In June 2007, after learning about this project Felicia Sullivan recommended that I read Community Media: A Global Introduction by Ellie Rennie. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve only just begun to realize - sigh - what an amazing resource it truly is. Particularly for students and scholars of old and new media interested in finding fresh perspectives within media studies and democratic theories of governance.

Rennie investigates community media through the frameworks of political and legal theory to study its ambition “in what it sets out to achieve” (12) and its “sometimes contradictory principles” (61) (see, Rethinking Access Philosophy).

Central to the definition of community media, Rennie highlights the terms “participation” and “access.”

“meaning that nonprofessional media makers are encouraged to become involved (participation), providing individuals and communities with a platform to express their views (access).” (3)

Terms both associated with the cultural phenomenon of self-produced media content and refuted by media justice advocates, who write “the critical issue of access isn’t access to the technology but access to power over how that technology is developed.” In her chapter, “Access Reconfigured,” Rennie reinforces the latter position by considering community media within Internet commons and free software philosophies. She writes

“Some have called it ‘a new public interest,’ one that is based on an alternative regime where access is no longer about gaining access to a controlled territory, but where that territory is freely accessible to begin with.” (167)

While “alternative” and “radical” theories of community media remain part of their history, Rennie provides alternatives in her book that make us also look at “the good, the bad and the ordinary” (24). It is within this space, that Higgins’ approach to community media as process - rather than a means to an end (e.g., a program aired on public access television) - finds its place within community media studies.

“Community television as process conceptualizes constant change within individuals and the collectivities within which they participate” (Higgins, 1999).

A process, for Rennie, that brings “civil society into view” to understand how community media can negotiate both group needs and individual freedom (59).

This brings me back to my interest in the role of the community media center in the U.S. and its unique ability to provide spaces where individuals and groups in local communities can negotiate such concerns. In addition, these spaces provide opportunities for local residents with the community resources to contribute to and get back from a system created by, for and of those located in a geographic region.

When this process moves to the Internet it becomes a representation that also allows others to participate in making it their reality - wherever they may live around the world. This is where the potential exists for individuals and groups across distant locations to connect to shared visions within the process of community centric media - a form distinct from self-produced or self-representative (Rennie 188) media found on the web.

An interesting quote from Doc’s recent post at LinuxJournal, titled “What’s Next for Open Source and Public Media?”

“The end of analog terrestrial television will be a big mess and a wake-up call in more ways than we can name. The loss of analog TV’s familiar channels, and in countless cases their signals as well, will go beyond annoying millions of people who never asked for DTV, and will barely understand it. In the long run it will help break everybody free from the ancient model of broadcasting as a system defined by limits in time and distance. No longer will everything need to be ‘live’ — and constantly to hog bit paths to listeners and viewers who are tuned in to something else.”

Then he writes, “No longer will local be a strictly geographical concept.”

Thanks to Rob McCausland of the ACM and Clippings for PEG Access Television, I met Sue Murphy this past week. After blogging about her series on community television and the social web, she contacted me to thank me for my post. We exchanged a series of emails learning more about each other’s experiences and thoughts about the intersection of community TV and the web. Sue wrote some really nice things about our conversation, including some thoughts on CCTV and our community there.

I wanted to highlight Sue’s post in particular because of her description of the possibilities she sees in community television and the social web working together, not apart.

“There has been some talk about the relevance of true community access television, with the advent of YouTube and other video services going online. If anyone can now make a video and post it for the world to see, why do community TV stations even need to exist any longer? The reason is simple. It’s about community. It’s about people physically coming together and producing valuable content, and the relationships that are formed when people are in this kind of environment. You can’t get that by hitting ‘Submit’ on your YouTube page.

I think the Internet is going to be an extremely valuable outlet for those community television stations who choose to embrace its potential. By taking the power of community and sending it out to the world, everyone stands to benefit. Now, we not only have the power of being able to bring the community to the world…we have the possibility of linking these communities to make something even greater.”

In searching Radical Software for articles on public access television, I found Ann Arlen’s piece, entitled “Public access: the second coming of television?” from Vol. 1, no. 5 (1972) P. 81-85. In it, the author writes:

“Technology is really nothing - a piece of equipment lying around - until somebody picks it up and uses it. And it is what we choose to do with it, which is to say, WHO we are who use it, which determines the effect of our technology upon us.

Cable technology has within it the possibility to hasten along a day when ‘big brother’ is indeed ‘watching you’, aided by a total system of two-way, individual access cablevision - into our homes, our bank accounts, our business transactions, where every TV set cablecasting the football game in the local bar can be transmitting our conversations and actions as well.

It also has the capacity to let us talk to each other, people who, in an earlier time, might not have been able to understand each other or to care, who might have been too frightened to listen to each other face-to-face.

We have a chance to witness the excitement of our own beings, our own lives, REAL people, not plastic people, with words we really mean coming out of our real mouths.

