>>The three investigators are Andre Spicer, Steffem Bohm and Sian Sullivan. At least one of the researchers is currently active in London direct action groups including the anti-G8 mobilizations.<<

You mean they're infiltrators?

Hey, by the way, anyone from the DTI investigating indymedia today? Well if you are, I'd just like to stick a big finger up at you and tell you to go and fuck yourselves. OK?

It's misleading to describe this as being a 'DTI Think Tank'. There are obvious dangers that any academic research may be co-opted by the interests of the establishment, whether that is the academic establishment (with its influence on the careers of the researchers) or the funders of the research, in this case the ESRC, which gets its money indirectly from the DTI. However, the ESRC is formally independent of the government, and the Non-governmental Public Action programme is independent of the ESRC. This is not research that the DTI has commissioned.

The DTI does directly fund some research which is also funded by the ESRC: but the Non-Government Public Action Programme is not among these. Check the link below for more information.

This a nasty piece of misinformation and slander by the person who calls themselves 'Inverted pyramid', which tries to slander three very solid people and actually is completely incorrect. The research is not funded by the DTI but is an academic study into grass routes non corporate media across the world funded by ESCR.
So as an Indymedia admin bod I have hidden it because unlike Inverted Pyramid I do know the facts.
Devlish

There appears to be a marked increase in posts designed to be devisive and create an environment of distrust on the indymedia news wire lately.

Maybe the so well informed original poster could tell us who is funding the trolls?

We think it's a shame that this post has gone up without contacting us beforehand (although we appreciate the need for sensible suspicion regarding an investigation into activist politics). We've been involved with various alternative media, direct action and anti-capitalist initiatives for many years (including contesting the G8). Yes, we are academics who teach and research: in both we are committed to exposing the current state of emergency that describes our political, economic, social and cultural situation. To brand us as DTI researchers, or even as a 'think tank', is insulting as well as inaccurate. The ESRC is financed through tax-payers money. We hope to use such public funding in part for various meetings/workshops in contexts where it is difficult for academics and alternative media producers to meet and release work beyond national and other boundaries (with initial discussions to attempt such a meeting in Palestine).

We also feel that it's unhelpful to erect this 'us' vs. 'them' scenario here. In many of our endeavours we have been attempting to create spaces where such borders can be softened and conversation across boundaries can take place. e.g. the Radical Theory Forum (RTF) we organised for the autonomous ESF in London last year, of which a follow-up event is occurring at the Institute of Autonomy Social Centre on 18 June (institutautonomy.omweb.org), as well at the alternative G8 in Scotland. We also are all part of the editorial collective for an online, open access 'radical theory' journal ('ephemera' www.ephemeraweb.org), which is about to publish a special issue on the organisation and politics of Social Forums.

Although we are not exactly mad about our names being published on Indymedia without consultation, we would like to say here that we are happy for anyone to talk to us further about our activism and research (we don't tend to make a distinction between the two). Email us:
Steffen (sgbohm at essex.ac.uk), Sian (S.Sullivan at warwick.ac.uk) and André (Andre.Spicer at wbs.ac.uk).

The link from Voluntary Slave only shows that the funds for the non-government public action programme come from the ESRC which the original article already stated. There is no reference to funds not coming from the Office of Science and Technology or any other government dept for that matter.

Regardless, the brave souls at Indymedia who magnanamously give their energy and talent towards the vision of a more open and truthful society deserve to know when they are being watched by people who are working for the very institutions that provide the government with their social engineering schemes.

The research project is being funded by the ESRC, and the ESRC gets most of its money from the Office of Science and Technology. However, this no more means that the researchers are working for the DTI than activists on the dole are working for the Department of Work and Pensions. The money is given as a block grant to the ESRC, an academic body, which then decides what research to fund; the DTI does not comission the research itself.

The link I posted shows that there have been some projects which were co-funded by the DTI and the ESRC (why would they do that if ESRC projects are just DTI projects?), and it also shows that the programme which includes research into Indymedia _was not_ co-funded by the DTI.