Center for Social Media

It's been a month since Beyond Broadcast, and lots of positive feedback has been filtering in, both from public broadcasters and from the extended community of cutting-edge makers of media for public knowledge and action. Current, which reports on the pubcasting industry, ran a long and thoughtful feature on the event. As the story notes, keynote speaker Larry Irving made a splash with his remarks on policy, diversity and innovation. We've since received requests for copies of Irving's remarks to distribute within public broadcasting organizations. The research that Diane Mermigas conducted on public media business models for Beyond Broadcast has also made waves; Interim NPR CEO Dennis Haarsager cites her related columns on his blog, Technology 360. While it may…

I just had an invigorating talk with amazing New York remix artist Jonathan McIntosh, who is rapidly circulating the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video to fellow artists. (He was in Chicago working with high school kids at Mindy Faber’s Fair Use Remix Institute, who were the first–ever group to put the Code to use. I also got to speak with them, via Skype.) Jonathan, who curated a section on political remixes for the DIY conference, believes that political remixers badly need the Code of Best Practices, because they want their work to circulate widely as a form of criticism with some impact in the world. They also don't want to be hostage to DMCA takedowns…

Remixes, mashups, fan tributes and other creative work burgeoning in online video often use copyrighted material without permission or payment. When is it fair to do so? In many cases, creators can employ fair use, a key feature of copyright law. Today marks the release of the Center's newest publication, the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video. Our latest effort in promoting fair use practices among media makers, the code focuses on the still-evolving world of online video, and will help to protect creators from automatic censorship that results from copyright filtering. The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video was written collaboratively with a committee of legal and media scholars, and was…

Couldn't make it to DC on June 17? Not to worry: the Beyond Broadcast '08 Rapporteur's Report offers the high points from the day, plus audio and video of both speakers and multimedia presentations. Don't miss it!

QUESTION: Dear CSM: I'm editing a documentary about an aspiring young football player. An interview occurs in a hotel room, where he happens to be watching an NFL game on broadcast TV. In referencing the Documentary Filmmaker's Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use--in particular the section about capturing copyrighted media in the process of filming something else and the section on when the captured content doesn't constitute the scene's primary focus of interest—I feel comfortable that when the TV and the game appear in the background, it's fair use. But when the filmmaker captured close-up material of the copyrighted game and wants to use this while we hear the subject talking, is this still "fair use?" Thanks, Ted ANSWER:…

QUESTION: Dear CSM: I'm editing a documentary about an aspiring young football player. An interview occurs in a hotel room, where he happens to be watching an NFL game on broadcast TV. In referencing the Documentary Filmmaker's Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use--in particular the section about capturing copyrighted media in the process of filming something else and the section on when the captured content doesn't constitute the scene's primary focus of interest—I feel comfortable that when the TV and the game appear in the background, it's fair use. But when the filmmaker captured close-up material of the copyrighted game and wants to use this while we hear the subject talking, is this still "fair use?" Thanks, Ted ANSWER:…

Every year, there’s more to learn than you can absorb at Silverdocs, between the conference, which is organized by Diana Ingraham of US Independents, and the superb curating, by Sky Sitney. One of my conference faves was the workshop that Dennis Palmieri from Independent Television Service (ITVS) ran about outreach strategies. He linked goals (start a conversation, see action, change the world) with strategies, tactics and types of partners. If you didn’t make it, his Powerpoint is here. Also, over on the moviegoing side of the festival, my personal favorite won the top prize, the Sterling US Feature award. Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s The Garden chronicles the fight to keep a neighborhood garden in Los Angeles’ devastated South Central district. A…

Will public TV survive into an era when everyone is a digital native? That was the question of the day at a panel I chaired at the conference the Silverdocs film festival (aka SILVERDOCS AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival) hosts every year. Answer? Probably, with some work. PBS’s John Boland believes PBS is not only ready but in the forefront of change, with in-place deals for iTunes and other digital distribution for independent work. The Center for Asian American Media’s Steve Gong believes that public broadcasting’s so-called “minority consortia”—representing five federally-designated ethnic categories—are becoming essential interfaces to America’s emerging “majority minority” culture. But Ernest Wilson, dean of the Annenberg School at University of Southern California and a board member of the…

Widely credited with coining the term "the digital divide," telecommunications consultant Larry Irving formerly served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information under the Clinton administration. In his remarks at the June 17, 2008 Beyond Broadcast conference, he urged public broadcasters and their allies to craft a clear policy agenda for the next administration that reflects both technological and demographic shifts. He suggested that "new media" has now become simply "media," and that public media makers will need to adjust quickly while maintaining a commitment to serving a diverse array of Americans through high-quality noncommercial productions. Read more in the transcript of his remarks.

