In beginning my thesis this semester to investigate the role of Public Access Television in the Age of YouTube, I’m beginning to shift my approach, once again. Previously, I explored the role of the community media center in the process of public access television. I realized that this is just one of the many roles that community television can play in providing a counter-claim to those who believe that public access television is no longer necessary in a YouTube age.

More recently, as I have noted several times before, I realized that the YouTube v. Public Access TV debate is one of the most profound and consistent themes of my research here to date. A Google search for Public Access Television + YouTube yields quite a range of results, discussions and debates around both media. Therefore, I’ve decided to move this research towards an approach that seeks to better understand mass perceptions of public access television and how both the mainstream media and individuals online frame “the need” for community television in, what has been called, the YouTube age.

The Free Press Action Network has announced that it’s members will blog tomorrow’s Congressional Hearing on Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) Services in the Digital TV Age. Here are the details below from the website:

“On Tuesday, Jan. 29, the Free Press Action Network will hold a live-blogging session during the congressional hearing on Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) services in the digital TV age. Activists and community leaders will be discussing the hearing as it unfolds.

What: Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet Hearing
When: Tuesday, Jan. 29 at 1:00 p.m

Leading the conversation are expert media activists including Lauren-Glenn Davitian, Executive Director, CCTV; Michael Eisenmenger, saveaccess.org; and Sean McLaughlin, Executive Director, Access Humboldt”

Connect to the Audio Webcast tomorrow during the hearing and join the conversation at The Free Press Action Network.

A few of my co-workers and I had an interesting discussion this week about how best to use our external online presence, on sites such as MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and blip.tv. We talked about sharing local information relevant to the community we serve on a platform available to the world for those with access to the tools, skills, and knowledge. A simple question we had was “Why would people globally be interested in what we are doing locally?”

It made me think about the beauty of the web when it’s working at it’s best. What I love about the web is the opportunity it provides to find things that people around the world are sharing online, whether it’s video, audio, photos or text that they’ve created and allowed other people to join in conversations around their work or ideas. It is with this openness that can lead to inspiration.

When a blog post contains hyperlinks it provides “see for yourself” opportunities for others to find their own context and meaning. Blog posts - at their best - are not meant to be final, but rather they are like rolling snowballs down hills. Open platforms - websites open to others sharing their ideas - provide opportunities for this activity to occur.

So in terms of our question above, I think sharing local content on global platforms can do both successfully. That is to say that the web can provide opportunities to share local content locally, while allowing others to participate in the conversation and become inspired globally.

Ojai Valley News Blog reports on AB 2987, the Digital Infrastructure and Competition Act of 2006, and its potential impact on public access television in the state of California.

“Bill Rosendahl, former CEO of Southern California Adelphia, Ojai’s cable provider before Time Warner and present Los Angeles councilman, said that Time Warner would probably toss out public access to cut costs. ‘It’s generally viewed by cable providers as something they keep in order fulfill their franchise agreement,’ he said. ‘If they can get rid of it they will’ . . .

Things are not looking up for public access television statewide, according to Rosendahl. Some public access shows like Los Angeles’s oddball ‘Let’s Paint T.V’ have followed the shifting tides in media outlets and moved on to the internet utilizing You-Tube, and Myspace. Wilcock has also been airing his travelogue on his own web page.

But such one-of-a-kind broadcasts are easily lost in the sea of online posts. Locally focused creators would lose immediate access to their target audience and distance themselves from community-oriented programming.”

Read the post here.

The Texas Community Media Summit is taking place on March 1 this year at UT at Austin. The website explains that the Summit will take place with the purpose of:

• “Understanding and knowledge of the Texas community media landscape
• Inclusion of ethnic, social and cultural diversity in community media
• Collaboration and partnerships among Texas community media
• Cohesive political focus aimed at influencing state / federal media policy”

The website (built on Drupal) caught my attention because of how the content in the left sidebar is laid out. After the list the contents, including overview, summit agenda and other details, the site provides a list of TX community television stations followed by a list of TX vloggers, and TX community and free radio stations. It is great to see community television stations and vloggers highlighted next to each other within the context of community media in TX.

