JMS

Last Friday I was part of a debate at the Silverdocs conference organized by DocAgora (a group that describes itself as “an open space to consider new forms, new platforms and new ways of financing creative, authored and socially-engaged documentary content”).

A “Debate Proposition” was posed to two teams of three people each who had to argue for and against it:

“Given that New Media has redefined the meaning of Public, the wall between public and commercial media no longer exists.”

I was put on the “against” team (pro wall, perhaps?) along with Katy Chevigny (Executive Director of Arts Engine and sister of radio regular Blue) and Randy Rieland (Vice President, Interactive for The Discovery Channel). The “for” team was Angela Wilson Gyetvan (Vice President, Marketing and Content for Revver), Kathleen Powell (Vice President of Worldwide Programming, Jaman), and Michael Burns (Director of Programming, The Documentary Channel).

We each did a short presentation (the organizers had first scared us by sending along the Official Oxford Debate Rules, which it turns out we didn’t have to follow) and then mixed it up with audience input. We were encouraged to ratchet up our argumentative side even though there’s inevitably lots more nuance and complexity.

As usual in these circumstances everyone starts questioning the definitions of things, like “what is public media anyway?”. As it turns out the Center for Social Media, which is a DocAgora partner, has put out a Public Media FAQ (pdf) that makes a good attempt of tackling that question:

The term “public media” doesn’t refer to the means by which media are distributed, or the number of audience members who can access a piece of media. Instead, public media are any media used for public knowledge and action. Some media are primarily designed to serve this purpose (news programs; public broadcasting), while others may serve that function intermittently (commercial mass media, personal or institutional blogs). Public media are projects and behaviors that address and mobilize publics, within any media.”

I was up first for the Against Team and ended up saying something basically like this:

If the premise of this statement is that there is no longer a need for media that is created, curated, distributed, and supported with the primary purpose of serving the public interest, then I completely disagree. The wall between commercial and public media has actually been more like a screen door, that in the wrong light you sometimes smack into thinking it’s open. But there are important distinctions that are even more vital today.

“New Media” has redefined the meaning of public. In fact it has made it possible for the public to create its own meaning with media. The rise of social and participatory media offers a huge opportunity. It’s democratizing media creation and distribution and also discussion in ways that shift the balance of power away from traditional mass media, including public broadcasting - which no longer has a unique claim on being public media, if it ever did.

There are now over 70 million blogs in the blogosphere, and the most popular are more important, more relevant in web terms than many leading mainstream news sites. Wikipedia is a great example of new public media – participatory, noncommercial, independent, and currently one of the top 10 websites worldwide.

But in case you think this dynamic new participatory culture can be safely accommodated by commercial media, let me show you a story from last week’s New York Times:

Promoting a Thirst for Sprite in Teenage Cellphone Users
The Coca-Cola Company is hoping its new mobile site for social networking, Sprite Yard, will become the MySpace of the cellphone world.
“Being with them on their mobile phones is absolutely essential,” said Mr. Greatrex at a news conference yesterday. Sprite, he said, is “trying to establish an omnipresent, on-the-go, everywhere relationship with teens.”

Or how about the exciting new social network of last year, launched by WalMart called “The Hub”.

Even as some of these attempts fail, as WalMart’s did, the intent and the threat is clear. Commercial media is clever, it is powerful, and it has its sights set on this newly emerging public and participatory media. Rupert Murdoch was no fool when he bought MySpace before the rest of the world understood what it meant. At best I think commercial media “products”, only occasionally coincide with the public interest, but the primary constituencies are the advertiser, the shareholder, the bottom line.

I worry that we are in the honeymoon phase of social media. It may seem that Google, and Yahoo, iTunes, Amazon, even NewsCorp are interested in helping nurture a kind of public media culture. But what if it’s a temporary and conditional alignment?

When thinking about what I think public media’s role in the new landscape is, I find it helpful to refer to public radio’s core values. These were distilled from talking to listeners about what they value in public radio’s service. In fact public radio stations even printed up little laminated cards with the values to bring with them into meetings.

love of lifelong learning
substance
curiosity
credibility, accuracy, honesty
respect for listener
purpose
idealism
humor
inspired about public life and culture
civility
generosity

Mission-driven noncommercial public service media play a critical role, even more so in the emerging world of social and participatory media, which otherwise runs the risk of being co opted, bought out, or shut down by commercial interests, or dissipated into “an embarrassment of niches”.

I’m comfortable on either side of the screen door, if these kinds of core values are at the heart of the media that is serving the public interest.

Given the time limit and the audience I didn’t go into the fact that I think core values desperately need updating and expanding, perhaps to include “fringe values” that help relate to new audiences that aren’t finding themselves reflected in public radio now.

Update Oct 2007
Katy Chevigny - fellow debater on my team at the DocAgora and Executive Director of MediaRights/ArtsEngine - has posted her take on the experience and whither public media online.