Note: We often use the Popular Resistance website to raise money for organizations, campaigns, artists and art collectives and others who are working in the resistance movement. In the article below we are urging support for ROAR Magazine. One of the critical fronts of struggle for developing a mass movement that can challenge the current power structure is media. Independent media, citizens media and social networks are keys to challenging the corporate mass media. Understanding our movement and constantly evaluating where we are going and how we get there are essential. ROAR is always strong in its analysis of the resistance movement and global revolt around the world. They have excellent writers who put forward analysis you do not read anywhere else. We urge you to support their fundraising campaign on indiegogo.
ROAR Magazine 2.0: Independent Media for Real Democracy
Help us build a brand new platform for independent news and critical analysis, providing grassroots perspectives on the global struggle for real democracy.
With dozens of contributors, tens of thousands of followers, and editors in Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Berkeley, Florence and Istanbul, our coverage has become highly diverse in reach and truly international in scope. Our work has been cited by The New York Times, The Guardian and WikiLeaks, translated into dozens of languages, and re-published on hundreds of blogs and news sites. Our editors regularly occupy the airwaves to comment on current affairs and present their work at academic conferences and cultural festivals around the world.
As our democracy finds itself under attack by powerful corporate interests, and as the media and academia are increasingly turning away from the type of thoughtful reflection and socially-engaged research that could challenge this state of affairs, we feel that the time has come to take matters into our own hands. In 2014, we want to dramatically expand ROAR – by intensifying our reporting, diversifying our base of contributors, and providing you with the news and analysis you simply don’t find in the mainstream media or the average academic publication.
Our goal is to turn ROAR into a unique platform for inspiring, engaging and thought-provoking content that can help galvanize the sort of theoretically-informed social activism the world so desperately needs right now. But to get there, we need to first of all revolutionize our web presence and turn our humble blog into a proper online magazine. This is why ROAR will now be teaming up with a group of professional editorial designers and web developers with decades of experience in the world of independent publishing, to build a cutting-edge new website from scratch.
We urge you to support ROAR’S fundraising campaign on indiegogo.
ROAR’s Plans for the Future
ROAR’s new website will have a number of added functionalities that will allow us to greatly improve the form and quality of our work. Without giving away too much (we don’t want to spoil the surprise), the new ROAR Magazine will provide you with:
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Regular reflections: These essays on politics, culture and current affairs will be an improved continuation of our present efforts. The aim is to publish an average of at least one substantial article per day. Contributors will include investigative journalists, movement organizers, researchers, scholars, and many others.
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Quarterly symposiums: In addition to these rolling reflections, we will publish four quarterly issues per year, each of which will consist of a series of long-read essays around a specific theme. These symposiums will cast their gaze wide by embracing a more research-based, philosophical and historical approach to the major challenges facing humanity today. The main idea is to provide visionary perspectives and stir the imagination. Each symposium will be custom-designed and will feature both leading thinkers and young, up-and-coming voices.
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Spectacular documentaries: Apart from the reflections and symposiums, we also want to create a special film section to help bring our reporting to life. ROAR has a number of highly talented independent filmmakers in its networks, many of whom are embedded in different social movements around the world. We want to create a space where we can present their work and take you on a visual journey into the heart of the action.
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A lively blog: Finally, we will share shorter snippets of relevant information – like photos, videos, infographics, recommended books and articles, rapid updates on developing stories, quick thoughts or inspiring quotes – to provide you with a constant flow of captivating content and to draw your attention to some of the most exciting brainfood floating around the internet.
All of this for free and without advertisements!
How You Can Help
We have always placed great value in securing equal and open access to our work and maintaining the independence and integrity of our collective. We publish all our work under Creative Commons license, and our editors are volunteers who contribute their time and efforts for free. We would like to keep things that way – but that means that, to be able to expand and improve our efforts, we really depend on your help and participation to take ROAR to the next level.
Developing our new platform from scratch, sustaining our online presence, taking care of technical support, paying professional designers, commissioning contributions from leading thinkers, and continuing to present you with high-quality news and analysis will require at least $30,000 (€22,000). To remain fiercely independent, we are in need of an uncompromised source of financial support. By making a contribution you will secure not only the survival of ROAR as an energetic advocate of democratic empowerment, but also its evolution into an exciting new direction.
After considering the perks system on this website, we realized you will probably not support us to get a free ROAR mug or T-shirt. Instead, we hope you choose to support us because you believe in the importance of independent media, the promise of social movements and the value of critical analysis; because you, too, feel there is a need for a different kind of narrative; because you share with us the conviction that another world is possible – and hopefully just because you enjoy our work and want to help us realize this groundbreaking grassroots initiative.
Real democracy requires independent media. But independent media requires committed citizens. ROAR has only come so far because of your support – and only with your continued participation in this collaborative project will we be able to keep moving forward. Help us provide you with the news and analysis you won’t find in the mainstream. It’s time to ROAR for real democracy!
We urge you to support ROAR’S fundraising campaign on indiegogo.
With gratitude and in solidarity,
ROAR Collective
N.B.: Thanks to the fiscal sponsorship provided by Deep Dish TV, contributions to this campaign are tax deductible in the United States.
