5. CONCLUSIONS

The evidence of this report – admittedly, a very partial sampling of what’s going on – suggests that most communities have particular strengths on which they can build. Kansas and Missouri, for instance, have concentrated their communications resources and their imagination in one principal area – K-12 education, to which they are making major contributions. In doing so, they are garnering a great deal of experience and expertise that can eventually be parlayed into other areas. KCPT, the public television station in Kansas City which has been the motivator for the MoKan Kids Network, is already planning to deploy members of the team that developed A I TOL for K-12 schools into the new field of broadband digital programming. There, they will work in a very small universe to begin with, but one that already exists in schools, libraries and workplaces, and one that will grow quickly as the convergence of television and computer technologies becomes a simple fact of life.

Chicago is an interesting example of the opportunities and potential problems presented by a big city. Several of its leading institutions are energetically involved in the development of new technologies for their own purposes,but no one, it seems, is recognized as a catalyst around which the others can coalesce. The resourceful public broadcaster, WTTW, is a logical candidate, but it seems doubtful whether other major institutions (many of them with national and international reputations of great renown) will be happy to play second fiddle to anyone. So why is it necessary to have a coalition? Why shouldn’t all these institutions go their own way and do their own thing? And isn’t that,in fact,exactly the way in which the community of Chicago will benefit the most? It may be, but history tends to show the reverse is true – that competing fiefdoms, while looking after their own interests, only succeed in treading on each other’s toes. It is generally a prescription for a few 800-pound gorillas doing very nicely, while the smaller fry are content merely to exist,and the underserved remain underserved.

Oregon (like nearby Seattle) is building its alliance on a technology base – partnerships between commercial technology companies and non-commercial interests. That is, maybe, the privilege of a comparatively small number of communities, but it is clearly an excellent place to start. Indianapolis (and very likely the whole region of central Indiana of which Indianapolis is a part) demonstrates yet another starting point – the partnership of a very high-tech university with a successful and ambitious public broadcaster. Nebraska starts with the same kind of partnership, but Nebraska is unique. No state has invested so heavily in public service media, and no state has been so well served by its investment, which goes back almost 50 years. The wonder is that Nebraska has never stopped moving forward,and has remained always on the cutting edge of technology. It exists to ser ve Nebraskans, but many of the projects being developed there have applications far and wide.

New Mexico is not about to become a Nebraska. It is not a model to be emulated – yet it could become one. It already possesses centers of excellence as outstanding as any in the nation. Unfortunately, they are more than balanced by outlying areas that are not only underserved – in many cases they are unserved, and the commercial companies on which they must rely for service see no profit in connecting them to the grids and networks that the rest of us take for granted.

The solution to such a situation should be a matter of public policy. In April 2000,the federal government seemed to accept this when President Clinton visited New Mexico to announce a $17 million initiative that offers $1-a-month phone service to up to 300,000 Native Americans nationwide. It will be financed by raising the federal surcharge on long distance carriers by seven cents a year per consumer. It is not necessary that the taxpayer should be the sole (or even the largest) source of funding for bridging the digital divide, but it is clear that state governments, such as New Mexico’s, have a responsibility to orchestrate the building of an infrastructure in which the various pieces are coordinated and compatible.

Public schools and libraries in the most remote pueblos have the same right to broadband connection as do the schools and libraries of Albuquerque and Santa Fe. It is essential that the state’s public broadcasting stations are given help to make the transition to digital. In short, it needs a public commitment, and that, in turn, requires a recognition that the new technologies can do much to transform the state’s dismal record in K-12 education.

The new technologies are not a panacea, but they are certainly a means to an end. In New Mexico, and in communities with similar problems, they are capable of enabling education, civic government, public health and social services to take a giant leap forward. That is why, once the commitment is there, New Mexico could very quickly become a model for those parts of the country that are at present underserved . But the commitment has first to be made.

Lessons from Existing Models

The examples presented here contain lessons for other communities. Taken together, they emphasize the importance of a few general principles.

