Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Check out the newest version of the Telecommunications Policy Primer (last updated May 17, 2006)!

PS. This a Adobe Acrobat document, so you'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to peruse it!

Tuesday, May 23, 2006




















The video of last week's discussion is now available on the Tactical Media website: http://www.cpcs.umb.edu/cmt/tacticalmedia/

(Thanks Shannon!)

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Discussion Notes Part 6: Net Neutrality, Oppression & Youth

Even after the video cameras ran out of tape, the discussion continuted. Andy Carvin offered that there is other proposed legistlation that we need to be aware of in this arena: DOPA and the Internet Safety Act. He recommended going to CNet.com to read up more about these bills.

Fred also countered that being aware all all these bills and issues related to communications policy need to be in our awareness as citizens.

Nina LeNegra, a concerned resident of Boston and media literacy activist, expressed that all this sounds like a big media literacy problem, but also a problem of oppression. She's interested in where the discussion is of changing the larger oppressive models, such as violence in our community, in these media policy discussions. Jason Pramas, a UMB student and Mass Global Action activist, responded that he has been working with local groups to get organized around these issues in the Boston area. These groups are not just media focused groups and have the potentional to galvanize all different types of people in the media policy debate.

Another audience member added that we all just need to act and use our voices to show the strength of public media as the voice of our citizens. Nettrice Gaskins also added that in terms of education, new meda channels such as MySpace create a new dynamic opportunity to teach media literacy. Dan Coughlin again stressed that the process of these local community media creators talking with each other to come together to figure out their own interests, is actually making folks more proactive and visionary about what we can create in the future. This may be the first steps of us creating a new public media structure for our country. Finally, Fred responded to Nina that we are not naive to think media is the only issue out there - but we are asking people to make media their second issue. Because media is a big part of how we build our identities and express ourselves, it's very important.

Bamboo, from Envizion Artists, pointed out that people are not sensitized to see what's happening in the media sphere. But he sees this new colorful group of people getting organicly involved with making media. If media is an art, there is a lot of potency in media as a way to translate ideas. He stressed that we need to support organizations that are on the frontlines of working with youth, because they are teaching media literacy and advocacy with our next generation. (For more information on Envision Artists, email envizion@yahoo.com).

And that's all folks!
Discussion Notes Part 5: Questions for Dan about Net Neutrality

In response to Dan's presentation, James, a local community member asked for some clarification in the terms the panelist have been using. For instance, public media and community media. Fred Johnson responded that public media is media created with the public interest in mind. This definition can be confused with alternative or independant media. Community media is locally community based practices, as well as new social networks online.

James also asked about the net neutrality and the current bills. Andy Carvin pointed out that it's not necessarily about what's in the bill, but what is NOT in the bill. He also explained that network neutrality is the big companies wanting to control how people access content on their pipes. Network neutrality is about preserving universal, unregulated to content on the net. Andy really sees it as a free speech issue.

The hard idea to explain to people about net neutrality is how individual people will be affected. The companies that own the pipes want to be able to charge both users and content creators to use the Internet, that up to now has been free for anyone to access.

Another idea to wrap your head around is big companies like Verizon's interests in these issues. Andy suggested that while Verizon is making money now, their business model is outdated and they fear their ability to profit in the future unless they quickly get into these new markets (video and internet).
Discussion Notes Part 4: Dan Coughlin - Save Access

The next member of the panel was Dan Coughlin, the director of Manhatten Neighborhood Network - the people who spearheaded the beginning of the Save Access movement.

"MNN may be the most robust public access station in this country" - Fred Johnson

Dan dove right into the two pieces of legistlation in Congress right now around telecommunications policy. First is the COPE Act, which focuses mostly on video franchise agreements and Verizon's desire to branch out into the video market. In the past, local municipality franchise fees supported PEG access stations. So basically these fees built out not only public access stations but also institutional networks, such as police and library networks. This proposed legislation strips the ability of local municipalities to negotiate their own franchise agreements.

