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On INST and the Public

 

INST is a public organization. Its activities are prepared openly (see, for example, the Conference Page for IRICS) and documented for the public.

In the first years after the founding of INST on 14 November1994, the organization focused primarily on introducing the use of email for communication (to accomplish this goal, Internet seminars were held, especially in Europe), on developing its own Homepage (1996) and its own Internet journal (1997). At present (2005) more than 60,000 people in more then 100 countries make use of this public availability every month..

A central element of INST’s openness to the public is also evident in the various forms of meetings: presentations, seminars, symposia and conferences. On the one hand, these events are directed at a professional public, in order to develop questions and methodology, to carry out analyses and to organize presentations. On the other hand, however, these meeting are intended to reach a broad public. For this reason the large conferences (for example, IRICS) are opened with plenary events, while the professional discourses follow in various individual sections. The results are then made available on the WWW as well as also in published form (book + CD + DVD), which is given public presentations worldwide.

The essential element of INST presentations is the word - spoken and written. This aim served as the starting point for developing an encyclopedia of multilingual cultural studies, in order to recognize the fact that the INST members or participants in projects and meetings speak hundreds of languages, even though INST communication (correspondence, publications, languages of plenary sections at conferences) is limited to German, English and French. In this way much more variety can be taken into account in the development of terminology.

In addition to the information presented on the INST Homepage, the organization’s activities are also documented by three book series and brochures.

In addition, INST also uses other forms of presentation: exhibits and films. It also includes readings, theater performances, music, etc. in its events (see, for example, the presentations of 2004/2005.

On the one hand, this makes it possible to take into account the complexity involved in the production of knowledge, and, on the other hand, to utilize to their full extent the possibilities of the different forms of presentation. In this respect, placards and subway spots are also utilized as means of presentation.

The media worldwide takes notice of INST’s activities. In Austria the national news network reported in the main evening news program on the INST world project about mountains. In addition, ntv carried a report on the Internet Institute, and BR Alpha brought the 3rd meeting of "Memminger Gespräche" (Memming Conversations) in its entirety. In Bulgaria, India, Italy and many other countries, reports on INST events were to be seen. Hundreds of reports were published in newspapers. (A documentation of these media reports is still lacking, and in view of the insufficient means and infrastructure it will still be some time before this important project can be undertaken.)