1. Embracing the new technologies. The only approaches with any chance of being successful are those that unreservedly embrace the new technologies, and use them to create the new kinds of content that are necessary. Traditional forms of public media – such as public broadcasting, cable access channels and community networks – need not be left behind. On the contrary: they can actually benefit the most because they already have resources that can be adapted and developed in the new environment. But they have to “think digital.” A project like Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Rock The World begins with a web site, not a television program. Nebraska Educational Telecommunications is awash with software designers and programmers. KCPT in Kansas City has a core team of very advanced and very expert digital thinkers.The old world of analog communications is not yet a thing of the past,but it is fast receding.
2. Thinking digital means thinking multi-platform and inter-platform. Radio is already a feature of the Internet.Video can be streamed to the desktop. Interactive communication is becoming a staple of our lives, whether in text, voice or video. DVDs are selling at a rate unprecedented in the annals of consumer electronics. It will not be long before television sets and computers are compatible and interchangeable as a matter of course. All these, and many more developments still on the drawing board,have to be taken into account. In the digital universe, they are complementary and potentially interactive.
3. The generational divide is very real. There is at least one generation in the workplace, and others coming up fast through the educational system, to whom computing skills are second nature, and for whom the digital world holds no terrors, only excitement. Silicon Valley is dictating the march of technology – yet some of the people who still control media outlets,and many more who run public and private institutions that are in need of technological expertise , are of an older generation,some of them (at best) only semi-literate in these new skills. A traditional but forward-looking organization like Connecticut Public Broadcasting saw the necessity of bringing in leadership for its Mapping the Assets project from this newer and younger cohort. The same is true of all those public institutions that have been fast off the mark.
4. The need for a catalyst. The communities in the vanguard of this movement to harness new technologies to the public interest have another thing in common. In every case , they are coalescing around an institution (or a partnership) that has been prepared to go out front and become the catalyst. Whether this institution is a public broadcaster, or a university, or any other kind of institution, seems immaterial – provided it has the trust of the community as a whole, and provided it is willing,to some extent,to subsume its own interests in those of the community. There are places where very little is happening (New York City is one of them), partly because no institution has been prepared to offer itself as the catalyst.

There is no point in trying to create a service if consumers don’t want it. That is obvious,and yet (in this case) not so obvious,because a lot of the innovative services made possible by new technologies are hard to imagine for the great majority of us. Is it really necessary for high school curricula to be offered online? Is it either helpful or safe for doctors to examine patients on long distance two-way video hook-ups and then prescribe treatment? Does it help the cause of democracy for politicians and civic leaders to be constantly accessible to constituents who have their e-mail addresses – or is it a quick road to anarchy? These are the sorts of questions that cynics (and realists, too) will be asking. Only by piloting and demonstrating such services can you show people what an important extra dimension the online curriculum can provide, how lives may be saved by doctors using long distance video links, and how democracy can be served if legislators and executives are in more direct touch with their constituents.

This is exactly the way in which the commercial marketplace was developed by new technology visionaries. They invented the tools – we tried them out – demand was created. Until we were linked to cyberspace by AOL or one of the other Internet portals, we had no idea what was out there and how it would change our lives. Until we had made use of amazon.com, we had no idea how convenient e-commerce might be. Until we had paid our first household bill electronically, we had no idea how much time it might save.

The noncommercial market is no different. It involves a process of experimentation and demonstration.

In the case of community alliances there are two outstanding reasons for believing that the marketplace will support them. One is education. It remains the most important concern of the vast majority of Americans – because it is the only obvious avenue to a successful life. The other, which is more amorphous in theory, but tends to be very real in the lives of most individuals, is summed up in the word “community.” It involves all the services and support systems we rely on for daily existence. Some of these services a re essential (public health, law and order, public safety, opportunities for democratic participation, welfare and other social services); some are merely useful and beneficial, but nonetheless important (museums, theaters, sports clubs, childcare groups, voluntary societies, and so on).

Nevertheless, the market (the community) must first be made aware of what sort of services a community portal can provide. How will they be delivered? How useful will they be? What are they going to cost? In order to make the case – in order to create demand – the community alliance will need to have its own places for experimentation and demonstration. Ideally, it should have its own laboratory – or access to someone else’s.

