Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Emergence of Public Access Television

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover The Decline of Public Access and Neo-Liberal Media Regimes

  • 108 Accesses

Abstract

Chapter 4 examines the rise of public access in the United States the 1970s and 1980s. It took root because of a strange alliance between early cable operations that had a blue-skies outlook and popular democratically inclined groups. The abundance (at that time) of new channels led operators to argue that cable provided the opportunity for a plethora of noncommercial channels that were participatory educational, informational, and arts-oriented. Public access channels were an important part of this menu of programs and were welcomed for attracting subscribers. This outlook quickly changed and consolidation of the industry meant that profit-oriented operators predominated who successfully challenged FCC regulations on access. The resulting compromise made PEG channels voluntary and put them in weak institutional positions. Still access became established in many if not all communities and produced an impressive amount of programming in line with its ideals of giving those who were subaltern a voice in the media. I trace the tensions and successes of public access through the Wayne’s World era in which isolated individual expression aimed at commercial success was sometimes seen as an ideal. While public access lacked the resources to raise issues consistently on the national level and bring the counter-public spheres into the larger debates, it did enhance local community and contribute to a generation of socially engaged media.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    FCC, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking cited in Laura Linder, Public Access Television: America’s Electronic Soapbox. New York Prager 1999: 19.

  2. 2.

    On Johnson’s views, see Kenneth L. Kolson, “Broadcasting in the Public Interest: The Legacy of Federal Communication Commissioner Nicholas Johnson,” Administrative Law Review vol 30 no 4 Winter 1978 133–165.

  3. 3.

    Jeffrey Alexander, The Civil Sphere, New York: Oxford 2006.

  4. 4.

    Dee Dee Halleck, Hand Held Visions: The Uses of Community Media, New York Fordham University Press 2001: 147–149.

  5. 5.

    Dee Dee Halleck, Hand Held Visions: The Uses of Community Media: 149.

  6. 6.

    See Ralph Engelman, Public Radio and Television in America: A Political History, Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1996: 219ff.

  7. 7.

    Ralph Lee Smith, Wired Nation. Cable TV: The Electronic Communications Highway, New York: Harper & Row 1972.

  8. 8.

    Patrick R. Parsons, Blue Skies: A History of Cable Television, Philadelphia: Temple University Press 2008. ix.

  9. 9.

    Thomas Streeter, “Blue Skies and Strange Bedfellows: The Discourse of Cable Television,” in Lynn Spigel and Michael Curtin, eds., The Revolution wasn’t Televised: Sixties Television and Social Conflict, Routledge, 1997, pp. 221–242.

  10. 10.

    Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America, New York Oxford 1964 198; also see David Nye, American Technological Sublime, Cambridge MA: MIT Press 1994.

  11. 11.

    Deidre Boyle, Subject to Change: Guerilla Television Revised ed., New York: Oxford: 1997: 31. In contrast, Dee Dee Halleck, another pioneer of video experimentation, is more critical of McLuhan and his technological determinism. Dee Dee Halleck, Hand Held Visions: The Uses of Community Media, New York: Fordham University Press 2001.

  12. 12.

    See Halleck, op. cit. esp. p. 16–24.

  13. 13.

    Horowitz, Irony of Regulatory Reform: 76–81.

  14. 14.

    Bill Kirkpatrick, “Bringing Blue Skies Down to Earth: Citizen Policy Making in Negotiations for Cable Television, 1965–1975,” Television and New Media Volume: 13 issue: 4: 307–328. On “vernacular” (participatory) policymaking, see Bill Kirkpatrick. “Vernacular Policymaking and the Cultural Turn in Media Policy Studies.” Communication, Culture, and Critique 6:4 (December 2013), 634–647. For a theoretical perspective, see Frank Fischer. Citizens Experts and the Environment: The Politics of Local Knowledge, Durham Duke University Press, 2000; and Frank Fischer, Democracy and Expertise: Reorienting Policy Inquiry, New York Oxford 2009.

  15. 15.

    Megan Mullen, Television in a Multichannel Age: a brief history of cable television, Malden MA: Blackwell 2009 99.

  16. 16.

