Alternative Media and the Cult of Individualism

Abstract

Community video cable television facilities in the U.S., "public access," share basic tenets with global community media, including the desirability of a diversity of ideas and freedom of expression. Early access ideology typically drew from unproblematic notions of individual rights to "free speech"; later approaches within the public access movement have included more complex traditional or critical interpretations of freedom of speech as a social good.

Participants in public access typically draw from one-dimensional individualist concepts of free speech. Simple notions of individual rights allow volunteer community producers a mechanism by which they can tolerate deep ideological divisions, as drawn from a study of volunteer access producers. An overemphasis on Individual rights also poses problems for public access, as reflected in problematic practices such as "first come, first served." The discussion holds significance for global participants in community media.

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