Jason Daniels from Medfield Community Cable Access posted notes from the Alliance for Community Media Northeast Region Conference on “Migrating to a CMS.”

“The goal of this session is to get an Access center in the right frame of mind to begin the process of moving their website from a static html site to a dynamic (open source) content management system.

Below are the presentation handouts from ‘Migrating to a CMS’. Feel free to download and share. I would like to thank those that attended the session. If you have any additional questions and want to keep this dialog going email me at jdaniels (AT) medfield.tv.”

Visit Medfield.tv for additional links to content management systems.

For those interested in learning more about the intersection of Public Access Television and free and open source software, Jason Daniels (medfield.tv) forwarded along a link to audio & meeting minutes from a gathering of public broadcasting and public access media folks during the recent Drupal conference held in Boston, this year. Here’s a bit from the description:

“This is the breakout discussion held during the Drupalcon 2008 Boston conference on March 5, 2008. This discussion tracks the progress of anumber of concurrent Drupal development projects focusing on enabling PEG (public, educational and government) Access centers to utilize Drupal for their organization.

The video was not so good, so we just have the audio. Below are some notes from the conversation. Hopefully, this provides some context, history and direction for those in the Access community who are wondering what Drupal is, why it is something they should care about and also for those in the Drupal community who would like to know about a very exciting project. Please add, clarify or correct.”

Thanks, Jason.

For another perspective from the community media and technology community on open source software, visit MediaMix.

Drupal content management system (CMS) is an open-source tool that is being used by community media workers to build their access center’s websites (see MNN, Medfield.tv, CCTV and others). Drupal gives users the ability to upload audio, video and images in an interactive environment that extends the physical space of community media to online spaces. Drupal also provides its site’s users with the ability to create blogs and groups that enable physical community media members to participate online in-between face-to-face meetings.  Community member participation is then archived and searchable through tags and other metadata.

I’m interested in the use of Drupal in PEG TV, not necessarily because of the tool itself, but because of how people are sharing information around it. Behind the scenes, community media workers are sharing information about modules and Drupal extensions both online and off. This information sharing, while mainly technical, connects community media workers through the technology. Online, community-generated support forums, such as those found on PEGSpace, offer other community media workers with guides for incorporating Drupal into their own communities’ communication platforms.

This type of information exchange is not unique to the open source community. But within the PEG TV community it plays a significant role worth further examination. My interest for this project is to understand how community media workers use and share information using the web to enable their own physical communities, through these participatory platforms.

Again, what is interesting to me is how Drupal, as a tool, is bringing people together through knowledge sharing across distant community media centers. In doing so, collaboration around Drupal development and implementation (1) connects distant community media workers through online forums, (2) creates opportunities for knowledge sharing and support, and (3) provides spaces for individuals in physical communities to not only communicate, but to become more literate and saavy in networked environments.

I finally watched my DVD copy of “Opening Access” (photo above) produced by Denver Open Media. It’s an excellent overview of the possibilities that the Internet and user-driven media technologies provide towards revolutionizing Public Access TV. The DVD begins by situating Public Access TV in opposition to corporate television and other commercial media. It highlights the fact that large corporations sell viewers to advertisers in return for profit. Therefore, corporate media are biased in their tendency to cater to audiences in wealthier communities that have the money to spend on advertisers’ products. As a result, we have a commercial media landscape that largely fails to address public and social needs.

As an alternative, the DVD’s narrator and DOM Executive Director, Tony Shawcross says that Public Access TV is

* Inclusive
* A Free Speech Conduit
* Training
* Equipment Access
* Cablecast opportunities

Often for free or very low-cost.

Therefore, Public Access TV is an “alternative avenue that is not vulnerable to the inherent biases and restrictions of the corporate model.” But unfortunately,

“Support seems to be falling. Today it is a series of small, disconnected, and under-funded organizations. There is an opportunity to transform public access into something a more viable more powerful tool.”

Shawcross explains that “media distribution is moving to the Internet” and that the “many to many” internet model for distribution is the main use of the internet today.

Therefore, in order for Public Access TV to take full advantage of this new distribution technology:

1. All content must be made digitally
2. Creative Commons (public access TV content is noncommercial and CC allows us to get the word out)
3. Everything needs to be web-accessible
4. Rating and categorization. We need to let viewers watch, rate, tag and categorize content on the web.
5. Closing the digital divide

The DVD’s next section goes on to explain the model of Denver Open Media, which “flipped the switch” on this revoluntary new model in 2006. Shawcross explains that DOM is modeled after smaller companies like Wikipedia. A company with 5 staff members, but is more popular than Brittanica. DOM gets out of the way, so that the members can get involved.

