Changes in the Public Sphere, 11/8

Thursday, 11/8 (8 hours): This was the first session of the regional conference that we attended, and I ended up taking 4 pages of notes because it was really interesting. Most of this is directly from my notes/the forum conversation but some of it is what I've added as my own personal view/interpretation on the subject as well. Here's a related link that relates to the conversation and also provides more information on the topic:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/

What is the "Public Sphere"?
1. Historically, information and content was controlled by either the government (king, dictator, etc) or the church and there really was no sense of "public" in the fact that the public had no real influence on anything that was happening. However, in the 17th/18th century, somewhat of a revolution started to change the way the "public" was thought of, as the common people started getting more access to money and money is power. Suddenly, even though the printing press had been around for years, the people started printing newspapers and making information more readily available. One of the longest running papers: The Spectator, London.
2. The "Public Sphere" really started with the newspapers, the coffee shops and the salons where people sat around and talked about issues that were affecting them or present in society. The public sphere evolved from this PUBLIC DISCUSSION and actually involved more of the public and less of the government/church. However, today the public sphere arena is domnated more by corporate interests- much like before but replacing the church/state. Thus, hte public isn't actually controlling the sphere.
3. People used to actuall sit down and discuss ideas- a public dialogue- but now it's all a monologue where people are screaming their ideas AT he public instead of sharing and discussing ideas. They TELL us what's important versus asking what's important- there's a real lack of actual discussion/communication in general as communication is a two-way street and needs input, output and feedback to be successful.
4. We're not creating citizens in our country anymore, we're creating consumers- we're being lazy and accepting what's being thrown at us instead of trying to change and improve things. Even though we complain a lot, we don't actually do anything about the issues. Overall, as a society we aren't hungry enough to make the change.
5. The true meaning of public sphere seems to be citizenry- not the church, state or corporations (corportate interests/media) but the people.


Improving Public Access Media
6. As public access media, we currently have an opn door policy but really we should be moving in the direction of not only an open door policy, but also an active effort in going out and getting people to come in and get involved. To get people to actually communicate their ideas we will have to first teach people how to have effective communication. Sure, we provide the equipment and the technological requirements, much like the education system these days, but we aren't teaching people HOW TO EXPRESS THEMSELVES- how to get their ideas across and get the message to reflect what they actually mean to say.
7. Our society needs to be more focused on education based in media literacy instead of just the technology-use education. As in: How can we express what we really mean by using this technology? What is the message behind what we're watching/reading/hearing etc.
8. Instead of us just showing the town hall meetings on our channels, we should also have shows that reflect the commentary of viewers in regard to the material that we're seeing. If we can get people to actually respond to what they're seeing and get them involved in such a way that we have shows going back and forth in a sort of discussion format, THEN we'll have more of what we see as the public sphere. The people would be again voicing their opinions instead of just accepting the opinions they're shown.
9. Can public access tv somehow join together and consolidate like the FCC is doing to laarge-scale media efforts? If we are able to unite on more of a national level we would have more unity, support and overall strength. We currently have a national chapter of the Alliance for Community Media, but it's really a very small group of people and therefore not as effective as it could/should be.
10. One of the downfalls though is that the ACM is looked at like a bunch of "old fogeys" as said in the meeting, because of the platform we're using. Instead of doing the internet thing we're still on TV, which some groups are looking down on. However, radio has been around even longer and it's still going strong.
11. The game plan: where is the next public sphere going to emerge? Internet videos? Blogs? Can we get in on the underground/what the kids are doing these days and integrate ourselves in there so the kids think that this is just the way things are and accept us? Kind of a sneaky plan, but it might work.
12. THE LARGER ISSUE AT HAND: has nothing to do with technology or the platform we're using. How do we get more people involved in the conversation, to participate and help revive the public sphere?
13. many local newspapers and large scale newspapers say things like "come to us with your opinions and information and we'll be the center of the community" but then they take control of the material and skew the message which is bad fo rthe public sphere.
14. However, when you think about it we really are corporate media in our own way because even though our intentions are good, by telling the public what they should put on air (non commercial, preferable personal opinion dialogue) we ARE THE MAN and are controlling what they're able to say. Just like back in the day when Swift and DeFoe and whoever else were talking and creating the public sphere it still wasn't open to everyone, it was expanding but not open to everyone. As in, not everyone was able to sit around and think these big thoughts.
15. We can't just go out and yell at students to say "you're being duped by the media" because then we come off as the next group sharpening the axe- our education tactics need to change or else the kinds are being trained to come off as the next "monolith yelling" because they don't know how to express their ideas without screaming them at the audience.
16. Within public access employees, people need to think of this as a calling, not just their job. It was compared to Paul Revere making a conduit available to the people, one day it'll be the only way for people to get their voice/ideas out.
17. Random fact about consumers vs. citizens- the Cope hearing referenced the American public as consumers 62 times and citizens 4 times. Kind of a big issue huh?
18. The biggest thing we need to work on teaching is "what do you want to say?" before teaching "how do you say it (medium)? We need to focus on the message and how we can improve communications. Thus, we need more education in terms of HOW, not theory and not technology but how do you actually express the messagge? MEDIA LITERACY PROGRAM both here at the station, and spanning the educational system from preschool to college.
19. Essentially, public access media is serving as a bridge to the digital divide and we need to make sure we're living up to that responsibility.