Comments on: Why Public Media Matters for Media Studies

By: Josh

Josh — Wed, 02 May 2012 19:25:26 +0000

Yes, this is a central point regarding the de-funding of the CPB. It speaks first to the non-revolutionary character of ‘non-profit’ media, as I mentioned above. I’d still distinguish between underwritten production conducted by educators, and programming produced for the purpose of reaching target demographics. The impulse is fundamentally different as should be consequent analysis. That said, you’re right to point out that ‘who’ is funding a program leads to specific decisions regarding content. Especially with recent philanthropic ‘investment’ by the Koch Brothers into the CPB as well as the general introduction of advertising into the PBS format, the basic impulse of public broadcasting is threatened. The goal of a ‘public’ is not to create an artificial binary between non-profit and private, but to point to the difference between reporting ‘official knowledge’ as it is presented, and approaching information with a critical lens, be it via quantitative or qualitative methods. While commercial media has figured out how to offer more ‘choice’, I think we must be careful not to assume (and I know we agree about this point specifically) that additional opportunities for consumerism will replace the virtues of a public forum.

By: David Craig

David Craig — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 15:00:46 +0000

I would also like to challenge you on the notion of a “non-profit”. Depending on what you read, 12 to 20% of PBS funding comes from the government. I can’t tell how much comes from subscriptions (“viewers like you”.) But a good share of the programming is privately funded by endowments, foundations and corporations. Those endowments and foundations typically belong to successful capitalists and entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, the corporations reap the benefits in non-renumerative but clearly promotional ways. Conversely, there is plenty of commercial television that, in fact, serves as “loss leaders” for the network to satisfy other non-profit interests (public, “sustaining”, industrial, corporate, or otherwise).

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:34:56 +0000

Hi David, yes I think that your work nicely complicates the binary between public/private by looking at how specific producer/directors/talent have worked within the system to increase visibility of otherwise neglected experiences and topics. While I’m not qualified to make a judgment regarding current decision-making at the CPB, I do want to clarify the basic thrust of my post: by calling upon a concept of increased democratic participation as a foundational paradigm, a generation of researchers were effectively able to build an entire media system and develop frameworks for evaluation that we still use today. There’s something to that, and I argue not for a specific institution or method, but the identification of imperatives by which to study discursive processes around media. Such a debate would have to begin as distinct from officially mandated messages but would of course inevitably enter into discussion and evaluation with industrial practices.

By: Jonathan Gray

Jonathan Gray — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:28:44 +0000

David, when you say, "public broadcasting has inhibited those operating within commercial media to provide pro-social content," I wonder how much that operates at the level of actually inhibiting development of such content, and how much it acts at the level of providing an excuse for not doing so. I'm having a hard time believing, for instance, that if PBS disappeared overnight, the good folks at NBC, CBS, AMC, etc. would all of a sudden feel relieved that they could produce the pro-social content projects they'd always dreamed of making but somehow couldn't. American broadcasters have long proven unashamed of copying what works elsewhere, and don't seem too worried about appearing to be replicating one another, so why would they allow PBS to cast such a long shadow? I don't doubt that broadcasters find PBS' existence convenient when they want to reject a pitch and kindly tell the pitcher to go talk to PBS instead ... but I'm intensely skeptical that PBS stops them from doing what they'd otherwise do.

By: David Craig

David Craig — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 04:26:49 +0000

An interesting reaction to Public Broadcasting is that it has allowed for the complete abdication of any public interest programming by commercial television. Granted, notions of what served the “public interest” were always ill-defined and subject to particularly scrutiny by advocates of free speech. Nevertheless, the presence of PBS has served to ghettoize pro-social content that might otherwise be viably produced for commercial networks, whether for profit or to accommodate the demands for media corporate-citizenship. From personal experience, I can say that public broadcasting has inhibited those operating within commercial media to provide pro-social content.

In addition, based on the limited definition of what qualifies as “educational”, PBS has avoided experimentation with new programming formats and genres. Conversely, commercial media has embraced the new digital technologies which have inspired new formats on television like reality, docu-soaps and/or live action competition programming. These formats may lack the sophistication or the elitist appeal of what is traditionally thought of as “public broadcasting”, but audiences have proven far more complex in reading these formats, supporting the claim made by the 1950’s Hollywood anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker that “all entertainment is educational, perhaps even moreso due to it’s appeal to the emotions.”

However, the rigid notion of what qualifies as “educational media” may ironically offer a solution to PBS’ survival. The advances in Information and Communication Technology in the Digital Age are producing a “Great Transformation” throughout our society, as reflected in the notions of a Participatory Culture espoused by Henry Jenkins. No where is this more evident than in our educational systems. Primary and secondary education schools are rapidly evolving to factor in digital learning and media literacy into their core curriculum. Top-tier institutions of higher learning are starting to offer distance learning programs (in the case of M.I.T., much of the information is provided for free). It’s inevitable that schooling will become not a right of passage or a scholastic achievement but a perpetual process in the wake of a complex, technologically-evolving and globalized world. PBS is in a unique position to collaborate with local and national educational systems and institutions of higher learning, to promote and generate new and future programming teaching formats and genres and to allow for citizen/students to engage in participatory and interactive learning.