Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/hold me in your arms/The Electronic Commons

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THE ELECTRONIC COMMONS

From: [e-mail] in "gen.cyberculture - News for Networkers" 8:24 pm Jun 26,
1994

FROM VTR TO CYBERSPACE: Jefferson, Gramsci & the Electronic Commons

by Mark Surman ([e-mail])

The following is a paper on electronic public space and democratic communications. It
brings together the history of community access television and experiences of activism
on the Internet in an effort to vision the future of the "electronic commons" amidst a
world of commerical boradband "superhighways".

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For a complete version of this paper -- including pictures, sidebar commentary and a
full bibliography -- contact Mark Surman ([e-mail])

This paper is COPYRIGHT MARK SURMAN (1994). Permission is granted to duplicate, print
or repost this paper as long as it is done on a non-commercial basis (ie. keep it
free) and as long as the whole paper is kept intact.

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THE ELECTRONIC COMMONS

From: [e-mail] in "gen.cyberculture - News for Networkers" 8:24 pm Jun 26,
1994


FROM VTR TO CYBERSPACE: Jefferson, Gramsci & the Electronic Commons

by Mark Surman ([e-mail])

************************************

1. INTRODUCTION

"Those of us who recognize that change comes in increments of one, five, ten, and
twenty-five, need no convincing that public access TV will provide the nucleus for a
post bureaucratic, vaguely anarchic video pajama party."

(Kika Thorne -- member of the SHE/tv video collective)

I spent most of my younger years looking for anarchy and the joys of a video pajama
party. But I never found them _ at least not in the flat bland-lands of television on
which I grew up. As someone who started working in the electronic glitz biz at the
tender age of 16, my TV world was filled with mindless American violence imports,
poster girl posting technicians, the dawn of the three minute pop music commercial,
and a great deal of frustration. For one moment in my early TV years, I naively
attempted to insert peace activism into the virtual violence that I sent over the
airwaves for a living. I produced one little low tech commercial, advertising one very
small peace event. It ran once and then it was pulled. The only answer I ever received
to my million "whys" was a big "because".

Ever since, I have been trying to bring my activism to every communications space that
would give me a few minutes to speak my mind _ alternative print, computer networks,
television. Where TV land is concerned, I have realized that there are a myriad of
openings through which one can sneak ones activism into "the box". You can go out and
buy a Fisher Price PixelVision camera and document your dissent _ but it is unlikely
that many people will see what you have done. You can go to journalism or film school,
move to New York or Hollywood, and try to "change the system from within" _ but this
is a dangerous and personally painful journey. You can spend six months writing an
arts council grant and make a relatively high quality magnum opus of electronic
resistance _ but it may only show to nine other activists at a far off film festival.
Or, you can start making activist television right now, for free, and broadcast it to
thousands of eager viewers by using your local community access TV facility. For the
past five years, I have been using community television as my activist intervention
into the television realm.

In theory, the community channel is the utopia of social change media freaks. It's
free. You get trained on how to use the equipment (so you don't have to spend all that
time and money going to TV school). There's no censorship of your ideas. Everybody
from the community has an equal opportunity to use the channel. Your programs inhabit
a spot on the TV sets of thousands upon thousands of channel surfers. Sounds like the
perfect place for an anti-big-business-anarchist-cooking-show, doesn't it?
Unfortunately, it's not. Because that's just the theory _ and we all know about the
tenuous connection between theory and what actually happens. In reality, the Canadian
community channel is only a good place for activism as long as you don't offend
anybody too important. I have helped air programs showing political protest, civil
disobedience, the propaganda value of the Gulf War media coverage, and the beauty of
human powered art vehicles. But try doing a show about representations of sexuality.
[SIDEBAR -- Nadia Sistonen's The Crux of The Gist of The Biscuit, which showed a
vagina smoking a cigarette, is a among a handful of programs pulled from Toronto
community channels over the past few years for being "offensive".] Or, even better,
try making a media activist show that criticizes the cable company that runs your
local community channel. No way.

This gap between the way the community channel is supposed to work and the way it does
work hasn't stamped out my interest in access TV, it's just made me shuffle sideways a
little. I have shuffled to places that take the good parts of community television and
combine them with new ideas, and new ways of organizing. And I have looked at the ways
that creative activist TV producers all over North America have made the best of
access channels where they live.

I have also started to experiment with a model of an open, uncensored, grassroots,
people-controlled media system that exists outside the realm of television _ the
Internet. Although it doesn't allow me to send videos out to the world, the Internet
does fulfill many of my activist communication desires. It lets me share my ideas with
people all over the world. It lets me find information that is so unique, so activist,
so challenging to "the way things are" that it would probably never make it into a
bookstore. In these ways, the Internet is a bit like an internationally linked,
text-based community access channel without the censorship problem. But the Internet
certainly has its problems too. It's hard to get around, it's not free , it's
generally male dominated, and you've got to own a computer. In my activist
communication dreams, I'd like to bring the best parts of the Internet and the best
parts of the community channel together.

Which brings us to the "crux of the gist" of this paper _ how to create a perfect
world for activist videomakers and anyone else who wants to express themselves
electronically. Well, maybe not a perfect world, but a better one at least. I would
like to suggest that it really is possible to merge the best parts of the Internet and
the community channel to create a more democratic and sustainable system of public,
grassroots communication. To figure out how, we will have to look back at the original
dream of community television and listen to the people who dreamed it. We should also
explore the problems that this dream had when it came of age, and what activist video
producers in the 1990's have done to deal with weak points of community TV. And of
course we should think about he Internet, about all of the people who swear by it and
at all of the activist projects that have used it. With all these perspectives, we
just might be able to figure out a strategy to get ourselves a hip new, totally open,
people-centred, accessible, egalitarian, grassroots, electronic communications system.
Or, something like that.

But first we should take a quick look at where all of this electronic democracy stuff
came from. In the late 1960's, there were a bunch of people who saw social change
flowing from the mouth of a twenty year old electronic pipe _ cable television. The
cable industry, government bureaucrats, academics, liberals and progressives in both
Canada and the US all gathered around the cable hearth to argue that the proliferation
of this "new" technology could "...rehumanize a dehumanized society, ... eliminate the
existing bureaucratic restrictions of government regulation common to the industrial
world and ... empower the currently powerless public." The revolutionary potential of
cable technology was attributed to its ability to open up more bandwidth _ to offer
more channels _ than off-air TV. Another new technology _ the 1/2" portable videotape
recorder (VTR) _ was making similar if smaller utopian waves at the same time. New
technology made video recorders cheap enough and light enough that average middle
class people could buy their own camera and VTR to make home TV. Hand-in-hand with the
increased bandwidth of cable, it was often argued that VTR could lead to a new age of
people-centred communication. Of course these predictions were nothing new: "...every
step in modern media history _ telephone, photograph, motion picture, radio,
television, satellite _ stirred similar euphoric predictions. All were expected to
usher in an age of enlightenment. All were seen as filling the promise of democracy."

But some of the ends to which all of this rhetoric was taken were new. While the
general utopian buzz implied that more bandwidth and cheap VTR's in and of themselves
could create a brave new world, there were people who argued that specific political
and economic models were needed to make this techno-democracy dream come true.
Community access TV advocates argued that the prophesied social changes would only
occur if there were specific structures aimed at promoting information democracy. The
structures in question were community access channels and the TV production equipment
needed to fill these channels with grassroots programming.

There were two general approaches to the access channel. One saw community television
as the electronic equivalent of Jeffersonian democracy, as an electronic commons where
equality, free speech and democratic dialogue would abound. The other saw the
community channel as a Gramscian "activist project", a place that would specifically
help those who had been left without a voice by the corporate media world of network
television. [SIDEBAR -- Antonio Gramsci was an Italian communist who talked about
hegemony and counter-hegemony, or how domination and resistance work in capitalist
democracies. I am using the phrase "activist project" in place of the more academic
phrase "counter-hegemonic project". Later in the paper I will also substitute the
phrase "counter-cultural" for "counter hegemonic". The point of all this is to avoid
alienating academic language. For a more detailed explanation of hegemony and
counter-hegemony, see Appendix One, What is a Hegemony Anyways?] Although both visions
of community TV floated around North America in the late sixties and early seventies,
Canadian and American community channels eventually took diverse paths, tending
towards one or the other of these visions. American access channels moved towards the
Jeffersonian electronic commons _ open to everyone without discrimination. A warped
version of the "activist project" _ open only to "disadvantaged communities" _ has dug
itself in at Canadian community channels.

Today _ more than twenty years after people started building community channels _ a
new generation of technological utopians, Jeffersonian democrats and Gramscian
activists seem to be coming out of the woodwork. They're talking in much the same
language about much the same thing, but this time in relation to the Internet and the
new broadband multi-media networks that have been dubbed "superhighways". The Internet
and the superhighway are not the same thing. Once built, the new broadband
superhighways may or may not resemble the current Internet in terms of form, access
and freedom.[SIDEBAR -- The new techno-utopians _ like their predecessors _ are
predicting that more bandwidth will change the world, although this time around they
think we need 500 channels instead of 20 to do the job. The Jeffersonians see the
Internet as the perfect model of an electronic commons and want to ensure that model
makes it to the "superhighway". The Gramscian activists are trying to ensure that both
the Internet and the new broadband networks contain spaces that promote voice and
access for marginalized communities.

