As the United States enters a critical period of transition from old media to new, we must foster the growth of innovative, robust forms of public media. Especially with the emergence of new distribution platforms--digital television and radio, expanded cable and satellite services, and various forms of broadband media--now is the time to build a new, more participatory media system, first by assessing and then taking advantage of these technological advances. Clearly defined and sustainable public space must be part of the foundation of the new media landscape, not merely tacked on as an afterthought, as has been the history of public media in our country. Our communications landscape, in short, requires a media system that offers opportunities for democratic expression and public service applications, restricted neither by government constraints nor by private interests.
The Center for Digital Democracy, accordingly, working in collaboration with consultant Alyce Myatt, has developed a plan to define, promote, and expand the public media. The values of such media--including respect for diversity, thoughtful analysis, community expression, independence, and creative risk-taking--must be a significant part of our media environment. But precisely at a time when we should be expanding our public media options, harnessing the power of new technologies to foster new forms of independent expression beyond traditional broadcast, the concept itself has once again come under attack.
Through a series of “Public Media Caucuses” involving public media producers, distributors, activists and other programming-related constituencies, we will encourage meaningful deliberation and action to help shape the future of public media. We recently launched our first community meeting in San Francisco in conjunction with INPUT, the annual international public broadcasting conference. Meetings have been held in Seattle (October 7) and Los Angeles (October 16), and over the next two years, CDD and Ms. Myatt will convene additional meetings that reflect both the diversity of the country and the breadth of the public media field itself.
Through an analysis of new media opportunities in television, radio, and the online environment, we will help communities make meaningful decisions about how best to ensure the evolution of public media, and then collectively implement those decisions. In this manner, our project will create a framework for a public media movement in the several caucus communities and beyond, engaging media makers; media arts centers; community radio entities; public, educational, and government (PEG) access organizations; media funders; and such consumers of public media as community-based service organizations and agencies, libraries, and educational institutions.
Among the issues for which strategies and tactics will be developed (and which were covered in our initial San Francisco caucus) are the following:
• Infrastructure
• Sustainability
• Governance
• Role of public media in society
• Movement building
After the initial series of caucuses, CDD will play a role in supporting the work of the groups involved to achieve their self-defined goals. Our objective is to help create a healthy public media ecology that includes public television stations (especially in light of their new digital, multi-channel capacity); expanded cable-based public access centers (where many PEG facilities now have digital and broadband functionality); locally focused community radio outlets; alliances with “Indymedia” organizations; and public-interest use of cable, satellite, and new forms of telephone and broadband video distribution.
We are working in concert with other local and national organizations and individuals to elevate the issue of independent public media and its critical role in civil society. We are particularly interested in combining the efforts and good thinking of media makers with the work of media activists and reformers. As the debate over the future of PBS evolves, we believe that our Public Media Caucus project will make an important contribution. Elevating the profile of public media and building an expanded distribution infrastructure are necessary--not just for the future of PBS but for the future of the nation as well.