International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

Public access television – also known as community television or open channels (→  Community Media ) – is a form of →  television in which citizens produce programs and bypass corporations, governments, journalists, and other gatekeepers to transmit their programs directly to audiences (→  Access to the Media ). Proponents of public access television promote it as a remedy to commercialism, centralization, and lack of diversity in television systems around the world (→  Commercialization of the Media ; Plurality ). As a systematic alternative to commercial or government-supported television, public access television first emerged in Canada and the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Public access channels have since appeared in hundreds of communities in North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania, although public access outlets have never attracted audiences large enough to rival those of professional television systems. The emergence of public access television in Canada and the United States was closely associated with three developments: the appearance of media-activist movements (→  Activist Media ) that promoted public access television as a means to nurture democracy and localism; the development of lightweight and relatively inexpensive equipment that facilitated video production (→  Video ) by amateurs; and the construction of urban cable ... log in or subscribe to read full text