The important question that faces both the community channel advocates of twenty years
ago and the access advocates of today is: how do you bring the best of both these
visions together? At a time when new networks could change the nature of both
community television and the Internet, how can we develop grassroots media ideals and
visions for the future, while at the same time maintaining the good principles and
practices of the past? To start answering these questions, we should go back and talk
to Thomas Jefferson.

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2. THOMAS JEFFERSON GETS WIRED

FROM VTR TO CYBERSPACE: Jefferson, Gramsci & the Electronic Commons

by Mark Surman ([e-mail])

Thomas Jefferson sits at the centre of the American democratic myth. He is an icon of
individualism, free speech for the common people, education and democratic rights. He
is the "...most conspicuous of American apostles of democracy." His name conjures up a
time in American history when the townsfolk gathered in town halls and in the commons
to debate issues, and when the media was a "public sphere" filled with small, partisan
newspapers. [SIDEBAR -- This idea comes from communications theorist Jurgen Habermas
who argued that a "democratic public sphere" existed in the 18th and 19th centuries
when small partisan presses and other minor institutions created the possibility of
debate. Habermas claimed that the state and corporate media had destroyed the
democratic public sphere by the beginning of the 20th century. (Kellner 1990, pp. 13
-14.)] In short, he represents all of the myths of America that started to sputter and
zig-zag during the late 1960's.

Offering itself up as an electronic commons in an age of weakening democratic myths,
community access television was perfectly timed. Hippies and liberals alike argued
that community access television could rekindle Jeffersonian democracy by providing a
central soapbox (the commons) and media opportunities devoid of corporate control (the
public sphere). Books, speeches and big-time magazine articles all trumpeted the
coming of this democratic new age. In the introduction to his book, Video Power, Chuck
Anderson describes this vision in all of its passion: "In a democratic society, active
dialogue is held to be the ideal approach to problem solving. There was once a time
when a broad representation of the community was able to get together in a town hall
and hold this kind of dialogue." Anderson argued that such dialogue had been
eliminated by the growth of cities, the power of experts and corporate media. He also
argued that community TV could bring us back to that Jeffersonian Shangri-La: "By
using the television set that is in everyone's living room as a forum for community
self expression, we may be able to realize the democratic dialogue."

From this Jeffersonian vision the community access channel as electronic commons was
born. Channels were opened up across North America to be used by everyone, free of
charge on a first-come, first served basis. In many cases, access facilities included
production equipment as well as a channel on which to air finished programs. Community
members were free to say anything they wanted as long as it was not commercial,
libelous or obscene.

This Jeffersonian television was especially suited to America, as it was rooted in
American myths. In 1972, the FCC mandated that cable operators in the 100 largest
markets provide channels for "public access". In addition, the legal thinking of the
time was that the First Amendment guaranteed a "...general public right of access to
the media." But it was not just the legal and policy mood of America in the early
seventies that kept the Jeffersonian vision of community television running _ this
idea had resonated on a much deeper level. As one activist TV producer from New York
has said, "...the gospel of access had spread quickly throughout the country." Despite
the elimination of the FCC's access mandate in 1979, the number of open access
channels grew in the US throughout the 1980's and the gospel continued to spread. Most
American community channels continue to be run on an open access, first-come,
first-served basis.

Although it never became the rule in Canada, the vision of a Jeffersonian electronic
commons made many border crossings during the 1970's. In its 1977 community channel
handbook, The New Communicators, the Canadian Cable Television Association (CCTA) said
that "...cable technology makes it possible for people to have access to television as
a citizen right." And this was not just talk. Many early Canadian community channels
experimented with the open access, electronic commons model. In a 1973 article from
the Challenge for Change Newsletter, Calgary community programming manager Wendy
O'Flaherty explained that her policy "...was to permit and encourage unrestricted
access to the channel by the public. No screening of users was practised, with the
exception of screening out people with commercial purposes, groups with other
resources available to them (schools), and avoiding duplication and overuse by
evangelical religious groups." This sort of experiment with the electronic commons
only made brief stays on Canadian soil.

The problem that emerged with both American and Canadian experiments in totally open
access channels was that they often did not create the great gardens of democracy that
had been prophesied. It became obvious that simply opening up channels and providing
equipment was almost as ineffective at creating social change as the laissez faire
approach of the technological utopians. The people who showed up to use the community
channels were often not the people the original access advocates had expected. As one
example, O'Flaherty's open access channel in Calgary was used by groups like the Ku
Klux Klan, local ego-trippers, the Aquarium Club and right wing evangelists.
O'Flaherty also points out that "...virtually no use was made of the cable facilities
by social action groups, social agencies, Challenge for Change, or other people
interested in social change." Many American access channels still tend to be dominated
by conservative groups and ego-trippers, with little representation from the real
margins of society. These circumstances point to a key flaw in the electronic commons
approach to community television _ it does not address media literacy, burnout in
volunteer organizations, or the psychological relationship between social institutions
(of which the access channel is one) and marginalized communities.

American community channels faced an additional challenge _ cable operators were often
reluctant to provide the funding needed to keep the electronic commons well
maintained. There are dozens of stories about American cable companies reneging on
access contracts, moving away from the open access model or shutting down access
channels altogether. In Buffalo, New York _ where there is a thriving group of
activist video makers using community TV _ there has been a broad range of
difficulties associated with getting and maintaining the access channel. Until 1984,
the access channel was controlled by a cable company that favoured censorship and made
no connection between "access" and "free speech". Buffalo city council put control of
the channel in the hands of the community in 1984, but it was a number of years before
an organization with proper access guidelines and policies was given control of the
channel and production facilities. Even though Buffalonians are now guaranteed access
to their community channel, there continues to be conflict over First Amendment rights
between the access channel board and a pro-censorship city council. Although other
problems exist, Canadian community channels do not have problems with funding or local
politicians, as the CRTC both universally mandates the terms of community channel
operation and requires all cable companies with over 3000 subscribers to contribute at
least five percent of their revenue to the community channel.

Despite the problem of underuse by social change groups and the difficulty of
maintaining funding in the US, the community channel as electronic commons is not a
vision that should be discarded. American channels that run on this model still offer
something unique _ a total guarantee of access to video distribution. Although this is
not enough in itself, it does provide a good foundation from which to build new
approaches to activist television. Before we look at these approaches, we should see
how the Gramscian activist project style of community TV developed in Canada as an
alternative to the problems of the open access model.

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3. UNCLE GRAMSCI AND THE ACTIVIST VIDEO MAKERS

FROM VTR TO CYBERSPACE: Jefferson, Gramsci & the Electronic Commons

by Mark Surman ([e-mail])

After a year with the Klan and right-wing preachers knocking at her door, Wendy
O'Flaherty decided to institute a limited access policy at her Calgary community
channel. She stated that "...a policy of restricted public access to the community
channel is preferred to unrestricted access, with access being given to disadvantaged
and emerging groups and to individuals and peoples with alternate material." This
January 1973 statement marked the end of the open electronic commons in Calgary, and
reflects the approach to community access television that has been taken throughout
Canada. It is an approach that is in theory committed to alternative programming but
which does not guarantee free access to the community channel.

This idea of creating media spaces that are open only to those who are shut out by
other media can be linked to the thinking of Italian communist Antonio Gramsci.
Gramsci argued that the power of dominant forces in a capitalist democracy is
maintained by cultural means _ by elaborate and unconscious transfers of common sense
that lead most people to accept our economic and political systems as "the way things
are", as the natural order of things. [SIDEBAR -- This is Gramsci's theory of
hegemony. For more on this, see Appendix One: What Is A Hegemony Anyways?] The only
way to create a social transformation in a society where culture is power, is to fight
back with culture. Thus, Gramsci envisioned counter-cultural' projects created by
people who had come together in coalitions opposed to "the way things are". Such
projects would emphasize the ideas and perceptions of average people, and would be
specifically open to those who wanted to take an oppositional stance. Gramsci, in his
belief that social transformation must happen at the grassroots, stressed the
importance of popular media in the struggle for cultural change. From his prison cell
in the 1930's, he argued that a "new literature" could not ignore popular forms like
the serial novel or the detective novel.

Although very few of the early access advocates would have gone so far as to associate
themselves with an Italian communist, those who argued for "limited access" were
talking about very Gramscian ideas. As opposed to the Jeffersonian electronic commons
approach _ which implied that open access would automatically equalize society on its
own _ the limited access approach saw the community channel as something that would
specifically serve counter-cultural movements. It also stressed that media should be
produced by the grassroots rather than about the grassroots _ that the marginalized
should make their own images. This approach to community television saw itself in
direct opposition to the way the major TV networks were constructing our imaginary
worlds.

The link between these Gramsci-style ideas and the development of community television
is the National Film Board of Canada's Challenge for Change program. Between 1966 and
1975, Challenge for Change attempted to use film and video to "... help eradicate the
causes of poverty by provoking basic social change." To do this, the NFB put film and
video cameras in the hands of social activists and marginalized communities, made
films showing people how video could be used for social intervention, sponsored access
television pilot projects and published a newsletter that served as a philosophical
focal point for people interested in media as activist project. Challenge for Change
emphasized two points throughout its existence _ that people who wanted social change
needed a media culture that was just for them and that these people should be making
their own media. This social change media philosophy was a major contributing factor
to the development of grassroots-oriented, limited access policies at Canadian
community channels. Following the lead of Challenge for Change and grassroots-minded
community channel staff like O'Flaherty, both the cable industry and government
regulators embedded social change catch phrases like "citizen participation" and
"community self expression" into documents relating to community television.

