New Voices, New Visions:
Community Media and the Information Highway
The suite of technologies which make up what is called the "Information Highway" could empower, educate, and inform all Canadians, but only if Canadians have a direct say in how they are developed and implemented. Unfortunately, in the first round of submissions to the Commission on this matter, the corporations who propose to build the Highway have not seen fit even to mention the creation of what Mark Surman has called the Highway's "public lane."
We believe that existing communications policy should form part of the basis for the creation of community-oriented services on the Information Highway. The Broadcasting Act describes a Canadian broadcasting system which is made up of public, private, and community elements. We believe that the Information Highway must be built by a partnership among these elements of society; to fail to do so will be to impose a communication system which will not meet the needs of Canadians.
Toward this end, we recommend that existing regulation concerning community-oriented electronic media, along with the existing praxis of the rapidly-growing community networking movement, be the basis for further development. We believe that providers of new broadband services be strictly separated from carriers, and that carriers be required to financially support, though not control, a variety of community-oriented and public service content providers. Cable companies should be relieved of the obligation to manage community television operations, and broadband service providers should be required to support community television, community and student audio services, and community networking services which they carry.
We also recommend that the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) begin a series of formal and informal consultations with average Canadians, as well as community media developers and users, to broaden the scope of this review.
1. The Internet Public Interest Research Group (IPIRG) is pleased to make this submission to the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) concerning the development and regulation of the emerging Canadian Information Highway.
2. IPIRG is an organization of Canadian citizens - developers of community computer networks, educators, activists, business people, and others - who have an interest in the development and current status of information and communication technologies. Our organization is a virtual one; we communicate and make decisions on the Internet, the world's second largest electronic communications network. Our principles interest is the development of information infrastructures which are accessible, affordable, and empowering to all Canadians.
3. IPIRG is a new organization, and our resources are limited. This is unfortunate, as IPIRG attempts to speak from a unique perspective, that of the user of information technologies. During this phase in the regulatory process, the Commission will receive many substantial submissions from businesses which have an interest in building new information infrastructure. At this point in time, IPIRG and other similar organizations simply do not have the resources to create such voluminous submissions. However, we urge the Commission to listen as carefully to the recommendations coming from the grassroots as they do those from the cable and telephone industries.
4. Our current submission must, by necessity, be a brief one, but we are preparing a more detailed submission to the Commission concerning what regulations need to be put into place to guarantee the development of community-oriented and special interest services on the Information Highway. We believe that the present submission can only serve as the basis for further discussion and work by citizens groups and the Commission itself.
5. IPRIG welcomes the opportunity to engage in the regulatory process through these public hearings. However, as we have stated on other occasions, we are concerned about many aspects of the process itself, including the time allowed by the Commission for submissions, the breadth of the matters to be discussed, and the restrictive nature of the hearing process itself. We are in substantial agreement with the members of the Public Information Highway Advisory Council (PIHAC) when they assert that:
The Commission does not operate as a forum for public debate. While the public is welcomed, the structure of the process is designed and suited for the needs of the Commission and the corporate and paid participants who frequent the hearing rooms, not the public. Nor is the Commission an elected body within which public policy is formulated or debated. (P-IHAC, January 1995)
6. We also agree with Andrew Clement, who in his submission states that "the proposed CRTC timetable is far too short to afford the depth and range of public consultation that is vital to such a major issue" and that "more extensive public education and consultation are necessary before long-term decisions are made."
7. The Commission's decision to "fast-track" the regulatory process in this case has caused some difficulty for organizations such as ours. In particular, we are concerned that Telecommunities Canada, the group which represents community computer networks in Canada, and the National Campus and Community Radio Association, which represents community-oriented radios in English Canada, were unable to make complete submissions to the Commission.
8. We have also seen that too often the regulatory process is dominated by those interests who have the financial resources to be a constant presence at the Commission, both formally and informally. As we have stated previously, there is a real danger that these hearings will be dominated by commercial interests to the exclusion of other organizations.
9. We therefore recommend that, either as part of this process or adjunct to it, the Commission begin a series of regional, public consultations, both formal and informal, on the matters which it is now considering. In 1991 and 1992, a similar process was used during the review of community and campus radio regulations (CRTC, Public Notice 1991-118). This consultation, which involved a series of meetings between members of the Commission, CRTC staff, and non-commercial broadcasters, not only resulted in new non-commercial radio regulations which met the needs of non-commercial broadcasters, but also significantly improved relations between the sector and the Commission.
