FROM VTR TO CYBERSPACE: Jefferson, Gramsci & the Electronic Commons by Mark Surman (msurman@io.org) ************************************ 4. ACTIVIST OUTPOSTS ON THE ELECTRONIC COMMONS 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. ************************************************** 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. **************************************************