Laboratories and Clearinghouses

Traditionally, engineers and technicians have produced a product and told us how to use it. But digital and computer technologies are infinitely more flexible: they can be harnessed to almost any purpose we come up with. A teacher or a librarian will know what the end product needs to do;he or she can approach the designers,describe the purpose and specifications,and then wait for them to work their magic and create the product, whether it be hardware or software.

The pattern can be seen in the Nebraska CLASS project outlined earlier in this report – educators request an online version of the high school curriculum; NET’s Interactive Media Group finds federal funding,designs it and delivers it. A similar pattern can be seen in the AITOL project designed by KCPT for the MoKan Kids Network.

What NET in Nebraska and KCPT in Kansas City have in common is that they have developed what amounts to a laboratory – a digital lab, where new services can be developed for educational use, and potentially for democratic, social,and cultural purposes as well. Some of these will be narrowly defined for their own communities or for content areas in which they specialize, some will have much wider applications – but all of them must start by being designed in response to a particular need of a consumer or user. Oregon Public Broadcasting has seen the need for an online project in which young people, 8-to-14 year-olds,can participate – hence Rock The World, which starts out as a Web-based initiative and develops into a multi-platform project, tailor-made for the world of broadband digital programming. That project might well form the basis for a lab specializing in projects for young people – just as Nebraska’s proposed National Center for Information Technology in Education (NCITE) might become a focus for educational research and experimentation for the nation as a whole, and IUPUI’s Communications Technology Complex in Indianapolis might do the same in continuing and higher education.

Labs do not have to be grand and expensive. WHYY in Philadelphia is planning a portable lab – a facility containing basic digital television and computer equipment that can be taken around the DelawareValley and used by institutions and individuals to experiment with content development and demonstrate the results.

Given that a lot of experiments are already taking place around the country, and that a great many more will get under way during the next few months, it is essential that information about the experiments should be disseminated as widely as possible. America’s Public Television Stations (APTS), with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB),has created an online clearinghouse for this purpose within public television. It would be useful if similar clearinghouses could be established by central organizations for the other principal institutions (from associations of influence, like the Council of Mayors and the National Governors Association,to professional organizations representing education, health, libraries, museums, etc.), all of them,hopefully, cross-linked with APTS’s and with each other.

Funding Community Alliances

Once demand is established, funding will follow. That is a statement that may be treated with some cynicism by hardened veterans of public broadcasting and other public media enterprises, but there is evidence that it is true, and there are good reasons for believing it will happen.

An examination of the individual lines spelled out in state and local government budgets, in philanthropic budgets, even in corporate budgets, shows that very few of them are available to public television. But if you scan the same budgets for “education,” “public health,” “environment,” “civic democracy,” “child development,” then literally hundreds of budget lines become available.

So long as public broadcasting has been looking for funding on its own behalf, it has been severely limited. Once it is in partnership with community institutions,when it is just one element within a community alliance, then the possibilities are greatly increased.

Hard evidence is beginning to accumulate. Governor Rowland of Connecticut saw the potential of the alliance being assembled in his state and put down $10 million for its development. The state of Texas did the same thing for community networking and technology centers. NET in Nebraska found federal funding for its CLASS project (part of it from the General Services Administration, part of it from the Department of Education) and for its Grassroots project (from the Department of Agriculture). Important philanthropic institutions (The Lilly Endowment,The Ford Foundation, and community foundations in several cities) are making substantial grants to speed the development:they, too, have seen the possibilities. Equally telling, a number of major technology companies (IBM,Thomson, Bell Atlantic, Intel) are discussing in-kind partnerships with local alliances.

There is no fairy godmother waiting in the wings. There is no point in sitting around hoping that the federal government will institute a spectrum fee, or any other form of taxation, to support these enterprises. But once the need for them is established—once they can be shown to fulfill a community purpose—then there is eve ry chance that funding will be available to meet the need—both commercial and noncommercial funding, both public and private.

Public Policy

To the extent that government policy can influence this development,it is by helping to create a context,or environment,in which communities (and all the elements within communities) are positively encouraged to participate . One aspect of this is making sure that the new technologies are widely available, that they are not just tools for the more affluent sections of society.

