Fall quarter came to a close this past week and now it’s time for my favorite part of each quarter – presenting my final project. One of the great things about the Master in Communication in Digital Media (MCDM) courses is that I seem to gain a new (or improved) set of tangible skills with each quarter. This time I threw myself into the world of multimedia storytelling with Advanced Multimedia Storytelling: People and Story taught by the incredible team from the Common Language Project (CLP).

As part of the class, I chose to produce, shoot and edit a web-extra video for my employer, KCTS 9 Television, to accompany their upcoming documentary about the alarming increase in prescription-drug abuse in Washington state – specifically the overprescribing, lack of regulation or treatment options, and the affect it is having on teenagers, seniors and middle-class families.

My story would be about alternatives. What other options are there to treat chronic pain that aren’t opioid-based? What I discovered is that there are LOTS of options, but finding the right one can be a long and tricky process for pain sufferers.

I met Reba Schneider through her acupuncturist, Andrea Booth, on a cold, late-October morning at one of her bi-monthly acupuncture appointments. All I knew of Reba is that she suffered from chronic pain as a result of fibromyalgia. Reba’s gentle smile and recently-dyed bright red hair lit up the room when she walked in. She seemed nervous to see the camera, tripod and microphones, but then again I was anxious to be behind the camera worrying about audio levels, white balance, camera angles and interview questions. There was really a lot more to this process than I had imagined!

As I fumbled around trying to pin the microphone on Reba’s shirt, she cautiously asked me if it would be okay to describe her pain as it really felt – even if that included a “bad” word or a metaphor of sort. With that, I knew we were off to a great start to hearing a powerful story about the pain she has suffered and the relief she’s found in alternative treatments.

I was thrilled to participate and dove right in by volunteering to contribute at least nine blog posts (some written by community partners) and one web extra to be posted on the QUEST website. I’m not going to say it was easy to write these first few posts and nail down my script for the audio slideshow I created. There were some tears, a few temper tantrums while fighting with technology and definitely some headaches, but I’ve learned so much through the process and came away with a whole new understanding of how content creation for a place like QUEST really works.

I’ve finished up my orca-related blogs and slideshow and now it’s on to megathrust earthquakes. Here’s the links, but I’ll also post them directly to my blog. Enjoy!

Into the Waves with Orcas
For this audio slideshow, I actually drew (yes, by hand) all of the concepts that I didn’t have photos to demonstrate. I really enjoyed the opportunity to get creative and piece together the puzzle in a semi-cohesive manner. Here’s the description: Orcas use sound to navigate, find food and communicate. But underwater noise is making it more difficult. We explore how scientists use hydrophones to track noise from ships and boats to discover what affect noise pollution really has on orcas.

The Killer Affecting Killer Whale Populations
This blog post is not a happy topic. In fact, it’s devastating to think about what’s happening to orca populations from something that humans are to blame for. Here’s the description: Nothing excites whale researchers and whale fanatics more than seeing a new calf born into the pod. However, researchers have learned that calf survival rates are incredibly low, especially for the orca’s first born. The mother’s young calf often dies because of something the mother passes on to her offspring—PCBs.

I’m so thankful that I was given the opportunity to participate and proud of myself for taking the risk, dedicating the time and committing myself to step out of my comfort zone. I still have several blogs to go and I’m just getting more and more comfortable which is exactly what I need.

Click here to view my final project site, PBS as America’s Largest Digital Classroom.

As a lifelong public television viewer and current employee at Seattle’s KCTS 9public television station, I’ve often heard the Public Broadcasting System’s (PBS) popular tagline, “Viewers Like You” to demonstrate its gratitude to viewers who support or directly contribute to the production of programming. However, as the traditional top-down dissemination model of public television is replaced with an open, many-to-many networked media model, this tagline could change to “Participants Like You” to more accurately reflect today’s public media. 

This paper focuses on the strong relationship between public television and education—a relationship fueled by technology. I invite you to read my research on the past, present and future of PBS as America’s largest digital classroom.

I gave this presentation as part of my final project for my Masters in Communication in Digital Media (MCDM) class at the University of Washington. Here’s a transcript (essentially) with what I said during my presentation.