    Laura Linder, Public Access Television: 51.

  17. 17.

    Linda Fuller, Community Television in the United States: 33.

  18. 18.

    Laura Linder, Public Access Television 20.

  19. 19.

    Kevin Howley, “Manhattan Neighborhood Network: Community Access Television and the Public Sphere in the 1990s,” Historical Journal of Film Radio and Television, Vol 25 no 1 March 2005: 119–138. More generally, see Kevin Howley, Community Media: People, Places, and Communication Technologies, New York: Cambridge University Press 2005.

  20. 20.

    Dee Dee Halleck, Hand Held Visions: 16–24.

  21. 21.

    Michael L. Meyerson, “The First Amendment and the Cable Television Operator: An Unprotective Shield against Public Access Requirements,” Comm/Ent 4 L.S. 1 1981–2: 5.

  22. 22.

    For a different interpretation more favorable to public access, see Myerson, “The First Amendment” op cit.

  23. 23.

    US congress house Cable Franchise policy 30.

  24. 24.

    For some background, see the Deep Dish film, Spigot for Bigots or Channels for Change, https://vimeopro.com/deepdishtv/spigot-for-bigots-or-channels-for-change-1990/video/177592805.

  25. 25.

    Steve Farnsworth, “Kansas City drops fight to keep Klan off Cable TV,” Chicago Tribune July 17, 1989, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1989-07-17/news/8902170976_1_ku-klux-klan-cable-access-cable-television.

  26. 26.

    The 1992 act is discussed briefly in Brian Caterino, “Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992,” First Amendment Encyclopedia, https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1058/cable-television-consumer-protection-and-competition-act-of-1992 and Ron Packovitz, “The Cable Act of 1992”, DePaul Journal of Art, Technology and Intellectual Property Law vol 3 no 1 1992 26–31.

  27. 27.

    Marjorie Heins, James N. Horwood, Robert T. Perry, and Michael Sitcov, “Panel IV: Censorship of Cable Televisions Leased and Public Access Channels,” Fordham Intellectual Property Media and Entertainment Law Journal 4 issues 3–4 1994.801–846.

  28. 28.

    Robin Anderson and Johnathan Grey, Battleground the media vol 1, Westport: Greenwood Press 2008 399.

  29. 29.

    Laura Stein, “Access Television and Grassroots Political Communication,” in The United States. In J. Downing (with Ford, T.V., Gill, G. and Stein, L.), Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements. California: Sage Publications, pp. 299–324.

  30. 30.

    Steven Levitsky and Maria Victoria Murillo, “Building Institutions on Weak Foundations: Lessons from Latin America”: 2. Accessed at https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/levitsky/files/levitskymurillo-od-revisedchapter-june2012.pdf.

  31. 31.

    Linda Fuller, Community Television in the United States: A Sourcebook on Public Educational and Governmental Access, Westport: Greenwood Press, 1994: 178.

  32. 32.

    Richard C. Kletter, Cable Television: Making Public Access Effective. Prepared for the National Science Foundation Santa Monica: Rand 1973.

  33. 33.

    Mickey Brandt, “Access Profile”. Community Media Review, 1(4) February 1978 p. 5, 13.

  34. 34.

    Paula Manley, “Socially Engaged Public Access Productions: Making the Road by Walking,” learning commons February 2003.

  35. 35.

    Laura Stein, “Access Television and Grassroots Political Communication in The United States.”

  36. 36.

    Deep Dish, Website http://www.deepdishtv.org/about/mission/.

  37. 37.

    Megan Mullen, Television in a Multichannel Age: a brief history of cable television.

  38. 38.

    Bambi Haggins and Julia Himberg, “The Multi-Channel Transition Period,” In Aniko Bodroghkozy ed. A Companion to the History of American Broadcasting, (Routledge 2018) 115ff.

  39. 39.

    Fuller, Community Television in the United States: A Sourcebook on Public Educational and Governmental Access, 33.

  40. 40.

    Klein, Hans, Public Access Television: A Radical Critique (August 15, 2006). TPRC 2006. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2103709.

  41. 41.

    For George Stoney’s view, see “The essential George Stoney,” Community Media Review 24:2 2001 29–31.

