Two Way or Not Two Way The following article appeared in CURRENT, The Newspaper of Public Television, on September 20, 1999. Two Way or Not Two Way? By Evelyn Messinger This is the question: suppose Hamlet could have created www.regicide.com to reveal his mother's treachery, recorded his father's ghost on video, or exposed the royal murderers to the slings and arrows of outrageous media coverage - would he have found satisfaction short of the inevitable sword in the third act? And more to the point, will these tools help us couch potatoes gain a modicum more power over our own lives? This article explores the possibility that Public Television can take on a new civic role by offering viewers the chance to become participants in the public sphere - as it appears on television. After all, for a long time now the only valid political discourse has been in the media, the territory of pundits, experts, the elected and the beautiful. Regular people have mostly been excluded, relegated to nasty slugfests on the lower wavelengths of the electronic polity. Public television is the only medium that has tried to incorporate citizen discourse into its programming, but with mixed results. Now the Internet encourages Americans to expect a new level of service from media - their own participation - and advances in digital technology have opened avenues for two-way media that could well serve these new sensibilities. While interactivity via the Internet has gotten most of the publicity, interactive television technology has experienced comparable growth. The lowly "videoconference" tools have grown sleek on the outside while bulking up on cutting-edge computer technology that allows a seamless interface between this compressed video and true television. But the technology has not yet played a significant part in commercial broadcasting, which creates a unique opportunity for Public Television stations to define a new category of public service for the digital age, by adapting interactive television to civic needs. For readers of this newspaper, the new millennium will truly begin on that day in 2003 when all media are finally merged and converged, the digital transition complete. At first blush, this new age seems to be a paradise of empowering tools, the likes of which Hamlet could only envy. Yet the vast majority of media content will remain slick and interchangeable, churned out by mammoth conglomerates and interspersed with carefully-honed messages that urge us to purchase. All the rest may turn out to be too much information by half, rife with inaccuracy, of poor visual quality and cheaply produced. Worried yet? If not, try this: convergence is in actual fact divergence, the splitting up of audiences into smaller and smaller groups of ever narrower interests - virtual medieval fiefdoms, unconnected and suspicious of each other, in a downward tailspin of dwindling viewers and diminishing funds. Any alternative to this gloomy scenario must include people taking a role, and a responsibility, in shaping their own media landscape. This brings us back to the question of Hamlet, the couch potatoes and two-way television. While the Internet may give us data and opinions, few media other than television can provide - well, the lure of being on television. Using an array of inexpensive and portable two-way television tools, every Public Television station could create its own interactive, local Citizens' Channel, reaching far into the community to draw people into participating in interesting and useful programming. Citizens' Channel programs could work on local problems, then link with sister stations near and far to explore state, regional, and national issues. These Citizens' Channels can become the place on the dial that enable people to come together, helping citizens participate and politicians keep their promises. Although we are convinced that many television broadcasters will use this type of interactivity in the future, Public TV is the one place where viewers can invest their trust, and therefore their enthusiasm. The PBS brand assures them quality, and respects their intelligence. The goal of our non-profit company, Internews Interactive (InterAct for short), is to help Public Television stations take advantage of the possibilities of two-way programming, and so set a high level of viewer expectations, which they alone can fulfill. Over the past dozen years, we have explored the workability of interactive programming on television. Our early programs used costly satellite technology for programs like the Emmy Award-winning "Capital To Capital," a transcontinental dialogue between members of the U.S. and Soviet Congresses. A few years later we used compressed video to produce the critically acclaimed Vis à Vis series, broadcast throughout Europe and on national PBS in 1998. Newly available hardware costs dramatically less, setting the technological stage for regularly broadcast spontaneous citizen dialogue. With the technology issues basically solved (see below), three questions remain: Can it be good television? If it can be good television, why has there been so much bad "citizens" television out there? And, as television careens towards its next transformation, will democracy and entertainment finally find a common house? What Now? Vusumi Zulu is Station Manager of KMOJ-FM, the Twin Cities' African American-run public radio station, and he is an organizer of the Public Policy Forum, a group of civic activists in North Minneapolis that meets each week at the city's famous soul food restaurant, Lucille's Kitchen. They participated in KTCA-TV's gubernatorial candidates debate via compressed video