Matt Hampel | matth.org

 This semester, I researched and wrote a report on the state of Ann Arbor’s Community Television Network for Susan Crawford’s Telecommunications Law course.

The report is now available online in multiple formats. At that address, you can browse the report by section, view the entire report, or download a printable copy as a PDF.

Here’s the one-paragraph version: Community Television Network broadcasts public, educational, and governmental programming to Ann Arbor residents via cable TV. Its current functions, which include providing media tools and education to residents and broadcasting civic information, provide the community with relevant and important content and knowledge. The Network faces challenges centered around changes in the nature of media consumption and production. The report recommends a number of policy and institutional goals that could help the organization adapt to these changes, including an increased focus on consumer-level digital equipment, online distribution, and public guidance.

I look forward to your responses and feedback, and I encourage you to use the features of the website to share them. You can add comments to every section and paragraph of the report.

The City website’s “News” has announcement about energy bill assistance. The steps you need to go through to learn about the assistance are farcical. The news release is a PDF that contains no actual information about the service — instead, it directs residents to watch a cable TV program. So, the low income residents who this program targets have to pay for cable TV. The video was not posted online as of 31 December.

Viewers then have to guess when the information will be broadcast and schedule around it. Two of the three timeslots are essentially random (sometime at night and “between regular programming”).  Interested parties can  browse to the Public Access channel’s schedule, which requires a minimum of four clicks from the City homepage, plus another PDF download. That’s assuming users know the schedule is posted online, and exactly where to find it.

I don’t have cable, so I can’t check, but I’d guess that the CTN program is not captioned, leaving residents who are deaf or hard-of-hearing out of luck.

People on a tight budget don’t have that time to waste. This is a lousy failure to communicate.

Here are two simple ways the City could effectively provide this information to residents:

1. Post a web page (not a PDF) containing the information that would help residents understand and acquire energy bill assistance.
2. Post the video online, so residents don’t have to wait or guess when the information wil be aired.

For the record, the text of the press release (sans boilerplate):

CTN Airing Public Service Announcements for Energy Bill Assistance

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Dec. 23, 2008 — Help may be available for citizens unable to pay their utility bill. Ann Arbor Community Television Network has produced a public service announcement to inform viewers about DTE Energy’s payment assistance programs. Paul Ganz, DTE Energy regional relations, shares details of DTE’s efforts to work with customers and resolve payment concerns before shutoff actions are engaged. Customers can learn about alternatives available through DTE should they be experiencing economic hardships, and how to take advantage of assistance opportunities.

This PSA can be seen as part of the “Access Soapbox” program on CTN channel 17, as well as, in between regular programming on all four CTN channels — 16, 17, 18 and 19 on Comcast Cable. Information is also posted on CTN’s electronic bulletin boards, which are telecast during the overnight hours.

For the “Access Soapbox” schedule of days and times, and more information about CTN, visit www.a2gov.org/ctn or call CTN at 734.794.6150.

I want a media museum. It is a exhibit museum. It is not Flickr.

It holds media of all types — text, photo, video, audio. I lay out media around a theme — here is a custom-designed page that presents video, audio, text about Chicago. Here’s another that uses some of the same elements, but it’s exhibit about wayfinding.

The exhibits can tour. You can use have some of my pieces to use in yours, but provenance (not scarcity!) is enforced.

Maybe you can comment on things. Maybe you can’t. I suppose you could suggest new pieces for my collection, but it’s my choice whether they appear right away or not, or if I even read your suggestions. Or maybe on this one exhibition we can all work together, because I’ve invited you.

Here’s what the museum looked like in its last revision, if you wanted to know.

Here’s everything in the highest resolution I’ve got.

The future digital humanities museum.

Sign my guestbook?