Converging mass media and public records media: The case of government access TV via the Internet

Since the early 1970s, government-subsidized and-controlled public meeting television(TV) has been expanding gradually across the United States. This type of TV, which I refer to as “government access TV, ” usually features coverage of legislative bodies such as the U.S. Congress, state legislatures, school boards, and city councils. It often is described by drawing an analogy to C-SPAN (e.g., the programming is “C-SPAN-like”).1 By the end of 1997, 19 out of 50 states and approximately 2,800 out of more than 20,000 communities offered government access TV. C-SPAN, 12 of the 19 states, and a handful of local commu-nities also provided at least some government access TV (or radio) via the Internet. The public policy implications of this convergence of government access TV and the Internet have yet to be appreciated. The Internet enhances access to traditional types of gov-ernment information. But it also changes the types of information that are desirable to create and transmit. CONVERGING MEDIA Of great importance for the future design of government information systems, the pro-duction of mass media and media archives tends to be developing economies of scope. In other words, the technologies and institutions of record keeping and mass media tend to b