On June 3, 2008, the day that Barack Obama became the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic party, Republican presidential candidate John McCain gave a speech to a small group of followers in front of a green screen. The next day, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert declared this a challenge from McCain to edit the images on that green screen in order to "make him seem interesting." Practically a national call to expand fair use. Colbert's challenge sparked a quickly growing and often outstandingly creative meme, known as the "Make McCain Exciting" project. This meme offers a strong argument for fair use as makers reframe segments of this speech with images from popular culture in order to comment on McCain's own…

“Move from a mentality of broadcasting, move to a mentality of media,” Larry Irving, President of the Irving Information Group, urged participants at Beyond Broadcast’s closing keynote address. As part of this transition, Irving made a case for public broadcasters to avoid commercial alliances and appeal to a broader demographic. “When I read about [PBS adding content to] Hulu.com, I read it with dread,” he said. “Generally people have an agenda when they give you money. It is a very slippery slope, Irving said. “If we start letting commercial dictates get in front, we’re going to have a problem as a nation.” Pointing out that ad dollars are lower on commercial programming aimed at black and Hispanic viewers, Irving said,…

As participatory media and user-generated content continues to grow, public media broadcasters need to move rapidly to find ways to monetize content and imagine new business models, panelists said at Beyond Broadcast’s afternoon session "Mapping the Money." Diane Mermigas, Editor-at-Large, Media Post, said that public broadcasting and commercial media are all faced with the same issues and that public media must begin to take action. This might mean making moves such as putting content up on a major online clearinghouse site as PBS has just done with some of its content on Hulu.com –feeds that are bookended by 30-second commercials. It is also imperative, she noted, to build rapport with users, allowing sponsors to connect with a target audience. Henry…

As the role of traditional news aggregators changes as technology emerges to allow ever-increasing numbers of people and communities to create their own media, Calvin Sims, Program Officer at the Ford Foundation and moderator of this morning's panel "Visualizing Public Media Futures," began the discussion by asking “Who will curate this new space?” Dennis Haarsager, Interim CEO at NPR, said that as more people create content, the goals and mission of traditional media outlets are changing. “We’re trying to envision a world in which everyone can be a producer, but thinking about how to visualize this new world can be a challenge. Haarsager said his organization is looking at thei work in layers, the top being the goal of “enhancing…

While traditional maps have often been a tool of colonialism and top-town government, maps are becoming a form of public media and a democratic tool, noted Future of Public Media Project Director Jessica Clark. With the emergence of free and open source tools that make mapping and visualization much easier, maps are a “rising and vibrant form of participatory media,” she said. The panel’s moderator, Jacquie Jones, President and CEO of the National Black Programming Consortium pointed out that maps are being used far beyond their traditional geographic purpose and that map interfaces now encompass social networks, media maps, and that election maps have almost become their own genre. Lee Banville, Editor-in-Chief of the Online NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, presented…

I had the great pleasure of presenting at the National Conference for Media Reform this past weekend, on a panel called "Copyright Wars: Will Filtering Censor Free Speech and Kill Net Neutrality?" Joining me on this panel were Alex Curtis of Public Knowledge, Robert Millis of Hudson Street Media, and Elizabeth Stark of the MIT Free Culture Group. We discussed the effects of filtering video for copyright infringements on the evolution of online video, and how net neutrality can protect its future. This culture of online video is explored in Recut, Reframe, Recycle, which demonstrates how new culture grows from existing culture, increasing the value of fair use practices in online video. Filtering tools block videos that contain copyrighted material…

Each experiment creates new pathways for future media makers. With their Virtual Bali project, OneWorld organizers are hoping their efforts will show other non-profits that the virtual world can be an effective tool to draw in new global publics and connect existing ones. Read the report>>

Beyond Broadcast’s stellar line-up of participatory public media demonstrations will include a community media hub – a showcase of community, independent and ethnic media maps, resources and interactive experiments. Many maps of community media are straightforward in that they primarily show where community media stations, makers or organizations are located. Mapping Access, an online directory of over 200 cable access television stations in 28 states, uses a Google map to help users quickly find the location, contact and affiliation information for their local PEG (public, educational, government) station. Prometheus Radio is a non-profit organization that seeks to build a strong community of low-power FM (LPFM) stations and listeners. The Prometheus Radio site features a map that shows full- and low-power…

How can public media makers and outlets support themselves in an era of free access and user-generated content? This is the question that Diane Mermigas, editor at large of Mediapost, tackles for us in "Mapping the Money in Public Media." Mermigas, who will be leading our final conversation at Beyond Broadcast, suggests that public media makers have plenty of opportunities if they can change their mindset. "Public media can build community where commercial media manipulates consumers," she notes. "As such, digital interactivity can be a catalyst to reshape public broadcasting, create new forms of public media and develop new methods for sustainable funding." The shift in thinking will be more "revolution than evolution," predicts Mermigas. As the visualization above illustrates,…

One of the signature roles that public media projects can play is to compensate for cuts in international news coverage by commercial journalism outlets. As noted on the Beyond Broadcast site, PRI President and CEO Aliza Miller uses maps to effectively demonstrate the paucity of global coverage in TV news: Distortions in coverage aren't limited to the U.S., however. Check out these comparative coverage maps, a joint project of the Online Journalism Blog and L'Observatoire des Medias So, how can readers interested in a more balanced picture of global events overcome such limitations? One answer is to pull together streams of content from a variety of global sources, and let readers slice and dice what they see based on their…

With less than a week to go before the 2008 Beyond Broadcast conference, we’re looking forward to a fantastic line-up of public media leaders and innovators, offering the chance to learn about the latest emerging practices and technologies in media for public knowledge and action? As platforms becomes increasingly mobile and personalized, how will publics communicate around shared issues? Join us for panels, demos, and conversations with experts and leaders in the field, including: Dennis Haarsager, Interim CEO, NPR Jacquie Jones, President and CEO, National Black Programming Consortium Katrin Verclas, Co-Founder and Editor, MobileActive Paula Le Dieu, Director of Open Media, Magic Lantern Productions Persephone Miel, Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School Stamen Design-the co-creators…