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What is the Public Media Stack?

Published onAug 04, 2019
What is the Public Media Stack?

Just over 50 years ago, President Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act into law, creating funding and distribution for non-commercial media on television and radio. This was a direct response to the dominance of purely commercial broadcasters, and their failure to provide content that, to quote the Act, “will be responsive to the interests of people, and that addresses the needs of unserved and underserved audiences, particularly children and minorities.”

In 2019, we’re facing a similar problem. Over the last decade, the rise of monopolising platforms like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple has created ethical, strategic and tactical issues for digital public media projects. Our audience’s data is being mined and exploited in ways we can’t control, algorithms are surfacing troubling content alongside kids’ cartoons, the business models for public media are unsustainable as platforms take the lion’s share of digital ad income, and newsrooms are forced to follow the endless pivots of the platforms’ product strategies.

In 1967, the problem was funding content production. In 2019, the problem is different. We live in a world of information ecosystems, not broadcast networks. Bruce Sterling calls these new ecosystems ‘The Stacks’ - integrated systems of products and platforms that give Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple incredible power to define the business models of the media sector and other major industries.

If we want to change this, it’s not enough to just fund content production, as this doesn’t address the role these Stacks have in distributing and monetising that content. We have to look at how we can create an alternative information ecosystem - a network of products, services and technologies that can support public media projects in more ethical and sustainable ways. For public media to thrive in an age of platforms and ecosystems, we have to create a Public Media Stack.

This isn’t something that can be done by a single project or institution. Instead, we need to build connections between the many existing projects, networks and initiatives that have the potential to support and enhance public media content.

The Public Media Stack project’s goal is to highlight these connections, building maps and tools to help public media projects make better, more sustainable technology strategy decisions. Our goal has three focus areas:

1 - Map the existing ecosystems and evaluate individual services and products based on their suitability for public media projects

2 - Assist public media projects with the practical issues involved in changing to more ethical and sustainable technology strategies

3 - Invest and scale technologies that have the potential to scale and become part of the ‘public media stack’

1 - Mapping the Public Media Stack

We held the first Public Media Stack in May 2019 in NYC. The summit focused on three things - developing a model for mapping the Public Media Stack; developing a framework for assessing specific products or services against a criteria of issues that are core to Public Media; and creating a list of existing products and services that Public Media projects already use.

The Summit was an incredible success - the workshops produced a detailed list of over 130 existing software products that public media orgs already use. We are now working on the outputs of the workshop to produce the first Public Media Stack report in autumn 2019.

What we want to do next:
We want to make the report an annual event in the public media and technology calendar - a regular check up on the health of the Public Media Stack, with critical analysis about how changes in the wider technology industry are affecting public media, and practical advice that public media projects can use in their technology strategies.

2 - Assisting public media projects to change their technology strategies

One of the biggest problems in public media organisations is a lack of resources for comprehensive technology strategy work. The Institute for Non-Profit News’ 2018 report showed that their 180 members spent only 6% of their turnover on technology development, compared to 67% on editorial production.

There are a number of reasons for this - problems with recruiting experienced technology staff in a very competitive environment, lack of funding for technology strategy and development, reliance on advice from vendors or suppliers, and ‘lock-in’ that make it hard to switch technologies after years of use and investment.

What we want to do next:
Producing a map of the public media stack is the first step, but this will change nothing without practical advice to help public media projects change their technology strategy. We want to commission new research to understand how public media projects are currently developing their technology strategies, and the kind of support they need to make more ethical and sustainable decisions.

3 - Investing and scaling potential technologies for the Public Media Stack

As part of mapping the existing technologies, we have identified lots of existing technology projects that are providing ethical and sustainable alternatives to the major tech platforms. Some of these technologies are already mature and widely used in the sector, but many are at pilot stages, or struggling to scale.

We can help these projects by increasing their visibility to potential customers, helping them better understand the needs of the public media sector, or helping them connect with potential investors to scale their services. The mapping process will also help us identify areas where there are no viable ethical and sustainable options, and where new investments or calls for projects can be most effective.

What we want to do next:
There are lots of foundations collaborating to invest in public media content production, but not as many investing in developing and scaling technologies to support public media content. We would like to talk to funders and investors who are working in public media to see how our research can inform and improve their technology investment strategies.

Comments
1
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geetha govind:

Excellent explaination

dg me