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The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

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Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#111

Post by lsiebert »

fud7r7rgtf wrote: post #94
jonas21 wrote: post #88

If you look at the history of the Public Broadcasting Act [1] that established the CPB and eventually PBS, it seems clear that it was passed in response to poorly-funded educational programming not being able to compete with high-budget commercial network TV. Its authors wanted to make it easier for smaller, non-commercial entities to produce and distribute high-quality educational content. In that regard, the Intern…

What actually qualifies as misinformation? I see lots of things these days that fall under that label that would simply have been called gossip in the past and covered from the perspective of exploring popular gossip.

Examples of Misinformation:

scientifically debunked ideas like the idea vaccines cause autism

Ideas with zero basis in reality like the idea that most or all mass shootings are actually faked using "crisis actors"

Political conspiracy theories like the idea that Bernie Sanders would have been the democratic candidate for president, but was cheated by Hillary Clinton.

Misrepresented ideas, like how certain people on the right wing just ignore what critical race theory actually is by redefining it into a farcical straw man argument and then see it everywhere (This is a repeated pattern, see sharia law, migrant carvans, covid safety, etc)

Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#112

Post by beambot »

gowld wrote: post #92
jonas21 wrote: post #88

If you look at the history of the Public Broadcasting Act [1] that established the CPB and eventually PBS, it seems clear that it was passed in response to poorly-funded educational programming not being able to compete with high-budget commercial network TV. Its authors wanted to make it easier for smaller, non-commercial entities to produce and distribute high-quality educational content. In that regard, the Intern…

Yes. Supply of PBS quality content is a solved problem. The unsolved problem is the demand side, people making better consumption choices. Legislation can't fix this, since the government doesn't have a unified view of what "good" content is, and is heavily interested in promoting various striped of partisan propaganda. Mr Rogers got broad bipartisan support. Today he's considered "left wing".

Distribution could help on the demand side... Would love to see more PBS content appear in Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#113

Post by kortilla »

nwatson wrote: post #34
jds_ wrote: post #6

I would like to note that PBS does actually publish Youtube videos via PBS Digital Studios[0][1]. They have great creators making PBS quality content but in "Youtube" style formats with a wide range of topics (science, popular culture, art, food, news, and music). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBS_Digital_Studios [1] https://www.youtube.com/c/pbsdigitalstudios/channels

We watch the full PBS NewsHour most nights, simulcast/streamed live on YouTube (also available on all/most PBS affiliates) ... and it's available for later viewing as well. Some would say it leans a bit left but I think it's the best unbiased presentation of (U.S.) national concerns. They get wide access for interview to the most relevant American and non-American persons across a wide range of topics and are not afr…

> Some would say it leans a bit left but I think it's the best unbiased presentation of (U.S.) national concerns

It’s definitely “unbiased” as long as “unbiased” means “standard US neoliberal views”. I say this as a neoliberal who watches it.

If you are watching news and it doesn’t seem unfair in some way to you, you agree with its editorial biases.

Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#114

Post by itgoon »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #83
duxup wrote: post #7

Well there is: https://www.pbs.org/video/ Also PBS has a great kids games app(s) that are free with games that are fun / no ads. And PBS kids video app is again free, great content, no ads. If you're in the US and care about that content, I suggest contributing to your local station. The quality of the content from kids to adult is outstanding. It's not usual for me to browse a few streaming services and just end up…

I donate to PBS for the streaming, but I wish they would update their content more frequently, or rather they have a lot of content that I don’t care much about (especially the local programming). Mostly I’m interested in the nature, science, and history documentaries, especially the nature and nova series, but they only show a new episode once every few weeks.

Have you looked at their YouTube channels? Eons and SpaceTime are excellent.

EDIT: here's all of the channels: https://www.youtube.com/c/pbsdigitalstudios/channels

Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#115

Post by Mizza »

toomim wrote: post #89
bloaf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Studies that looked at bias in the media found PBS to be the most centrist of the major news organizations. People on the extremes of the political spectrum see PBS as biased against them, as they would any centrist organization.