link, along with Minnesotans in Duluth and St. Paul, and a group of poor farmers in Crookston. They all asked the candidates questions, then stayed after the candidates left to discuss who they would vote for, and why. "People who are running for office need to know some of the real concerns and issues facing us," Zulu told me, "and they were far too willing to generalize about everyday realities in our community." Zulu felt that his community, comfotably gathered in their own neighborhood, was able to supply its perspective during the debate. KTCA continues to generate interesting television programs by integrating citizen interaction via videoconferencing with traditional television techniques. They have installed compressed video devices in their control room and can link to classrooms and conference rooms around the state, as well as to Lucille's and other public and private locations that are "human-sized," as VP Bill Hanley describes it. KTCA supported and covered Lucille's ongoing links with a beleaguered farm community in Crookston, Minnesota; and with a gathering of black intellectuals in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Minnesota programs have been noteworthy because they flew in the face of conventional wisdom, which assumes that citizen participation programs are usually boring and often amateurish. Hanley has found novel uses for the technology, such as creating head-on political dialogues between citizens and elected officials. Brendan Henehan, Producer of KTCA's popular political series "Almanac" has, in partnership with Hanley, probably created more two-way television programs than anyone else. His favorite use of the technology so far placed compressed video units in people's homes. It was, he says, a "much more intimate model. I can see the future of getting cameras on home PCs. We squeeze down the images into side-by-side boxes and it felt right, a real videophone." Why Not? Perhaps the longest running citizen participation series is Wisconsin PTV's "We The People." The format defines one end of the citizen dialogue spectrum, by inviting all comers up to the microphone. Dave Iverson, the station's Executive Editor, was an advocate of these types of programs when they began years ago, but now worries that they only attract "people who want to play 'angry citizen' on TV. We have to just find new ways of listening," he says. "Not, 'I know, let's do a town meeting!' " Iverson has been watching the developments in Minnesota carefully, and he intends to include two-way workshops on Citizen/Candidate dialogue as part of the system-wide election-oriented Best Practices project. A second and more common type of citizens' program, the form originally used in Minnesota known as the "Citizens' Forum," selects chooses participants found through polling to reflect the demographic makeup of the populace. But this format has its own problems. The "demographically representative" participants, gathered in a TV studio or a conference room as strangers, become abstract versions of human beings. Television's greatest power is its ability to reveal individual human lives, but this advantage is left unexplored when the only groups of people allowed to be "citizens" are 12% black, 75% white, and 13% "other." So "We The People" creates advocates pretending to be real people, and "Citizens' Forum" creates real people pretending to be representative. Either way, television is at odds with the traditional "gathering" of citizens, and here lies the conundrum that has plagued the teledemocracy movement. But do these problems preclude the appearance of citizens on television? Bringing Lucille's Kitchen to TV Town Hall political discussions introduced a third way, the idea that a vibrant public gathering place could be part of televised dialogue. The restaurant setting, and the cheerfulness of a shared community meal, makes for a much more relaxed group event than at the traditional gathering places, where participants are united only by demographic abstractions. More importantly, the restaurant was in the heart of a minority community, and its participants were comfortably "at home" there. Citizens were able to express viewpoints that may have been too bold if they'd had to drive downtown to the TV studio. Larry Werner is Reader Involvement Editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and a prime mover in the experiments which resulted in KTCA's two-way programs. Werner was the one who first invited Lucille's Kitchen to join the dialogue, because, he says, the Forums were "struggling with very white groups to reflect not-so-white perspectives." He described this as a well-known problem of public dialogue, called the Caucus Effect: participants need what Werner calls "a critical mass" of people like themselves around, to embolden them to speak their minds. "By connecting a place like Lucille's," he says, "people are able to participate from their comfort zones." The Caucus Effect problem was solved. For political and social dialogue to inhabit television's public sphere fulfills the sense among Americans that ordinary citizens have a right as well as an interest in being heard. By including groups like the Crookston farmers and Lucille's activists, as well as families in their living rooms and shoppers at the mall, both the uneducated popular opinion and the carefully-considered minority views are allowed into the discussion in a lively and engaging form. These viewpoints can be more incisive, more informative, even more accurate than the larger community's accepted perspective. In a democracy, everyone's opinion, especially those of minorities, must be expressed if