Transmission Project - public media

Show me your publics, and I’ll show you mine

Howie Fisher — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 17:40:07 +0000

Reading the title chapter of Michael Warner’s 2002 collection of essays Publics and Counterpublics, I am struck by how the book resonates with my work with the Transmission Project. It has helped me think through and beyond the rhetoric I encounter every day.

Professionals in the field speak endlessly of “community-engagement,” “community feedback,” and/or “community opinion.” Recently these terms have been popping up in my research of online vote-for-me contests and in online forums that claim to capture “community opinion” by allowing users to comment on various topics or ideas for change. How these sites describe community action coincides with Warner’s explanation of the normative ways we ascribe agency to a public, an otherwise abstract space for the circulation of ideas:

All of the verbs for public agency are verbs for private reading, transposed upward to the aggregate of readers. Readers may scrutinize, ask, reject, opine, decide, judge, and so on. Publics can do exactly these things. And nothing else. Publics – unlike mobs or crowds – are incapable of any activity that cannot be expressed through such a verb. Activities of reading that do not fit the ideology of reading as silent, private, replicable decoding – curling up, mumbling, fantasizing, gesticulating, ventriloquizing, writing marginalia, and so on – also find no counterparts in public agency” (123).

Community participation as imagined in many online spaces resembles Warner’s understanding of publics as essentially readerly – able to act only in ways one would act in relation to a text. Innovative as such online tools are, they still render community agency as an interpretive and analytical function and not as specifically collective practice or group action. The Transmission Project has argued on behalf of more expansive definitions of public and media that include as broad as possible a range of approaches of group participation and communication. An open-ended definition is central to the Project’s understanding of how media can transform people’s lived experience.

In a similar attempt to make room for new imaginings of public life, Warner offers the notion of a counterpublic, which he defines as, “a scene where a dominated group aspires to re-create itself as a public and in doing so finds itself in conflict not only with the dominant social group but with the norms that constitute the dominant culture as a public” (112). Organizations hosting Digital Arts Service Corps members serve people of color, immigrant groups, women, and youth, all of whom could be described as being subject to oppression. However, members’ pre-existing identities or their oppositional stance toward power do not define them as a counterpublic. (More important is how participation in a public shapes or transforms identity.) Rather, Warner suggests, counterpublics are “counter” to the extent that they offer alternative ways of participating in public life. His example of 18th century She-Romps are characterized not by their female membership, but by how these clubs of rowdy women rejected conventions of public politeness and modesty. Counterpublics imagine their terms of membership differently from conventional notions of participation in public life.

Taken from the Center for Social Media, one of my favorite quotations that the Transmission Project has used and reused effectively imagines publics as emerging by way of something other than the act of readerly discourse:

People come in as participants in a media project and leave recognizing themselves as members of a public — a group of people commonly affected by an issue. They have found each other and exchanged information on an issue in which they all see themselves as having a stake.

Creating media plays a generative role here beyond conveying the opinions of the creators. The way I read this statement, the newly-formed public does not preexist its members’ participation in an act of co-creation. Rather, participation in creation serves as the condition of membership for the new public. Similarly, the participants’ common stake in an issue did not previously define them as individuals. Membership has transformed their identities. In this example, collective creation of media supersedes private reading as the action that defines the public as such. In this regard, it borrows from models of popular education in which instruction is not delivered down to students who then produce individual responses. Instead, learners share lessons with each other. Because it offers a non-normative vision of participation in public life, the excerpt serves for me as an allegory of transformative public media.

To what extent do the community media projects your organization runs coincide with Warner’s concept of counterpublics? As community media movements build steam, I hope we continue to think critically about how we imagine participation and forge new forms of engaging in public life. Until then, let the She-Romps romp!