Actually, PBS skews left in the adfontes study, which is the most detailed one I know: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/

Wow, this chart perfectly illustrates my original point. There is a great gaping hole in the upper right of that graph - there is no high-quality, right-skewed news, even though this is where I would assume just over half of the bulk of Americans would actually place their political beliefs. There's nothing of significance in between the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, after which there is a steep cliff towards Breitbart and all of the horrors that come after it.

Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#116

Post by pfraze »

mandmandam wrote: post #100
happyopossum wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mr Rogers got broad bipartisan support. Today he's considered "left wing". I’ve never heard any “right-wing” people, even crazy in-law types, call Mr Rogers “left-wing”.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iljhDaowoLc , in which Fox News calls him an "evil, evil man", for making children grow up with self esteem.

This folds into the general class of calls-to-inaction which they use to pass off systemic problems. "Why are millenials poor and expecting more? Perhaps they were raised wrong by TV. Let's not examine it further."

I personally didn't see shots at Mr Rogers get much further than this weak Fox segment among conservatives, for what it's worth.

Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#118

Post by TuringNYC »

gowld wrote: post #92
jonas21 wrote: post #88

If you look at the history of the Public Broadcasting Act [1] that established the CPB and eventually PBS, it seems clear that it was passed in response to poorly-funded educational programming not being able to compete with high-budget commercial network TV. Its authors wanted to make it easier for smaller, non-commercial entities to produce and distribute high-quality educational content. In that regard, the Intern…

Yes. Supply of PBS quality content is a solved problem. The unsolved problem is the demand side, people making better consumption choices. Legislation can't fix this, since the government doesn't have a unified view of what "good" content is, and is heavily interested in promoting various striped of partisan propaganda. Mr Rogers got broad bipartisan support. Today he's considered "left wing".

>> Yes. Supply of PBS quality content is a solved problem.

With good curation, sharing, and sleuthing -- I find the educational content on YouTube to surpass anything+everything even at undergrad college (minus social and minus interactive language classes.) I also used YouTube extensively to supplement grad school course materials, with great success. I realize not everyone learns this way, but many do, and it is freely available now.

While there may be a demand side problem, that can be fixed with better curation facilities. Legislation might not be able to fix this, but it can sure as heck hurt it given some of the current rhetoric.

Unfortunately, if "big tech" is treated as a single entity to be enforced, we'll end up doing something monumentally destructive like losing YouTube as it is now (which I consider an international cultural and educational treasure w/o exaggerating.)

Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#119

Post by root_axis »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #29
marbletiles wrote: post #23

> decentralizing the distribution of quality news This is laudable - but it ignores the reality of aggregators and user behaviour in the attention economy. The audience is centralised, and increasingly so. The question becomes: how can a pluralistic public-service ecosystem flourish within that economy? In the UK the BBC has tried a number of routes for this, including sponsoring local reporters, external linking to…

> The audience is centralised, and increasingly so. You could design a computer system that feels centralised, but is actually decentralised – like the Fediverse[0] – and have people use that. That'd solve this problem (if you had enough draw and interop to get people to switch). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse

I don't see how the fediverse solves this problem. Fediverse nodes are no different than websites with respect to information distribution.

Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”

#120

Post by stetrain »

fud7r7rgtf wrote: post #94
jonas21 wrote: post #88

If you look at the history of the Public Broadcasting Act [1] that established the CPB and eventually PBS, it seems clear that it was passed in response to poorly-funded educational programming not being able to compete with high-budget commercial network TV. Its authors wanted to make it easier for smaller, non-commercial entities to produce and distribute high-quality educational content. In that regard, the Intern…

What actually qualifies as misinformation? I see lots of things these days that fall under that label that would simply have been called gossip in the past and covered from the perspective of exploring popular gossip.

I think some of the difference is coordination and spread.

I suppose some gossip could be intentionally malevolent but it's generally not coordinated across multiple mediums and groups.

People also don't generally don't print watercooler gossip out on posters and hang it up in public around their town or state.

Patterns that cause less harm in some context can cause more harm when they're being used by those wanting to intentionally spread misinformation, and when it's much easier for that information to spread to millions of people.

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