Do we want it? We can have it. Of all the promises of cable television, it is the immediately realizable. It is here-but to grow it must have our commitment.”

In thinking about Arlen’s article, about the potential of public access television in its early days, much of it resonates with me as I think about the situation today as community media workers, producers and viewers confront the challenges and opportunities with a new medium, called the social web.

But what exactly is the promise of the public access television in an Internet age? It’s true that access to affordable video equipment, computer editing software, and broadband Internet access for publishing and distribution is increasing. But as more and more people (including public access television producers) publish video to online sharing sites, like YouTube, many questions remain about the future of producing, publishing, finding, viewing and archiving locally-produced and locally-oriented media on the web. For example:

1.) Where can people in local communities easily find and view media on demand produced from the perspective of residents in their community on local issues?

2.) Where can people connect to, work with and learn from others in their physical community to create their own media about issues of importance to them and others in their local community?

Community media centers provide people with the opportunity to do both things in a way that may be different than simply using video sharing websites alone. While it’s true that sites like YouTube’s Virtual Video Map is a great example of the possibilities of integrating “video location with Google Maps,” community media centers provide individuals with additional face-to-face opportunities, such as classes in video production and web distribution, with other residents in their local community.

Through the process of being involved in a community media production, people may meet, work with and learn from others in their community who they may not have known. These moments create connections and strengthen ties between people in a way that virtual interaction alone may not be able to facilitate. But, when this process of physical media making through community learning moves to the social web, there is enormous potential to extend these community connections to others within and beyond their physical locations.

SuzeMuse is posting a series of stories about the author’s experience growing up and working in community television in Canada. The series was inspired by a post written by Chris Brogan about social media. In response, the author writes, “Hmmm. Sounds to me like Community Television to me. Over the next few blog posts I shall endeavour to explain.”

In the second post, “Online Media: Community TV Comes Full Circle - Part II,” the author writes:

“A few months after I started volunteering, a job opportunity presented itself. At barely 20 years old, I was hired by Skyline Cablevision to be a Staff Producer, one of 5 paid producers who were hired to manage the productions and the volunteer crews. I had 7 different shows to produce. I was the youngest person on staff, I was in charge of building a community of people, developing their skills to produce good quality programming delivered to targeted audiences, and engaging people in an interactive way (something that mainstream TV networks did not do very well back then). It was social media delivered via television!”

Read more at suzemuse.wordpress.com.

I’m starting to believe - but I hope it’s not true - that the lack of widespread research in Public, Educational and Government (PEG) Access Television studies may have profound consequences for media scholars seeking to understand participatory culture.

Not only is there a huge misunderstanding about the differences between public access television and video sharing sites such as YouTube, but as a student of media studies I find the shortage of community television research particularly troubling when reading articles such as David Croteau’s 2006 article, entitled “The Growth of Self-Produced Media Content and the Challenge to Media Studies,” as an example.

In the article, Croteau writes that the growth of self-produced media content correlates with (1) an increase in “affordable digital equipment” and the young people growing up with them, (2) an increase in “broadband presence” to “facilitate the distribution of data-heavy files,” and (3) a rise in “specialty websites and services” to aid in the “distribution and promotion of self-produced media content” (341).

While the author recognizes that self-produced media has “long existed in many forms,” such as with community media and other independent forms, Croteau states that what makes participatory media different from previous media is the way in which the Internet enables locally produced content to be distributed to “far-flung” audiences (341).

As a result, the author writes that both the fragmentation and proliferation of self-produced media content have created challenges for media scholars previously focused on areas such as the concentration of media ownership and its impact on large consumer audiences.

Therefore, Croteau proposes that media scholars need to develop new methodologies for assessing “content trends across these new production platforms” in order to better study the “volume” of self-produced media content (343). The purpose, he writes

could provide a unique glipmse into an increasingly diverse society and an interconnected world. It could suggest new models for traditional media to adopt to facilitate civic engagement and participation. It could reveal a refreshingly broad range of self-expression and creativity, indepedent of market imperatives. (344)

I chose to highlight David Croteau’s article not because I disagree with the statements mentioned above. I respect his work as a media scholar in general and specifically in his works Media/Society: Industries, Images, and Audiences and Business of Corporate Media. However, the article represents the disconnect between studies in community media and media studies more broadly - i.e., media scholars often seem to gloss over community media research contributions to the field of media studies.

Community Media Research and the Field of Media Studies

Previous studies in community media can provide a helpful starting point for scholars interested in studying what Croteau calls “self-produced media content” in the following ways:

1.) By studying the community media center as a communication site media scholars can help articulate the restoration of meaning to places that have become increasingly diminished by networked individualism.

2.) PEG Access Television distributed on the web provides researchers with the opportunity to explore the connections between user-centric and community-centric media content through viewing public access media alongside civic offerings such as school district meetings and local government proceedings online.

3.) The process of community television can be studied as a theoretical framework for those interested in investigating how individuals “move outward from the self, to others, and to society–including government and other institutions and organizations” (Higgins, 632) through their participation in self-produced media content.