The website also has a link to the four-part documentary from the 2007 Chicago Community Media Summit that, as the site explains, “examine the voices, the content, best examples and practices, and the potential of community media to serve basic human and community needs.”

Yesterday, Harold Feld blogged about what the lawsuit in Michigan might mean in the future for other states’ dealings between PEG channels and cable operators. In particular, whether PEG channels will continue to be included in the “basic tier” of channel package options offered by digital cable providers. Feld also raises the question of what will happen after the digital television transition, as I blogged about earlier.

“I expect fights over the basic package and the meaning of Section 623(b)(8) to become much more common, as cable operators try to migrate more popular programming to digital and look to stop carrying analog after the digital transition. For me, the real question is: “Will the FCC weigh in?” If so, when, and how?”

Read the rest of Feld’s post, “Follow Up On MI PEG Lawsuit“.

In February 2009, all analog television sets will go dark. Those who don’t have a digital converter box at that time won’t be able to watch television . . . period. But what does the digital television transition mean for the future of public access TV?

The answer might lie somewhere right now in Michigan and Florida.

Cable carriers in Michigan and Florida are trying to push and have pushed public access channels far up into the channel lineup of their digital cable service. PEG channels might soon go up into the 900s in Michigan and in Florida they’ve already moved into the 600s. But as BloggingBroadband.com asks about the case in Michigan:

“Is it really true that ‘Customers who choose to take only our most basic level of service receive all local PEG channels as part of that basic service today, and they will continue to receive those PEG channels on the basic service tier when they are digitized,’ as Comcast’s letter to the Chairman asserts?”

BloggingBroadband.com goes on to ask:

“Should cable companies, which use the public’s rights-of-way to deliver their services and to make a profit, be permitted to marginalize their PEG obligations because direct broadcast satellite operators – which use no public rights-of-way to deliver service – are not required to carry PEG programming?”

The Detroit Free Press writes that the move into the 900s would “require subscribers with analog televisions to buy digital, cable-ready TVs or rent or buy a digital converter box for each set.”

In February 2009, the rest of the country will have to do the same. But what does it mean for PEG channels? Events taking place in Michigan and Florida right now might provide a clearer picture into the future.

As readers of this blog know, I’ve been tracking some of the online narratives surrounding public access television production in an age when YouTube and other video sharing websites have grown in popularity. This week, thanks again to Clippings for PEG Access Television, I found another article at AJC.com particularly troubling in the lack of context it provides on the topic.

In the article, “Fulton County investing in public-use studio” D.L.Bennett begins

In an age when anyone with a hand-held video camera, editing software and a computer can produce clips for the Internet, Fulton County has decided to invest $175,000 to create a public-use TV studio.

This single sentence sets-up the debate and frames the entire article.

Whether intentional or not, the author seems to position “anyone” with the tools, skills and knowledge to produce and upload video to the web against Fulton County’s decision to invest in a public access studio. This sentence and the rest of the article fail to address a few other relevant issues.

First, the article assumes that “anyone” producing video for the web is creating media that are relevant to others in their local community. The article would have been more accurate if it took the time to provide specific examples of people creating web video about and for their local community.

Second, the article fails to mention how public access centers can teach people how to create well-produced video for the web, as well as for their local cable channels. In addition, the article does not address how some public access centers have incorporated online video sharing into their access center’s websites. Rather, it appears to position the web against public access TV.

Third, the article fails to mention how public access centers strengthen local communities. Rather than individuals who sit at home uploading video to YouTube, public access producers often work with, and rely upon, others in their community to help them shoot, edit and produce their videos. This process of public access production builds community through a cooperation with others. It is during this process that others can learn more about themselves, the places they live, and others in their community.

Fourth, and most important, the article fails to address the issue that not everyone has access to these tools. Public access centers provide people with access to media education (e.g., production and literacy) with a particular focus on their local community.

