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Manhattan neighborhood network: Community access television and the public sphere in the 1990s

2005; Routledge; Volume: 25; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01439680500065402

1465-3451

Kevin Howley,

Media Studies and Communication

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgments Kevin Howley is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at DePauw University. His Community Media: People, Places, and Communication Technologies is published by Cambridge University Press. In addition to his formal teaching duties, he serves as faculty adviser for D3TV, student television at DePauw University. Notes From the opening credit sequence of the 1995–1996 Grant Compilation Tape. For example, a tape produced by the Chinese Staff and Workers Association entitled ‘New York Times, Jing Fong, and the myth of the “Happy Slaves”’ took issue with press accounts appearing in the New York Times and local, Chinese language newspapers depicting recent immigrants as ‘happy slaves’ content with sub-standard wages, long hours and mistreatment. Another grant recipient, El Barrio Popular Education Program, produced a program titled ‘El Barrio/Community in Transition’ which explored the ambivalent feelings local residents have for their community. Interviews with a cross-section of community members uncovered a sense of intense pride and sincere affection for a neighborhood many find intolerable due to sub-standard living conditions. Making extensive use of interviews, actualities and found footage, the tape explores the intersection of politics, race and real estate in shaping perceptions of El Barrio on both sides of the ‘imaginary line’ that separates economically depressed East Harlem from the prosperous Upper East Side of Manhattan. For an excellent discussion of the motivations behind the establishment of the Public Broadcasting Service, see Ralph Engelman, Public Radio and Television in America: a political history (London, 1996). Cable television has its origins as a repeater service for broadcast signals in areas with poor reception. One of the first such systems, commonly referred to as Community Antenna Television (CATV), was established in Lansford, PA, in 1949. See Sydney W. Head and Christopher H. Sterling, Broadcasting in America: a survey of electronic media, 5th edn (Boston, 1987), p. 104. This phrase is generally attributed to Ithiel de Sola Pool and Herbert E. Alexander, Politics of a Wired Nation, in Ithiel de Sola Pool (ed.), Talking Back: citizen feedback and cable technology (Cambridge, MA, 1973), p. 123. Engelman suggests that given the city's vibrant commercial and alternative media environment, Manhattan was ‘a logical locale for a major experiment in public access. The outcome promised to influence FCC deliberations on whether or not to require cable companies to set aside public access television’. Engelman, Public Radio and Television in America, pp. 246–247. Most histories of public access television in the United States acknowledge Dale City, VA, as the site of the nation's first public access television effort. Cable TV, Inc. provided a channel and some modest facilities to the Dale City Junior Chamber of Commerce. The channel was operational from December 1968 until early 1970. See Gilbert Gillespie, Public Access Cable Television in the United States and Canada (New York, 1975), pp. 35–36. Much of this discussion is drawn from an excellent history of the guerrilla video movement in this country. See Deirdre Boyle, Subject to Change: guerrilla television revisited (New York, 1997). Raindance's application called for the creation of a Center for De-Centralized Television; Global Village sought a Resource Center; the VideoFreex, reflecting their restless spirit perhaps, suggested the creation of a Media Bus; while the People's Video Theater wanted an outlet for what they called community video journalism. Rather than give one of the collective's a substantial amount of cash, NYSCA's solution was to provide each of these groups with modest dollar amounts. See Boyle, Subject to Change, p. 28. Ralph Engelman notes that like public television, the community television movement became dependent upon private foundation support through the likes of the Markle and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Moreover, Engelman suggests that democratic impulse behind the community television movement was quickly appropriated by the liberal-Eastern establishment. ‘The Sloan Commission on Cable Communications became community television's counterpart to the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television. Here was another blue-ribbon committee led by representatives of the Cambridge, Massachusetts–Washington, D.C. axis of policymakers from academia, foundations, the business world, and government’. Engelman, Public Radio and Television in America, p. 251. Alternative Media Center brochure, quoted in Ralph Engelman, The Origins of Public Access Cable Television, 1966–1972, Journalism Monographs, 123 (1990), p. 18. The collectives worked along the lines articulated by the French Jesuit priest Pierre Telihard de Chardin. Deirdre Boyle notes the improbable influence of Telihard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man had on the video underground this way: ‘The irresistible altruism of Telihard's vision inspired video freaks out to expand consciousness as well as religious Christians in search of God. Some of the best motives of the video underground reflected his cosmic vision’. Boyle, Subject to Change, p. 12. In 1976 AMC's apprentices established the National Federation of Local Cable Programmers (NFLCP), a public access lobbying group that represents the interests of access organizations before government bodies and agencies. Engelman, The Origins of Public Access Cable Television, p. 19. George Stoney recalls, ‘our strongest champion was Irving Kahn, head of Teleprompter, and at the time, the most powerful influence in the cable industry. He was eager to give us [the Alternative Media Center] a welcome on an access channel as soon as his franchise was operational in Upper Manhattan’. Quoted in Engelman, The Origins of Public Access Cable Television, p. 21. Johnson met with the members of the Raindance collective in their downtown loft as early as October 1970. See Engelman, The Origins of Public Access Cable Television, pp. 28–29. The Report and Order 36 FCC 2d 143 represented the first concerted effort to