Two principles have long been embedded in the legislation that defines U.S. telecommunications policy. Universal service is an obligation of telephone companies. Broadcasting in the public interest, convenience and necessity is a requirement of radio and television licensees. Neither obligation is met in full.

Both of them are frequently sublimated to commercial considerations – and not surprisingly, since the mass of deregulation in the 1980s encouraged operators to use the marketplace as the principal arbiter.

From the point of view of community alliances,universal service may be the most important of the two principles. Everyone has a right to be connected, whether they live in the most remote pueblo in New Mexico or are part of the biggest conglomerate in NewYork. Without basic telephone connection, most of the benefits of new technology are denied.

The E-Rate demonstrates one way in which government can successfully promote the use of new technologies in the public sphere, and, by doing so, help to create the environment that is needed. The E-Rate is a federally managed program that provides significant discounts (between 20 and 90 percent) to schools and libraries for the acquisition of telecommunications technologies. It covers Internet access, video conferencing services, high-speed data connections, phone service, and certain types of internal wiring and network equipment. Created in 1993 to ensure that all Americans could afford telephone service, it was made effective by the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which required local and long distance telephone companies to contribute to the fund. So far, the discounts given by the E-Rate amount to more than $6 billion. A recent report by the Benton Foundation and the Education Development Center/Center for Children and Technology showed that it was working well in four cities sur veyed (Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit). Internet access in schools and libraries has dramatically improved,and each district has been able to create a robust,high quality network infrastructure.

The public interest obligations of broadcasters have been the subject of a recent Advisory Committee report (the so-called Gore Commission). It has made a series of recommendations that are currently being considered by the FCC and will eventually be debated in the Congress. Without any doubt, commercial broadcasters can make a significant contribution to community alliances. In a city like Indianapolis,where commercial and public broadcasters have collaborated closely over the years, it is clearly intended that the commercial stations will play an important role in the alliance’s composition and activities – and it will be seen as a fulfillment, in part, of their public interest obligation. It is a model that the FCC, and commercial broadcasters in general, would do well to note.

There are other, equally important, principles that have long been a part of public policy in this country. Diversity, localism and opportunity advancement are three of them. Their antithesis is the digital divide – the gap between the haves and the have-nots in the world of the new technologies. On no account must this divide be enlarged. On all accounts, it should be bridged. Public policy has a responsibility to provide the context and the means by which this is possible.

Diversity, localism and educational advancement are central to the community alliance concept,and to the extent that public policy can promote them (andencourage the marketplace to promote them) it will also be promoting the alliance idea – because, together, they will create the environment within which the alliances will have their being.

The Time is Now

It is impossible to deny that we are in the midst of a revolution – a revolution that is fueled by new technologies, that is affecting the whole of American society. A country that has its origins in revolution cannot be shy of such a happening – but, however exciting, revolution is generally an uncomfortable experience because it signals change. Like the last grassroots revolution in our history – the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century – this one will bring with it great riches for a few (it is already doing so), great benefits for most of us, and a considerable amount of upheaval for all of us.

What is important now is that the benefits of the revolution should be spread throughout American society – if not evenly, then at least comprehensively. That means that they should be available not just to governments and corporations and universities,but to the most basic units of our society – the communities in which we live and work.

Commercial interests, as always, have shown the way. They have moved quickly and effectively to harness the new technologies to their own purposes. The public and noncommercial sector dare not be far behind. It has a window of opportunity now. The window is created by a confluence of events – the adaptation of online technologies for an ever-increasing number of purposes; the availability of digital frequencies for broadcasting; and the coming of broadband (not far away) as the most powerful communications medium of the immediate future.

It is impossible to say how long or how wide this window of opportunity will be. All that is certain is that the window exists now, and that it provides the ideal circumstances in which communities can develop, for themselves,a new kind of entity – a communications alliance, or portal, in which education, democracy and public health will be the major beneficiaries,and in which all community interests can meet and participate.

The opportunity awaits.

Contents | Introduction | Opportunity | Agents | Alliance Concept |Case Studies | Conclusions

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