Table Of ContentThe Decline of Public
Access and Neo-Liberal
Media Regimes
Brian Caterino
The Decline of Public Access and Neo-Liberal
Media Regimes
Brian Caterino
The Decline of Public
Access and Neo- Liberal
Media Regimes
Brian Caterino
Rochester, NY, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-39402-8 ISBN 978-3-030-39403-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39403-5
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C
ontents
1 Public Access in Decline 1
The Limits of Technological Determinism 3
Technology and Social Construction 4
Bibliography 13
2 The Frankfurt School and Its Aftermath 15
An Excursus on the Frankfurt School 16
The Limits of the Frankfurt School’s Analysis 19
The Political: Horkheimer to Habermas 22
The Public Sphere in Habermas and Beyond 23
Critics of the Public Sphere 26
Habermasian Revisions 28
Civil Society 31
Participatory Democracy 36
Bibliography 41
3 Public Interest Standards from Radio to Public Television 45
The Rise of Radio and Telecommunication and Public Interest 45
The Regulatory Context 49
Broadcast Regulation 51
Radio Publics: Democratic Potentials? 54
Democratizing Media 59
From Pacifica to PBS: The Rise of Public Interest Media and
Civil Society 61
v
vi CoNTENTS
The Critique of the Network Model 65
From the Wasteland to the Promised Land 67
Network Television and the Portrayal of American Life 68
Bibliography 73
4 T he Emergence of Public Access Television 77
Access to Democracy 77
Public Access Begins 78
Participatory Democracy or the Technological Sublime? 79
Shimmering Blue Skies: The Promise of Technology 82
Participatory Policymaking in the Formation of Public Access 84
Funding Issues 87
Access Cleavages: Cracks in the Foundation 88
Legal Problems 89
Precarious Foundations 92
Access Success and Challenges 93
Local Programming Success 94
Governmental Access 95
Socially Engaged Media 96
Wayne’s World: Changing Conceptions of Public Access 100
Who Watches Public Access? 105
Conclusions 106
Bibliography 111
5 Neoliberalism: The Decline of Public Obligation 115
Neoliberalism 116
The Rise of a New Orthodoxy 118
A New Consensus? 122
Delayed Crises: Streeck’s Analyses 123
Political Thought in Neoliberalism 124
Neoliberalism and the Entrepreneurial Self 126
The Contradictions of Neoliberalism 128
The Colonization of the Lifeworld 130
The Decline of Public Interest Obligations 130
Cloudy Horizon’s for Blue Skies 135
ALEC and Cable Franchising 137
Channel Slamming 138
Relaxing Ownership Rules 140
CoNTENTS vii
Market Failures 144
Speech Rights in Neoliberalism 148
Is Censorship Necessary 150
The Halleck Case and the Challenges to the Public Forum
Conception of Access 152
The Aftermath of Halleck 153
Neoliberal Deregulation Extended: The Communications Act of
1996 and Beyond 154
The Privatization of Public Space 157
Public Sphere in Neoliberalism 158
The Public Sphere. Civil Society and the Nonprofit Sector 160
Putting It All Together: Depoliticization 164
Bibliography 172
6 A ccess Under Attack: Some Examples from the Field 179
Artificial Austerity 179
Austerity and Access 182
Access Closing or Service Reduction 186
Fragile Franchises 190
Narratives of Decline 191
Censorship of Public Access: Political and Cultural 192
Professional Associations 196
The Information Needs of Communities? 200
Bibliography 206
7 Looking Through the Wrong End of the Telescope:
Internet Democracy vs. Public Access 211
Cybernetic Utopians: Romancing the Computers 213
The Consequences of Esoteric Community 217
Social Theorists and the Internet 219
Radical Democracy on the Internet 222
The Debate over Radical Media Are Social Media “Community
Media” 225
The Internet and the Social Context 228
Can Social Media Serve as a Public Sphere? 233
Political Economy of the Internet from Public to Private 234
Facebook: Privacy and Publicity 237
Data Collection and Privacy 238
viii CoNTENTS
All the (Fake) News that Fits 239
How Emancipatory Are Social Movements? The Occupy
Movement as a Case Study of Internet Activism? 241
Proprietary Publics? 242
Facebook and Twitter Pages as Public Forums? 246
YouTube and Social Media vs. (Public) Television: Public Forum 248
The Need for a General Public Sphere 250
General Publics Revisited 253
Bibliography 258
8 A Future for Public Access? 261
Author Index 267
Subject Index 273
CHAPTER 1
Public Access in Decline
Public access television has been described as “the most interesting and