4.) Community media studies contribute historical context for exploring the role of mass media in shaping public opinion about self-produced media content and its impact on those who view and produce such media.

For these reasons and more, I am concerned that media scholars may be left with the challenge of remaining “vibrant and relevant” (Croteau, 344) in a culture increasingly populated by self-produced media content unless community media research is considered more seriously within the field of media studies.

References:

Croteau, D. (2006). The Growth of Self-Produced Media Content and the Challenge to Media Studies. Critical Studies in Media Communication, (23)4, 340-344.

Higgins, J.W. (1999). Community Television and the Vision of Media Literacy, Social Action and Empowerment. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 43(4) 625-644.

Governing.com, “The Resource for States and Localities” published an article this week, entitled “Unscripted Ending” written by Josh Goodman. It caught my eye for a number of reasons. One for this Related Links caption (above). And another for the article’s interesting conclusion:

“Can Internet video match public TV as a venue for independent voices? Gordon Bloyer thinks so. Since he moved his local access show to YouTube, Bloyer has begun getting hits not just from Indiana, but from all over the world — although, tellingly, his focus has shifted from local politics to national politics. But Barbara Popovic, executive director of CAN-TV, a public access station in Chicago, isn’t so sure. If the Internet were an adequate replacement for TV, she says, you’d see big media companies giving up their cable channels. It’s no wonder why they haven’t, Popovic says. ‘This is prime real estate.’”

Read the article online at Governing.com. Thanks to Clippings for PEG Access Television for the link.

In 2007, the Funding Exchange Media Justice Fund published a journal, entitled “Imagining the (Un)thinkable” which as the website explains:

“This collection of essays pushes the boundaries of current research on media policy and provides critical information on the potential power of the internet, radio, and community-access TV to enhance social justice movements. Written from perspectives of people of color, low-income people, women and other marginalized communities, the report offers useful tools and strategies for media justice advocates.”

In their chapter on “Owning the Airwaves through Community-Access TV,” authors Lyell Davies and Betty Yu write about how community access TV centers can support social justice organizations through “effective outreach and assistance” to ensure that marginalized communities, such as “LGBTQ, low-income, immigrant, youth, differently-abled, or communities of color,” are not excluded from the “first-come-first-serve” model of community access television.

Through this process, community access TV centers - as “community media centers” - can help connect social justice organizations to the “media multi-purposing” possibilities that Internet distribution tools, like blogs and podcasts, provide in helping them reach “multiple audiences in multiple ways” about their work in the community:

“To meet the needs of this expanding communications arena, community-access TV centers need to reinvent themselves as ‘community media centers’ and provide services supporting the varied media platforms now in use. This may mean engaging in conventional cable-access TV production, but it may also mean assisting in the production of a short video for web vlogging or in the creation of an interactive website . . .

Also, local community-access TV centers have a role to play in building a ‘physical’ community; while the Internet has led to the creation of new ‘virtual’ communities, the kind of intimate networks fostered by local TV making and viewing—and the presence of a ‘bricks-and-mortar’ meeting center like an access TV station—are still central to many political struggles, community empowerment efforts, and campaigns for social justice.”

To download the full report, visit the Funding Exchange Media Justice Fund.

Last week, my thesis adviser recommended that I consider cultural studies as an analytic framework for helping me to articulate some of my thoughts on this project. More specifically, it was recommended that I refer back to Roland Barthes and his work in Mythologies. In re-reading “Myth Today,” Barthes begins by explaining that “since myth is a type of speech, everything can be a myth provided it is conveyed by a discourse” (109).

What I’ve learned so far in my research is that there is a huge disconnect between those who believe that public access television is like YouTube and those who believe the two are totally different. As I re-read Barthes, it becomes clear to me that at some point over the past 30 years a myth was created about public access television that still exists today.

With the growing popularity of YouTube this myth has resurfaced once again. What I hope to do with this project is explore the discourse surrounding the myth of public access television and how it has collided with the participatory web. As Barthes writes

We reach here the very principle of myth: it transforms history into nature . . . what causes mythical speech to be uttered is perfectly explicit, but it is immediately frozen into something natural; it is not read as a motive, but as a reason. (129)

Citation: Barthes, R. (1972). Mythologies. New York: Hill and Wang.

Berkeley Community Media is hosting an event later this month, titled “The Collective Experience in the Moment of YouTube.” Here are the details from their website:

“Join members of various media collectives (including Paper Tiger TV & Video Machete) as they reflect on the history, present and future of their practice. Bring your questions, your concern and desires for the future of the media. The first hour of the forum will be taped for cablecast on B-TV.

(A collaboration between B-TV, Video Feedback Collective and KPFA’s First Voice Apprenticeship program. Presented in partnership with hosting organizations and Media Alliance, Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) and SF Access. For more information: http://www.papertiger.org/AAA )”

This looks like a great event. I look forward to learning if the video from the event will be available online.