At last week’s FCC hearing at Harvard Law School, the issue of network neutrality once again took center stage. As the Internet giant Google describes the issue
“Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet.”
Therefore, proponents of network neutrality believe that Internet service providers should not be in the business of deciding what content users get to view and what applications they get to use. To read more about Net Neutrality (from the advocates’ perspective) visit The Open Internet Coalition and Save The Internet.com.
As many advocates of public access television are already aware, the Internet is essential to their work in cable television. Not only is the Internet a vital platform for accessing the programming and organizational information of community media centers, it is also becoming the next generation distribution platform for local and diverse voices in community media production.
More importantly, I would add that community media advocates should look beyond using the Internet as simply a new video distribution platform to be used in combination with public, educational and government access channels. It should be considered as a platform for community communications to augment the physical interactions of people collaborating within community media centers.
For example, at Cambridge Community Television (where I work) several community groups are using our Drupal-based groups to collaborate online in between face-to-face meetings. These Internet tools can enhance community connections through enabling extended interest- and learning-based opportunities.
If Internet service providers gave preference to commercial websites over non-commercial websites, such as those operated by community media centers, this action would be in direct violation of the principles of network neutrality. Principles that former FCC chairman Michael Powell described in the following:
“(1) Freedom to Access Content: Consumers should have access to their choice of legal content;
(2) Freedom to Use Applications: Consumers should be able to run applications of their choice;
(3) Freedom to Attach Personal Devices: Consumers should be permitted to attach any devices they choose to the connection in their homes; and
(4) Freedom to Obtain Service Plan Information: Consumers should receive meaningful information regarding their service plans.”
The issue of community control over local communications has been an essential concern for community media advocates over the past thirty years, as noted in Linda K. Fuller’s important work on Community Television in the United States and in other sources. The issue of network neutrality is just another stage in this political process. As Fuller writes
As individuals and community groups begin to consider television not just passively but also as an outlet for their artistic and/or informational interests, they need to develop a whole new mind-set toward media in general and television in particular. Next, they must actively participate in media policymaking and stop defering to policies in place, theoretically, to protect their interests. What is being presented here is a control issue, and until we personally and professionally consider the implications of where we want the locus of control, we are no where. (191)
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