controversial experiment in democratic control of the media” in US his-
tory (Kellner),1 as America’s Electronic Soapbox (Linder),2 and an elec-
tronic public space (Aufderheide).3 For others, however, it has not always
been as successful. One critic held that “there has been a schism between
the promise of access, and its actual implementation and reception”
(Fuller).4 It has had some major successes but has been the subject of dis-
dain for its poor-quality amateur programs as parodied in the fictional
version of Wayne’s World. Bill Kirkpatrick observed in 2001 that the
media largely portray access “as a forum for social deviants, murderers,
sociopaths, and losers.”5 Reservations and shortcomings aside, it no doubt
represents the greatest achievement of popular democratic initiatives
within the mass media. It became one of the foremost expressions of the
idea that media are public property and that broadcasting and cablecasting
entail public obligations to empower citizens. At its best, public access
television created a participatory public space in which those who lacked
the resources to enter the commercial market were given voice, views not
heard in broadcast media were aired, and critical discussion of public issues
was facilitated. It has not always lived up to its promise, but there have
been many significant achievements.
Yet these achievements are under siege: public access television in the
United States has undergone a severe decline. The number of stations and
the amount of funding has decreased. A recent study by the Buske Group
© The Author(s) 2020 1
B. Caterino, The Decline of Public Access and Neo-Liberal Media
Regimes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39403-5_1
2 B. CATERINO
and The Alliance for Community Democracy comparing funding between
2005 and 2010 found that in “over 100 communities from 14 states, PEG
centers have become endangered or closed down entirely. Forty-five chan-
nels in California alone have been closed, twelve in Los Angeles.”6 Other
centers have faced serious cuts, with an average funding drop of 40%
annually.7 Many long-time operators who have built successful public
access operations have been terminated and the operation of access chan-
nels has been limited. Others have had service shut down altogether.
One prevalent argument in policy discussions and municipal delibera-
tions views the decline of public access as an inevitable consequence of the
evolution of technology. For these critics, public access has been rendered
obsolete by the rise of Internet technologies. Videos can be posted on
YouTube, Facebook, or other social media instead of public access televi-
sion. The ease of making and disseminating videos for these media means,
according to these critics, that public access is no longer needed. The
abundance of Internet outlets means that opportunities for free expression
are available without public access.
For technological optimists, this decline is not a bad thing. It results
from the changes in public and mass media brought about by the Internet.
The optimist believes that technology is an unreserved good: new media
technologies spread democracy in their wake. The Internet public is the
most democratic one found thus far.8 Digital technology extends the
capacity to be a media content provider to anyone with an Internet con-
nection and high-speed broadband. The rapid and expanding flow of
information will give all a chance to participate. Some radical and progres-
sive theorists see the Internet as creating new publics or superseding the
standard idea of a public altogether.9
This optimism is often based on a utopian vision of the power of tech-
nology. Historian Fred Turner has shown how Stuart Brand, creator of the
Whole Earth Catalog, and his associates created a vision of a cybernetic
utopian community based on a view of the “globe as a single, interlinked
pattern of information.” Brand wrote his Whole Earth Catalog against the
backdrop of a world threatened by nuclear destruction; in that context, his
countercultural vision of a networked society driven by small-scale tech-
nology provided a deeply comforting alternative vision of a unified world
for those affected by the cold war and the Vietnam conflict.10 However, by
the later 1980s and beyond, the cybernetic utopia became closely linked
to neoliberal libertarians, who, while they shared an anti-state philosophy,
rejected most of Brand’s countercultural ideas.
