one year, I will have written notes on every chapter in the New Testament.

I'm beginning with Luke, the gospel of a very human and reachable Jesus, speaking boldly for justice for the poor and oppressed.

I'll leave this message up for a week or so, and perhaps send messages to you individually. Then I will abandon the poet punk pastor for good...

-Shawn

pirate-pastor.blogspot.com