the majority is to reach a well-informed opinion. And if it is to be good TV. What Next? The "videophone" is essentially a video compression device with a microphone, a monitor and a robot camera controlled by a keypad. The subject must be well-lighted, although professional lights are not usually necessary. These devices are placed in public or private locations, such as a shopping mall, a restaurant, the Mayor's office or a teenager's bedroom. The participants see each other live on-screen, in color and in motion, and they soon forget that there is an electronic bridge joining them. The cameras zoom and pan by remote control, via a keypad in the control room. The signals from the various remote sites are received in the studio on companion devices, then fed into the switcher and subject to the full complement of television techniques. A site coordinator in the control room, on a telephone conference call with people at each site, works with the director. High-quality devices start at $10,000 and the price is tumbling. Low-end web-based devices are very cheap if you already have a PC, but the high-end systems have better video quality and are more reliable when connected by high-speed digital ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) lines. Three ISDN lines combine to provide a 384 kilobit signal, resulting in digital images of comparable quality to a VHS tape. Two-way television, like all television, will be great if it has great production values, pertinent topics, fascinating people and compelling formats. If it is to serve citizens as well, it will have to fulfill the following expectations. 1. POPULAR PROGRAMS, MANY VOICES. Programs can use multiple "videophones," with callers in public (malls, restaurants) and private (living rooms, fire stations); random (street, disaster scene) and focused (debates, investigations) locations. Seeing the faces of the callers allows more of them to be onscreen at once than on phone call-in programs. So they can be grouped, and groups can be changed often, with participants joining and dropping away. Discussants who are too boring or too strident can be shunted off to hold conversations among themselves. With so many people taking part, some of them can be "demographically representative" after all, and some can be advocates playing angry citizens. The whole thing will move very fast. Great television makes the human condition visible, and when it comes to public policy, human lives are where the rubber meets the road. Absorbing videotaped human stories must be included in discussion programs much more often than has been the case, illustrating the lives of people who are affected by the issues. ZDTV, a cable/satellite channel focused on technology, has experimented extensively with webcam calls. Surveying its viewer/participants, ZD discovered that they feel a deep sense of ownership, seeing it as 'our' channel. We expect that viewer/participants in entertaining programs aimed specifically at citizen participation will develop this sense, once viewers feel comfortable communicating from both private and public locations. 2. LOW COST. -way compressed video can be transmitted from a wide variety of locations and display a broad range of image quality, for costs that would be considered incidental under today's production budgets. In 2003, we expect that people will have access to a range of video transmission devices at home and at the office. These will span the range of video quality: low-end video email images from cellphones and computers, two-way webcams, high-end compressed video signals, and full bandwidth two-way, from offices and professional settings. Once you invest in the small and portable hardware, install it on location, create a set for the grand interactive circus and start transmitting live, you discover that the longer you stay on, the less it costs. Because compressed video transmission charges are so low, the most economical way to conduct live, interactive programming, is to keep rolling. 3. INFORMED CITIZENS. There's no point in simply adding more ignorant screamers to the airwaves. Citizens dialogue programs can link up with Study Circles and other well-known deliberative structures, informing the participants -- without putting the informing process on television. As for minorities with specific interests, they are participating specifically because they have a point of view and so have no need to feel neglected. The more perspectives given a voice the better. 4. SPONSORSHIP. From somewhere between Kinko's copy shops (with 150 videoconference units world wide) and ZDTV's webcam network, from somewhere in the mall where people stop to talk when they go shopping and the vast vaults of digital commerce, will come the funding from sponsors eager to associate with the one legitimate citizens' soapbox. An entire channel - a Citizens' Channel - would be even more effective in giving people a reliable place where they know they can go to be part of the ongoing dialogue, and giving supporters a way to be associated with this popular pastime. Until there are many citizen participation programs on television, there is no way to know how well they will work. If people know that can be on television by engaging in intelligent public discourse, will they be more likely to speak, to think, to engage in public life? Will they want to tune in to "our" channel? Once the airwaves are full of the opinions of the less heard, will Americans become more tolerant and more humane? Will politicians be more likely to keep their word if it was given to a citizen in full view of an eagerly watching public? Good questions. Let's find out.