Beyondmedia Education is a Chicago-based 501c3 nonprofit organization whose mission is to collaborate with under-served and under-represented women, youth and communities to tell their stories, connect their stories to the world around us, and organize for social justice through the creation and distribution of media arts.
Recently, Chicago Public Television station WTTW’s Image Union refused to air Beyondmedia Education’s award-winning documentary Turning a Corner, claiming that the content is inappropriate. As part of the award, Turning a Corner was to be screened on WTTW’s Image Union program. Created in a media activism workshop with members of Prostitution Alternatives Round Table (PART)—15 women who had been street-level sex workers in Chicago—the film recounts their battles with homelessness, violence and discrimination and provides insight into Chicago’s sex industry. Beyondmedia Education recently won the Chicago Reporter’s John A. McDermott Documentary (short) Film Competition for Turning a Corner. WTTW’s refusal to air the program cites the sensitive subject matter—sex workers in Chicago—as the reason for their decision.
In response, and due to other recent events that have challenged access to free press in Chicago (including Loyola’s takeover of WLUW and the buyout of the Chicago Reader and the firing of key writers) on January 17th Beyondmedia Education organized a meeting at Columbia College for community and independent media makers to come together to build a media justice plan for action addressing issues of censorship, inequality in media access, and the increasing corporate control of media in Chicago.
In January, YMR interviewed Salome Chasnoff, Executive Director of Beyondmedia.
YMR: In your own words, please discuss the important issue of community access to public media as it relates to the youth media field.
Chasnoff: It’s to recognize the reality that young people are part of our world. We are all in this together. We all need to communicate in the same space. Adults are very quick to complain that young people don’t communicate with them—that there is an invisible divide between the generations both in the public and private spheres. For example, “I don’t understand their music, dress, etc.” Media—public communication—is a way for these divides to be bridged and the public forum to be rebuilt.
In some ways, media reflects what is happening on the ground and in some ways it constructs what is happening. We can see the public and private as co-creative. Through media making we can repair the social fabric. Youth media is key to that enterprise. Technology is the means but the end result is larger. Youth are going to run the world and they are the vibrant voice of today. That has to be reflected in everything—including public access—and adults need to be accountable to young people. The only way to do that is to hear them. But young people also need to take responsibility for speaking and participating—and fight for the space in which to do it. If youth have something to say in the public space and that access is blocked—that is censorship.
YMR: About 30 people attended the media justice meeting you organized at Columbia College. What was the overall outcome?
Chasnoff: There were all kinds of groups that attended the meeting. Beyondmedia works with many different cohorts. Attendees included policy makers, media makers, academics, and youth media. Unless we are trying to develop an initiative, it is normally difficult to get these groups together. Everyone is so busy. People need to have a particular, shared objective.
In the break-out groups, there was a concern for university accountability (journalism/media programs). Students are being trained for jobs that do not exist—therefore, universities must share resources and be transparent in their programs.
People want to continue meeting and bring in more groups and definitely more young people (for youth voice). We are developing a listserv and the next meeting will be at Southwest Youth Collaborative in order to change the context of each meeting to reflect the diversity of voices. We are committed to win-able battles.
At the meeting, we talked about a live weekly forum where people could express their views on a particular issue (a hot issue) that could be broadcast locally. This would work well for young people and all different marginalized groups. Parents are complaining that they do not know what their teens are thinking. Youth can speak through media and adults can learn a lot from that.
YMR: How can educators, media justice organizers, community members and young people collaborate and support each other in doing this type of work?
Chasnoff: An important thing is to remember that we are all involved in the same project. What we do is about all of us. We don’t have to actively collaborate to keep each other’s best interests in mind. If what we are creating is for everyone, than we are collaborating. We have to remember to keep our blinders off and always expand our vision so it includes more and more issues, people, and audiences. If we are acting out of a social justice model, than ultimately, what we do will serve the greatest good.
YMR: What role can independent and community media play in accessing young people within public media?
Chasnoff: This is already happening. I’ve been a media maker for twenty years and I have seen youth media grow from something non-existent to a viable field. Part of that is the way technology has grown—young people have more access to media tools and knowledge. Public media must create a space of access for marginalized voices.
For example, independent/community media must have opportunities for young people to become involved and expand their frame as a result of talking to young people. Youth must learn how to engage media with solving issues or problems that concerns them.
YMR: One specific question at the meeting was “what kind of a job is Chicago public media doing in representing the public interest”? How does this relate to youth media?