10. In this case, we invite the Commission to meet with administrators and users of community networks and other grassroots media organizations. As current users of new information technology, these people are in a unique position to present the Commission with valuable insights into the current role of networking technology and its possible future. As well, we recommend that the Commission begin a process of consultation with Telecommunities Canada, IPIRG, the Public Information Highway Advisory Council, and similar citizens' organizations concerned with the development of information infrastructure at the national, regional, and local levels.
11. As well, we suggest that the Commission consider the recommendation of the McLuhan Program that a Royal Commission on emerging communications technologies be created. Such a Commission would provide an opportunity for Canadians all across the country to participate in the development of policy relating to new media forms.
12. We read with some concern the submissions from those organizations whose intention it is to build what is described as the "Information Highway." None of the submissions from the private sector made any mention of community media of any kind - radio, television, or community computer networks - with the exception of the Stentor submission, which we will comment on below. As well, no commercial submission made any commitment to providing the types of community access services which have become a traditional part of other communications sectors.
13. The submission of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) concerning the role of radio on the Information Highway was typical in this regard, presenting the user of new technology as simply a consumer of information and entertainment whose interactivity is restricted to ordering products. We are dismayed by this portrayal of usersk, which we found repeated in the submissions of Rogers Communications, Shaw, Stentor, and others. In none of these submissions was any mention made of users of the Information Highway not just as consumers, but as citizens.
14. We believe that we could provide no clearer indication of the need for regulation on the part of the Commission to insure that community media continue to grow and develop within the Canadian communications environment. The creation of a truly Canadian Information Highway requires a partnership among public, private, and community elements, a dynamic enshrined in the 1991 Broadcasting Act . Without this partnership, we fear that none of the interests mentioned will receive satisfaction, and that an historic opportunity to bring an important set of empowering services to all Canadians will be lost. We urge the Commission to ensure that these three elements are integral parts of the Information Highway.
15.Our greatest concern, of course, is the future role of the Information Highway as a whole. We believe that there is little use in building a purely commercial space, unrepresentative of the world it connects. Rather, we believe that it is incumbent on the Commission to declare that the Information Highway - what might popularly be called cyberspace - will be public space, accessible to all and managed in the public interest, a place where learning, commerce, community building, and entertainment can exist hand-in-hand.
16. The Information Highway offers a unique challenge to the Commission as it attempts to deal with questions of what constitutes programming and what constitutes private communication. We are in substantial agreement with those submissions which call into question the extension of existing broadcast models to the new Information Highway. As the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation states in its submission:
As a 'network of networks', the Information Highway will provide carriage for a wide variety of communication services. At one extreme, it will include the video and audio program services of today: one-way, non-interactive, mass-audience communications. At the other extreme are one-to-one text communications and private electronic mail. Between these two poles, there will be a huge variety of other kinds of communication, real, imagined, and not-yet-imagined, with varying degrees of interactivity, containing a wide variety of content, and serving users in groups ranging from the millions to a single person.
17. However, we disagree with the contention by the CBC that "for definitional purposes, all non-broadcasting material carried on the information highway could be defined by exception to a rule which would state that: "Everything that moves on the system is broadcasting except for...'" It is more useful, we believe, for the Commission to concentrate on issues which can be of direct benefit to Canadian producers of material, on whatever scale, and avoid attempting to define "programming" when programming may no longer exist as a useful concept.
18. Toward this end, the Commission must insure that all Canadians have the opportunity to provide content for the Information Highway. We strongly agree with the Public Information Highway Advisory Council's assertion that:
Culture, in a communications environment analogous to every Canadian being a broadcaster, can best be served by allowing everyone the opportunity to make and provide their own content. We know that Canadians produce world-class commercial products. Allowing a massive increase in the number of people and organizations who can easily participate, create, communicate and innovate will be the greatest cultural protection this country will ever know.
We also agree that:
Imposing the broadcasting model on new services will result in an increasingly confusing series of arbitrary distinctions which will not serve to benefit anyone except those who already dominate the existing telecommunications and broadcasting media by continuing the now redundant definitions which protect their service areas.
19. We believe that the Commission should approach the matter of licencing content providers very carefully. We strongly recommend that the Commission recognize as fundamental the right of all Canadians to provide content, and insure that carriers are required and encouraged to provide access to all Canadians. It is imperative that the Commission commit itself to ideals of free expression, open access, and two-way communication. Toward that end, we agree with those submissions which recommend that content and carriage be clearly separated.
20. We also believe that there is an important role to be played by regional and national content providers who present education, arts, public affairs, multicultural, Aboriginal, and other public interest programming. For example, such cable services as Vision TV, Bravo!, and The Discovery Channel should find a place on the new Information Highway, accessible to all Canadians. We recommend that a suite of essential content services be established by the Commission which will be delivered at no charge to all service subscribers and funded at least in part by a combination of per-user fees and direct service provider subsidy.