regulate the cable industry in this country. One of the key provisions required cable operators in the top 100 television markets to furnish, on request, access channels for the general public, educational institutions and local government bodies: what have come to be known as PEG channels. Engelman, Public Radio and Television in America, p. 246. For a detailed account of these early negotiations, see Engelman, The Origins of Public Access Cable Television, pp. 32–33. As Ralph Engelman notes, ‘The organizers of the celebration stressed the constraints under which public access functioned in New York City: dependency on cable companies, the lack of community representation in the governance of the system, the need for adequate facilities for training and program origination, and the desirability of viewing centers for people without cable TV’. Engelman, Public Radio and Television in America, p. 250. Well-intentioned as this approach was, these media professionals instilled novice producers with the same technical and editorial biases that characterize commercial television. As a result, innovative and non-traditional modes of television production were not encouraged. Instead, many access programs attempted to emulate broadcast form and content. The tensions between imitating dominant media practices and using the medium in an alternative or non-traditional fashion continue to plague community television in Manhattan and elsewhere. For a thoughtful discussion of the subtle ideological implications of television training in the community television environment, see John Higgins, Night of the Broadcast Clones: the politics of video training, Community Television Review, 14, 3 (1991), pp. 9–12. Quoted in Engelman, Public Radio and Television in America, p. 248. Some of these groups have worked with one of the city's two PBS affiliates, WNYC. Others, most notably the DCTV, have aired programs on local and national commercial broadcast television. Projects originating from these groups include a substantial amount of experimental and artistic work. However, groups like the Chinatown History Project, for example, produce videotapes, slide shows and radio programs documenting the rich cultural history of New York City's Chinatown. See Abigail Norman, Caryn Rogoff and Diana Agosta, Public Access Video Resources (New York, 1987). One notable exception to this is tendency is Paper Tiger Television. Since 1981, Paper Tiger, a loose collective of media analysts, educators and political activists, has produced some of the most lively, informative and provocative television around. Decidedly radical in its politics and its approach to television, Paper Tiger uses the formal elements of television to demystify the medium. Over the past 15 years, Paper Tiger has produced tapes which challenge the legitimacy of private ownership of the media, question local, state, national and international telecommunications policy, and critique the forms and practices associated with dominant media. Although Paper Tiger is best known for its ‘no-tech’, ‘homemade’ look and feel, the group has spearheaded the use of satellite technology for creating a national, indeed international, community media infrastructure through the Deep Dish Network. Like other video collectives, Paper Tiger is entirely dependent upon government and foundation dollars to sponsor its efforts. Manhattan Neighborhood Network Program Policies, p. 1. These figures were cited by Joyce Hamer, Chairperson of MNN's Board of Directors during the Celebration of Public Access Television in Manhattan at the New York Public Library, 7 November 1996. Equipped with a fixed camera operable via remote control, a document camera for keying graphics and titles, and a telephone interface, the Express Studio is remarkably effective for enhancing the interactive potential of cable access television. Like talk radio with pictures, many of the programs produced in the Express Studio are cablecast live. Programs such as The Pulse of New York, a public affairs program, allow a single producer to operate a mini TV studio and take live phone calls. For example, recent grant recipients include Union Settlement House, Women's Prison Association, and the Hetrick Martin Institute. Alex Quinn, personal interview, 15 August 1996. Jamie Bufalino, Remote Possibilities, Time Out New York, 45 (1996), pp. 6–15. Bufalino, Remote Possibilities, p. 6. Quinn, personal interview. Bufalino, Remote Possibilities, p. 6. One of several programs produced by followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. The militant Kahane Jews are disturbed by what they regard as a betrayal of Jewish heritage by the vast majority of Jews in America and Israel. Fears that Jewish cultural heritage is being diluted through intermarriage is especially vexing to the Kahane Jews, as is the incomprehensible notion of Jews helping other ethnic and racial minorities. Other programs produced by Kahane Jews are Politically Incorrect Jewish Thought and Jewish Direct News. Located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the Women's Prison Association has offered women alternatives to incarceration for over 100 years. In January 1996, MNN began working with inmates on programs detailing the lives of these women and discussing issues affecting women and the criminal justice system. In association with MNN trainers, Deb Levine offered video production workshops for WPA members. Through these efforts, WPA participants produce a monthly program for MNN. Other programs, like Airlink, Sick and Wrong, Fallacy of the Left and The Real Jews Are Black to name a few, are likewise offensive and inflammatory. Olumide, personal interview, 18 August 1996. Olumide, personal interview. Todd Gitlin uses this term to describe the process by which subversive and resistant forms and practices are absorbed into the dominant culture. In time, these forms are appropriated by the culture industries and rearticulated to support the very same cultural values and ideologies these forms once challenged. See for example, Todd Gitlin, Primetime Ideology: the hegemonic process in television entertainment, in Horace Newcomb (ed.), Television: the critical view, 5th edn (New York, 1994). ACT UP is a political action group formed in 1987 in response to the AIDS epidemic. ‘ACT UP is a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis. We advise and inform. We demonstrate. We are not silent’. http://www.actupny.org. DIVA-TV homepage: http://www.actupny.org/diva/DIVA-TV.html