The Digital Arts Service Corps is evolving Public Access TV

admin — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 21:23:01 +0000

Colin Rhinesmith recently published an article on PBS’s Mediashift: “How Public Access TV Evolved into Community Media Centers”. Three of the five examples given are initiatives supported by our Digital Arts Service Corps: Grand Rapids Community Media Center, Access Humboldt, and the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC):

Around the country, community media centers are launching exciting new collaborations with local organizations, neighborhood activists, schools, and media outlets to create online, hyperlocal citizen journalism sites. These projects are re-imagining how Public, Educational and Governmental (PEG) access TV stations – which are funded through regional negotiations with companies like Comcast – can serve their communities’ information needs in the digital age.

These innovators are using digital and cable access technology to generate civic awareness and create diverse local media – a function that’s increasingly crucial as traditional journalism institutions face their greatest challenges to sustainability.

These centers provide much more than public access to cable television, having fully embraced computer-based production and broadband technology to augment their media training programs. As a result, innovative experiments in community news production are replacing the tired old “Wayne’s World” stereotype of public access. This article spotlights five examples of how PEG access organizations are using funds tied to cable television as the bearing wall to support experiments in inclusive community news production.

National Radio Project

admin — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 14:53:36 +0000

Third Coast Conference

Belinda Rawlins — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:41:08 +0000

Ready to spend two + days with hundreds of fellow producers, artists, students, and audio enthusiasts, talking shop about radio/audio storytelling on the airwaves and beyond? Ready to come together, listen to each other’s work, share ideas and expertise, and make priceless connections with future colleagues and new friends?

Thought so. This fall marks our tenth (!) anniversary, and we hope you’ll celebrate with us over the course of another radio-drenched weekend here in Chicago.
We’ve lined up some amazing presenters like…Scott Carrier (Independent), Berit Hedemann (Norway), Amy O’Leary (New York Times), Jamie Tarabay (NPR), and Steven Tilley (AUS). These and many other radio pros will be tackling a wide range of topics, like… sound design, voicing, pitching stories, audio slide shows, audio tours, capturing “the moment”, equipment and software recommendations, and reporting from unfamiliar places. And that’s just a taste.

WGXC/Prometheus Radio Station Barnraising

Belinda Rawlins — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:37:18 +0000

For our 12th radio barnraising, Prometheus is joining forces with WGXC 90.7 FM! WGXC, Hands-on Radio is a community-powered media project of the transmission arts organization free103point9. What makes this barnraising like no other barnraising we’ve held before? Our partnership with WGXC will be our very first full power radio barnraising - at over 3000 watts, WGXC will reach nearly 80,000 people in two New York counties.

Joining us will be low power and full power community stations from around the country, community media makers, educators, and activists of all stripes. Workshops will cover topics including radio production and programming, technical and station organization issues, radio as a tool to organize communities, youth radio, transmission arts, and radio theater.

We’ll come together, as always, to meet old friends and new, to share ideas and experiences, and to teach and learn. While we build a radio station over the course of one electrifying weekend, we’ll also share the skills and build the networks that will strengthen the participatory media and the community radio movements. Come prepared to pick up a soldering gun, eat scrumptious local food, and celebrate the birth of WGXC - a brand-new community radio station!

Where: Hudson, NY
When: September 24 - 26

Registration includes:
* Access to all workshops and special events
* All meals
* Housing (either indoor crash-space, camping, or a home stay)
* Childcare. We love kids - they are free!

PRPD's 2010 Public Radio Programming Conference

Belinda Rawlins — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:34:09 +0000

In the tradition of PRPD Conferences past, this year’s gathering will also inspire. You will hear prominent public radio voices and those outside our industry not just explain where we are as an industry but where we are going and how to get there despite – or because of – the troubled economy.

This year’s program includes sessions designed to help PDs and content professionals not just survive but thrive in these changing times. Attend, and you will return to your station armed with new knowledge about:

o
programming on multiple platforms
o
marketing for program directors
o
making the most of social media
o
new paradigms for program creation
o
improving your management skills
o
on-air fundraising
o
and much more..

