Why?

Community Media: Why?

Regarding media in general, it seems we are in the midst of one of those transitional periods of great change. Corporate media is consolidating and becoming one dimensional. At the same time, internet media is becoming wide open and multi-dimensional. New opportunities are opening up for community activists to by-pass corporate media and spread their messages through new channels.

But why? Why organize ourselves into groups? Why form communities?

It occurs to me that these new opportunities mean nothing, if you can't answer the question, "why?" For as long as humans have been organizing themselves into groups, there has always been "why?"

Safety? Efficiency? Survival? Progress?

Today, amidst six billion humans spread across the globe and becoming more connected by the day, the question remains. Why organize ourselves into groups? Why build communities? What's the goal?

For me, this stands out as the most important distinction. Access, control, funding, and content are all important. But ultimately, none of it matters if there is no message. I have to believe that the most important driving force behind community media will be people and their passion. In the end, if there is a person with fire in the belly then he or she will wield the tools at hand... and that passion will spread from person to person.

It happened in the stone age. It's happening now. And it will happen for as long as the third rock from the sun is peopled by humans.

Virtual Communities

Virtual Classrooms

Last year, I got involved with MediaOne at my vocational technical high school. It is a web space provided free to Massachusetts public schools. As I read this week's coursework, I realized MediaOne falls into the category of a virtual classroom, albeit a primitive one.

MediaOne provides free web storage to students, and allows teachers to set up a web site. I say it's primitive, because it isn't set up well for interactive use, but rather is structured for posting announcements and depositing assignments. A good first step, but, again, rather primitive compared to a true virtual classroom.

Eventually, I gave up on MediaOne. One reason was reliability. The servers seemed to have a lot of problems, but I must assume this has been resolved. The other reason was practical; the site was cumbersome, requiring passwords be issued to all students and login authorizations were highly controlled. This is for obvious security reasons, but also precluded extensive use on my part because I have a high number of students coming and going on a quick rotation basis.

My online courses at UMass Boston have opened my eyes to what's truly possible when it comes to virtual classrooms. My participation in live classroom sessions has been a tremendous eye-opener, as has been the rest of the online classroom experience.

In particular, my current course - Media and Community Building - has exposed me to tremendous possibilities. It is now clear that we are in the midst of rapid technological change that will be having a major impact over the years ahead. Blogs. Wikis. Video spaces. Social spaces. Online communities. It is all unfolding very quickly, redefining the landscape.

Johnson (Interface Culture) writes about Doug Engelbert changing our view of cyberspace when he demonstrated his first graphic interface. It appears to me that technology is now changing our view of community, by creating familiar, social environments in the cyberspace that Engelebert blasted open.

I like it!