Slide 1: Intro

The top-down traditional dissemination model of public television is being replaced with an open, many-to-many networked media environment. In today’s world, the famous PBS tagline of “Viewers like you” is no longer as applicable as it used to be thanks to this transition. Now, something along the lines of “Participants like you” may be a better fit. Technology shares a strong relationship with public television—a relationship initially sparked by education.

In this presentation, I’ll focus on PBS and its nearly 360 member stations that make up America’s largest classroom. From its beginning as educational television to today’s public media, PBS has remained committed to using media for the public good and has remained in classrooms across the United States.

Slide 2: A history of PBS in the classroom

Post WWII, the FCC set aside 242 television frequencies, or 12% of available frequencies, for noncommercial educational purposes. Just two years later, in 1954, the Philadelphia School District and the nation’s first community-owned television station, WQED, launched classroom-based instructional television because of its expansive potential reach and to compensate for a teacher shortage due to the baby boom. Teachers expressed little enthusiasm to having someone else teach their class by television and resolved that television not become the core of the school curriculum. The teacher in the classroom (not on television) would ask follow up questions after the broadcast to prompt further discussion thus using the television as a technological tool.

By 1967, thirteen years after its start in televised classroom education, WQED offered instruction in practically every subject to more than 800,000 pupils in over 23,000 regional classrooms. Televised classroom instruction was deemed “effective” but dependent on the quality of follow-up by teachers in the classrooms. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act in 1967 and said, “I believe the time has come to enlist the computer and the satellite, as well as television and radio, and to enlist them in the cause of education.”

Slide 3 – Consumer-centered public media

In the early 1970s and through the 80s public television began to move away from the locally-focused model at each station and share more national content. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, public television was widely accepted as important, but rarely loved. Educators continued to use PBS television segments and video in the classroom setting as needed to supplement their lessons but not in the daily live broadcast format.

Then came the Internet, followed by a decade of quick-fire innovation—and the individual user has moved from being an anonymous part of a mass to being the center of the media picture.

Today, more than 95 percent of public television stations are engaged in providing educational services directly to K-12 and higher-ed schools. Public television stations are on the cutting-edge of technology advancements, planning for and testing emergent technologies that hold promise for delivering educational content.

Educational services provided by public television stations range from:

• in-person reading programs for parents and childcare providers,
• to professional development resources for teachers,
• to online activities designed to spark student learning
• to classroom specific resources designed around the great programs you see on PBS, such as NOVA, FRONTLINE, History Detectives or American Experience.

PBS content is now designed around the idea that it is a multi-platform engagement opportunities consisting of offline, online, print, social media, electronic greeting cards, widgets, interactive maps, educator materials, etc.

Slide 4 – PBS Education division

The PBS Education division is building a collaborative network of 21st century educators and learners who turn to public media to transform teaching and learning both at the national and station levels.

The PBS Teachers Website offers:

• searchable library of over 9,000 free local and national standards-based teaching resources
• the leading online teacher professional development service, PBS TeacherLine.
• PBS Teachers Connect which I’ll talk a little bit more about in a minute.

Here are some recent stats about digital media use in the classroom:

• 76% of teachers stream/download video content from the Internet to aid classroom instruction – more than ever before.
• The majority of K–12 teachers (82 percent) continue to believe that video content is more effective when it is integrated with other instructional resources or content.

Challenges:

• Most teachers (78 percent) encounter problems with streaming video include skipping, pausing or constant buffering.
• computing devices or technology infrastructure, or both, do not yet have the capacity to handle teachers’ increasingly Internet-dependent instructional activity.
• Students’ ability to use these devices at school is severely limited.
• More than half of K-12 teachers report their school media budgets have decreased over the past year, but strikingly teachers spend 60 percent of their time using educational resources that were either free (like PBS’ resources) or that they paid for themselves.

Slide 5 – Modern day educational media

Teachers’ perceptions of the usefulness of discussion boards and the ability to connect with other teachers increased significantly in 2010. PBS is positioning itself as the hub of teacher communities with The PBS Teachers Connect. This online community fosters the participant’s discussions of effective ways to integrate digital media content and technology into the curriculum to help educators promote 21st century skills development and improve student achievement. It also allows them to be part of a group of people affected by a common issue.

Education and technology remain intertwined and are seen as the drivers for public television’s future success. But public media 2.0 won’t happen by accident and change must happen.