These bills represent a huge push by telephone companies to get into the video market, without abiding by the rules of public interest. For instance, any customer service complaints will go to the FCC, who is not prepared to address them. It also re-defines revenues on which franchise fees are based (it doesn't include VOIP or even Home Shopping Network revenues). Another area that is changed by this legistlation is build-out requirements. This is where these companies want to "cherry pick" and "red line" which communites where they want to build out service only to those places where they think they will make the most profit (and not serve ALL communities). This bill doesn't address the dynamic needs of the local municipalities - you can't expect a "one size fits all" structure to benefit all communities.

But we must understand, according to Dan, that these companies such as Verizon are "fighting for their lives" and using big amounts of money to lobby for these bills. TV for Us is a astro-turf group, funded by the big telco companies, who are taking out ads claiming that the this legistlation will lead to cheaper prices and more choice for consumers. Dan pointed out several ads by these interests to shape public opinion around these issues. According to ACM, these companies are spending $1 million a day on lobbying for these bills. There is also a mass shutout of these issues in the mass media - it's because of all the ad revenue these lobbying groups are doling out.

The good news from Dan is that the folks who are PEG access users are waking up to these threats and getting organized. These folks are not progressive community activists, but they are coming together to defend this "incredible network of non-commerical, community based media outlets." A success last week was getting the New York City Council to pass a resolution to support PEG access and against the current bills in Congress. (NYC is Verizon's hometown, by the way.) Folks showed up and galvanized their city councilors to support community media. Dan is excited by this organizing, which he hasn't seen for many years. He called for people to get involved in the May 24th protests, even if it's just standing in front of a Verizon store.
Discussion Notes Part 3: Defining Public Media (& It's Impact)

In response to Alyce, an audience member, Curtis Henderson from BNN, commented that it's very hard in the Boston area to explain to funders why they should support public media. Alyce responded that there isn't any current research to determine the real impact of public media, including the impact of PBS. There have some evaluations of the impact of children's programming on PBS, but not on large scale for the larger social impacts. Another audience member pointed out that these media are not designed based on idea of helping people who want to create social change as a tool. So for example, substance abuse programs can get funded, with supplemental media campaigns, but not specifically to make a film about substance abuse. If you get people involved in making media, there's the potential for more empowerment. But often we see that the making of the media may be distracting from actually making the change. The question is how can we use media.

James from Cambridge asked for some more explanation of what a "caucus" entailed. Alyce said this format is more participatory.

Nettrice brought up the idea that the new media ecomonics will affect media policy and how media makers will create content in the future.

A representative from the Benton Foundation asked if all these "citizen journalists" and unprofessional media makers really have the public interest in mind, or whether they are creating useless content. Alyce pointed out that there is no longer a public and that the crisis is not just in the media arena. Other public institutions like public education is also in crisis.

A CPCS student asked about telecenters in the US and if they provide free access to technology. Andy responded that some are, but those centers don't last.

Michael, a local blogger, questioned the progressive politics role in fighting the current legistlation. He thinks that grassroots organizations will "get murdered" in the fight against big corporation - however, there is potentional in organizing the millions of gameplayers and internet users as a massive constinuency. These folks might not respond to the language and arguments of progressive politics - he thinks we need to broaden our approach to incorporate these individuals in the fight. Andy responded that the Save The Internet campaign has a very diverse coalition of groups fighting for network neutrality - it's not only "those liberals" involved in the fight.

Finally, Andy responded to a comment about MySpace. Recent protests by Latino students were organized on MySpace - this type of free social networking online services has potential as a community organizing tool.
Discussion Notes Part 2: Alyce Myatt

The next panelist is Alyce Myatt (from Baltimore), who has been involved with public service media for many years, especially independant media and arts and their interaction with PBS and other outlets. She brings us back into the realm of the U.S.

