On my way into work this morning, I noticed an article in the Boston Metro entitled, “Pol eye YouTube for city life.” In it, Greg St. Martin talks about how Boston City Councilor, Rob Consalvo is interested in using YouTube to “broadcast” PSA’s to reach younger audiences. Martin adds,

“Consalvo said the city could use the new Boston Neighborhood News (BNN) studio to film the announcements, which he envisions spanning topics such as education, voting and summer jobs.”

This would be an excellent use of a community media center to provide residents with locally relevant information using web video platforms such as YouTube. The access center could also share the content on its website, while inviting community members to be involved in the production process.

It might also encourage residents to work with the city to create a more democratic communication process through their involvement on such a project. In any case, it’s an interesting model that access centers might consider particularly in working with local non-government and non-commercial organizations.

Read the article online at MetroBostonNews.com

I submitted my thesis to the Department of Graduate Studies at Emerson College this afternoon. It’s entitled “Community Media in Transition: Public Access Television in the Age of YouTube.”

I appreciated the feedback I received from my committee during my defense. They recommended that I spend a bit more time on the paper before making it public. I agreed.

My plan now is to spend the next two months revising the paper. I hope to create a more clear and direct version of my thesis statement with the revision. My hope is that in doing so it will provide a much more detailed road map of policy recommendations that I’ve only begun to layout in the paper thus far. I also hope that a revised version will be more accessible to the general public.

While I’m eager to share the ideas presented in the paper, it’s more important to me that I spend the time making it all it can and should be. That’s the work ahead.

3CMedia, the Journal for Community, Citizen’s and Third Sector Media and Communication published an excellent article, entitled “Community Media in a Prosumer Era,” by Community Communication Scholar Ellie Rennie (author of Community Media: A Global Introduction) in their December 2007 issue.

In her article, Rennie discusses the impacts of convergent media on traditional forms of “broadcast-era” media through her research on SYN: Student Youth Network in Australia, “a media organization and community radio licensee based in Melbourne run by and for people under 26″ (25).

She makes important distinctions between “user-generated” content (found on commercial websites, such as MySpace, Facebook and YouTube) and community media, such as public access television, community or “grassroots” radio, and other geographically-focused media.

The author adds, “digital divide aside,” what are characteristics that remain unique to community media as more individuals gain “access” to participatory media on the web? (26)

She explains that geographically-based community media enjoy added characteristics - beyond access - that allow individuals to participate in member-driven processes. These include, “open, participative” (25) functions that allow individuals in physical communities to take ownership within the organization and of developments regarding technology implementation and use (31).

Therefore, Rennie writes “a new research agenda for community media might include:

• The role it plays in supporting public information and engagement - in ways that are both similar and different from commercial and public media. (The Griffith University audience study is a useful starting point. See Meadows 2007).

• The contribution of community media training (and what theat means for the creative industries labour market)

• The changing status and role of third sector organizations” (27)

While the author recognizes a number of technological and structural challenges to implementing and sustaining convergence among broadcast-era community media, she writes, “community media provides a structure and method which can take amateur media to the next level” (31).

“Community media sector organisations are socially-responsive and proactive in that they cater for groups who are not otherwise adequately represented and develop technologies to serve identifiable needs rather than market gaps” (31).

In addition, Rennie finds “Convergence is encouraged within community media organizations which are open to people with different skills and interests, yet brings them into a shared culture and social world” (29).

Access the entire article online, available at the 3CMedia website. Thanks to Rob McCausland and Chuck Sherwood for the pointer.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.