Slide 6 – Partner, create, distribute

The Center for Social Media reports that the “mission of public media 2.0 is to enable publics with media to recognize and understand the problems they share, to know each other, and to act.” There will be many more partnerships, spanning museums, schools, health care organizations and other nonprofit organizations with everyone creating content and distributing it through multiple platforms, essentially blurring some of the traditional organizational lines.

Many public television stations are already providing journalistic training to citizen media makers and integrating their content.The challenge will be matching up the professional with the amateur, and there are definite standards for public media 2.0 will need to establish:

• Freedom of expression
• Fact checking/quality control
• Ethics
• Copyright practices
• Use of open source tools

PBS carries a powerful brand and a drive for education innovation. Schools and public media will become more closely connected than ever before with PBS acting as a hub for local, national and education-specific digital media content – an obvious place for public media and education to work together.

It’s an exciting time for PBS as America’s Largest Classroom and for the teachers and students involved.

Resources and credits are listed on the last slide.

Credit: PBS

Reading Ben Bagdikian’s Afterword from the book The Media Monopoly made me both proud to work for a public television station and extremely nervous at the same time. This article was written in 1997 and paints a pretty bleak picture for future funding and support of public broadcasting in the United States—some of which is taking place right now.

The introduction of television to the average American household in the 1950s featured almost entirely family-oriented, nonviolent programming. This type of content and the introduction of “free” home entertainment made the television becoming a permanent fixture in households. Then, the introduction of the remote control made it easier for viewers to switch between channels and resulted in broadcasters introducing racier, more entertaining content in an effort to keep the viewer on their channel. The demands for entertainment haven’t stopped and morphed into today’s commercial chaos and shallow television programming.

After World War I, the government established that licensed broadcasters must operate “in the public interest” to use the public airwaves even though there is no definition of what is “in the public interest.” Bagdikian argues that the broadcasters and their commercial sponsors are using the publicly-owned airwaves to essentially rob society of the information needed to cope with their most urgent needs.

Non-commercial broadcasting provides content that addresses and challenges many of these societal issues and needs. Even though commercial and non-commercial broadcasting models can successfully exist along side one another, it is the addition of non-commercial broadcasting’s minuscule support from taxes that gives many American opponents the fuel they need to condemn it as socialism. This perception and the belief that the advertising-supported model is the only one that will work in the United States leads to “a false limitation of choice in the discussion of what roles broadcasting should have in American society.”

Bagdikian brings up a very ironic example of the United States not practicing what it historically preached. Japan’s NHK, one of the world’s largest and most successful non-commercial broadcasting systems, was created by the United States after World War II. “U.S. authorities insisted that no modern democracy should be without a well-financed, nonpolitical and non-commercial public broadcasting system.” Can the U.S. not follow through on its own advice for other nations? How have we allowed ourselves to get further and further away from a well-financed non-commercial broadcast system since this article was written?

A 2011 study by bipartisan polling firms Hart Research and American Viewpoint found that for the eighth year in a row, the Public Broadcasting System (PBS)  is America’s most trusted institution. In fact, according to the press release from PBS, “American voters have twice the level of trust in PBS (44% “trust a great deal”) over the nearest tested institution, Courts of Law (with 22% “trust a great deal”).”

Bagdikian points out that “commercial broadcasting has worked behind the scenes with its corporate allies to keep non-commercial television at a minimum, or to kill it completely” as demonstrated in this year’s Congress and Senate sessions. The same bipartisan study found that six out of ten voters (61%) believe the consequences of defunding PBS would be a “massive loss” (24%) or “significant loss for the country” (37%). But PBS is up against massive broadcasters, commercial interests and many challenges with the federal government.

I agree with Bagdikian that “If voters do not have easy access to central facts and ideas concerning public issues, voting becomes meaningless.” Information must be accurate and accessible to positively impact “the public interest”—something that isn’t happening in today’s world commercial television.

Can we divert from this path and put our public airwaves to better use? This is an important but difficult conversation that needs to take place sooner rather than later. Bagdikian mentions that “the country would benefit from national news and discussions about the best way to use the airwaves, since the public owns them.” As we venture from the traditional television airwaves and watch content online, will public television find its place and extend its reach because of the accessibility of its rich, dynamic and exciting online video content and discussions? This is a great opportunity for citizens to demonstrate the importance of these issues and they have the digital tools available to them.

