This PhD dissertation examines the concept of community and how marginalized communities, specifically queer ones, are created and represented through public access television. Eric Mark Freedman begins by examining the concept of community and explaining exactly public access television is, looking at the regulatory history and noting just how little scholarship there is on the subject. Then he looks at some of the more well known figures of public access such as TVTV and paper tiger television, explaining how such producers were important, but by focusing scholarship on these more well known creators, academia tends to ignore the far more common side of public access: the hyper-local, or community-based narrow cast. Next, Freedman uses two main examples of how queer community was produced and reproduced through public access. First, with AIDS-related programming, second with gay and lesbian focused programs.

This dissertation provides a counterpoint to the works of DeeDee Halleck, Deirdre Boyle, and Ralph Engleman, who detail the history of the public access movement through the lens of national players. FCC rulings, nationwide political movements, and activist video networks which provided programming to access stations across the country. While these people have certainly been the most influential access program, and has likely provided inspiration and viewership boosts to numerous access channels, they aren’t the bulk of public access. “There is an enormous amount of programming that does not appear even on these independent networks, programs that reach an even smaller and more geographically specific audience.” (76) Such programming, which for the queer community was often centered around AIDS, provided vital information for people seeking treatment. Additionally it served as a rallying point for activists to learn from each other’s successes and failures, and learn from events which were presented inaccurately in the media.

Freedman, Eric Mark. Producing (Queer) Communities: The Politics of Public Access Cable Television. 1998. University of Southern California, PhD. Print.