Newspapers for the people were an important part of promoting literacy, but it was difficult to find money to support a large circulation. So the practice grew of "publishing" the newspaper on an exterior wall where people could go to read the news.
During the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, the students and Red Guard put up thousands of "big character posters" on the walls of buildings to promote their point of view.
Now, when we talk of communication, it's often in terms of modern technology, such as radio and television. But, if we look around in our communities, we see that ordinary people have developed many methods of communicating.
One popular method, found everywhere, is the bulletin board.
This is the origin of the concept of the Ryakuga Newspaper Wall.
Bulletin boards could be designed as a communication tool, for readability and to attract an audience.
It's probably possible to access whole bulletin boards in the community, even if for a limited time.
The Town of Ramea, on Ramea Island, has a huge bulletin board on the side of the fire hall. It's an important source of information.
It was proposed that the first panel would be designed and constructed by the daily newsletter/photography teams. The design would probably be similar to newspapers or magazines.
Panel two could be used for administrative purposes - messages from co-ordinators. Facilitators could also use the panel to give information about their workshops.
Panel three might be the opinion page. People could express their opinion (in writing or cartoons) about aspects of the camp, the network or society at large.
Panel four is another participation page and probably most accessible. It would include personals, birthday greetings, love notes, jokes, drawings and poetry.
The wall also appeared at the People's Summit in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in the summer of 1995.
The Communication for Community Survival Conference in Stephenville (March, 1997) was a beginning.
(It seems to be workable, especially if the site is
planned as a template, and written material is prepared beforehand. Using the plywood wall as an example, the pages could be
"compartmentalized" as a news page; photo page; messages page and
miscellaneous page. One objection to the wall is that a simultaneous, virtual conference means people won't attend but will stay home glued to the screen. We obviously don't agree. Indeed, we've found that live community TV broadcasts of meetings and events often brings people to the hall.)
At the Communication for Survival conference website workshop, participants uploaded stories and QuickCam images of themselves. During a live community television show that night, the website was projected on a wall so people watching at home could see what was accomplished.
Following the event, Ryakuga created new pages using the content of the conference newsletter and stills taken from video shot during the community television sessions.
The next appearance of the newspaper wall was at Setting the Stage, a Zone 9 youth conference at St. Stephen's High School, Stephenville, Oct. 3 to 4, 1997.
On Saturday morning participants in a Community TV/Website workshop collected opinions about youth issues, videotaped the sessions and then uploaded text and photos to a web page.