Sure, public television has to deal with congress threatening to cut funding and host “beg-a-thons” to raise viewer support to pay for programming, but the points of article provide convincing  the United States needs public broadcasting more than ever. I’m proud to go to work everyday and do what I can to extend the reach and impact of public broadcasting to foster an informed society and brighter future for our country.

Sources:
Bagdikian, B. (1997) The media monopoly: Afterword. Beacon Press. Obtained from: http//www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media/Afterword_Bagdikian.html

National Survey Finds 69 Percent of Voters Oppose Congressional Elimination of Government Funding for Public Broadcasting

Image: PBS

Winston’s theory of Supervening Social Necessity will help me explain the complimentary social forces that have led to the adoption of each phase as public television integrates and faces technological innovations. I’ll look the Uses and Gratifications theory as Winston presents it and figure out what it is about these new innovations and what makes society want to use them and adopt one over another.

In addition, I’ll apply Winston’s Law of Supression of Radical Potential to the historical context of public media admist the larger advertiser-supported models and examples of this occurring today between companies like Comcast and Netflix.

My timeline will begin when the United States developed public media and why it differentiates from advertiser-supported media models. I’ll look at public television’s classroom roots and subsequent technological evolution to being the non-commercial television option for households, then delve into viewers’ ability to watch public television content on-demand/online.

My timeline hasn’t changed much from the beginning of this project, but I realized the importance of including a detailed section on the development of advertiser-supported models of radio and television based on our reading, “The Trouble with Mass Media” by Yochai Benkler. This research will give greater context to the public media model compared to advertiser-supported models and what technological advances mean for public television content’s findability.

The major turning point to advertising-supported mass media in the U.S. instead of government-supported models (much like in Great Britain, Australia, etc.) happened in the 1920s with the expansion of radio. This model of mass media meant attracting the widest audience possible to view the ads that paid for the programming through aligning programming to the lowest common denominator for the audience (Benkler, 2006). Programmers and editors didn’t want to alienate the majority of audience members and would focus on issues and stories that had the greatest appeal, not necessarily the most significant potential impact to society. This editorial process led to conflict between ethics in journalism and the business necessities of commercial mass media.

Beyond the helpful historical context, Benkler discusses three benefits of mass media: independence from government control, the large newsrooms that commercial mass media can afford and their visibility. This structure of mass media acts as a structure for the public sphere because of the communication models, technologies and reach. For instance, mass media doesn’t lend itself to gathering the concerns and opinions as input for the public sphere before the information is filtered and reported. The same constraints exist while gathering feedback.

Benkler suggests the Internet could compliment the mass media model because it allows the public sphere to shift to a place where people can seek information geared toward more of their interests and actively participate in the conversation instead of being a passive audience member. “Greater access to means of direct individual communications, to collaborative speech platforms, and to non-market producers more generally can complement the commercial mass media and contribute to a significantly improved public sphere. (Benkler, 2006)”

Source:

Benkler, Y., (2006). The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. Yale University Press, p.2-24.

I walked away from the presentation having found out that none of the peers I spoke with have attempted to watch anything streamed live on their mobile device. Many agreed that there might be a market for mobile TV in the United States, although we agreed that the start up costs and infrastructure demands may continue to delay this technology adoption until there’s something bigger and better available anyways. The groups seemed surprised by the sheer number of South Koreans who adopted mobile TV within the first two years of its existence (1 in 7 people) and this reinforced the importance of monitoring the technologically advanced South Korea for its technology successes and failures as case studies for the rest of the world.

I learned a great deal from presenting this study to my classmates and was reminded of how honored I am to be discussing these concepts and ideas with such knowledgeable and kind classmates.

Gillmor talks of his own experience as a journalist and blogger and what it is like to more closely interact with readers as well as deal with criticism. He reminds journalists about the importance of humility because of niche experts that are publishing their own content.

The politicians and corporations that were typically subjects of news reporting found out that because there are tools available for anyone to share information if they desire, “excluding The Media from coverage no longer necessarily means much” (p. 138). Containing and controlling information is much more difficult than it used to be, and in some cases, organizations and individuals have started turning the tables and purposefully sharing information many wouldn’t have dreamed of sharing years ago.