In the video, DOM’s Station Director, Ann Theis says that DOM’s model fosters community because “community members are going to come in here and really have to rely on one another. They are going to have to help each other. And that in itself will just foster a greater sense of community and ownership.”

Brian Hiatt, deveropenmedia.org’s Web Developer talks about how DOM wants “the producers to be driving the station and hopefully through that model” people will “really feel that they own the station.” He also talks about how the website offers more traditional services, including equipment reservations and the opportunity to sign up for classes. They also hope to give producers the ability to upload content from home.

Most importantly, DOM is focusing on creating an open source model that other Public Access TV organizations can use. Shawcross talks about the significance of this system, in terms of connecting public access centers and the producers’ media through this system.

Mia McKenzie, DOM’s Education Director, talks about the fact that people with very little money are usually not heard from because they don’t have any way to produce their own media. DOM provides opportunities for people can get access “through very little cost and get the training and the tools to “be able to have a voice in media.” She goes on to say,

“We want everyone in the community to have a voice in media, but we want it to be as eloquent a voice as possible. So we train people to make the most high quality video they can make.”

The video explains that “public access fills the basic human need to communicate and to engage in one’s community in a way that isn’t limited by the financial profitability of your message.” It allows freedom and individual control. “The user driven approach will allow communities to mold TV into an institution that fulfills public and social needs.”

To watch the video or order a DVD copy, visit DenverOpenMedia.org. The DVD is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial license.

I wrote an essay, titled “Community Media in Transition: Exploring the Digital Culture within PEG Access Television.” It is an overview of my research and methods used for this project to date. My hope is that it will serve to help focus my work moving forward.

From the introduction:

In August 2006, following the Alliance for Community Media Conference, “Connecting Communities” at Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel, I launched a personal research blog, titled “Community Media in Transition: PEG Access TV and the Internet” to continue the conversation online. As I wrote about the project, I hoped “to explore the role of technology, public policy, and the Internet and its relationship to public, educational, and government access television.” Much to my surprise, I soon found myself at an exciting intersection of two worlds colliding without much of a roadmap to navigate the changes ahead. Through my professional and volunteer lives I realized I was in a unique position to help share the stories of those facing this intersection of cable access television and a complex new medium, called the social web.

This essay is about my process and discovery during this time. It is a document of the steps I have taken, up to this point, to investigate a thirty-year old practice by community media activists now facing a world uprooted by technology, politics and a global market economy. In it, I will present an overview of (1) the methods used, (2) the community observed, (3) the technologies being implemented, (4) the persistent themes and challenges, and (5) the potential paths of study moving forward.

Read more.

In the Spring 2007 Issue of CMR, Alliance for Community Media Executive Director, Anthony Riddle writes

“Look at the wonderful opportunities presented by the technologies in this issue of Community Media Review. The presentations only scratch the surface of the possibilities for your PEG community. The truth is, however wonderful each is on its own, none can find its true potential unless integrated into your existing resources.

How does a cable-based live program drive an audience to your blog?

How can a blog be used to add to your viewership?

Can a website offer in-depth materials to viewers who became interested in a topic?

Can we share program materials electronically, quickly between producers and PEG centers?

Can these tools organize our communities politically?”

Felicia Sullivan has mentioned that community media centers should at least try integrating new media tools into existing resources. But, she’s also said that a center shouldn’t worry about using all tools - only those that best serve the needs of a community.

For example, a PEG TV center may use Blogger and blip.tv to distribute videos using an RSS feed and tags. But the same center may not feel that Drupal is right for them. Using a video blog alongside an existing website might just be the answer based on available resources and community needs.

In the Spring Issue of Community Media Review, Felicia Sullivan writes

“These concepts of freedom, transparency, accessibility, creativity, inclusion and community should sound familiar to those of us working in community media. They are the foundations of much of the work in which we are engaged. Therefore, we owe it to ourselves and to our communities to explore and be open to free and open source software.”

I think there is an exciting opportunity to further explore these common values shared by both the free and open source software and community media movements. I’ve created a new page, titled “Free and Open Source Software” on the Community Media in Transition wiki to examine how the mission of PEG access TV fits within this context. If you are interested in sharing your resources and knowledge for this project, please visit the wiki to get started.

At the end of the article, Felicia writes

“It is not a fluke that so many of the resources detailed in this article have ‘.org’ in their URLs. F/OSS is a stance about what kind of communication culture we want to create. isn’t this what the mission of community media is all about?”

Download the article for free (as in speech) over at CMR.