Pre-conference events include:

* Interviewing - Training The Trainers with David Candow
* The always popular PD Workshop with Scott Williams and Sheila Rue;
* Using Arbitron Portable People Meter data - (presented by RRC);
* Format meetings for news, jazz and classical station.

And, there’s the invaluable networking; colleague to colleague conversations that help solve problems, generate ideas and renew valuable connections.

“Art, Access & Action: The Moral Imperative?” (A Major Arts & Media Summit in Chicago)

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:23:28 +0000

Welcome.

This year a bunch of groups, organizations, and individuals will be coming together to host a major arts & media summit in Chicago. The Summit will be held at Columbia College Chicago and happen on April 8th and 9th from 10 am to 9 pm on both days.

Here is a list of organizations and individuals involved:

PEOPLE

Jeff Biggers, author of “Reckoning at Eagle Creek”

Elisa Kriesinger, PoliticalRemixVideo.com

Patrick Lichty, member of the Yes Men/Columbia College instructor

Kari Lydersen, In These Times contributing editor

Salim Muwakkil, In These Times senior editor & WVON personality

Gordon Quinn, Kartemquin Films

Tracy Van Slyke, Media Consortium

Jeff Spitz, Groundswell Films

Paul Street, frequent contributor to ZMag

Top 10 items in my download folder that I keep coming back to

Belinda Rawlins — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 22:47:53 +0000

1. Powerful People Make Good Decisions Even When they Consciously Think
Is it the way you think that is affecting your decision-making or your power position?

2. The Future of Public Media FAQ and Public Media 2.0: Dynamic Engaged Publics
Jessica Clark synthesizes all things public media. I think I’ll consider her my personal moog.

3. Process is Powerful: Planning and Evaluation for Media Artists
“The purpose of grounding our work in principled practice, strategic planning and evaluation is so that we can develop the knowledge and methods to respond quickly and effectively to situations without being thrown off course and without being derailed from our long-range goals.” Word.

4. Cry Baby Cry – Van & Titus
Oh, wrong list. But I can’t take it off…it’s too good.

5. Maximum Performance – Different Things to Different People
Part of my honest practice philosophy that I’m cultivating, this article offers a variety of frameworks to assess organizational effectiveness.

6. Net Neutrality’s Impact on Low Income Communities: Equal Access for All
A fabulously wonky mix of stories, stats, and smack down, this doc from Public Knowledge makes the case and rebuts the arguments.

7. The Great Leap of Faith
It might be a couple of years old now, but I frequently find myself thinking back to Ginny Berson’s reflections on the changes facing community radio. And then I wonder what she’d change in those reflections today.

8. Same Old Song: An Analysis of Radio Playlists in a Post-FCC Consent Decree World
Didn’t payola die with Alan Freed? Funny, radio play was easier then than it is now. Uncovering the structures that shut out voices of new artists is the first step to reform.

9. The ACORN 361 Affiliated Organizations list
Are you sure you’re not on it? Did you even know that there was a list?

10. A Field Report: Media Justice Through the Eyes of Local Organizers
Before deciding it’s time to work with non-media focused groups, you’ve got to read this.

PRPD's 2009 Public Radio Programming Conference

Belinda Rawlins — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:39:35 +0000

The 22nd Annual Public Radio Programming Conference is an opportunity for those involved or interested in programming to hone their skills, network with colleagues, find answers to questions and spend four days immersed in the pursuit of excellent content.To keep your travel costs affordable (and green), we have arranged:

1. A week-long transit pass included in your registration fee - unlimited use of RTA including:

a) Roundtrip rail to & from the airport & conference hotel - Easy, non-stop, all-indoors
b) Direct transportation to & from:

o Opening Receptions at Idea Center (WCPN) and House of Blues (WKSU),
o The Moth (Wed. event) at the City Club of Cleveland