Grassroots Media for Global Resistance: Building Commons of Communication in Times of Repression

As authoritarian movements grow globally, grassroots media has become essential for resistance movements - a tool for information sharing and building working class power from below. This interactive, visually-engaging, multimedia workshop examines how communities of resistance can create, sustain, and connect media commons capable of challenging dominant narratives while resisting intensifying state and corporate oppression, and provides useful tools for that. We begin by looking at contemporary struggles with history of resistance media - like South Africa's anti-apartheid underground press, to Russia's “samizdat” tradition and current independent journalism under dictatorship, to Mexico's indigenous community radio. These examples show grassroots media as weapon and lifeline. Looking at critical media theory, we analyse the evolution from print and radio to encrypted messaging and alternative platforms, examining the possibilities and dangers - platform capture, disinformation, algorithmic suppression, surveillance and coordinated control. Further, we look at tools, best practices, resources and practical lessons and tips. Workshop prioritises collective strategising over passive listening through participatory exercises. Participants engage in a short individual reflection on their media access, capacities, and constraints, creating a map of collective media ecology. This exercise identifies gaps in coverage, skills, and resources while opening a discussion about material realities facing resistance globally. The core activity involves collaborative scenario-building: participants will collectively design a hypothetical transnational media commune organized around international solidarity against rising authoritarianism. Through this experiment, we look at how such a network might produce and circulate content across print, community radio, digital platforms, and social media, maintaining security, sustainability, and integrity – while avoiding vanishing in the sea of information. What editorial processes support horizontal decision-making? How do we share resources between movements facing very different problems and constraints? How do we build media that serves organising rather than just documenting struggle? How can we counter avoid reproducing hierarchies and power abuses within our own networks? Participants will leave with a conceptual framework for understanding grassroots media as commons-building practice, comprehensive resources covering diverse media tools (from pamphlets to video and animated explainers), safety and visibility practices for working under repression, and practical guides for creating accessible people’s media. The session concludes with an invitation to join an emerging international network of media activists committed to collective skill-sharing. Facilitated by ILRIG - an organization with over 40 years experience in producing popular education materials and supporting directly democratic activist movements.