7sea-chickenz Activities


 Report on "Kosovo Issue and Independent Media"

Date: April 24(sat), 14:00-18:00
Location: Kanagawa Plaza for Global Citizenship, Yokohama
Organized by 7sea-chickenz
Co-organized by People's Media Network, Japan Computer Access(Citizen's Computer Communication Research Group), JCA-NET(APC network's node in Japan)

7sea-chickenz, a network of individuals working for art andmedia since April 3, organized the public gathering for further understandings of the Kosovo, Serbia issue, and B92 and other independent media in Serbia and Kosovo, "Help B92," and opendiscussions for the connective transnetworks beyond groups.Even it was rainy and located more than one hour away from Tokyo, over 60 people attended to the gathering.

7sea-chickenz takes new direction, beyond political differences to share the same goal to help the independnt meda in serbia,kosovo, to provide the translated information in Japan. Theactivities are manly being operated via closed ML, and thisgathering was to raise the issue for broader audiences whowould like to know more about the situation.

The following is the contents of the meeting;
(moderated by Tadakazau Fukutomi, Journalist)


--Yukiko Shikata on "a short description of 7sea-chickenz"
--Mr. Teranaka (of Amnesty International) on the Kosovo refugee crisis
--David d'Heilly (filmmaker) on the role of "independent media" inex-yugo, followed by a showing of the Belgrade episode of his "Media CityRoad Movie" tv show, (which featured B92, and other "independents") aboutthe crisis of the '96 "democracy" demonstrations in Belgrade.
--Toshiya Ueno (sociologist) on "four points essential to understandingthe conflict."
--Tomohiro Okada (coordinator for multimedia cultural affairs) offering alighthearted video report of Belgrade one week before the beginning ofNATO's entry into the conflict, including the Tesla Museum, B92 headoffices, Cinema Rex, B92's multimedia infrastructure, etc.
--Ken Nakano (of GPOD's graphic designer team) on the official "Help B92"site in Osaka, Japan, including their on-going translations project, andnewly introduced "Help B92 Starter Kit" (T-shirts designed by GPOD, andCD-ROM, card). [the profit to be sent to "Help B92 via 7sea-chickenz].
--excerpts from the "Help B92" English message made for FM Wai Wai, amultilingual broadcast station in Kobe,which took an important role afterthe Kobe/Awaji earthquake in 1995.
--messages:
1) by Yutaka Tsuchiya, video activist who took part in N5M3
2) by Mr. Yoshino of Japan Computer Access (Citizen's ComputerCommunication Research Group) on their activities
3) by Mr. Hamada of JCA-Net on their activities to support independentactivities via Internet, incluging a XS4ALLiRadikal magazine) mirror site since 2 years, etc.
--short report on the activities of 7sea-chickenz by Miki Fukuda (research into distribution partners for "7sea-chikenz" aid), Yukiko Shikata (overview)
--general audience Q&A with Fukutomi Tadakazu and David d'Heilly

-Discussions
There are many audiences from various NGO, NGO researchers,Press, and lot of young people. 7sea-chickenz asked for theirhelp for collaboration.


<summery>
-It is the first priority for 7sea-chickens to provide informationwhich is not available by mass media in Japan.
-It is clear for 7sea-chickenz not to have an united politicalstance, but to work together to help B92 and other independentmedia in serbia, kosovo, etc.
-For that, we need more people to get invoived even sharinga small work.
-By being aware of already being in "Infowar," (in many levels), wekeep going forward our activities.


by Yukiko Shikata
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