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From the Town Meeting to the World Wide Web:
Creating and Maintaining Democracy in the Telecommunications Age

by Barry Forbes
Executive Director, Alliance for Community Media

CPSR News Volume 15, Number 3: Summer 1997

The days of strolling down to a town meeting for a spirited debate on public issues are long past. Today, we get sound bites on entertainment television, thirty-second commercials about complex issues, call-in talk show harangues, flashy commercial web pages, and flaming email attachments. In the near future, media and telecommunications will continue to converge. The end result will likely be a "hypervideo" service that uses multiple and hybrid distribution networks: terrestrial broadcast, direct broadcast satellite (DBS), fiber optics, coaxial cable, and cellular technology.

No one can deny that the world of communications is swiftly changing around us nor that connections between physical community space and cyberspace are being forged at a rapid pace. Yet not everyone agrees on the impact that these changes and connections will make on our culture, our form of democracy, and our everyday lives.

Most of us would agree on a few basic observations:

• The media and telecommunications industries in the United States are the best in the world: they are the most diverse, advanced, accessible, dependable, and inexpensive. This has generally been the result of a combination of free market enterprise and regulated monopolies. While the media and telecommunications industries have exerted a powerful influence on their own legislation and regulation, these industries have been built on Americans voting with their dollars on products and services.
• The media and telecommunications industries use public property for their distribution networks: television, radio, direct broadcast satellite (DBS) television, cellular telephones, and pagers all use the broadcast spectrum; and telephones, cable television, and computer networks use public rights-of-way. This public property is managed and regulated by various levels of government from national executive agencies like the FCC to local public utilities commissions.
• Companies within the media and telecommunications industries are merging at a faster rate than ever before. Deregulation within these industries is creating fewer and larger corporations that cross several fields of telecommunications. The following are some examples of this trend:
  • Entertainment-based Walt Disney Company bought outbroadcast giant Capital Cities-ABC, vaulting Disney's position on the Fortune 500 list of companies from 102 to 55.
  • Computer software developer Microsoft Corporation launched the online Internet service MSN (now the number three service with two million subscribers), developed cable television enture MSNBC with General Electric/NBC, and has proposed the purchase of WebTV Networks Inc., which provides access to the Internet through boxes on top of television sets.
  • Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate News Corporation is attempting to add the American Sky Broadcasting satellite company (parent of Direct Broadcast Satellite service EchoStar) to his current newspaper, publishing, film, broadcast network, and television production subsidiaries.
  • Long distance telephone service provider AT&T is not only attempting to get into the local telephone service business by proposing to purchase SBC, one of the AT&T offspring born when the monopoly giant was divested in 1984, but in one year has also signed up 800,000 subscribers to its new Internet service.

The media and telecommunications industries play a dominant role in the American political process. The various media are being used more and more by candidates seeking public office at all levels, by advocacy and special interest groups attempting to influence legislation and regulation, and by the general public looking for basic information on which to make decisions at the ballot box. However, with domination of media by primarily entertainment-based corporations, public discourse about issues is being reduced to briefer news updates, more carefully orchestrated "debates," and more political commercials at the expense of dialogue.

The Oxymoron of "Free" Speech
Therefore, those who believe that open public discourse continues to be the basis of American democracy face a dilemma: how can we bring the theory and practice of "free speech" from the town meeting of the past to the commercially driven and technologically advanced telecommunications networks of the present?

In order to make this cultural leap, three basic problems must be overcome: inequality of access, of economic feasibility, and of training.

• Access: People must be connected to whatever forum provides open public discourse. This connection must provide symmetrical interaction, that is, allow people to participate in a dialogue rather than just passively receive information and entertainment.
• Economics: The cost of participating in the new electronic marketplace of ideas must not be out of reach to most people. A cost-free stroll to the public street corner or public library has been replaced by buying expensive electronic equipment and telecommunications services.
• Knowledge: People need to know how to use the equipment and telecommunications service, as well as to understand how to get the most benefit from the "electronic street corner."

Community media organizations strive to address these issues. However, while community involvement in telecommunications is generally seen as a public good, over the past few years ongoing public funding for it has been threatened.

• Public broadcasting has undergone funding cuts in the past-and may experience the eventual elimination of Congressional funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the national endowments.
• Although public, educational, and governmental (PEG) access television organizations have been relatively successful in securing funding through local cable television franchise, the cash crunch from local municipalities and competition from direct broadcast satellite (DBS) television service is beginning to squeeze both franchise payments and the amount of money passed on to community media organizations.
• Community computer networks have never had sustainable public funding, and the one source for major grants (the National Telecommunications Information Administration's Telecommunications Information Infrastructure Assistance Program) has shrunk and may not survive future Congressional funding cycles.