With these impressive philosophical and regulatory underpinnings, it is hard to
imagine how the Canadian community channel could have gone wrong as an outlet for
social change media. But, in many ways, it has gone very wrong. With the limited
access approach, the power to decide what is alternative, what is community and what
gets on the channel all lie in the hands of the cable company staff.

From the perspective of some social change access advocates, putting decisions about
"what gets on" into the hands of community TV staff was the original strength of
limited access. Most of the people who ran Canadian community channels in the early
seventies came either from social activism or from Challenge for Change, or at least
were people who had been caught up in the grassroots rhetoric of the time. These
people were able to use limited access to keep conservative or well established groups
out and bring marginalized groups in. But many early staffers eventually left
community television, or they started to become more conscious of what would offend
their employers. George Stoney, the original head of the Challenge for Change program,
saw a direct link between this "employee consciousness" and the move towards more
conservative programming. "I went up there in 1982 for a panel at a Canadian cable
television conference, and when I screened all of the programs entered for awards I
was appalled at how uncontroversial and essentially dull most of it was. It could have
been made in the Queen's parlor. I divined that this was because it was all made or
facilitated by cable company employees. Although most of the coordinators came out of
a good Canadian tradition of social animation they couldn't help but look over their
shoulders to see how the company that was providing their salaries was responding."

In addition to the drift away from Challenge for Change idealism and towards "employee
consciousness", the type of people who cable companies hire has also changed over the
years. Early community channel staff tended to be people with activist or social
science backgrounds, whose training was primarily in people and ideas skills.
Television technical skills were often picked up along the way. This bias was stated
in the CCTA's New Communicators: "When cable managers advertise a program staff
position they would be wise to stress people skills. They would of course say 'a
knowledge of television would be an asset'. That is not intended to play down
television skills. It is to stress that television skills are more readily accessible
than the community skills or human qualities the job demands." The importance of
people skills over technical skills for programming staff was also mentioned in the
CRTC's 1975 brief outlining its new community channel regulations. But this bias
didn't last long. The Canadian community channel today is looked upon as an easy first
job for people just out of broadcasting college. These people have brought with them
the aesthetics, values and working styles of broadcast television. They have also
brought ideas about "professionalism" and "technical quality" which are not very
compatible with putting TV into the hands of "the people".

These "professional" broadcast values have had a profound effect on the day to day
operation of community channels, and on the nature of access itself. Some of the
traditional myths surrounding TV are: (1) television production equipment is hard to
use and breaks easily; and (2) only professionals should be making TV. These are
exactly the myths that community television tried to undermine from the beginning. But
any undermining that had occurred was quickly undone by the new cadre of "community TV
broadcasting professionals". Many community channels have rebuilt myth number one _
"this stuff is tricky" _ by instituting long, drawn out, hierarchical training
programs that frame the technical end of TV production as a secret art. As these
courses are often mandatory, a group wanting access may have to spend a year and a
half learning how to use studio equipment before they are able to touch the portable
camera and editing system that they wanted access to in the first place. Also, these
mandatory courses mean that activist media makers with years of previous training or
experience have to spend valuable time jumping through training hoops.

Myth number two _ "professionals only" _ has been brought back to life by cable
companies who have introduced "paid volunteers". Community channels who use this
system put new volunteers on boring, low profile productions until they are "good
enough" to work on higher profile shows, for which they are paid. Such professional
hierarchies totally destroy any fiction of grassroots TV production that may have been
left over from old community channel rhetoric.

This move towards the "professionalized" community channel _ especially the
introduction of paid volunteers _ was helped along by the introduction of sponsorship
by the CRTC. Since 1986, community channels have been able to sell PBS style
advertising billboards at the beginning and end of each program. On an obvious level,
this development has flushed the non-commercial nature of community access down the
drain. On a subtler level, it has led to the professionalization of production
mentioned above, as well as aesthetic uniformity and censorship. Rogers Community 10
in Toronto is rumored to bring in more than $100,000 a year in sponsorship revenues.
With that kind of money flowing in, it is essential that they provide "high quality"
programming for the sponsors. In community TV land, "high quality" is usually a
euphemism for traditional broadcast aesthetics, boring topics and a ban on
controversy. As sponsorship revenue must stay within the community channel, Rogers
pumps the money right back into professionalization projects like the purchase of high
tech, hard to use equipment and the payment of "volunteers". Such "professionalism" is
a guarantee of "high quality".

Another factor which has contributed to the Canadian community channel's shift away
from its social change roots is an overemphasis on the mandate for local programming.
When the CRTC defined the role of community television, it put local community
programming on par with the ideas of access and citizen participation. This made sense
at the time, as most media images reflected the metropolitan location of the people
who made them. Except for local news, most of the programming that Canadians saw in
the early 1970's came from Toronto, Montreal, New York or Los Angeles. The local
aspect of the community channel was intended to counter-balance these dominant
metropolitan images. But, as Raymond Williams argues, there are dangers to this local
focus of community television. "The community emphasis is so right, in its own terms,
and could so notably contribute to solving the problems of urban information flow,
democratic discussion and decision-making and community identity, that it is easy to
overlook the dimension that is inevitably there, beyond the community _ the nation and
the world with which it is inevitably involved." E This overlooking of that which is
beyond the community is exactly what has happened in Canadian community television.
The local aspect of the CRTC mandate is stressed by some community channel staff to
the point that geographically-generic, yet underrepresented ideas _ like feminism,
peace, environmentalism _ are often denied access because they don't specifically
identify themselves as "local".

Although the shift in staff, the opening up of sponsorship and the overemphasis on the
local aspects of programming are key factors in the erosion of the social change focus
at community channels in Canada, the central problem is still who ultimately controls
"what gets on" _ privately owned cable companies . "A fundamental problem has always
dogged community access television (in Canada): It is a democratic concept with a
democratic structure. The community channel is and always has been under the direct
control of the licensee." This is unlikely to change soon, as cable regulations put
the responsibility for community channel content in the hands of the cable operators.
It is the cable company that will be sued or lose their license if libelous, obscene
or copyrighted material makes it to air, not the community member who produced the
show. This means two things. Cable companies are very conservative about programs that
push any of these boundaries, shutting out people who want to criticize the corporate
media by "sampling" copyrighted images and people who want to explore sexuality
through their programming. The cable companies are also unlikely to give up control
over the content as long as they are held responsible _ meaning that a totally open
access channel is almost an impossibility without regulatory changes.

Strict cable company control of community TV in Canada has been linked both to the
blandness of the channel and the disappearance of "citizen access". In Dot Tuer's
recent article on the Canadian community TV landscape, she describes a boring and
uncontroversial evening of programming from the highly professionalized Rogers
Community 10 Toronto. It included: "...the Canadian Club Speakers Series, the Cancer
Society Fashion Show, Festival of Festivals Trade forums ... and the Lemon-Aid
phone-in show on cars." Hardly the radical programming advocated by early access
prophets! Frank Spiller, one of the architects of the CRTC's 1975 community channel
policy, talks about the disappearance of access in a 1982 report entitled Community
Programming in Canada. "One has the sense, after looking at what has actually
happened, that while a genuine effort was actually made to provide citizen "hands-on"
access in the early years, this has progressively declined so that today such a form
of access is the exception rather than the rule."

Spiller's comments describe the central problem of community television in Canada _ it
was set up as a Gramscian activist project to promote social change, but it has become
as timid, and often as inaccessible, as other privately controlled media. Of course
the Canadian community channel is not a complete wasteland. There are people in the
cable industry who live out the original ideals of Challenge for Change and access,
but they are far from the dominant voice in how community TV is run. One must remember
that the limited access approach of Canadian community television originally offered
itself up as a solution to the problems of the American electronic commons. As such a
solution, it has not fared well. It has not been able to sustain itself as a "social
change media space", as a place totally dedicated to the media empowerment of
marginalized communities. The reason for this may have something to do with the total
abandonment of the electronic commons and guaranteed open access. A mix of free speech
and social change ideals may have proven a better approach. To see how such a mix is
possible, we should take quick and creative walk with Gramsci on the electronic
commons.

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4. ACTIVIST OUTPOSTS ON THE ELECTRONIC COMMONS

FROM VTR TO CYBERSPACE: Jefferson, Gramsci & the Electronic Commons

by Mark Surman ([e-mail])

As it became apparent that both the American electronic commons and the Canadian
approach of grassroots-focused limited access had their problems, many creative and
flexible media activists started to come up with hybrid solutions that mixed the best
of both worlds. These solutions have incorporated the idea that an open electronic
commons is needed if activists are to be guaranteed access to a channel and the idea
that infrastructures specifically committed to social change are needed if
marginalized communities are to develop a stronger voice. This approach acknowledges
that even if you don't believe in the Jeffersonian myth, it is an essential foundation
to the successful development of a Gramscian activist project. Gramsci certainly
recognized this. His ideas about the "activist project" assume that the
counter-cultural coalition is working within a capitalist democracy, where at least
the myth of free speech and open political opposition exist.