She started with a feeling that we're reliving the media arts center movement, as a workforce development strategy. There's an opportunity to recognize that we have patterns in developing interest networks that we should learn from. Alyce started her career in Boston. Her recent work has been with the Center for Digital Democracy - because she says it all comes down to democracy. "We know that media has the power to shape what we think, how we act and how we interact or choose not to interact." So she started her work in creative development, then moved into media funding, but now she's looking at it from a broader perspective. She stressed that it is all about "forming allies" - it's important to work collectively, to ensure that not only media matters but everyone continues to have the opportunity to "make a living." She's been working to "deconstruct the fog" to understand all of the landscape of media making. In particular, she thinks we should all be "taking to the streets" and start with focusing on whether we are able to use the media to understand what's happening in the world.

The Center's recent caucuses all over the country have focused on 1. infrastructure, 2. governance, 3. sustainability, 4. the role of media in society , and 5. movement building. These events strove to incorporate all sorts of voices, like that of June Giovanni (office of communications in the UK).

Alyce also suggested that there are legislative policies and corporate interests that are determining our public media environment. Our citizens have a limited idea of what public media is - it's not just PEG access and PBS, but it also is broadband and wireless access. She ended with the thought that she's been asking a lot of questions without having any answers and she challenged the audience to provide some. She also added that part of the problem is there needs to be support for both production and distribution of media.
Discussion Notes Part 1: Intro's and Andy Carvin's International Perspective

Here we are! Our panel is all set up and Fred Johnson has started with an explanation of the Community Media and Technology Program at CPCS at UMass Boston.

Telecom policy reform is going to impact us on several levels, but it's only symphtomatic of some larger changes with the way our government approaches our future as an information society. The panel tonight strives to start with broader perspective (even internationally) and drill down to a more local or specific perspectives.

The crowd includes folks like Curtis Henderson from Boston Neighborhood Network and George Stone from MNN.

If you want to hear more

Andy Carvin will offer an international perspective, from his work with the Digital Divide Network. Alyce Myatt pub media (both TV and radio) in this country while Dan Coughlin will be filling us in on the threat to PEG access channels.

Andy started with the thought that it's easy for us to be focused only on our local issues. In 1998 a process began in the United Nations to try and figure out where we want the Internet to go. The International Telecommunications Union decided to set up the World Summit on Internet and Society. The second one happened recently in Tunsia. These events included heads of states, representatives from "civil society" and members of the private sector. The goal was to create a set of policy understandings all the members of the UN can understand. The result - there is a huge difference in mindset between the developed and the undeveloped countries around how to regulate the Internet. Developed countries argue that they already have programs to bridge the digital divide, but the developing world is fighting for funds from the UN that are not doled out easily. The fund, as it is, is voluntary, which leaves it far from large enough to cover all the costs of even setting up the basic telecom infrastructure in developing countries. According to Andy, when you add it up, it's probably less than the city of NY budget for education.

Meanwhile, there is also some fights around "internet governance" - basically who controls the Internet. Several countries are fighting for freedom of expression online, while some countries (such as China) are very against these freedoms. Some of this goes back to disagreements on the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Finally, the Summit became a way for some countries to just heavily publicize their current efforts.

The UN also recently released the Millenium Developing Goals (MDG) - a long list of goals for improving human dev around the world, such as cutting poverty in half and internet access for every village by 2015. These goals have spurred creation of CTCs or "telehuts" in places like Hungary and India. (A CTC/telecenter is public community space where people can do technology and their goal is to serve the public good. They are not only funded by the government and they don't always include the making of content. Andy shared a copy of his new book on the subject "From the Ground Up: Evolution of the Telecentre Movement," which is also available online.)

In addition, the World Intellectual Property Org (WIPO) has a proposal on the table to change the definition of who has ownership of multimedia content. Usually, bloggers have copyright on their own content - but this new proposal suggests the distributor would also have some intellectual rights. So if you post to Blogger or YouTube, that network would have a say in how the content is used. Unfortunately it looks like this proposal might go through, but it should be a wake up call for "mom and pop" producers that their rights might be stripped away.

ALERT - Rep Markey is having a phone call with Moby tomorrow - ask Andy for the #!

Questions from the audience included "what is an infoshop?" and "what is it a telecenter?"

Also asked is how these CTC's help to fight poverty and encourage grassroot development. Andy responded that they are NOT centers that just provide internet access for the sake of access without any input from the community (for example AOL/PowerUp). The CTCs that have survived are the ones housed in alreay existing organizations (such as YMCAs, Boys & Girls Clubs, etc). The best centers didn't "drop out of the ether" but instead respond to an existing challenge in the community that people want to solve; and internet is added as a new tool to already do the work of the community group.

The next question revolved around if a CTC is funded by someone like the Chinese government or big companies like Microsoft, possibly with some ulterior motives - is it really embracing the spirit of the telecenter movement?

So on to the next speaker...
How can you contribute from afar in the On-line Community Discussion tonight?
  1. Send your questions for the panel by commenting to this blog entry or sending an email.
  2. Check out notes tonight on this blog as the event goes on.
  3. Check out photos of the event on Flickr, tagged "policydiscussionBOSTON".
  4. Read the blogs of in-person participants - see the Blogroll to the right!
Check out the newest version of the Telecommunications Policy Primer (last updated May 17, 2006)!

PS. This a Adobe Acrobat document, so you'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to peruse it!

Monday, May 15, 2006

EVENT: Apocalypse Soon for Public Media?
An On-line Community Discussion featuring Live Podcasting and Blogging

Wednesday, May 17th, 2006, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
[Boston-area folks invited to be in the live audience]

Encuentro 5
33 Harrison Ave., 5th Floor
Boston, MA 02111
-- corner of Harrison Ave. and Beach St. in Chinatown, 3 blocks from the Boston Common --

The Community Media and Technology Program at the UMass Boston College of Public and Community Service, the Tactical Media Group, and Massachusetts Global Action are presenting a communications policy discussion and community meeting.

Partial List of Commentators:In an effort to make this discussion accessible for those interested but not able to be here in person Wednesday night, we'll ask in-person participants to blog their notes, including photos, video, and audio. To tune into these blogs/podcasts, check out the list of participant's blogs addresses (a.k.a. a blogroll) that will be available here on this blog. People are invited to send in questions ahead of time by commenting to this blog entry and we'll also be recording full video/audio of the event over the course of the evening to be available later.

WHY?

Public media and the Internet are in deep trouble. We are currently seeing the emergence of the communications and media systems we will live with for the next several decades. And, as we write, there are proposals in Congress that dramatically threaten the public interest, and the potential for innovation and media justice in those emerging systems, in the US and around the world.

At stake are:

  • local control of our communications infrastructure,

  • the survival of the Internet as an open and affordable communications network [a.k.a. "net neutrality"]

  • maintaining and expanding public access to cable and other media production and distribution resources

  • our communications rights to receive and create media

  • the democratic and equitable provision of telecommunications access to low income communities and communities of color

  • the future of public service media

  • the ability of local government to assure the communications infrastructure is present to support progressive economic development.

The current debate in Congress is symptomatic of a much larger surge of social changes arising from global economic and technological shifts in communications sectors. It is no accident that just when we are seeing the media landscape tilting in the direction of communications rights, many-to-many communications, and the hope for media justice glimmering somewhere on the horizon, powerful commercial and private political interests are moving to secure the communications future for themselves. Now we are hearing about the roll back of public access to cable, slashed funding and political chicanery for public service broadcasting, privatizing the Internet, fast information lanes for the wealthy, and slow lanes for the rest of us. Hanging in the balance are crucial issues of global communications rights, media justice, democratic political and economic development around the world.

Please join our group of experienced communications and media commentators, and a live and virtual audience, for a discussion of these issues, and what can be done about the current proposals in Congress. For more information, contact Jason Pramas jpramas at igc.org.