V Community Radio, Community Television, Community Networks
22. While it is well beyond the scope of this submission to present a detailed account of the development of community media in Canada, some study of the successes and challenges facing community radio and television is required. To begin, we would urge the Commission to carefully examine the submission by Mark Surman concerning the history of community television in Canada. We believe that he provides an excellent overview of the challenges currently facing community cable channels. Surman states that although community television developed in the early-1970s from a clear community desire for access to television technology, regulatory restrictions have made the sector a shadow of its former, more vital self. In describing Canada's current community channel regulations, CRTC Public Notice 1991-59 states that the community channel and the cable licensees which operate such channels shall:
23. However, the regulatory requirement that cable companies maintain control over community channel operations and programming has lead to over-commercialization and a distinct lack of challenging, truly "alternative" content (Surman, "Commons"). We concur with Surman's assertion that:
The central problem ... is best illustrated by a comparison between the town commons of the previous centuries and the community channels of today. The town commons and the community channel are both intended to promote democratic public self-expression. But, where the town commons was maintained by a municipality which would not dare to remove speakers of which it did not approve from the commons, community channels are run by private companies who feel obliged to remove potentially offensive voices from their community channels.
24. One need only look to the development of community and campus/community radio in Canada to see the route community television could have taken under a different ownership structure; Canadian community radio has been able to create an astonishing variety of well-produced programming which is truly alternative and reflective of an increasingly diverse nation. Programming on Canadian community radio stations is among the best such material in the world. However, particularly in English Canada, community radio faces its own set of challenges, including lack of bandwidth, low power frequency allocations, unstable revenue, and a broad mandate to accommodate many divergent opinions and tastes.
25. Revenue is a particular problem; 1994 saw the first community or campus radio station in English Canada go off the air in several years due to financial difficulties. Pincher Creek's Teen Radio, the first rural community radio in English Canada, could not secure sufficient funding to maintain basic physical plant costs, let alone staff or equipment replacement. The two other purely community stations in English Canada (Wired World in Kitchener and Co-op Radio Vancouver) have waged a constant struggle simply to maintain operations. Though somewhat more secure because of student and university support, campus-based community radios also face limited revenue from sponsorships.
26. While cable companies are required under Public Notice 1991-59 to provide not less than 5% of gross revenue for the production of community programming, there is no similar support from the broadcasting industry for community radio stations. Because of this lack of stable funding from either government or industry, community radio in English Canada has developed primarily from campus-based student radio, depending on the support of universities and students in order to operate.
27. As stated above, lack of bandwidth is also a pressing problem; regardless of the demands made on a station by individuals or groups within the community, there are only 168 hours in a week to divide up among many interests and opinions. As well, most station operate at a level of wattage which makes consistent reception difficult and large audiences impossible. A more detailed presentation of the challenges facing community radio in English Canada can be found in Kealy Wilkinson's 1988 study for the Government of Ontario, Community Radio in Ontario: A Dynamic Resource - An Uncertain Future.
28. Community radio and television face many challenges, but remain vital community services, and should find a home on the Information Highway. We believe that the increased bandwidth of the new network infrastructure will allow for a greater variety of programming from existing community broadcasters; for the first time, community radio and television programmers will be able to produce audio- and video-on-demand content which addresses a greater number of specific community interests.
29. We recommend that all Information Highway service providers be required, as a condition of licence, to carry community radio, television, and network (free-net) services, and that these services be operated independent by of the service providers themselves. We also recommend that all community media services on the Information Highway must be managed by community-based not-for-profit organizations which service providers are required to carry but not control.
30. We are also in substantial agreement with Surman's recommendation that community television regulations be changed immediately, relieving cable companies of the obligation to produce and coordinate community channel production. We believe that all parties would best be served by the separation of the production and carriage functions, allowing not-for-profit, community-based organizations to manage local community television.
31. We further recommend that service providers be required, as a condition of licence, to financially support the activities of community-oriented services which they carry. We welcome the proposal by Stentor to support community media when that group of companies begins to provide video and interactive services. This support would be equal to 5% of the service provider's gross revenue, as is currently the case for cable company support of community television. We believe that the spirit of this proposal should be extended to all proposed service providers, insuring that community media continue to be able to provide the valuable service of community access and local production. This must include support for community audio, video, and text-based services. As well, carriers should be required to provide reasonable start-up and conversion grants to providers of community-based services, and community media services encouraged to pursue diversified revenue from a variety of sources.
