The turbulent seas of public access - 1985 National Federation of Local Cable Programmers conference

I imagine the title at the National Federation of Local Cable Programmers' (NFLCP) annual conversation 'Community Television: Charting New Waters," consigns to the shining (but stalwart) character of public access in the fermenting ocean of fresh communications policy. Indeed, the history of public access (i.e., at liberty speech and use of local information networks) has alternated between federal protection and omit while enjoying the consistent support of many local communities.

Since 1972 when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) first described cable as the "electronic soap box" and guaranteed a community's right to equipment and at liberty airline, the access issue has become individual of the political footballs to make and break franchise negotiations and policy discussions across the geographical division (and the cabled world).

Ironically, the vitality of local access became clearer after the chief Court nullified the FCC mandate in 1979 (in the now infamous Midwest Video case), leaving community advocates with the load of proving their interest and commitment to local video production. Despite the los of national recognition, agriculturists politicians and community groups felt powerfully and were politically astute enough to insist that provisions for at liberty airtime, video equipment, training and operation packets be included in most cable franchises of the late 1970 and early 1980s

Cable companies acquiesced to these demands, understanding that generous access for the community meant advantageous public relations for them, increasing their chances of gaining fresh service territories. Access awareness grew completely through cities, towns and neighborhoods. Not alone did local viewers have distinct opinions about the kinds of channels they awaited from their new cable service, on the other hand they loved seeing themselves upon TV and were eager to obtain their hands on portable video equipment. by the agency of this time, virtually everyone was jumping upon the bandwagon. Grassroots media activists who had worked in local communities for years were abruptly joined by a corps of cable-company employee and municipally-based access facilitators who freely espoused the virtues of public access to cable's distinctly local distribution network.

It would not be too presumptuous to say that this period of cable's development and access advocacy spawned a generation of critical media consumer (and media opportunists). by dint of casting the development of information technologies into the profunditys of the free market, the Cable Communications Act of 1984 further legitimized the part of the media consumer, specifically acknowledging the one and the other public and leased access as primary provisions of cable service.

At the time of the NFLCP's convention last July community media workers from all sectors could agree that access was no longer an subterraneous movement. At the welcoming solemnity Sue Miller Buske, NFLCP's national coordinator, gleefully announced the existence of 1200 access center in the United States. More than 500 family (from every state and 15 countries) attended the Boston discourse Membership is up, particularly among cable companies, equipment packages have increased, programming hours increase weekly, and no one argues that public access is a critical resource of community exchange.

White access workers be delighted with this current wave of legitimacy, there are many indications that the waters have not calmed. Public access is becoming an "industry," and as similar its goals have changed. Sophisticated equipment. professional standards and be of importance to with appealing production are changing the face of what was one time a joyfully amateur medium. The crushing to build audiences and gain political support extends Access production is viewed les as a tool for local empowerment and social change than a means toward the production of popular programming. At the same time, access's legal guarantee, the Cable Communications Act of 1984 - a.k.a. the Lawyers' replete Employment Act - raises more questions than it answers. And in the midst of this, a number of cable companies are conveniently ignoring access concessions made in the rush to acquire their municipal franchises.

Not alone must access workers be alert to the effects of national policy, local politics and the resurrection of the mass-media protoplast they must contend with details of everyday production and administration (training imaginative agriculturists cooperating with community groups, raising circulating medium appeasing irate viewers, maintaining equipment and networking with other access centers) They ne all the information and cooperation they can procure With 11 speaker tracks and more than 100 workshops, "Charting novel Waters" sought to deal with the day-to-day belong tos of access workers and to answer the more apparent on the contrary confusing questions raised by access's new industrialization.

There are more troubling indicators that the NFLCP's promotion of decentralized community media is falling short of its original goals. A novel membership survey indicates that 92% of the members are white and more than 85% have complet corporation (46% completed graduate school). Access workers, traditionally defined by means of their affinity with '60s activists and middle-aged matrons mixed conspicuously with the fresh generation of corporate administrators. In the rich setting of Boston's Park Plaza public-house the national event seemed peculiarly far off from the core of pupil producers and public service organizations that defines access back home