The article also includes the following quote, “Public access was conceived as a community soapbox. That has largely migrated to the Internet.” Not surprisingly the quote is from the cable company, Comcast (as the article mentions).

The issue here is really not about the Internet v. Public Access TV. It’s not about one v. the other. It’s about the tools - whatever they are now and whatever they may be in the future - that help people communicate about issues important to them and their local community.

For his graduate audio production course at Emerson College, my fellow grad student and CCTV colleague John Donovan (above) sat down with staff and members at Cambridge Community Television to find out “why community media still matters” in a YouTube age.

In this 11-minute podcast, John first spoke with members of the staff who told him that “access to professional production equipment” and “affordable training” are among two of the many benefits of belonging to an access center. Susan Fleischmann, Executive Director at CCTV told John that community media is

“about being apart of a community and it’s about engaging with other people that are interested in the same kinds of things they’re interested in and that’s something that a YouTube or an Internet-based form of dissemination can’t touch.”

John next turned to CCTV members to get their response to the question. Jacques, the “Haitian Firefly” told John that CCTV creates a “sense of family” and a “supportive” environment. Jacques likened his weekly visits to CCTV to “a family reunion.”

Another member, Angel Aiguier told John that being at CCTV is “like being at home.” She said that she gets more video production done at CCTV than she does at home, even though she has the equipment at home needed to produce video for the web. Angel said that when she works at home she feels that she’s “missing something.”

Susan also told John that while community does exist online, the advantage of being involved with a public access center like CCTV is that it can broaden members’ sense of community.

CCTV staffer, Shaun Clarke told John that coming to CCTV while in high school allowed him to learn a lot about Cambridge that he wouldn’t have otherwise.

In his conclusion, John reports

“When asked why community media centers still matter in the YouTube age, other CCTV staff members and producers mentioned the persistence of the digital divide and the generation gap that keeps the poor and those unfamiliar with computers of the Internet from being able or willing to go online. Some highlighted CCTV’s proactive efforts to reach out to those whose voices would otherwise never get heard.”

To listen to John’s complete podcast, visit Why Community Media Still Matters in the YouTube Age.

It’s a new year and my last semester, and another chapter (not quite literally . . . yet) begins for this project.

Lots has changed since my initial explorations began in earnest last semester. Most notably, I began to shift my thinking from broadcast cable access television and Internet video distribution to the role of the community media center in Public Access Television (found here and here, for example) and the people involved. While video distribution and related web technologies are still a major consideration in this study, I’ve also shifted my thinking towards a more integrated approach involving the role of and relationship between community technology (or community informatics) and PEG Access TV.

My conversation with Felicia on the topic played a large role in this transition. Her terrific article, “Community Technology and Public Discourse” (PDF download) also got me thinking more along these lines. But I also know I’m running a slight risk of misrepresenting this intersection of computers, networked technology and PEG Access TV. It’s certainly not a universal trend, particularly at a time when many access centers are just struggling to keep their doors open as a result of state legislation and other oppositional forces. But it is really interesting to me, particularly in thinking about current trends and potential future directions in community media as the Internet collides with cable access TV (that is to say, where it is taking place).

The other problem with this study is there is little to no scholarship on this intersection. These are issues taking place right now. To do it justice would be to apply for a grant to study what’s happening in access over a much longer period of time. Unfortunately, I will not be able to do that. A draft of my thesis needs to be completed in just a few months. But, what I hope to do is study what has been written on these topics and contribute my observations to this much larger discussion.

In addition, I hope my new role as Community Media Coordinator at Cambridge Community Television (a new job I’m starting this week) will also help to shape the content of this paper based on my direct experience as a community media worker. I’ll be spending my time in the computer lab at CCTV and on a number of exciting community media and technology initiatives with the purpose of connecting more Cambridge residents to the technology tools, skills, and knowledge that I take for granted everyday.

The most immediate next steps for this project is a literature review and a thesis outline - both due asap. Before the semester starts up again later this month, I’ll be plugging away on both and continuing to share my process here along the way.