  42. 42.

    See, for example, Donna King and Christopher Mele, “Making Public Access Television: Community Participation, Media Literacy and the Public Sphere,” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media Fall 1999 603–623, who argue for the importance of including “fringe” programming. Bill Kirkpatrick, “Rethinking ‘Access’ Cultural Barriers to Public Access Television” Community Media Review 2002, also argues against a certain cultural snobbery in the access community.

  43. 43.

    Aufderheide, The Daily Planet; 138.

  44. 44.

    Bakhtin’s notion was developed in Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984; and was further developed in Rabelais and His World, Bloomington: University of Indiana Press 2009. Also see Renate Lachmann, Raoul Eshelman and Marc Davis, “Bakhtin and Carnival: Culture as Counter-Culture,” Cultural Critique no 11 (Winter, 1988–1989), pp. 115–152.

  45. 45.

    See Patricia Aufderheide, The Daily Planet: A Critic on the Capitalist Culture Beat, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2000 and Douglas Kellner, Television and the Crisis of Democracy, Boulder: Westview Press, 1990.

  46. 46.

    Linda Fuller, Community Television in the United States: A Sourcebook on Public Educational and Governmental Access, Westport: Greenwood Press, 1994:13–15.

  47. 47.

    American Community Television, “Viewership and PEG Access Channels,” https://wcm.memberclicks.net/assets/docs/Library/viewership%20and%20peg%20access%20channels.pdf.

  48. 48.

    Wenhong Chen, Marcus Funk, Joseph D. Straubhaar & Jeremiah Spence, “Still Relevant? An Audience Analysis of Public and Government Access Channels,” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 57:3, 263–281, https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2013.816707 accessed October 7, 2019.

  49. 49.

    Traci M Sawyers and David S. Meyer. “Missed Opportunities: Social Movement Abeyance and Public Policy.” Social Problems, vol 46, no 2, 1999, pp. 187–206.

Bibliography

  • Alexander, Jeffrey. 2006. The Civil Sphere. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • American Community Television Viewership and PEG Access Channels. https://wcm.memberclicks.net/assets/docs/Library/viewership%20and%20peg%20access%20channels.pdf.

  • Anderson, Robin, and Johnathan Grey. 2008. Battleground the Media. Vol. 1, 399. Westport: Greenwood Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aufderheide, Patricia. 2000. The Daily Planet: A Critic on the Capitalist Culture Beat. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1984. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2009. Rabelais and His World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyle, Deidre. 1997. Subject to Change: Guerilla Television, 31. Revised ed. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brandt, Mickey 1978. Access Profile. Community Media Review 1(4): 5, 13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Caterino, Brian. Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992. First Amendment Encyclopedia. https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1058/cable-television-consumer-protection-and-competition-act-of-1992.

  • Chen, Wenhong, Marcus Funk, Joseph D. Straubhaar, and Jeremiah Spence. 2013. Still Relevant? An Audience Analysis of Public and Government Access Channels. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 57 (3): 263–281. Accessed 7 October 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2013.816707.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deep Dish film Spigot for Bigots or Channels for Change. https://vimeopro.com/deepdishtv/spigot-for-bigots-or-channels-for-change-1990/video/177592805.

  • Deep Dish Website Mission. http://www.deepdishtv.org/about/mission/.

  • Engelman, Ralph. 1996. Public Radio and Television in America: A Political History. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farnsworth, Steve. 1989. Kansas City Drops Fight to Keep Klan Off Cable TV. Chicago Tribune, July 17. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1989-07-17/news/8902170976_1_ku-klux-klan-cable-access-cable-television.