Chasnoff: I think people would find youth media (and marginalized voice/media) interesting in Chicago. The Chicago public likes to be challenged and entertained. Many want to be active, critical viewers. The work we make here in Beyondmedia is not entertainment based and yet we get a lot of positive responses from a diverse array of people.
Rarely has my breath been taken away by mainstream media. But when someone is taking public space for the first time after making their story their entire lives, it is totally unique, fresh and surprising. It has the capacity to capture people’s imaginations and they can learn from that. It is not a story that is made to sell a product. It is a story that is expressing lived experience and, therefore, something most people can relate to, recognizing the truth in storytelling. The problem with a lot of university filmmaking programs is that state-of-the-art equipment is available to learn on but you might as well watch the products on mute—they are boring. The focus is warped in my opinion. Young people that really want to grab the power of these tools in their hands and use them to express their unique vision and get something that would make their world better—that is exciting.
YMR: What strategies can youth media educators use to access public media more effectively and consistently?
Chasnoff: Develop relationships with gatekeepers of public media and educate them to what youth media could bring to them and their audiences. Try to work creatively together. Develop programming that would allow youth to “see” behind the scenes how public media is made (and even develop roles for them such as internships and/or career paths). Work with public media such as NPR, PBS and even universities to develop resources. If taxpayers support and “own” these outlets, then they should reflect our vision. Young people and adults must fight to own public voice. We can’t take our ownership for granted—we have to fight for it on a daily basis. The relationship between public media and free speech/democracy is indivisible because you can’t have one without the other.
For example, as a result of the response from our colleagues and peers, Beyondmedia did win a battle. It’s not official yet but, despite the set back with WTTW’s Image Union, it looks like our full documentary will be aired on WTTW’s regular programming in the spring in an even better time slot and not just the initial short version proposed to air. This proves that there are win-able battles out there when you mobilize your troops in the field and beyond.
Tag: public access
Youth Video Exchange Network: Building Digital Distribution for Public Access Youth Channels
These days posting video content to the internet has never been easier. Independent producers, known as videobloggers, or vodcasters, operate their own internet TV stations, syndicating regularly produced segments and shows across the web with the click of a few buttons. It would seem like practically anyone (with a camera, a computer, and an internet connection) can get his/her voice out. However, long before there was Blip.tv, Revver, or YouTube, there was public access TV—local community-based cable stations.
Public access TV is a non-commercial community alternative to the mainstream media. Nationwide there are over 1,200 Public Access television centers which provide ordinary people with the equipment and training needed to make their own television programs, and to have these programs shown on cable television. Public access TV is based on the principle that everyone has a right to freedom of expression. In a world where the media plays such an important role, public access TV allows citizens to express their First Amendment right of free speech through television.
In 1972, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the first time described cable television as an “electronic soapbox” and guaranteed the right of communities to have access to equipment and airtime. Under this FCC decision all cable television companies must put time aside for educational and Public Access TV. This decision was based on the recognition that cable television companies use “public-rights-of-way;” cables run under public streets, on highways and on other city property. Therefore, using these public places, cable television companies must compensate the public by allowing the public to have television “access.”
Cable access is still an amazing resource for local non-commercial distribution and here in New York City, more and more youth media organizations are getting their media out over the channels of Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN), specifically during the block of programming on Monday evenings, Saturdays, and Sundays programmed by the Youth Channel.
Since 2000, MNN Youth Channel has been the youth-serving arm of Manhattan’s public access TV center, Manhattan Neighborhood Network. We partner with schools, libraries, and community organizations to provide media production trainings and media literacy workshops to organizations in need throughout NYC. We provide an accessible non-commercial distribution outlet for New York’s thriving youth media scene by showcasing a block of 20 (and growing) hours of media by youth, for youth every week on one of MNN’s public access cable channels. On channel #34 in Manhattan or streaming live at www.mnn.org on Monday evenings or during the days on Saturdays and Sundays, viewers can tune into the freshest productions that have been submitted by organizations around the city and across the country.
The natural extension of creating such a non-commercial distribution outlet is to develop a network of like-minded stations in local communities around the country and to begin to articulate a model of how existing access centers can begin to open their doors to those under the age of 18. MNN, being one of the first (and largest) centers to experiment with youth services, bore some of the responsibility to visualize such a network. In 2002, a collaborative project called NYMAP (the National Youth Media Access Project) was born as a partnership between MNN Youth Channel and stations in several other cities, including Atlanta, GA, Denver, CO, Seattle, WA, St. Paul, MN, Grand Rapids, MI, and Lowell, MA.
