FROM VTR TO CYBERSPACE: Jefferson, Gramsci & the Electronic Commons by Mark Surman (msurman@io.org) ************************************ 5. CYBERSPACE AND THE FUTURE OF ACTIVIST TV 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. ************************************************** For a complete version of this paper -- including pictures, sidebar commentary and a full bibliography -- contact Mark Surman (msurman@io.org) 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. **************************************************