I chose to review this book because I work in public television (as a marketer) and am intrigued by the impacts that citizen journalism are having on an increasingly expensive industry. The quality of hand-held technology today paired with the reach and ease of reporting via the Internet presents an opportunity for cash-strapped public television stations. The resounding issue lies in the journalistic integrity and in-depth reporting that needs to be upheld in public television as we expand to diverse platforms and look at reinvigorated business models.

Much of what Gillmor writes in We the Media has occurred since 2004 or is still beginning to take shape today, proving his thesis and credibility. Many of the case studies could be updated with events occurring in 2011, meaning the context of this book is relevant today as it was in 2004.

The book is a delightful and easy-to-read compilation of history and forward-thinking concepts. To reinforce his stance on sharing content in the Creative Commons, Gillmor made the book available online in PDF and audio format free-of-charge. The price is right and the content is extremely relevant. We the Media is an important read for anyone in the communications field and consumers of new media.

Gillmor has supplemented his concepts in We the Media with a new book Mediactive discussing how citizens need to take control and make the media work for us by being active consumers and participants. I’ll be reading it next and anticipate diving deeper into these important concepts.

Just how much does gender affect attitude and intention to use new media? The digitally advanced nation of South Korea became the first market with mobile TV commercially available in 2005. Nearly one in seven residents regularly watched mobile TV programming just two years after the launch of Korea’s digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) network. The DMB consists of both terrestrial (free) and satellite versions ($14/month) allowing users to watch TV through their mobile phone, car navigation systems, portable media players and more.

A 2009 study, Motivators for the intention to use mobile TV, surveyed 256 undergraduate students in South Korea to test the relationship of five hypothesized motivation factors with the subject’s attitude and intention to use mobile TV. The motivation factors included in the survey were: entertainment, social interaction, permanent access, to pass time, and fashion/status.

Survey results indicate that males were motivated to use DMB as a way to express themselves as a fashion leader and for entertainment purposes whereas females desired the calling features of the device to stay connected with friends and family. Regardless of gender, fashion/status significantly increased intention to use DMB (Choi, Kim & McMillan, 2009). In conclusion, the authors advise targeting advertising and marketing of DMB by consumers’ gender.

This study is meant to inform current and future marketers of mobile TV as the technology expands to other countries, but I feel it should also take into account the mobile video on-demand option in addition to the watch live option. I’d be interested to see the difference in survey results between males and females when adding the flexibility of interacting with programming when it’s most convenient for the user versus watching live TV.

Another issue with mobile TV appears to be in its business model. According to this study, both the free and satellite versions of South Korea’s DMB are struggling to make any profits. Lee Jung Gu, a director at the South Korea ministry told Business Week, “there’s no question this free service was vital for mobile TV to take off” (Ihlwan, 2007). But the massive initial investments required to launch mobile TV seem to make on-demand viewing even more appealing.

While some information such as traffic information and breaking news is ideal to have broadcast to mobile users live, the spectrum issues, large startup costs and business model uncertainty have restricted its expansion to other countries.  However, PBS announced this month that they’ve taken on a “landmark pilot project” to begin broadcasting emergency alerts via mobile digital TV in the United States. The mobile emergency alerts are “designed to deliver multimedia alerts using video, audio, text, and graphics to cellphones, tablets, laptops and netbooks, as well as in-car navigation systems” (Essanny, 2011). This feature would provide important updates to users during an emergency and comes at a time when spectrum use by traditional television broadcasters much increasingly prove its worth or risk being taken away to allow more spectrum for mobile.  Could this be where live mobile TV finds its place in the United States? If so, will already cash-strapped PBS be able to keep up with the initial start up costs, changes in technology and find common ground with mobile service providers?

Questions for discussion:

• Have you tried watching anything broadcast live on a mobile device?
• Would you rather watch live TV or on-demand TV on your mobile devices?
• What do you think of the emergency-alert option of mobile TV?

Resources:

Choi, Y., Kim, J. and McMillan, S. (2009). Motivators for the intention to use mobile TV: A comparison of South Korean males and females. International Journal of Advertising. 28(1). 147-167.

Essanny, M. (2011, April 12). PBS to launch emergency alert system pilot project via mobile digital TV.  Retried from: http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/pbs-to-launch-emergency-alert-system-pilot-project-via-mobile-digital-tv-14532/

Ihlwan, M. (2007, August 3). Business Week: South Koreans want their M-TV! Retrieved from: http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/aug2007/gb2007083_146756.htm