Community Media Platform Politics and Practice
In order to bolster support for community media at the national level, the Alliance for Community Media has created a five-part public policy platform, as follows.

• Protect fair competition. Competition promotes efficiency and produces more varied choices for consumers. Moreover, converging communications technologies have blurred many of the distinctions that once existed between types of telecommunications services, and between the entities that provide them. Data, voice, and video are now all being transmitted over telephone lines, through the airwaves, via coaxial cable, and on fiber-optic networks. Telephone companies offer video services, cable operators offer telephone services, electric companies offer electronic database services, and so on. Therefore, telecommunications reform legislation should acknowledge that all like services must be regulated in a consistent manner, regardless of actual or constructive ownership. Specifically, all providers of telecommunications-by-wire should obtain franchises from the states and/or cities in which they do business, regardless of whether the service provider calls itself a cable operator, a telephone company, an electric company, an electronic publisher, or some other entity.
• Require fair compensation for use of public rights of way. The Alliance believes that the streets, highways and roads of the nation are the property of the residents of local communities. City, state, and county governments act as trustees of these assets for their residents and are entitled to charge fees for their use. Local authorities should have the authority to offer leases or easements for fair market value, where appropriate. Therefore, telecommunications legislation should recognize the right of local and state franchising authorities, including state Public Utilities Commissions, to impose fees, taxes, or rents for use of public rights of way. The legislation should make clear that in-kind payments of PEG access are an appropriate payment for such rights. The equipment, services, and facilities necessary to use PEG access effectively should also be considered an appropriate part of a service provider's compensation to the local government.
• Permit local determination of how communities are to be served. As the federal government continues to consider governmental responsibilities that can be successfully devolved to state and local governments, PEG access provides an exemplary model of how services essential to the public welfare can be supplied without any expense or involvement on the part of taxpayers. Decisions about PEG access are made entirely at the local level, as a private matter between a local franchising authority and the cable system operator. The Alliance believes that this simple and effective regulatory model should be applied to all entities providing direct video services, regardless of federal regulatory status. Devolving decisions and control of PEG access to states and local governments will ensure that programming reflects local interests and meets local needs. Therefore, telecommunications reform language should expressly state that all video providers are subject to the jurisdiction of local franchising authorities, and that these authorities are authorized to impose such fees, rents, taxes, or other conditions as may be appropriate for "public necessity and convenience."
• Provide true universal service. Universal service that guarantees every American the ability to connect to a telecommunications line is extremely important. But physical connection to a network is not enough. True "universal service" recognizes that, in an age of increasing interactivity, Americans have the right to create and transmit information, not just passively receive programming. Our telecommunications policy must recognize that local groups-churches, charities, YMCAs, Little Leagues, secondary schools, and civic organizations-have a right to be heard. Therefore, telecommunications reform must create a mechanism that will provide not only channel capacity but the equipment, services, and facilities which permit individuals and community groups to use that capacity. Although the Alliance prefers a mandate, it will support the concept of allowing local or state franchise authorities to make the decision to request PEG access capacity, equipment, services and facilities from franchisees.
• Promote community support and democratic discourse. PEG access programming that supports adult education promotes a better trained work force and higher levels of economic productivity. PEG access can turn all Americans into "information haves." Therefore, the Alliance supports legislation which ensures that educational and community institutions are physically and financially able to make video contacts regularly with their members, students, and larger communities.

In order to advance this platform across all telecommunications networks, the Alliance National Board at their October 1995 meeting passed the following resolution.

"To pass, by 2001, the Telecommunications Access Act, which would guarantee every person free or low-cost access to producing and receiving multi-media information over any public network which uses public rights of way, by providing community-based organizations with the needed funding mechanisms, capacity, interoperability, technical information and accessibility."

The reasons that the Alliance chose the year 2001 for passage are that (1) a specific target date is preferable in order to set a goal for the long-term workplan; (2) at least five years would be required to develop the national, state, and grassroots support of such a bill; and (3) Congress would not consider a new telecommunications bill so soon after the bills that became the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

While Alliance members and allies were successful in preserving cable television franchise fees in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, much work lies ahead in advancing the proposed Telecommunications Access Act for other communications networks.