  • FCC. Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Cited in Linder. Public Access Television, 19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fischer, Frank. 2000. Citizens, Experts and the Environment: The Politics of Local Knowledge. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2009. Democracy and Expertise: Reorienting Policy Inquiry. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fuller, Linda. 1994. Community Television in the United States: A Sourcebook on Public Educational and Governmental Access. Westport: Greenwood Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halleck, Dee Dee. 2001. Hand Held Visions: The Uses of Community Media. New York: Fordham University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heins, Marjorie, James N. Horwood, Robert T. Perry, and Michael Sitcov. 1994. Panel IV: Censorship of Cable Televisions Leased and Public Access. Channels Fordham Intellectual Property Media and Entertainment Law Journal 4 (3–4): 801–846.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horowitz, Robert Britt. 1989. The Irony of Regulatory Reform: The Deregulation of American Telecommunications. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howley, Kevin. 2005a. Manhattan Neighborhood Network: Community Access Television and the Public Sphere in the 1990’s. Historical Journal of Film Radio and Television 25 (1): 119–138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2005b. Community Media: People, Places and Communication Technologies. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kellner, Douglas. 1990. Television and the Crisis of Democracy. Boulder: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • King, Donna, and Christopher Mele. 1999. Making Public Access Television: Community Participation, Media Literacy and the Public Sphere. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 43 (Fall): 603–623.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kirkpatrick, Bill. 2002. Rethinking ‘Access’ Cultural Barriers to Public Access Television. Community Media Review.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2012. Bringing Blue Skies Down to Earth: Citizen Policy Making in Negotiations for Cable Television, 1965–1975. Television and New Media 13 (4): 307–328.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2013. Vernacular Policymaking and the Cultural Turn in Media Policy Studies. Communication, Culture, and Critique 6 (4): 634–647.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klein, Hans. 2006. Public Access Television: A Radical Critique. TPRC 2006, August 15. Available at SSRN. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2103709.

  • Kletter, Richard C. 1973. Cable Television: Making Public Access Effective. Prepared for the National Science Foundation Santa Monica: Rand.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kolson, Kenneth L. 1978. Broadcasting in the Public Interest: The Legacy of Federal Communication Commissioner Nicholas Johnson. Administrative Law Review 30 (4, Winter): 133–165.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lachmann, Renate, Raoul Eshelman, and Marc Davis Bakhtin. 1988–1989. Carnival: Culture as Counter-Culture. Cultural Critique 11 (Winter): 115–152.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levitsky, Steven, and Maria Victoria Murillo. 2013. Building Institutions on Weak Foundations: Lessons from Latin America. Journal of Democracy 24 (2): 93–107. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/levitsky/files/levitskymurillo-od-revisedchapter-june2012.pdf.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Linder, Laura. 1999. Public Access Television: America’s Electronic Soapbox. New York: Prager.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manley, Paula. 2003. Socially Engaged Public Access Productions: Making the Road by Walking. Learning Commons, February.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, Leo. 1964. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyerson, Michael L. 1981–1982. The First Amendment and the Cable Television Operator: An Unprotective Shield against Public Access Requirements. Comm/Ent 4 (1): 1–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mullen, Megan. 2009. Television Is a Multichannel Age: A Brief History of Cable Television. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nye, David. 1994. American Technological Sublime. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Packovitz, Ron. 1992. The Cable Act of 1992. DePaul Journal of Art, Technology and Intellectual Property Law 3 (1): 26–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parsons, Patrick R. 2008. Blue Skies: A History of Cable Television. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sawyers, Traci M., and David S. Meyer. 1999. Missed Opportunities: Social Movement Abeyance and Public Policy. Social Problems 46 (2): 187–206.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Ralph Lee. 1972. Wired Nation. Cable TV: The Electronic Communications Highway. New York: Harper and Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stein, Laura. Access Television and Grassroots Political Communication in the United States. In Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements, ed. J. Downing, T.V. Ford, G. Gill, and L. Stein, 299–324. California: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stoney, George. 2001. The Essential George Stoney. Community Media Review 24 (2): 29–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Streeter, Thomas. 1997. Blue Skies and Strange Bedfellows: The Discourse of Cable Television. In The Revolution wasn’t Televised: Sixties Television and Social Conflict, ed. Lynn Spigel and Michael Curtin, 221–242. Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • US Congress House Cable Franchise Policy 30.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rochester, NY, USA

    Brian Caterino

Authors
  1. Brian Caterino
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Caterino, B. (2020). The Emergence of Public Access Television. In: The Decline of Public Access and Neo-Liberal Media Regimes. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39403-5_4

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation