The Decline of Public Access and
Neo-Liberal Media Regimes
Public access television has been described as the most interesting and
controversial experiment in democratic control of the media” (Kellner)[1] and as
America’s Electronic Soapbox. (Linder)[2]
It certainly represents the largest success of popular democratic initiatives
within the mass media. At its best public access television created
participatory public space in which views not heard in broadcast media were
given voice, and critical discussion of public issues was facilitated. Yet in many respects these achievements are
under siege: public access TV in the US has undergone a severe decline. The
number of stations and funding has decreased. A recent study by the Busked
Group and The Alliance for Community Democracy comparing funding between 2005
and 2010, found that in “over 100 communities from 14 states, PEG centers have
become endangered or closed down entirely. 45 channels in California alone have
been closed 12 in Los Angeles.[3] Other centers
have faced serious cuts, with an average funding drop of 40% annually.[4] Many long
term operators who have built successful public access operations have been
terminated and replaced with more limited alternatives or have had service shut
down altogether.
For one group of critics the decline of public access is an inevitable result
of the evolution of technology. Public access has been rendered obsolete by the
rise of internet technologies. Videos can be posted on You Tube, Facebook or
other internet outlets instead of public access television. The ease of making
and disseminating videos for these media means, according to these groups, that
public access is not needed. The individual has sufficient outlets and
opportunities for free expression. For technological optimists this decline is
not a bad thing. It follows from the technological
changes in the media brought about by the internet. According to the
technological optimist, the internet has brought about a more radical democratization
of media. Anyone with an internet connection and high speed broadband can be an
internet content provider. The creation of the vast number of independent,
producers yields an internet public that is the most democratic found thus far.[5] It
promises a rapid and expanding flow of information. Skeptics, however note that
the internet has become a source of information overload and a home for flamers
and ranters and doesn’t encourage reasoned discussion. In fact for these critics
the current generation which has grown up on the internet is largely ignorant
of history civics, geography and even math skills. Internet culture fosters the
creation of isolated individuals who lack creative spark.[6]
For others like Ben Agger, the internet encourages oversharing. Users “divulge
more of their inner feelings, opinions and sexuality than they would in person
or even over the phone”[7]
He thinks oversharing blurs the boundaries between public and private and
reproduces pathologies of the self that create unhappiness.
It is mistake I think to draw a direct link between technological
development and the expansion of democracy without including social and
political factors which dictate the way technologies are employed. The history
of information technologies in the industrial era and especially the 20th
century have all followed a similar pattern: following a period of anarchic
freedom corporate power steps in and centralizes control and authority over new
technologies. Already internet and social media providers hold lot power over
what can be said on the web. What looks
like a wild frontier may look entirely different five years down the line of
telecommunications companies are able to institute policies for differential or
tiered access to broadband.
I think that the democratic potential of the internet in its current form is
if not exaggerated both unrealized and open to disruption. Technological
optimists equate isolated individual expression with the creation of a vital
public life. The internet, like other new technologies certainly does increase
the scope of interpersonal contact across physical distance and exchange of
information, yet it may not increase reasoned discussion and debate. Certainly
it has not yet eclipsed television as the dominant media as critics claim. For
the poor and the elderly internet connectivity and mastery is not always
accessible. More important the internet is mostly privately owned. It does not
represent an open public forum free from interference.
The technological evolution argument fails to take sufficient notice of the
political/economic forces in the era of neo-liberal capitalism, I argue that
the primary threat to public access is not the internet, or the evolution of a
new technology that supersedes television, it is a more closely connected to
issues of media consolidation the attempt to neo-liberal policies that seek to reduce the
public obligations of broadcast and telecommunications media, These changes threaten the ability of public access
to operate as an alternative or oppositional public sphere. Waning commitment
to the pubic obligations of broadcasters had a major effect on the democratic
character of the media, and these forces work to limit political participation
and a democratic public life. Public
Access advocates have not always thematized the nature of this threat. While Sue Buske of the aforementioned Buske
Group notes that the biggest threat to public access is the emergence of
statewide franchises which bypass the well-established local franchise
agreements and lead to the elimination and /or underfunding of access centers[8], she fails
to put this insight in the political/economic context. It is tied to the
neo-liberal attempt to reformulate and deregulate media policy. Many access
proponents adopt a liberal marketplace of ideas approach which does not allow much
criticism of market processes. This neo-liberal political economic constellation
rose to prominence before the internet, however its consequences for public
media is just now becoming fully apparent. More than just an economic outlook
that had led to “deregulation” and concentration of media power, neo-liberalism
also seeks to forcibly dismantle the achievement of the Keynesian welfare state
that accepted public goods and social rights. This neo-liberal communications
policy is implicitly and sometimes explicitly opposed to the maintenance of a
lively public apace in which popular democratic participation in the media can
be facilitated. It also discouraged notions of citizenship that rest on social
rights and the development of capacities to be effective citizens.
After an historical discussion of public interest obligations behind the
rise of public access, I want to argue that neo-liberalism impacts public media
in several important ways. The decline of public interest obligations has led
to a decrease in focus on public access. First of all media concentration has
an effect on public media when the increasing power of a few corporations allows it to bypass established procedures
and force changes in the relationship between cable companies municipalities
and citizens and changes in the philosophies of regulation affect the FCC: the
waning commitment to the public obligations of broadcasters means less funding
and less visibility for public media: changes the nature of non-profits lead
them to seek strategies that stress profit-making operations or at the least
administrative and managerial philosophies that stress results, rather than commitment
to social rights and citizens participation. I think taken together these elements create a
legal context and a political economic one that leads to shrinking public
media.
[1]
Douglas Kellner Television and the Crisis
of Democracy Boulder: Westview Press, 1990
[2]
Laura Linder Public Access Television: America’s Electronic Soapbox New York
Prager 1999
[3]
The Buske Group, Analysis of Recent Peg
Access Center Closures, Funding Cutbacks and Related Threats Prepared for
Alliance for Communications Democracy April 8, 2011
[4]
Lindsey Sanders, “Cracking the Case of Disappearing Public access channels” the
save the news blog http://www.savethenews.org/blog/11/05/11/cracking-case-disappearing-public-access-channels
[5]
See for example Mike Rosen Molina, Public-Access TV Fights for Relevance in the
YouTube Age Media Shift December 17,
2008 http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2008/12/public-access-tv-fights-for-relevance-in-the-youtube-age352/
[6]
Robert McCloskey Digital Disconnect: How
capitalism is turning the Internet against democracy (New York: The New
Press, 2013). For a brief discussion Samuel Morse’s view of the public uses of
the telegraph (he wanted it to be owned by the government to avoid
commercialization) in the 19th century see Ralph Engelmann, Public Radio and Television in America: A
Political History Thousand Oaks Sage 1996 12-13.
[7]
Ben Agger, Oversharing: Presentations of
the Self in the Internet Age Routledge 2012 p xi
[8]
Jeff Delong Support, funding dry up for community access TV USA Today November
4, 2010 http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-11-04-accesstv04_ST_N.htm
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