Ralph’s Engelman’s dive into the history of public media lays out the history of non-commercial radio and television from a political perspective.  While he isn’t afraid to examine the form and content of various important programs, or touch on the localized history of notable stations, he primarily focuses on the big picture political-social-economic forces of American capitalism and representative government which shaped non-commercial media. Importantly, he doesn’t stick to the self-identified public platforms of NPR and PBS which are made for the public, but also covers, in detail, the media movements made by the public. He focuses especially on Pacifica Radio, and the Public Access Television movement. The book begins with a look at the early 1900s-30s, explaining how we arrived at a corporate dominated commercial system of broadcasting despite the fact that radio technology and form was developed and proven viable through non-commercial use. He puts a special emphasis on the Radio Act of 1927 and how, despite a great political battle, the commercial broadcasters won, guaranteeing them a special place above public radio. It next examines the history of radio post WW-II, starting with Pacifica, then NPR. Next, it looks at PBS. Finally, it covers the public access television movement.

In the realm of Public Access Television it explains how the concept was essentially started in Canada by George Stoney and the Challenge for Change program. And while it successfully gained a foothold in the United States, it took on a remarkably different form due to the significant political differences around television culture and funding. It is also interesting to see how public access changed in response to the times, both because of enforced political decisions from above, and the movement’s response to broader social changes.

Engelman, Ralph. Public Radio and Television in America: A Political History. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996. Print

I just finished Subject to Change by Deirdre Boyle. This book is a captivating history of the first decade of Guerilla Television, before the true proliferation of public access cable-TV stations. The book is almost entirely based on Boyle’s interviews with the participants along with a survey of original tapes and periodicals. The saga begins circa 1968 and ends at about 1980. It interweaves the stories of 3 different organizations, although it devotes most of its attention to TVTV: Top Value Television (TVTV), a true Guerrilla Television group focused on flexing their own resources to create artistic and journalistic tapes; University Community Video (UCV) a Minneapolis-based access center, funded by a university, dedicated to achieving social change through working with and training the community to produce alternative video; and Broadside TV, a cable station in rural Tennessee built on the premise of creating locally originated programming, with extensive community input/engagement, based on the model of the community newspaper. It looks at the situation which lead to the creation of these three groups, describes their brief triumphs, and analyzes their death, examining why they failed to radically change society or television.

This book was probably the most exciting history book I have ever read. What struck me as the most interesting was the three different approaches that the groups took to achieve their goals of changing the media landscape. Notably, each one’s approach changed regularly in response to their successes and failures, but mostly in response to funding needs. The TVTV was the least community centered, acting as “postpolitical media mavericks intent upon sabotaging the media from the inside” through innovative and down-to-earth content (186). As each attempted medium failed to adequately fund or allow for expansion of viewersip they progressively moved from tape distribution to cable, to public TV, then broadcast where they hit a dead end and collapsed. UCV was closely linked to it’s community for the first several years, but it then gradually began to move away from community work as it sought to create more impact films and the political consciousness of the community grew colder, it never got the cable access channel that it wanted. It ultimately abandoned it’s community vision in favor of being a center for regional and national video arts. Broadside TV began as an attempt as creating an electronic “folk school approach of self-sustaining self empowerment” in opposition to the big organizer model “in which outside organizers forcefully martial a community behind its program, only to discover that once they leave the original funding dries up, the model collapses” (145). Ironically the group turned into what it opposed as it became more reliant on contracts and deadlines with community organizations as the funding dried up due to changes in FCC regulations. This is highly informative, especially for an aspiring worker in community media. It illuminates why the public access TV model, as opposed to these other three, has lived on (despite troubles of its own). Cable access managed to secure long term (often a decade or longer) government contracts which guarantee funding.

Boyle, Deirdre. Subject to Change: Guerilla Television Revisited. New York: Oxford, 1997. Print.