In practice, the activist project on the electronic commons takes the form of
autonomous social change media "institutions". Such organizations can take almost any
shape _ a group of friends, an issue-centred collective, a media access group, a
non-profit production company _ as long as they stick to the goal of making a space
that is nurturing for the communities that they work with. These activist institutions
gain strength, flexibility and practicality by using the access channel for what it
does best _ guarantee a place to show and produce programs _ and taking care of the
social change media organizing themselves. They gain a certain level of credibility
and legitimacy just by giving themselves a name. Such legitimacy is useful not only as
a public relations ploy _ making it seem like a massive activist cultural force is
looming just over the horizon _ but also as a means to attract new members and sustain
the momentum of the group. These groups also contribute to the creation of a social
infrastructure of alternative media, building up media literacy, production skills,
ways of organizing and networks of people. Best of all, activist media institutions
are no single entity, no single voice. There are groups that deal with feminism, race
issues, workers' rights, the environment and any other issue that you can imagine New
groups pop up all over the place, all the time, contributing to the development of a
broad and diverse counter-culture of activist media.

A number of media hip activists in Buffalo, New York have set up counter-cultural
institutions like this to reflect a variety of issues that concern them. As one
example, Barbara Lattanzi, Armin Heurich, Chris Hill, Brian Springer and other
Buffalonians formed the Media Coalition for Reproductive Rights (MCRR) in 1989 to
insert a radical pro-choice voice into the upstate New York abortion debate. They used
a number of strategies to make themselves a "community institution" _ they took on a
name and an acronym, they went on the access channel asking others to join their
group, and they produced a regular public access series. In addition to taking on this
grassroots institutional function, the MCRR has set itself up as a safe-soapbox for
pro-choice activists who don't want to show their faces on TV or open themselves up to
public attack by violent anti-choice groups. They have done this by using rubber
finger puppets representing anti-choice characters as the focal point of their show,
allowing activists to speak their mind without being seen.

A more widely talked about example of a successful activist access "institution" is
Paper Tiger Television (PTTV) in New York City. Since 1981, PTTV has produced over 200
low-tech public access programs criticizing and deconstructing the corporate media
culture. They have produced episodes like: Unpacking Ted Koppel's Revolution in a Box;
Staking a Claim in Cyberspace; and Herb Schiller Reads the New York Times. Living on
next to no resources _ a small office on Lafayette Street in NYC and only a few paid
staff _ Paper Tiger has become one of America's premiere activist video institutions.
Its tapes are used in media literacy classes, it has a California branch called Paper
Tiger Southwest, it has been an "artist in residence" at the Wexner Centre for the
Arts at Ohio State University and it has been the subject of a number of magazine and
journal articles. As videomaker Helen De Michiel points out, Paper Tiger's
"institutional status" is an essential element in inspiring others to do activist
access work. "Simply and effectively over the last decade (Paper Tiger has) created a
"wilderness preserve" for dissident viewpoints to be visualized, constructed and
aired. As a consistent yet fluid group they are continually extending to give
"camcorder guerrillas" across the country the courage and the resources (both psychic
and material) to create work that looks for the truth, finds it in unlikely places and
reframes it for reflection."

Although collectives like Paper Tiger and the Media Coalition for Reproductive Rights
are the most essential building blocks in making the electronic commons model of
access TV into a haven for activist media making, their effect tends to be very
localized. This is a limitation both of the access channel itself _ it is local entity
often covering only part of a city _ and of the limited energy and resources of small
activist organizations. In 1985, members of Paper Tiger and other video activists
banded together to overcome this limitation by creating Deep Dish TV, a national
satellite network foractivist video. Deep Dish collects activist tapes from producers
all over America, puts them together into themed packages and sends these up into
space so that they can downlinked by access channels all over the US. This is the kind
of infrastructure _ outside the realm of any particular access channel but using
access channels as a foundation _ that makes activist TV on a much larger scale
possible. "Without infrastructures like the multi-generational, multi-practice,
extended "collectives" of Paper Tiger and Deep Dish and the other visionaries who
spend their time doing profound political work which is media driven and about
building our own systems of public intervention and address ... without these, our
silence will echo through the next century if there is anyone left to hear the echo."
Such infrastructures provide the organizing experience, the people networks and the
technical skills needed to develop a broader social change media culture.

The advantage of insfrastructural foundations like those of Deep Dish was clearly
demonstrated during the Gulf War. When the possibility of a war against Iraq became
apparent, members of Paper Tiger, Deep Dish and other activist groups joined together
to produce a series of anti-war access shows under the name Gulf Crisis TV Project
(GCTV). "Working with Deep Dish TV and its nationwide network of public access
stations and producers, GCTV brought the alternative media movement together with
anti-war activists to provide a response to the massive media management accompanying
America's military build-up in the Gulf." The Gulf Crisis TV Project produced four
half hour programs that were ready for satellite distribution by the week that the war
began. The programs were not only picked up by hundreds of access stations across the
US, but also by dozens of PBS stations, by Vision TV in Canada and by Channel 4 in the
UK. The sale to Channel Four funded an additional six episodes, including programs on
anti-Arab racism in US war propaganda, and the impact of the war on American blacks
and Hispanics. The speed of production and the number of stations that picked up the
Gulf Crisis show demonstrate the value of activist run counter-cultural institutions
that are built on the foundations of the open access channel.

These examples of alternative media institutions and infrastructures have developed in
the US, where open access to the community channel is fairly common. It is much harder
to build autonomous activist institutions on the electronic commons in Canada, as the
electronic commons doesn't really exist. I have been trying to get around this problem
for a few years now, and would like to offer my experiences and the experiences of
people who I have worked with to suggest one possible route.

In the spring of 1992 _ a year after the Gulf War had ended _ I went to New York City,
camcorder in hand. Although the purpose of the trip was to attend the First
International Conference for Auto Free Cities, I spent some of my time interviewing
members of Paper Tiger and the Gulf Crisis TV Project about how they made activist
media. A conversation about the nature of access television that I had with Paper
Tiger member Cathy Scott is of particular interest in terms of my approach to activist
TV in Canada. During our chat, I told Cathy that Canadians had no right of access to
the community channel, that "what gets on" is at the whim of the cable company. This
astonished her, and she started saying things like "that's ridiculous" and "you have
to organize people to change that" and "march on the government and make them give you
access". Although these concerns were not new to me _ Kim Goldberg had talked about
the need for such changes two years earlier in her book The Barefoot Channel _ Cathy's
passion acted as very helpful kick in the butt. We needed to make some changes in
Canadian community TV. The problem was, there didn't seem to be the makings of a mass
movement to revitalize and redemocratize the community channel. So, I started very
close to home, by trying to increase the access focus in the small community station
where I work in Parkdale, part of Toronto's working class southwest end.

The changes that I pushed for were small, and given the commitment to good community
TV of the people who worked with and above me, the resistance to ideas about access
and social change was far from overwhelming. The first thing that I did was try to
re-emphasize the importance of access for underrepresented groups in station policy _
both in the written rules and in practice. The second thing was to try to change the
equipment policies so activist producers who wanted to get in and out quickly didn't
need to spend a year and half taking technical workshops. The third was to encourage
groups who wanted to form collectives, to create their own external institutions, to
do so. Although these efforts have not changed the Canadian community channel as a
whole, they have contributed to Cable 10 Parkdale/Trinity being called "...the radical
fringe of (Canadian) access television." They have also led to the production of hours
upon hours of vital activist television.

As we have seen with the American examples, the best way to make activist community TV
is to have good access policies in place and then to create an external collective. A
number of such collectives have developed in the Parkdale area. Most of these groups
started out by putting in a proposal for a full year series and then farming out
episodes to their members. One such collective is SHE/tv. SHE/tv is "...an alternative
forum to represent society from the perspectives of women." With over 20 members,
SHE/tv has developed into a strong activist institution which has gained recognition
in print and at video festivals. The collective shares technical and producing duties
within its membership, producing a half hour per month to air on the community
channel. The work that they have produced includes programs on gay and lesbian
parenting, feminist transformational moments, black women's health issues and gender
roles within grassroots organizations.

Another collective that has developed over the past two years in the Parkdale area is
Undercurrents, which produces a monthly access forum open to people who want to deal
with issues shut out by the mainstream media. Much more loosely knit and decentralized
than SHE/tv, Undercurrents still functions well as an activist TV institution insofar
as it is a voice for the idea of access and it opens itself up to pretty much anyone
with an idea. The Undercurrents series has included programs on alternative theories
about the cause of AIDS, anti-logging protests against MacMillan Bloedel, various
kinds of "guerrilla television", sustainable transportation, and animal rights. The
access emphasis of the community channel in Parkdale has also opened up space for the
environmental series This Island Earth, an artists' television series curated by the
YYZ Artists' Outlet and a number of single issue programs giving voice to commonly
censored perspectives.

Of course there are examples of activist community TV in Toronto that have not come
out of the Parkdale studios. A coalition of artists and activists in Toronto got
together in the early 1990's to independently produce the Cable AIDS Project, series
of educational programs on AIDS produced for a variety of audiences and communities.
The series aired on both Rogers Community 10 Toronto and Maclean Hunter Cable 10
Parkdale/Trinity. Unfortunately, the series was pulled by Rogers after the screening
of Gita Saxena and Ian Rashid's Bolo Bolo, which depicted two men kissing. There are
also many examples from outside of Toronto, including a peace show in Winnipeg, an
environmental program in Kamloops, women's program in Campbell River, BC. and a
cycling show in Ottawa. Despite these examples, the dominant look and feel of
community television in Canada is dull and conservative, and there is still no
guarantee of access.