National Youth Media Access Project
The newfound NYMAP partners developed personal relationships with one another, modeled services and programs after each other, shared resources, and began bicycling tapes from one ‘youth channel’ to the other (bicycling is when master tapes are sent via postal service from site to site, dubbed, and put on the air). NYMAP sought to nurture the right of free speech, to strengthen the much-needed presence of alternative and youth voices, and to connect young mediamakers from diverse backgrounds.
Beyond increasing the exposure of media produced was the idea that a collective national voice promoting youth media is louder than one local voice. NYMAP partners were in agreement that there was tremendous value for local non-commercial television outlets to devote programming hours to youth-produced video—a growing trend in cable access.
However, the volume of material to be bicycled became overwhelming from 2002 and beyond. Due to the lack of an existing archive or catalogue listing of what tapes were in stock, the bicycling of these tapes started to falter. As staff members changed and internal priorities and funding scenarios shifted at the various partner sites (MNN being no exception), the sustainability of NYMAP became questionable. Though there was still sporadic tape bicycling, it had significantly declined as a result. Indeed, NYMAP was a living network of passionate individuals and cooperative organizations with great potential for collaboration, but it lacked the infrastructure to support its mission, let alone the ability to expand.
Youth Video Exchange Network
The building of the Youth Video Exchange Network (YVXN) was the answer to solve this problem. YVXN began as an examination and analysis of the needs of the existing NYMAP network. We found that, in addition to sharing programming content, there is a real interest in archiving content, sharing resources—such as curricula and administrative materials—and facilitating collaborative productions. So, in the fall of 2006, with grant support from the Ford Foundation, Manhattan Neighborhood Network’s Youth Channel took a leadership role in developing the participatory web portal that would become YVXN: http://www.nymapexchange.net. The web portal was set to provide the bicycling of videos needed across the partnership.
The project’s primary technical focus was to find a way to share high-quality videos that could be easily turned around and re-aired at an access center 1,000 miles away, without increasing a need for already-overextended staff resources. However, we wanted to create a model network that was more than a technology tool. By utilizing web 2.0 and social networking tools that would ensure (in fact, require) participation and content creation from its constituency, we reached our goal.
So, in mid-2006 a core group of NYMAP partners—Manhattan Neighborhood Network, St. Paul Neighborhood Network, Portland Community Media, and Grand Rapids Community Media, and Atlanta’s People TV—was established to create an advisory board of leading cable access partners, using the web portal as our main interface for interaction, discussion, and sharing.
Our five core NYMAP partners were brought together by a year of successful testing and troubleshooting. This test phase has seen the transfer of over 20 hours of hi-resolution youth-produced video content over the internet. Much of this programming has been played back on local channels during blocks of programming dedicated to youth-produced work. By syndicating youth-produced work from other parts of the country, creating a virtual space for cataloging work that has been produced, and providing a space for new collaborative productions, YVXN is fulfilling its mission—to support the continued exchange of youth-produced broadcast-quality video among public access centers across the country and world.
Next Steps, New Technology
This type of networking (sharing resources and content) is valuable for access organizations and viewers alike. As internal operations at Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) stations around the country have begun to go digital, a major identified need has been to solve problems inherent in bicycling analog programs between stations. The costs, staff demands, and timeliness of sharing programs have always limited the ability of producers to efficiently distribute programming. In the case of MNN Youth Channel, access to media shared over YVXN is a bank of material which enables us to enrich our programming block with videos from youth around the country. As a result of this exchange, young people can more accessibly represent themselves and view the perspective of teens outside their local network.
Over the next year, our focus will be on establishing a National Youth Committee, consisting of young people who will be paid a stipend to participate in and promote the YVXN website, as well as a YVXN Steering Group made up of member organizations and representatives to forge future direction of the project. The Youth Video Exchange Network will grow to be a network that not only includes Youth Access administrators, but youth producers, teachers, and community video programmers, who can utilize hi-resolution video for non-commercial purposes.
We are currently utilizing a variety of free and open source tools for compression of shared videos, in the form of MPEG-4 files. These files are of substantially higher quality than video typically distributed and viewed on the web. As more members download the file, a peer-to-peer network is formed, allowing users to subscribe to auto-downloads, receive an email notification when a download is complete, and easily return the files to whatever format is appropriate for playback on the local public access station.
It is no surprise to media educators, administrators, and producers that emerging technologies and digital tools are changing the media landscape. Indeed, the field of youth media is on the forefront of developing a critical literacy and awareness of new media. Amidst these changes, the Youth Video Exchange Network wants to create new models of sharing our resources and media based on the values of non-commercialism and participation. Using new technology to continue and strengthen the “public” in cable public access is spreading youth made video from a variety of demographics across the nation. Through a network of public access channels that now easily share high quality (and broadcast worthy) video amongst one another, youth voice can be shared, disseminated, and distributed as quickly as YouTube, but on a non-commercial community alternative to the mainstream media.