32. Community radio and television are not the only basis for community media on the Information Highway. As the Commission may be aware, possibly the most vital growth in interest among the Canadian public in new information technologies is occuring at the grassroots level among users of community computer networks, also called Free-Nets. Nearly every medium-sized and large community in Canada either has a community network, or has an organizing committee which plans to build one in the near future. This movement represents what we consider to be the "other half" of the development of the Information Highway in Canada; we would go so far as to suggest that the community networking movement is doing substantially more to help Canadians face the challenges of new information technologies than are either industry or government.
33. IPIRG believes that regulation of existing and emerging technologies should reflect the reality of individuals currently using telematics, including the thousands of individuals across Canada who are users of the Internet. The Commission has a responsibility to start from where we are, and not to repeat the mistakes of the past by attempting to create a system of content and carriage which does not reflect the needs of Canadian citizens. We believe that community networking represents a grassroots effort by Canadians to create a truly citizen-based Information Highway, one which reflects what people want from this new technology: a place to think, learn, and communicate with their neighbors and an emerging knowledge-based world. At the same time that this Commission is considering what are vitally important issues in the history of Canadian media, tens of thousands of people across this country are building and using community networks, with hundreds more joining them every day.
34. However, community networking faces a challenge in the long term which is similar to that faced by community radio stations in English Canada: lack of stable financial support. We believe that community computer networks can be an important part of the Information Highway of the future. Just as community radio and television must be part of the suite of services available on broadband networks, community networks must continue to be a place for community and government information and discussion. We therefore recommend that community computer networks also receive direct support from service providers in a manner identical to support for community radio and television.
35. We believe that community media has a vitally important role to play as part of the emerging Information Highway. However, the Commission must actively support the creation of a range of community services on the emerging broadband infrastructure. Towards that end, we recommend that the Commission begin a process of regulatory review, in close co-operation with community broadcasters and community network developers, to create a regulatory environment which not only allows community services to exist on the Information Highway, but creates a friendly environment for their development.
36. The Commission must take special note of the needs of electronic community media in remote local areas, Native communities, and communities in the North. As much as possible, the Commission must ensure that these communities have control over what services are provided to them, and at what cost.
37. We have suggested that existing community media regulation form part of the basis for community media services on the Information Highway, and we believe that there is much to be learned from the success of the Internet in meeting the communication needs of millions of people around the world. Although there is little mention of the Internet in any of the submissions, we urge the Commission to carefully examine the history and praxis of the Internet before making policy on emerging broadband infrastructures. We believe that there is much to be learned from the success of the Internet. This network, more an accident of history then a planned enterprise, has succeeded where other, similar attempts by business or government have failed.
38. We also urge the Commission to tread carefully when and if they attempt to address the regulation of the Internet or its connected regional networks. Certain principles, integral to the Internet's operation, must be carefully examined before being modified, particularly issues around freedom of expression.
39. We believe that it is vital that the public service aspect of the Internet in Canada be maintained. Business will no doubt always play a role in the operation of aspects of the Internet's networks in Canada. However, we recommend that the Commission urge cabinet to insure that CA*Net, the Internet backbone network in Canada, continue to be operated by CANARIE. We believe that the makeup of CANARIE, a consortium of telecommunications companies and educators mandated by the Federal government to develop and maintain network infrastructures, is in the best position to maintain CA*Net as a valuable public service for all Canadians.
40. Le Group Videotron recently presented a promotional video for its interactive television pilot project, UPI. In a story in the January 22nd, 1994 edition of the Windsor Star, the video was described as showing a typical Quebec family sitting around the set watching a hockey game. During the break in the play, a voice comes on and tells them that they can order St. Hubert chicken by just pushing a button.
Dad pushes the button, a menu from St. Hubert appears on the screen. He orders, and in the next scene the family is still watching the game, but now they are surrounded by St. Hubert delivery boxes.
One presumes they had to get off the couch to answer the door.
41. Clearly, this is not a vision of the future which IPIRG and many other citizens organizations concerned about these issues can endorse. Certainly, commerce has a place on the Information Highway, but to think of it only in these terms is to speak of a future in which information technology is little more than a huge interactive catalogue, long on flash but short on substance. IPIRG believes the Information Highway can play an important role in the lives of all Canadians, not just as a means to deliver consumers to the sellers of products, but as a way to empower and educate this nation's citizens.
42. We believe that an Information Highway built with one or more "public lanes" will directly benefit Canadians and their economy. As community networking activist Garth Graham has written, "thinking and learning are central to work and life in a knowledge-based economy ('Profile')". We urge the Commission to take this historic opportunity to insure that an Information Highway is built which is not only a boon to those who own it, but a truly empowering resource to those of us who will use it.
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