It is important to note that there is a great deal of activist film and video work
made outside the realm of community television in both Canada and the US _ work that
is committed to the development of Gramscian counter-cultures. The social change
spirit of the 1970's left us with a legacy of media arts and artist access centres
which provide equipment and a supportive atmosphere for the production of experimental
and marginal work. Thousands of tapes come out of these centres each year.
Unfortunately, there is no effective distribution system for most of this work outside
of galleries. This is especially the case in Canada where there is a wide rift between
community TV and artists _ the bone of contention mainly being copyright and payment
for work. There is also a good deal of social change work produced by small activist
groups who use home videotape as their distribution method. Canada's NFB produces a
large number of social change films and videos which _ in contrast to media arts and
activist productions _ are well circulated on film, tape and over television. And NFB
units like the Native-run Studio One, women's unit Studio D and the experimental
interactive projects of Studio G still stress grassroots production on various levels.
Unfortunately, the NFB is underfunded to the point that the grassroots end of its
production can only touch a small number of people.

The breadth and volume of work that comes from media arts centres, small activist
organizations and the NFB, combined with all of the social change programming that is
produced for access channels throughout North America, indicates that there is a
definite ferment and passion for activist TV. The question is, where do we take all
these budding mini-institutions of the counter-culture? How do we find ways to connect
them, and in Canada to open a bigger space for them? First, remember that the
Gramscian counter-cultural institutions we are building depend on an open space, a
protected electronic commons, as their foundation. And then, with a grain of salt,
pick up a copy of Wired magazine, or sign on to your local Usenet news supplier, and
see what people are saying. Much of the same rhetoric that was thrown out twenty years
ago about the community channel is circulating in them thar' wired hills. If there is
a Jeffersonian video bus headed for cyberspace, maybe activist television can hitch a
ride.

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5. CYBERSPACE AND THE FUTURE OF ACTIVIST TV

FROM VTR TO CYBERSPACE: Jefferson, Gramsci & the Electronic Commons

by Mark Surman ([e-mail])

There is a new age of corporate technological utopianism upon us. It is emerging from
all quarters in discussions about "the Net", "the Superhighway" and cyberspace in
general. Along with this new utopianism has come a fresh crop of people who skip the
big-money tech-talk and head straight for crucial questions of principle and the
models with which we should envision new systems of grassroots communication. These
people are akin to the early community access advocates, complete with an energy and
fervor for putting technology "into the hands of the people". To listen to their
ramblings _ their words jumping from the Internet onto computer screens across the
planet _ one can only conclude that there is a movement afoot. And there will most
likely be space for activist television and Gramscian ideals within such a movement.

All of this new-found excitement has been spurred on by so-called "convergence
technologies". The term convergence can be used to describe something as simple as a
CD-ROM, which combines traditional print, video and sound styles into a single
electronic document. But most of the hype around convergence has come from the idea of
broadband, two-way networks _ or "information superhighways" _ that could allow people
both to send and to receive video, print, voice and data using a single,
internationally connected system. It is likely that the first "highways" will be built
by cable and telephone companies that add fibre optic cables to their existing copper
wire systems.

A growing movement of people who envision an electronic commons on this "highway" is
emerging mostly from the "virtual communities" that exist on the Internet and on local
bulletin board systems (BBS's) and FreeNets. The people who make up this movement have
experienced the kind of community feeling that can develop on a multi-directional,
uncensored communication system, and they want to ensure that the new, broader-band
networks include public spaces that will allow this kind of community to continue. In
talking about virtual communities, culture-jamming historian Mark Dery writes: "These
burgeoning subcultures are driven not by the desire for commodities but by the dream
of community _ precisely the sort of community that is lacking in the
nationally-shared experience of watching game shows, sitcoms, sportscasts, talk shows,
and, less and less, the evening news."

This passion for self-generated culture and community, and the rejection of brainless
corporate mass media, link the virtual access advocates of the 1990's with the VTR
toting community channel activists of the early 1970's. Similarities between these two
movements for grassroots banter _ which are separated by a whole generation _ are
astonishing. In a 1973 Challenge for Change newsletter article entitled "Cable Can _
And Will _ Deliver More Than Just Programs", Gail Martin paints a vision of a
"two-way, international, on-demand information system" where citizens create the
content and are guaranteed a "right of access". Twenty years later _ in a 1993 Wired
article subtitled "The Case for a Jeffersonian Information Policy" _ Electronic
Frontier Foundation co-founder Mitch Kapor provides a similar vision of international,
"open systems" networks that would stress: "Access ... everyone should be able to
connect; Content ... users should be able to determine the content of the system; Uses
... people should be able to choose the roles they wish to play, whether as consumers,
providers, or both." Here in Canada, people like FreeNet advocate Garth Graham are
writing articles that in many ways could have fit into the Challenge for Change
newsletter. In his 1994 Traveler's Manifesto For The Electronic Mindway, Graham argues
that we should: "...ensure that the development of a Canadian communications and
information infrastructure sustains grassroots community networking as the key to
equity in the information age" and "...encourage universal access to a new global
conversation and universal participation in shaping its content." The bias of most of
these new access advocates is more towards the Jeffersonian electronic commons than
the Gramscian counter-culture. But there are some who evision activist projects on the
new networks, and there is the possibility for the flowering of these visions if a
electronic commons is created on the "highway".

The access advocates of the 70's and the 90's are also similar in that they both
stress systems model over technology and hardware. Where the business-minded
technological utopians of today often imply that the right configuration of fibre
optic cables and digital switches is all that is needed to spark a positive social
transformation, access advocates argue that the way new systems are designed and the
way new institutions are created is of far more importance. Graham writes: "We need
design metaphors of wetware for the national dream, not hardware. [SIDEBAR --
"wetware" -- as opposed to hardware or software -- is that which is human or living.
Our brains, and by extensions our thoughts, are wetware.] Instead of a public policy
debate on the defining institutions of an information society, what we've got is a
technical discussion of the vehicle that will convey us into it, and a market survey
of our willingness to silently pay for the trip." The "grassroots wetware" we need for
the electronic commons will have to include visions of video and data that flows not
just to the home but also from the home, increased levels of basic and computer
literacy, and universal access to the new networks.

Of course "grassroots wetware" can have many meanings and interpretations that do not
work in favor of the electronic commons. In fact, much of the grassroots social change
rhetoric that is floating around our mediascape is coming from the mouths of
information technology companies and others in the corporate world. For example, the
Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) has used grassroots-sounding
techno-utopianism to gloss over the role of information networks in fragmenting the
North American work force and driving down wages. In ITAC's January 26, 1994 paid
supplement to the Globe & Mail _ Futurescape: Canada's Information Highway _ Canadians
were provided with a glimpse of the future. In the photo-caption for an article called
"Technology's Labour Day", ITAC promised that "...the superhighway will empower
workers." Towards the middle of the same article, it is explained how the superhighway
will "empower" secretaries in particular: "Mississauga based Women of the Workplace
(WOW) divides secretaries into two groups: 'thinkers and non-thinkers'. Although
information technology will allow the few "thinkers" to become "producers...and more
creative," non-thinkers will be "...eliminated from the office and channeled into
retail and restaurant jobs." Such forms of "empowerment" certainly fit in with the
goals of certain strains of "corporate broadband wetware".

More commonly, the corporate world uses grassroots and new age sounding phrases to
describe its dreams of the "consumer information highway" model. A prime example is
Montreal-based Videotron Ltee's "Universal, Bi-directional, Interactive" (UBI or
you-bee) system. This "two-way" cable pilot project _ which will be up and running in
Quebec by 1995 _ has been touted as Canada's first electronic highway. According to
the Videotron press kit, UBI will allow users to download pay per view movies,
download pay-per-byte information from databases, download advertising flyers and
multi-media catalogues and download pretty much anything else. But the users ability
to upload _ to provide content to the system _ is almost nil. The two-way interactive
abilities of UBI will only allow users to upload their lottery picks, their credit
card numbers (for home shopping), the motions of their joysticks during interactive
video games and their choice of camera angles during sporting events. Videotron has
stated that they do not plan to add interactive capabilities to their community
channel at this point.

With the people who are building these networks talking about systems that focus
mainly on consumerism and control systems, many access advocates like Victoria FreeNet
board member Clyde Bion Forrest are concerned that the new networks "...could become
just like television." It is from this fear, and from their positive experiences with
the Internet, that access advocates describe the kind of model we need to pursue if we
want to build a new electronic commons. "There are two extreme choices. Users (of new
networks) may have indirect, or limited control over when, what, why, and from whom
they get information and to whom they send it. That's the broadcast model today, and
it seems to breed consumerism, passivity, crassness, and mediocrity. Or, users may
have decentralized, distributed, direct control over when, what, why, and with whom
they exchange information. That's the Internet model today, and it seems to breed
critical thinking, activism, democracy, and quality. We have an opportunity to choose
now." Of course the choice really lies in the hands of corporations and governments,
but access advocates are lobbying hard to make sure that the choice they make is the
Internet model.