We want to explore this terrain with you. If you are a youth-producer, educator, or administrator interested in learning more about joining the network, email nymap@youthchannel.org.
Andrew Lynn lives is a media worker living in New York State. He is the Technical Coordinator of the Youth Video Exchange Network, and has been the Education Coordinator with the MNN Youth Channel for the past 3 years.
Creating Conversation: Baltimore Youth Explore Audience in the City
It is critical for young people not only to produce their own media segments, but also innovatively bring the issues they raise to a broader and engaged audience. BeMore TV, a student-run media project dedicated to showcasing young people’s ideas through public access in Baltimore, MD, works to entertain, empower, and enlighten the public about issues important to youth. Realizing that television brought limitations to public discourse, young people at BeMore TV find that public access is not always the most accessible medium to reach a local community. Thus, young people at BeMore TV have sought innovative ways to distribute their episodes to a variety of audiences through the internet and grassroots distribution strategies.
BeMore TV is a project of Wide Angle Youth Media, an organization founded in 2000 by Gin Ferrara, who recognized that Baltimore “needed an organization that would do youth media in an ongoing, sustainable way.” Young people need to use media on a larger scale to address issues within their local community. She explains, “Often young people are the target market for what they are seeing on television. [They] need to be able to respond to that.”
Two interns from Wide Angle—Lendl Tellington and Kyle Halle-Erby—conceived BeMore TV after successfully producing a documentary on student-led activism as a response to the education crisis in Baltimore in 2006.
Their documentary, “Schooling Baltimore Street,” made students realize they needed to use media to educate the public on issues that affect Baltimore from a youth perspective. Tellington, now Coordinator for the BeMore TV program explains, “We wanted to find a way to develop critical work that talked about youth issues, but at a faster rate because ‘Schooling Baltimore Street’ took us almost a year to produce.”
With the guidance of mentors such as Ferrara, students researched and developed a plan for a television show. They traveled to New York City to consult other youth media organizations such as the Global Action Project, Listen Up! and the Manhattan Neighborhood Network.
After much discussion with these organizations, BeMore TV decided to air half hour episodes that would feature segments about a specific theme by youth across Baltimore. Submissions for the show—solicited across the city—would provide a platform for many young voices and give BeMore TV a finger on the pulse of issues affecting Baltimore youth.
Youth issues, public access
Tellington and Halle-Erby decided to use public access television—a medium regularly viewed by many Baltimore teens—as a means to generate discussion in the local community. Airing the show on Baltimore’s Public Access would make these voices available to a wide range of people on a recurring basis. As a result, a diverse audience in the city would be exposed to the opinions and perspectives of young people, particularly on issues the young people themselves deemed of significant importance.
Co-founder Tellington describes his vision for the show’s role in the city: “Baltimore is probably one of the most geographically segregated cities, as far as having communities primarily black, and then primarily white. There are so many different communities, and they really don’t talk to each other. BeMore TV is trying to produce work about youth, and motivate communities to talk about issues affecting youth, because most times in the news, [youth are portrayed] in a negative light.”
After successfully producing two episodes since 2006, students at BeMore TV found that Baltimore’s Public Access was not particularly public or accessible. Explains April Montebon, a MVP intern, “BeMore TV is only on Baltimore’s Public Access, and that’s only for people who have cable and who live in the city, so we had a very limited audience.” The lack of a permanent schedule provided further complications to reaching an audience. Though BeMore TV’s purpose was using television to increase access, it would have to explore other vehicles to distribute their work and increase its viewer base.
Outside the city
The youth and practitioners at BeMore TV and Wide Angle confronted these challenges through innovative dissemination techniques on-line, on paper, and in the community.
First, the youth at BeMore TV took advantage of the nationwide popularity and user-based ranking systems of sites such as MySpace and YouTube. Douglas, a student who has been working with Wide Angle Media for three years, currently working on a marketing campaign explains, “We post our videos online, so people can view and rate them. [As a result], we get more viewers; have film makers across the country and across the world as MySpace friends, increasing access to our videos.” For young people, networking on-line to showcase these episodes increased their ability to market media to a variety of demographics across the World Wide Web.
Though networking and marketing videos on-line taught youth at BeMore TV important skills, the internet did not lead to enough local dialogue with community members in the city of Baltimore.
