Public policy debates

Only a very few not-for-profit organizations participated in the public debate over the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the first major revision of the 1934 act. Among other things, the 1996 act assigned new broadcast spectrum free to existing TV stations, presumably so they can use it for high-definition television, but with no substantial requirement for public service. Concepts such as "universal service" (which apply to telephone and other utilities) have yet to be defined when it comes to new technology. State and local governments make many decisions that relate to cable television, telephone, and other communications technologies. For example, should schools, libraries, and rural areas be guaranteed lower rates for access to the Internet? Should Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) systems be required to provide public service channels, and if so, how? These decisions will affect the information environment in which not-for-profits and community organizations work; not-for-profits should be as vigilant about influencing telecommunications policy as they are about tax laws and opportunities for new donors.

"In communities where (city or county) government has enforced public access rules, people become more involved in both electoral and civic affairs," posits Dee Dee Halleck, founder of Paper Tiger Community Television and a professor at University of California — San Diego. "Everyone needs access to this stuff. Much of it was created by the government. It's important that corporations [licensed or franchised by local governments] be 'taxed' so their profits are shared with the community."

For this reason, cable television operators in the Puget Sound region and elsewhere are required to provide public access stations. Some not-for-profit organizations have made good use of community-access studios and equipment over the years to create their own programs and public-service spots. Most often, though, those same organizations failed to publicize their efforts, even to their own constituencies. "Cable access remains an under-utilized resource for not-for-profits," according to Fidelma McGinn of 911 Media Arts Center.

Partly because of the failure of cable companies to adequately serve the community, the city of Tacoma in 1998 undertook a bold experiment called "Click!" which offers cable TV, high-speed Internet connections, and related services to citizens through its public utilitysystem. As a result, the cable company TCI woke up and began to upgrade its service in order to compete with the lower-cost, sometimes better quality fiber-optic "Click! Network."

Opportunities about for not-for-profits (in Tacoma and elsewhere) to experiment with existing technology and to create the conditions for better communication with future digital technologies. For example, with broadcasters making the transition from current analog technology to digital broadcasting over the coming years, commercial stations will have the capacity to broadcast up to four separate channels. Or they could use the digital spectrum to offer such services as paging, wireless telephone, or data transmission. The Federal Communications Commission, under pressure from a still small number of not-for-profit groups, is insisting that broadcasters use this publicly-owned spectrum to carry some community-oriented programming. The question is: how much, and of what quality? (Current guidelines say direct-broadcast satellite operators must set aside 4% of their channel capacity for "noncommercial educational programming." In November, 1998, the FCC ruled that broadcasters should pay the government 5% of any income from nonbroadcast services they provide. However, they exempted home shopping and direct-response infomercials from this ruling.)

David Bollier uses the television analogy again, when he challenges not-for-profits to learn — and create — the new languages and rhetorical forms of the new technology. He offers "a parable: When television was a new medium in the 1950s, George Burns imported vaudevillian rhetorical forms (a stage and curtain, a static camera, etc.) while Lucille Ball took full advantage of the fluid, dynamic possibilities of a TV camera and studio production. Burns' TV career fizzled; Ball's took off. Nonprofits must not become the George Burns of the new media, blindly adhering to the rhetorical conventions of print when the real action has moved on to the world of graphic design, color, attitude, interactivity, and soon, motion."

So how can not-for-profits become the Lucille Balls — or the Jerry Seinfelds — of new media? What are the pluses and minuses of the new technologies available?