Blog · Page 15 of 20

Community Collaboration: Includes Businesses

As a nonprofit corporate entity, Wallingford Public Access Association, Inc. is dedicated to providing all manner of support for the creation and distribution of noncommercial community media. Noncommercial doesn’t mean there is a blackout on the use of ‘Community TV’ resources by for-profit businesses. The ‘no can do’ is literally no commercials: videos with calls to action for sales or free consultations, testimonials, or other vehicles to promote a business specifically to create sales.

Businesses have stories to share about their history, founders, champions among their employees, community collaborations, and mission, all of which are important stories to be shared with our community. Thriving local business is important to the health and well-being of our community overall.

Check out these video links to business collaborations: Promoting downtown WCI Annual Holiday Stroll Invitation, Holiday Greetings for local service providers, and nonprofits.

For-profit companies can afford Media Services. Providing video services at no charge to businesses is not part of our mission. However, collaboration and distribution of stories that are not designed to sell products are within our mission. Businesses can participate in initiatives such as our annual Holiday Greetings Program and the show CommUnity Conversations.

Registered businesses may use resources with the same conditions as residents creating their own informational content. And nonprofit businesses can apply for our ‘Continuing the Mission’ initiative for which we dedicate our staff resources to develop video content for TV and social media. Any business with a footprint in Wallingford may request use of our tools & stage and volunteers to promote programs benefiting some segment of Wallingford.

When You Stop in to Complain …

When you stop in to complain … we first determine if you know anything about us. If you do not pass the quick assessment of knowing us, then you will be given some basic information but not much valuable, unpaid time of volunteers.

Why? Because we know you are not a regular viewer or follower of WPAA-TV. It is easy to determine if you accidentally came across the content that offended you. Our viewers are most often pull viewers. They tune in to see something in particular or think that we are a potentially informing, or maybe even an entertaining alternative, when nothing else is appealing on TV at the moment.

Another thing we know. You are assuming your local tax dollars are paying for what we do. Not so.

Adult Content. Yes: After 10:00 PM and before 5:00 AM program content MAY USE adult language. It is legal. We are cable. We are free speech. Content is not censored. You just may not SELL stuff here.

For more information on what can be cablecast on a public access channel read this FCC documentation entitled Obscene, Indecent and Profane Broadcasts.

The Flavors: Citizen Media

Citizen Media is not Public Affairs Programming, although it can be done in the interest of the public. Citizen Media can be raw or highly produced. It is often a blend of authentic and quirky. Within its content, you might notice opinions, ideas, and even aspirations. It can be coverage of an event, one or more people talking, commentary on, or presentation of, local news; the perspective of the producer will always influence what you see and hear. Under the Community Media umbrella, this is the Public Access component.

Public Access and Public Affairs are different. Public Affairs can also be coverage of events. Typically, it is recording a speaker or gavel-to-gavel meetings. It may also be conversation but the people involved are more likely to be following a script and be presenting the perspective of an agency as interpreted by current leadership rather than their own point of view. Within Community TV, this is traditionally Government Access and sometimes Education Access.

In Wallingford, the public library recently expanded its services and invited the media and the public to the opening of its #Collaboratory. Two community media videos were produced from this opening. Each production exemplifies how the same community experience can tell a similar but not identical story exemplifying the intrinsic differences between these two forms of community media.

Same story: Citizen Producer Version Public Affairs Version

Why choose symbols to express yourself

Free Speech: Symbolic protest against injustice and name-calling of those that protest injustice. All lawful.

If you want to be heard or make-a-difference you choose your platform and symbols and take action with the courage because there will be haters that will try to take you down, obliterate your message and derail your purpose. Free Speech with purpose is no easy road. It is however easy to hurl insults, denigrate and be dismissive. Choose your voice. Because collectively all voices being heard are the promise of America.

kneelspeechmessage — Lawful Speech is Constitutionally protected in America

Take note of what is NOT protected by the constitution: Written or spoken words, pictures, signs, or other forms of communication
that tend to defame, discredit, criticize, impugn, embarrass, challenge or question ‘the government’, its policies, or its officials; speech that advocates the ‘overthrow of the government’ by force or violence or that incites people to change the government by unlawful means.

Does copyright law provides us with a First Amendment-free zone

Whether the alleged use is a ‘political statement’ or not, whether it is a ‘parody’, or not: the decision for someone to express themselves—whether quoting a news article, an opponent or the lyrics of a Pokemon song, we must remember it is the speech of the person who chooses to make it AND considerations of free speech and the First Amendment need to be taken into account. This needs to happen any time someone proposes a legal restriction on speech, whether through the laws of defamation, obscenity, rights of publicity, trademark, or copyright.

Just because copyright law is relevant in a particular instance doesn’t mean that we disregard free speech. We can’t make the mistake of thinking that copyright law provides us with a First Amendment-free zone, or that the basic ideals underpinning our laws are conditional, pro forma, or mere buzzwords.

Very little is original, much of life is a remix: Creating and transforming in the speech space is a desirable outcome with challenges to discern originality, ownership and purpose. Do not let the challenges stop you. #PowerfulWildFree4Art

Community Collaboration

Does every idea need to be nurtured? Does every cause need brick & mortar? Does every suffering need a solution without regard for duration of effect? Can outcomes be made better even within compromise? Is engagement of diverse voices beneficial? How do you define diversity?

No. No. No. Yes.Yes. Age, gender, economics, culture, ability, experience.

Individuals brought together to steward a cause or govern an organization must answer these questions often.

Every offered idea needs a listen. If offered, it is part of the bigger picture; however, ideas that are nurtured should be well connected to a vision and strategy. More importantly it must be embraced by those responsible for its execution and be viable within risks levels reviewed collectively. Here is where emotion meets reason.

Place: Big decisions like occupying or buying a space have substantial cost impacts and commitments of time. Here the benefits of ready access to a space must be counter weighted by the energy and resources the space itself requires. This goes beyond rent or mortgage payments and includes the mundane essentials like housekeeping, other essentials such as utilities and security and then the furnishings. Donors can rally around the visibility of B&M but leaping from an all hands on deck volunteer organization funded event by event to a month to month operation is big. Is the cause big enough? Is there community space that can be your home?

Reaching Horizon Goals: The decision about place. — Reaching Horizon Goals: The decision about the place.

It is the goal of many great causes — to someday not be needed. If your cause should have a horizon then investing in the programs and processes to ensure your closing is optimal. Let reason guide your desire to become a legacy so that your legacy may live on.

The voices of many can be a cacophonous vacuum, a rallying cry for change or a community coming together where they can. You never find out what you share without letting the voices of others be shared.

It is our humanity and connection that shall govern the better in all compromise.

Atypical Media Organization

The term ‘media organization’ means “a person or entity engaged in disseminating information to the general public through a newspaper, magazine, other publication, radio, television, cable television, or other media of mass communication.” (2 USCS § 1602). Media institutions can also be seen as being involved in the production, exchange and reproduction of meaning.

Therefore, the nonprofit Wallingford Public Access Association, Inc. is a media organization. As a media organization, we are influenced differently by affluence, consumption patterns and social class. Although our primary distribution medium is TV, we are not classified as ‘mass media’ for several reasons, predominantly because citizens control the content and distribution is physically limited to hyper-local territories by cable providers. Citizens, unlike journalists, are autonomous. Media professionals in a media organization are constrained by profitability. All producers are to an extent vulnerable to commercial pressures. The codes of practice are designed to prevent unacceptable standards of production or irresponsible behavior.

Much more to do but this was the primary finding: Our story is not known: https://www.youtube.com/embed/WNY2wJDHqW4