I read chapter 1 and 4 of Kevin Howley’s textbook Understanding Community Media. Chapter one covers theoretical issues, definitions, and provides perspectives on the power and importance of community media. It explains the need for media access and participation in a healthy democracy. Then it defines community media along with the similar concepts of radical and alternative media making a distinction between “Guerrilla” or “radical” media and community media (I should note here that Micheal Shamberg does not make a distinction). Chapter 4 analyzes the theory of community media in an internet-driven “age of access,” noting how community media is no longer the only option for people to participate in the media landscape, and how community media outlets must actively rally community to harness the democratic potential of new technologies.

Chapter 4, titled, “Collaborative Pipelines” is the most interesting of the two. The author, Otto Leopold Tremetzberger begins by pointing out that “Experience shows that technological potential alone does not lead to a democratization of information and knowledge; quite the contrary – completely in the interest of globalized markets, the “command/control” structure of technologies leads to increasing social homogenization” (53). As technology has advanced, commercial mass-media has co-opted the functions of alternative media. At one point, community media was the only way for regular people to participate in the media. Today with shows like American Idol, online comment sections, and news stations which use people’s cell phone footage (without paying them), it is much more common to participate in the media world. However, community media is far from dead. It is up to people to get to the forefront of new technologies and create the democratic potential for media production, rather then leave it to the telecom giants. Despite great challenges, and a cycle of co-option, the opportunities are still about for democratic media.

Howley, Kevin, ed. “Theoretical Issues and Perspectives.” Understanding Community Media. Los Angeles: Sage, 2011. pp. 15-21. Print.

Tremetzberger, Otto Leopold. “Collaborative Pipelines.” Understanding Community Media. Kevin Howley, ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2011. pp. 53-61. Print.

I just finished chapters 1-4 and 7 of Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman’s Manufacturing Consent. This groundbreaking work of scholarship begins by explaining what media propaganda is and describe how the American mass-media is essentially a propaganda organ of business and government. Despite the lack of enforced state censorship, the stories told by the media must pass through 5 “filters”: The massive size and concentrated ownership of media corporations, reliance on advertising and profit motives, dependence on sanctioned business and government “experts”, organized flak campaigns to keep the media in line, and anticommunism. In all the rest of the chapters, the authors apply this “propaganda model” to a set of several world events to test its validity using both qualitative and quantitative analysis. They look at media coverage of victims of state violence in U.S. backed client states vs. enemy states; elections in central America, the alleged Soviet-Bulgarian plot to assassinate the pope, the Vietnam war, and the campaigns in Laos and Cambodia.

What strikes me the most about this book is how thoroughly the propaganda model holds up, even in examples of journalism which at first glance seem to break the model. While the media coverage of Watergate seemed to be a massive blow to the government, the authors point out how the victim of the Watergate Scandel, the Democratic Party, is a massive and powerful institution. At the same time, revelations were surfacing of far more damaging, deadly, and illegal covert actions against the Socialist Worker’s Party, and the Black Panther Party which received a near media black out. While the book is slightly dated, the concepts, in my view, still hold true for current mass-media. At it’s conclusion, the authors make a rousing call to arms for grassroots and independent media producers, calling on all progressive organizations to take seriously the question of fundamental media reform.

Herman, Edward S. & Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of The Mass Media. Pantheon Books, 1988. Print.

This book is a comprehensive study of public access television. After briefly covering the history, it studies public policy, current issues (1999), funding, and looks toward the future. Along with simply providing information, this book provides recommendations and useful knowledge for anyone working in Public Access, especially if they had read this book when it was written.

Unlike Shamberg’s Guerilla Television, or Understanding Community Media, this book spends little time on the philosophy or real theory of public access, except as these concepts fit into the regulatory/judicial side of things. Interestingly, it traces the history of court decisions and regulations relating to public access TV from the 1960s until 1999. It shows how public access, since it is largely tied to the government, is always subject to the politics of the day. For example in the early 70s, regulators at the FCC mandated that all large cable networks fund a public access channel. By 1979 the Supreme Court, backtracking on its earlier rulings, denied this regulatory power to the FCC, stating that only congress was allowed such to make such decisions. Overall, I found this book to be a solid general introduction to public access TV from a sort of policy perspective.

Linder, Laura R. Public Access Television: America’s Electronic Soapbox. Praeger, 1999. Print