Telecommunications Access Act
As envisioned by the Alliance, the Telecommunications Access Act (TAA) would

• Require potential licensees of advanced broadcast television services to submit competitive bids that set aside a portion of the capacity for public, educational, and government (PEG) use
• Require licensees of terrestrial and satellite broadcast spectrum to pay annual franchise fees to the federal government, a portion of which would be transferred to a National Telecommunications Endowment Fund
• Require telecommunications entities using public rights of way and easements for their cabled or wired networks that cross municipal lines to pay annual franchise fees to the state government, a portion of which would be transferred to the appropriate state's Telecommunications Endowment Fund
• Require telecommunications entities using public rights of way and easements for their cabled or wired networks within municipalities to pay annual franchise fees to the local government, a portion of which would be transferred to the appropriate municipality's Telecommunications Endowment Fund
• Specify that, except for a small percentage for administration, the funds from the state and National Telecommunications Endowment Funds would be granted on a matching basis to local communities for the specific purpose of creating and sustaining noncommercial community media facilities, equipment, networks, and training (but provide no funding for programming)
• Eliminate all other public-interest requirements for those telecommunications entities that provide this franchise fee, capacity, and connectivity
• Eliminate all rate regulations for those portions of the telecommunications entities' business in which true competition exists

Obviously, the Telecommunications Access Act will get nowhere fast without strong support from the grass roots, the telecommunications industry, and Congress. The Alliance has developed strategies to involve all three in pushing for the passage of the TAA (see sidebar).

United We Access
Just as regulatory agencies are divided into departments that reflect outmoded telecommunications divisions, so are nonprofit organizations categorized by technologies: community radio, public television, community Internet networks, libraries, PEG access television, and more. We've seen how commercial telecommunications conglomerates solidify their impact by merging and creating coventures; nonprofit public interest groups must follow their lead or remain ineffectual.

The proposed Telecommunications Access Act can unite us around a "big idea"-bringing us together like our converging individual technologies do today. Of course, the odds are against us, just as they were against a ragtag group of rebels in one English colony in the late 1770s. But with a bit of moxy and savvy, we may be able to establish a new digital culture with a successful telecommunications industry, a spirited public forum, and a thriving and participative democracy.

Here's to the new United States of Access!

Barry Forbes is the Executive Director for the Alliance for Community Media, combining a professional career in public broadcasting with community activism in public service. He was founder, executive producer and host of the award winning-weekly public access TV show Gay Fairfax. He has served on the Board of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, and the Fairfax Cable Access Corporation.

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Strategies for Building Grassroots Support

• Promote public awareness through frequent press releases, media interviews, opinion pieces placed in the national and local press, targeted advertising (such as the Alliance advertisement in the June 3, 1996 issue of The Nation) and mass media coverage of a series of "telecommunications in the public interest" seminars
• Create a database of community media advocates by asking affiliate organizations to share their mailing lists and/or distributing sign-up cards during training sessions and at their facilities
• Assist local organizing of new access organizations in key states and cities as part of the Community Coalition Initiative project (such as the recent public access television town meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada)
• Build coalitions with other national organizations through mailings, fax broadcasts, orientation meetings, and participation in each others' conferences and meetings

Strategies for Building Telecommunications Industry Support

• Promote industry awareness through trade publication press releases, involvement in a series of "telecommunications in the public interest" seminars, and private meetings with industry representatives
• Emphasize the advantages of rate deregulation and elimination of public interest requirements, creating a "level playing field" for all telecommunications industries, and the use of "loss leader" pricing for advanced telecommunications services
• Work with industry representatives in developing legislation and regulation

Strategies for Building Congressional Support

• Provide regulatory history through Federal Communications Commissions (FCC) comments on related issues, such as on establishing an administrative organization to oversee the educational and informational programming discount rates for direct broadcast satellite (DBS) television services and on the giveaway of digital television spectrum
• Promote public and industry awareness through frequent press releases, media interviews, opinion pieces in the national and local press, targeted advertising, and mass media coverage of a series of "telecommunications in the public interest" seminars
• Meet directly with members of Congress and their staff members and provide them with legislative, regulatory, and judicial support materials on the major issues of the TAA
• Organize each state to pass a state version of the TAA by recruiting state coordinators; research how each state's legislation would be affected by a state TAA; organize citizen lobbyists; mail support materials to each state legislator and key staff members; and organize state lobby days
• Recruit cosponsors of the TAA through personal meetings and provide evidence of support from their constituents

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