And there is certainly good reason to think that putting the Internet model onto at
least part of the new broadband networks would make for an excellent electronic
commons. Experience has shown that it is a model that works well in this role:
"...life in cyberspace seems to be shaping up exactly like Thomas Jefferson would have
wanted: founded on the primacy of individual liberty and a commitment to pluralism,
diversity, and community." The Internet cyberspace that Kapor is talking about is a
global system of thousands of interconnected computer networks that offers a totally
uncensored, two-way information environment. Mostly limited to text, the Internet
offers discussion areas and databases covering every interest, idea and philosophy
imaginable. Within the discussion areas, anyone can post an opinion or an article at
any time, completely blurring the distinction between information producers and
information consumers. The Internet has also been, at least until recently, a
vehemently non-commercial community. As a working model of an electronic commons, the
Internet is in many ways doing better job of fulfilling the original community channel
dream than the community channel itself.

But the community channel-like role of the Internet is certainly limited by the same
factors that have limited American electronic commons model of access television,
unable to produce social change, activism or even equal access all on its own. As Mark
Dery points out, the virtual communities on the Internet often "...fall short of
utopia _ women and people of colour are grossly underrepresented, and those who cannot
afford the price of admission or who are alienated from the technology by their
cultural status are denied access." As with the access channel, it is essential to
inject activism into the Internet model, and to build Gramscian activist institutions
on its soil.

Activists who are interested specifically in information rights have risen to this
challenge by addressing the problem of "the price of admission" on the Internet. Their
main strategy has been to develop FreeNets or Public Education Networks (PENs) in
their communities. FreeNets and PENs are "community computing networks" that provide
free dial-up access for people with home computers and free public terminals in
libraries and community centres. As FreeNet pioneer Tom Grunder explains, community
networks are about developing a locally oriented system to solve local problems. "I
believe that, if we enter this (information) age with equity at all, it will be
because of LOCAL people, building LOCAL systems, to meet LOCAL needs. That's YOU,
building Free-Nets, in cities and towns all over the country." This emphasis on free
and local communications is very similar to that of the community channel, but
community computing offers a number of elements that the community channel (especially
in Canada) does not offer: a censorship free space; a two-way, dialogue oriented
system; and free international connectivity through the Internet to supplement local
debate and share ideas on local solutions. But a FreeNet is only in a limited sense an
"activist project". It is not devoted specifically to social change or even to
increasing access for the those who are denied access on the basis of literacy or
cultural position. From and within the FreeNet need to come projects that deal with
gender, race, environmental and class issues and systems that deal with literacy.

There are activists who are working to ensure groups which have traditionally been
shut of the technology loop -- such as women and low-income communities -- are trained
on and made to feel comfortable with computer networks. For example, the Canadian
Womens Networking Support Program is setting up systems that will provide a foundation
for electronic conferencing before and during the United Nations 4th World Conference
on Women to be held in Beijing, China in 1995. The program's initiatives include:
outreach and training that is specifically tailored to women's needs; an on-line
conference system for Canadian womens groups who want to discuss issues before the
conference; on-site technical support in Beijing; systems that will allow conference
participants to easily and cheaply communicate with activists at home; and a full-text
database of documents relating to the conference. The organizers of the program are
not only working to set up these systems in Canada, but also they are trying to find
funding to ensure that women in the South have access to the same systems. This part
of the initiative is aimed at breaking down the dominance of the North in
international information flows and at encouraging South-South communication.

Other groups have taken a "community centre" approach to dealing with cultural and
literacy based access barriers. One such facility is New York City's Playing to Win
computer centre _ located in the predominantly Black and Latino neighbourhood of
Harlem. Five hundred local residents use the centre on a weekly basis. The centre
offers them the ability to access and learn to use a variety of computer systems that
can be used for network access, desktop publishing and word-processing. Playing to
Win's Ramon Morales says that his centre is "...giving people the opportunity to use
technology, but use it in a collective way, to use it in a way that people are working
together collaboratively, and using it as tools for self-empowerment." Unlike isolated
home computing, the centre communal atmosphere often politicizes users about
information access issues.

In addition to projects like Playing to Win and the FreeNets, which focus their
activism on access issues, there are also a massive number of counter-cultural
"activist projects" that have brought the Gramscian dimension of community media onto
the Internet commons itself. There are dozens of mailing lists, newsgroups and gopher
sites dealing with feminism, race issues, the environment, gay and lesbian issues,
international development and activism in general. There was a great deal of activist
activity on the Internet during the Gulf War. The war was a time when "everybody and
their dog" wanted to get onto the Internet and associated networks, as they were the
only place to find information that had not been "cleared by the US military". Once
on-line, activists were able to find information about Patriot missiles causing damage
to civilian areas, articles from journalists who had been muzzled by their editors,
and descriptions of peace demonstrations that never made it to the 6 o'clock news.

Larger activist projects and social change institutions have also started to form on
the Internet. One of the most notable is the Association for Progressive Communication
(APC). The APC is a coalition of Internet connected social change computer networks in
over 20 countries including Alternex in Brazil, Nicarao in Nicaragua, Peacenet and
Labornet in the US and Web in Canada. The networks provide a space specifically
oriented towards information provision and interpersonal networking for social change
activists. They provide information and discussion areas on the environment, human
rights, gender issues, peace and other topics of interest to people working for social
change. More established APC members often help progressive groups in the South to
develop their own autonomous communications systems. In a sense, the APC is like the
Deep Dish TV of the Internet, providing a safe and comfortable space for activist
communications.

With activist projects like this edging ever deeper into the Net, it becomes more and
more clear that the Internet model is one of the best tools with which to rebuild the
Jeffersonian foundations that will allow a new wave of Gramscian counter-cultural
media. As we have seen with public access TV, an electronic commons model like the
Internet is an essential foundation to the development of our own, autonomous activist
media institutions. The technology needed to bring access TV and the Internet model
together is becoming available. The fervor and passion for people-centred,
grassroots-created content is also blooming at a mile a minute. Creating a new
electronic commons that could serve projects like activist video making is now just a
matter of pulling a few things together. Well, maybe not just.

**************************************************

6. STRATEGIES FOR A NEW ELECTRONIC COMMONS

FROM VTR TO CYBERSPACE: Jefferson, Gramsci & the Electronic Commons

by Mark Surman ([e-mail])

It is very likely that the new broadband networks _ like cable in the past _ will
develop to serve the goals of consumerism. But it is important to remember that a
grassroots movement was able to carve out at least some form of electronic commons and
some space for Gramscian activist projects within the earlier commercial cable jungle.
According to Frank Spiller, the most important factor in getting the community channel
embedded into Canada's cable regulations was "...an intense public lobby, so large
that the CRTC could not ignore it." A lobby of equal size, loudness and intensity
could certainly develop to ensure that an open public space is available North
America's "superhighways". To make this happen, those who want a new electronic
commons have three main tasks ahead of them: the construction of a mass movement built
on alliances between diverse groups; the creation of the human centred institutions _
both within and outside the new network _ that will be necessary to sustain an
egalitarian and truly accessible infosphere; and an intervention into the regulatory
processes of the countries in which the new movement is organized.

The language, myths and visions of a Jeffersonian electronic commons _ the most
crucial part of any movement _ have already started to spread widely. Where community
video and the Challenge for Change newsletter spread grassroots media philosophy in
the 1970's, the Internet and Wired Magazine are doing the same today. As something
that people are already using and enjoying, the Internet has incredible mythical
power. People are telling their friends about the info-freedom that it brings. They
are also making new friends and creating new virtual communities. It is unlikely that
the people who are using the Internet would be willing to either give up this way of
communicating or see it limited to text as broadband, multimedia networks develop.
This kind of attachment to a way of communicating, to a way of being, could be a
powerful force in bringing people together to ensure that the Internet model makes it
to the broadband networks. Also, more commercial media outlets like Wired can play a
significant role in developing the myths of a new democratic information landscape.
Amidst all of its hardware reviews and techno-fetishism, Wired spouts the Jeffersonian
ideals of an electronic commons to over 100,000 readers.

While most of the myths and ideas that flow from cyberspace and fill the pages of
Wired take a Jeffersonian slant, there are also many 1990's access advocates that
embrace the Gramscian spirit of Challenge for Change. Paper Tiger's Staking A Claim In
Cyberspace program envisions an acivist electronic democracy that opens up spaces for
marginalized communities. And activists who set up the feminist, environmental and
other social change listservs, newsgroups and gophers on the Internet are definitely
contributing to an electronically networked community future. These visions of an
activist, community-focused future must exist alongside _ not instead of _ myths of a
Jeffersonian common.

Some of organizations that could form the nucleus of such a movement have already
started to take shape. In the US, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Computer
Professionals for Social Responsibility are organizing conferences, writing articles,
running listservs and lobbying government to ensure that cyberspace is public space.
An organization called the Coalition for Public Information has formed to pursue
similar goals in Canada. On a more grassroots level, people are forming small groups
in towns and cities all over North America to build FreeNets. These groups are a
movement in and of themselves.

One limitation of the organizations that have formed so far, is that they are almost
solely made up of people who already understand or use The Net _ grassroots computer
activists, software designers and information professional like librarians. The
"already Net literate" bias of these groups is at this point a major roadblock to the
development of a movement for a new electronic commons _ people with other backgrounds
and experiences need to be involved. One important constituency that could be brought
into such a movement is the large number of people who were initially involved in
Challenge for Change and the early community channel. These are people who have both a
passion for "people's media" and a great deal of experience finding the human,
financial and political resources necessary to build an electronic commons. People who
are currently producing non-computer grassroots media also need to get connected into
this movement. Activist video makers, community radio producers, community channel
facilitators, artists, journalists and the independent print media all have a stake in
what the electronic commons looks like. They also have experience in their own fields
that can be added to the experiences of the computer people and information providers
who currently make up the membership of the organizations listed above.

In order to attract these people to a new movement, discussion of info-access issues
should not be limited to high-tech forums like the Internet, or to computer hip
magazines like Wired. The ideals of the electronic commons and of visions of the
social change media institutions that we could build on such a commons need to be
distributed by computer, poster, pamphlet, TV show, radio program, book and any other
media that we can think of. To paraphrase interactive video artist Nancy Paterson:
"Stay multi-format. Use video, use CD-ROM, use computer networks _ use T-shirts.">

As a movement emerges, it is essential that it develop a multiplicity of visions that
concretely describe what a new public access systems could look like _ a wish list, so
to speak. This is Garth Graham's "wetware for a national dream". In terms of the
actual design of broadband public access system, I personally envision a multimedia
FreeNet that would borrow from the experience of both community television and current
community computer networks. Community television in Canada provides the perfect model
for the funding of public communications projects. The government makes the people who
profit from information distribution pay for a public system. FreeNets offer an
excellent model for community-run, two-way communications systems where everyone is a
sender and receiver of information. To combine these two elements on a broadband
network that carries video, sound and all other media would make for an almost ideal
electronic commons. As technology progressed, such multimedia FreeNets would allow
community members to put their videotapes, CD ROMs, radio shows, etc. onto a community
multi-media server. Any other community member would then be able download that
information into their home.

Although such a vision may sound far fetched compared to the text-centric Internet, it
is not an impossibility when you consider the UBI system that Videotron is building.
As an example, UBI will have computer servers using CD ROM or some similar format
allowing users to randomly access multi-media consumer catalogues. There is no reason
that this technology which is being put in place to sell things could not also be used
to serve the electronic commons. Such a system might not be able to handle complete
community video on demand right from the outset, although this would be the ultimate
goal. In the meantime, grassroots multi-media and radio producers could use the
community interactive server while video makers would be given additional channels
with which to create a more open access space. There would even be the possibility for
a near on-demand community video all request channel. On cable systems which plan to
use most of their 500 channels to run the same Hollywood movies starting at five
minute intervals, freeing up the bandwidth for additional video access channels is not
too much to ask for.

Of course it is also essential to build support institutions for the electronic
commons outside of the network itself, especially if we are to lay the foundations of
activist projects and avoid the failings of open access community television. Such
institutions would provide basic and computer literacy training, and access to the
technology needed to use the electronic commons. Centres like the Playing to Win
computer access facility are a step in this direction. As a grander vision, I would
like to borrow the concept of the Centre for Appropriate Transportation (CAT) from the
alternative transportation movement. CATs are community centres for sustainable
technology. In the transportation world, they include bike maintenance training
spaces, design studios for people working on human powered transport projects and
other facilities that contribute to the development of a non-car culture. For the new
public access networks, we could create our own CATs _ Centre's for Appropriate
Telecommunication _ that would provide free access to video production equipment,
desktop publishing systems, network connected computers, multi-media authoring
facilities, literacy classes, technical advice and the like. Such centres could be run
in association with the local multi-media FreeNet, using some of the funding provided
by the network owners.

The fruition of all of these visions will definitely be driven by a great deal of
human energy, co-operation and passion. But this human energy must go hand in hand
with a regulatory environment that supports the existence of a public space on the new
networks. Such regulations are necessary to ensure that network providers like the
cable and telephone companies are legally responsible for funding a public space on
their systems. In order to get regulations like this put into place, a movement for
the creation of public networks will have to identify key moments for intervention
into the regulatory process.

One such moment in Canada will be upon us in the next few years as the CRTC deals with
requests by the telephone companies to carry video. Telephone delivered video is often
referred to as "video-dialtone". In the US, the FCC has already made major rulings on
video-dialtone, the most significant of which ensures equal access to the system for
third-party information suppliers (i.e. people who are not the phone company). It is
important that Canadian regulations guarantee the same sort of access if independent
film, video and multi-media makers are to develop a market on the "highway". It is
even more important that video-dialtone regulations in Canada follow in the footsteps
of the cable regulations that require the system owners to spend 5% of revenue on some
sort of public access system. This funding is essential both to build systems like the
multi-media FreeNet and to ensure that the cable companies are still required to
provide some sort of community channel. If the phone companies don't have to fund a
public space on the multi-media networks that they are developing, it is likely that
the cable companies will be able to get out of their community channel obligations in
the name of "fair competition".

The frenzy with which big cable companies are swallowing up smaller ones in both
Canada and the US provides another regulatory area to watch. In Canada, such transfers
of ownership almost always come with a "benefits package". These packages include
goodies like updated equipment for community television and independent film funds,
which are intended to prove that the cable company is doing something "in the interest
of the Canadian people". Although benefit packages are usually designed by the cable
company in question, there is no reason that members of the public cannot present the
CRTC with requests for additions or changes. Such requests could include extra access
channels, fiber optic links between a media arts centre and the community channel
master control or special community channel projects in support of marginalized
communities.

On the sidelines of the regulatory process there are often advisory councils or other
such government bodies. These are also excellent places to plant the regulatory seeds
of the new public networks. In Canada, the federal government has created an Advisory
Council on the Information Highway. Although the council's twenty-nine person
membership is dominated by the cable and telephone industries, it also includes the
chair of the Coalition for Public Information, the president of the National Capital
FreeNet and the president of the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada. These are all people who
understand the need for democratic communications and grassroots information systems.
It is essential that they hear the opinions of and get support from diverse sectors
that support the idea of an electronic commons. With alliances between a movement for
democratic networks and the people who work within bodies like the advisory council,
and with a clear understanding of when crucial decisions will be made, there is a real
possibility of inserting grassroots communications values into the process of
broadband network regulation.

As we take the crucial steps of developing a new movement, new institutions, and new
regulations that guarantee an electronic commons, we should not fall into the trap of
thinking that public space on the new broadband networks is too much to ask for. As
public access producer Fernando Moreena says in Paper Tiger's Staking a Claim in
Cyberspace: "If telephone companies and others are going to be able to develop this
electronic highway, then we want electronic parks to go with it, just like any other
development. We also want money to grow the grass, to keep the trees and to be able to
work with the community." Leaving a space for the public is a matter of course in the
development of housing, as it should be in the development of new communications
networks.


It is also important to remember that a group of grassroots media activists were faced
with the same challenges _ building a movement, visioning the future, creating
regulations _ twenty years ago. Against great odds, they were able to build community
channels across North America. Despite the problems that community television faces,
there is a great deal to be learned from these earlier victories.

It is also important for activists who are concerned about our mediascape to remember
that the creation of an electronic commons or public space on the new networks is not
enough in itself. We need to turn back to the Gramscian vision of community
television, and look for the places where we can build counter-cultural institutions
on the new systems. Looking for these spots is the only way to create a real cultural
shift, to create real openings for anyone who wants to speak electronically, as
opposed to creating a play-thing for the middle class and the already literate.

Finally, we must constantly remind ourselves what this whole grassroots media thing is
about _ human beings and community. If we all fall into our computers and stop talking
to the people around us, we are wasting our time. If access to the new systems does
not include literacy and the demystification of technology, we will have created a
system that makes class barriers and cultural exclusions bigger rather than smaller.
If we leave people in the South to sit on the periphery of the Net, getting sick as
they build computers for the rich, the electronic commons is a failure. As we build a
movement for a new electronic commons, we need to remember the primacy of all these
things, to remember why we care about information democracy in the first place.

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Appendix One - WHAT IS A HEGEMONY ANYWAYS?

FROM VTR TO CYBERSPACE: Jefferson, Gramsci & the Electronic Commons

by Mark Surman ([e-mail])

A "hegemony" is really nothing like a heffalump In fact, it isn't any kind of animal
at all. Rather, it is a state of being where everything is in harmony, at least for
those with a lot of money and power. More specifically, hegemony is taking one way of
seeing things, and convincing people that this way of seeing things is natural, that
it is "just the way things are". This "way of seeing things" in question is almost
always in the interests of people who are rich and powerful. In other words, ideas
that support the rich and powerful usually define the way a society sees the world.

In late 20th century North America, most of us see the world through the eyes of
consumerism. The mass happiness of mass consumption pretty much dominates our shared
conceptions of the way things are. [SIDEBAR -- Cultural hegemony refers to those
socially constructed ways of seeing and making sense of the world around us that
predominate in a given time and place. In the latter 20th century US the supremacy of
commodity relations has exercised a disproportionate influence over the way we see our
lives. (Goldman, pg. 2)] This idea of hegemony _ a way of seeing power in which "the
war for mens' minds" is paramount _ will help us understand how the corporate world
has been able to disable environmentalism. But before we see how this happened, we
should take a closer look at the inner workings of hegemony. One way to get at these
inner workings is to explore a single element of the consumerist way of seeing the
world. The private automobile _ with all of the cultural and structural elements that
support it _ is as good an example as any.

Most North Americans believe that the private automobile is the only way to get
around, and that it is definitely the best and coolest way to get around. In this way,
it could be said that the belief system which supports the automobile is hegemonic, it
is all encompassing. Given all of the other ways of moving about that are available _
walking, biking, bussing, boating, training _ this overwhelming support for cars as
the only way is amazing. It is so amazing that it is hard to believe that it happened
on its own, that people just naturally love the car. In reality, the move towards a
near universal acceptance of the car as the North American way to get around required
a great deal of work on the part of big corporations and the people who help them sell
ideas. A number of structural, legal, and cultural shifts had to take place before
North Americans would joyously shout in unison _ "the car is the only way to get
around, and we love it!". The most significant elements involved in driving this
almost univocal shout are: suburban road and shopping systems; the creation of a
government funded car-only infrastructure; the destruction of the American public
transit industry; the creation of Hollywood myths around the car; the connection of
our unfulfilled desires to automobile ownership; and the linking of the car to
fundamental cultural values like freedom.

Let's start with suburban road and shopping systems. Since the 1940's, North Americans
have constructed their new cities in such a way that people almost literally have no
choice but to get around by car. We have built suburbs where stores and houses that
are too far from each other to allow walking. We have built shopping places surrounded
by seas of pavement, making it impossible to stroll along and window shop like we did
in our old downtowns. We have built streets so big and wide that we fear for our
children's lives if they aren't safely tucked inside our cars. The easiest way to
convince people of something is to make sure they don't have any choices. This is
exactly what the suburbs have done as a part of their contribution to the hegemony of
car culture, and the dominance of consumerism in general. If it is very difficult to
get around without a car, people will quickly come to the conclusion that the car is
the only way to get around.


The governments of North America gave the suburbs a good deal of help in convincing
people to buy into this only way scenario. Although there are many other examples, the
two biggest contributions that governments made to the development of a car centred
culture were road subsidies and centralized planning. Federal, regional and municipal
governments in North America massively subsidized _ and continue to massively
subsidize _ the road system. If they didn't do this, most people just couldn't have
afforded to drive their cars. And that wouldn't have been very good for business,
would it? [SIDEBAR -- To find out more about the subsidizing of car infrastructure,
you should look at the articles by Sue Zielinski , Gord Laird, Michael Replogle and
Charles Komanoff in the book Beyond the Car, by Steel Rail Press] Once people could
afford cars, planners were brought in to design spaces that people could only get
around by car (the suburbs). This planning aspect of things represents a whole
sub-belief system contained within a profession. By directly controlling the ways in
which certain aspects of society are organized, these professional belief systems
provide essential support for the development of broader public conceptions of the way
things are.

Of course the car corporations themselves had a big hand in the development of the car
centred belief system. They made and advertised the cars that would fill the roads.
They also made sure that there was no competition from more economically viable and
economically accessible forms of transportation. "In 1936 General Motors, Standard Oil
of California, and Firestone Tire formed a company called National City Lines, whose
purpose was to buy up alternative transport systems all across the US., and then close
them down. By 1956, over one hundred electric surface rail systems in 45 cities,
serving millions of people had bought up and dismantled entirely." With no buses or
trains available, it was much easier to convince potential suburban transit users that
the car was the only way. National City Lines was a step in this direction.

All of these structural motivations couldn't have convinced people to believe so
deeply in the car unless people really wanted the car and the suburbs. North America's
cultural industries quickly stepped in to help the want develop. From the 1940s to the
1960s, TV shows and movie screens were filled with glorious visions of suburban life.
The suburban bliss of the Beaver Cleaver family and the futuristic excitement of the
Jetsons made the old downtowns _ where you walked to the market and socialized on the
front porch _ look drab and boring. These programs let people know that progress, that
ever illusive commodity lusted after by every God-fearing American, was to be found in
the car filled suburbs. And, if pulp TV and movie fiction wasn't enough, news
producers helped push "White Flight" to the suburbs by constructing downtowns as
hostile places filled with criminals and minorities. This muddling mixture of
Hollywood fantasy and "real world" news melded together to make the suburbs into "the
place to be".

Media makers not only helped people with the psychological leap to the suburbs, they
also helped to create some powerful, down home myths about what the car could do for
your life. The American film industry re-created the car as a provider of social and
sexual power. Hollywood-made home town America drag races from the 1950s _ where the
winner always gets the girl _ are only the tip of the iceberg. Car advertising brought
similar messages to television. Women draped on the front of slowly rotating
automobiles drew the ever stronger connection between cars and the ability to get
women. These images of the car as a great thing, as a way to get power and sex,
filtered quickly into real and everyday life. The rites of passage that have developed
around the car are evidence of this. Most North American teenagers just can't wait to
get their driver's license, the official proof of adulthood.

This cultural link between the car and sexuality demonstrates how the car centred
belief system was built from the rubble of our most valued life experiences and the
mortar of our perceived personal inadequecies. Sexuality is one of the most vital and
exciting parts of our lives. Unfortunately, the dominant messages of our society and
the day to day enforced morality of the 1950s made a good job of quashing the sharing
and beauty of sex. If you didn't have a horrible sex life already, the myth-makers did
as much as they could to convince you that you did. As sexuality has been broken down
into something that we don't have, or can't have, it has been easily sold back to us
in the form of cars and other consumer objects. In other words, advertising and other
forms of popular culture have linked sexual fulfillment to the car as a way to help us
buy the car and love the car. It is important to note that the accelerating car
culture of the 1950s focused on the car only as the solution to male sexual needs. In
this way, the sexualization of the car not only commercialized desire but also it
contributed to the post-war rebuilding of male dominance in North American society.

Finally, the car was also brought into the hegemonic consumerist belief system by the
skillful application of words. Certain words hold immense power in a society, the
power to sway people and justify actions. In North American society, one of these
words is "freedom". Freedom has many meanings, and many connotations. The most
overarching of these meanings play into the hands of consumerism and the
powers-that-be. In our culture, "freedom" can be used to conjure up ideas about the
right to espouse any political beliefs you like, the ability control your own body, or
the right to protection from oppressive economic and political forces. But more often
than not, "freedom" is used to invoke ideas about economic liberty in the marketplace
_ the right to make a buck or the right to buy the product you like, the "free" market
and the "free" press. These more dominant uses of the word freedom act as fundamental
supports to consumerism. In the case of the car, freedom has been strongly linked to
freedom from parents, from the state, and the freedom to chose your favourite model of
car. By making such strong links between the car and freedom, culture-makers have
helped to secure the car's position as a "must have" product, and as a central element
to our obsession with mass consumption.

All of these things _ the suburbs, government road subsidies, the destruction of
public transit in the US, the creation of Hollywood car myths, the appropriation of
our desires, and the links between the car and central values like freedom _ have
contributed to the creation of an almost all encompassing car loving belief system in
North America. This belief system has been so successful, and is so pervasively
connected to concepts of personal power and fun, that few North Americans would say
that they don't like cars. In fact, they can't get enough of them. This belief system
is so pervasive that the vision of the car as the only way to get around seems
natural, "just the way things are". Massive support for the car _ and in similar ways
for consumerist beliefs in general _ amounts to a tacit public consent to the
political and economic system that makes mass consumption work. This
natural-seemingness of a belief system and this broad consent for a economic and
political system are the elements that make up hegemony. They indicate a situation
where the desires of the "general public" and the money making schemes of big
corporations are "in harmony".

Of course there will always be people who either don't participate in the dominant way
of doing things, or who downright oppose it. In the case of the consumerist car
culture, there are definitely people who choose to use the predominantly shut out
modes of transportation such as walking, biking, busing and training. There are also
people who come right out and say that cars should be gotten rid of altogether and
that we should all turn to other options. Although these people may be acting and
talking in ways that go counter to the dominant way of seeing things _ counter to the
hegemony _ the big car corporations don't bother with them much. Corporations are much
more interested in keeping consumerist myths rolling along than they are in talking to
people who think that the consumerist lifestyle is bunk.

Big corporations only start to worry about people who oppose them when there is
actually a threat to their ability to make a profit. People can rant and scream and do
their own thing all they want as long as they don't interfere with profits. But once
you start tampering with profits _ by convincing enough people that consumerism is a
bad thing or by directly standing in the way of money making operations _ you have
crossed an important threshold. This is the threshold that stands between the
powers-that-be being nice to you, and being thrown in jail. It is at this point that
the environmentalists re-enter the story. As we saw earlier, the spread of eco-ideas
during the 1980s was seen as a threat by those at the top of the consumerist power
ladder. Large numbers of people started to question widely held beliefs that stood at
the foundation of consumerism. Many North Americans started to understand that using
paper doesn't have to mean clearcutting our forests and that getting around doesn't
have to mean driving a car. This was a questioning of the dominant way of seeing the
world.

When the dominant ways of seeing the world start to be questioned, the rich and
powerful start to wonder how they can keep the harmony of hegemony. A situation like
this is often called a "crisis of hegemony". Such a crisis usually results in two
actions on the part of the powers-that-be. The first is to undermine your opponents by
making sure that the "general public" gets real happy again, real fast. The second is
to use force against the "agitators" who won't get back in line, while convincing
everybody else in society that the "agitators" were just a bunch of criminals anyway.
In the environmental "war for mens' minds", the rich and powerful generally choose to
use the undermining tactic first.

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For a complete version of this paper -- including pictures, sidebar commentary and a
full bibliography -- contact Mark Surman ([e-mail])

This paper is COPYRIGHT MARK SURMAN (1994). Permission is granted to duplicate, print
or repost this paper as long as it is done on a non-commercial (ie. keep it free)and
as long as the whole paper is kept intact.

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