As a result, in conjunction with using MySpace and YouTube, young people researched local trends in media distribution specifically for the city of Baltimore. Using a do-it-yourself distribution guide (www.creativealliance.org/camm/distro_guide.pdf) put together by four Baltimore youth media organizations—Wide Angle Youth Media, Creative Alliance, Kids on the Hill, and Megaphone Project—youth at BeMore TV learned that they had to have more face-to-face contact with the local community. Ferrara at Wide Angle explains, “We found that the Internet is a really great way to get outside the city, but inside the city, you have to go to people’s homes. You have to go to the neighborhoods and do events either at a school or at a church or an after school site… for people to really see things.”
Such findings inspired a student-written grant for a new community outreach plan, which April Montebon helped to write and obtain. In order to reach a wider audience the students came up with a yearly plan: they would make two episodes each year, which would be aired at public screenings, and help teach three workshops each year, using a peer-to-peer model. In this model, students assist the Mentoring Video Project at Wide Angle to teach youth about technology. At public screenings, youth present each episode, lead discussion on the topics they raise, and use the time to get a sense of possible future themes.
Inside the city
Montebon explains the importance of community screenings in this new approach: “The reason for a screening is, you can [sit at home and] watch something on TV… but it takes another step to have a type of forum. I think what the community screenings are supposed to serve, is a platform where people can start a sort of discourse.” Airing a youth-made TV episode in a community context, such as a public park, museum, or neighborhood event, creates a potential for dialogue. It is easier for people to talk to one another about youth-led issues in a group setting, as well as engage with youth media makers on the issues they raise.
The screenings provided a context for learning more about the local audience of Baltimore, which as times, were challenging. The youth at BeMore TV believe in the issues represented in each episode. In a youth media organization, young people are supported for such ideas, but in the community at large young people often face challenges of stereotypes and condescension.
Two types of community reactions posed challenges to the success of the screenings. Recounts Tellington, “When people hear about youth media, it’s like ‘Aw, the kids [are] telling stories with cameras,’” which does not take the issues young people represent within their video seriously. On the flip side, Tellington explains, “Last year there was an individual who came to the screening, which was presented as a community screening, not as youth-made work. This person got there and said, ‘I thought this was a community meeting,’ and broke out and left.” Convincing the community that youth perspective is as valuable as any other to community success is often difficult.
BeMore TV believes young people often have more of an understanding of local city issues before these issues become part of mainstream news coverage. For example, Ferrara states, “We were talking with students about issues in schools way before it became a city-wide discussion.”
Since most Baltimore residents do not realize youth are often the first to recognize real issues, BeMore TV is working on its audience to embrace young people as informers and influencers of important issues within the city of Balitmore. While Ferrara openly admits, “I’m really grateful to have some idea of what’s going on for young people in Baltimore,” the rest of Baltimore still needs to listen to what youth have to say.
Entertainment
The latest episode on hip-hop, the trailer for which students have already shown at two city-wide events, marks a transition in BeMore TV’s approach to representing and distributing issues raised by young people.
The episode uses hip hop to both entertain and talk critically about issues. Using hip hop draws the local Baltimore audience to learn about critical issues while having fun, which aligns with the mission of BeMore TV that values entertaining and enlightening the public about issues important to youth. “We’re trying to make a transition,” says Tellington. “We found a component in hip hop that is very entertaining, that people can relate to. We are trying to use that as a vehicle to talk to more communities. [It is about] finding that [arena] where you can talk critically, and use entertainment to get your message across.”
While results of adding entertainment to BeMore TV’s episodes has yet to be assessed, BeMore TV’s multi-faceted approach to disseminating media products is an example of how youth media organizations might distribute media and affect a local audience.
The young people of BeMore TV show how sometimes it is not only about making a media product—such as airing episodes on local television—but also working to realize the goal of community dialogue. In Baltimore, MD youth find that distributing their episodes on the internet, on television, and in local screenings increases access and distribution of the issues raised in their videos.
Learning from challenges of these different approaches, youth continue to find ways to get their voices heard—helping to bring vision and perspective to the local community in Baltimore. Youth media practitioners can support young media makers by offering insight, sharing research and findings on channels of distribution and audience, as well as advocating for youth media at public and community-based screenings locally. Young people of BeMore TV are not simply representing issues in the local community; they are finding inventive ways to inspire conversation while using multiple distribution strategies to increase the range and impact of their media—with a twist of entertainment.
Grace Smith is the Assistant Editor intern at the Academy for Educational Development. She is a writer who grew up in Baltimore, MD that recently moved to New York from New Orleans.