The NOVA Report - April 2022

APRIL

P.E.G. News Boston Neighborhood Network has new Youth Opportunities Every year, hundreds of young people appear on BNN channels and website--in studio productions, in dozens of high school games and neighborhood parades covered with our mobile production truck and in many shows produced by IN THIS ISSUE members and by BNN, such as BNN News and Around Town.

We also provide a variety of hands--on training Great News From Boston ............................1 opportunities designed for youth to create their own programming. We partner with youth-serving organizations on Protecting Community Television ................2 training and productions. We provide cable channel time and online opportunities for young people to share programs they produce and we produce programming for youth as well.

Closed Captions in the 21st C. ...................3

SUMMER MEDIA PROGRAMS Each summer we offer intensive media training programs to give young people production experience, promote teamwork, self-expression, critical thinking, and to have fun!

YOUTH VOICES: We offer a six-week summer intensive multimedia training program for field and studio production in partnership with Department of Youth Engagement and Employment. The resulting programs include short documentaries by the participants along with studio discussions about the important issues raised, including violence, discrimination and challenges for students with learning disabilities.

YOUTH TOURS: Your youth group can have a behind-thescenes, hands-on tour of BNN’s facilities. To book a time for your group to visit BNN contact membership@bnnmedia.org.

PARTNERSHIPS WITH YOUTH-SERVING ORGANIZATIONS: We provide special media production workshops in collaboration with youth organizations and schools.

This year students from Codman Academy Charter Public School produced a series of thought-provoking public service announcements.

The full article can be viewed at https://bnnmedia.org/get-involved/youth-opportunities

Technology Trends in 2022 .........................4 The Death of a Pioneer ...............................4 Top 5 Websites ........................................... 5

PRESS RELEASE: SENATORS MARKEY, BALDWIN AND REPS. ESHOO, DEFAZIO REINTRODUCE LEGISLATION TO PROTECT COMMUNITY TELEVISION DECEMBER 9, 2021 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: markey_press@markey.senate.gov, 202-224-2742 Washington (December 9, 2021) -- Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, and Representative Anna G. Eshoo (CA18), senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Representative Peter DeFazio (OR-04), chair of the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure, today reintroduced the Protecting Community Television Act, legislation to ensure that community television operations continue to receive the resources they need to educate and inform viewers in the cities and towns where they operate.

Currently, local governments are permitted to require, as part of cable franchise agreements, that cable companies meet demonstrated community needs by providing in-kind contributions that benefit schools, public safety buildings, and public, educational, and government (PEG) channels, also known as community television stations. However, in August, 2019, the FCC voted to permit cable companies to assign a value to these contributions and then subtract that amount from the franchise fees the cable operator pays the local community. As a result, local governments have to decide between supporting PEG stations in cable franchise agreements and supporting other important services for critical community institutions like schools and libraries.

“Throughout the ongoing pandemic, viewers in Massachusetts and across the country have relied on community media to stay safe, healthy, and informed,” said Senator Markey. “I’m proud to re-introduce the Protecting Community Television Act because, in this era of increased media consolidation and globalization, it is critical that we preserve the PEG operations that lift up local voices and air the programming that is most relevant to the lives of our family members and neighbors.

I thank Congresswoman Eshoo, Senator Baldwin, Congressman DeFazio, and all of our cosponsors for their partnership on this important legislation.”

“Community television is a critical part of our society, giving a voice to nonprofits, artists, local governments, and other community members who otherwise struggle to be heard,” said Representative Eshoo. “The Trump FCC’s actions on cable franchise fees have hurt public, educational, and governmental television, and this harms communities. I’m proud to introduce legislation with Senators Markey and Baldwin, and Congressman DeFazio that reverse these harmful agency actions and protect community television by ensuring local voices have the platform they deserve.”

“As local news sources suffer from budget cuts and are gutted by hedge funds, it is more important than ever to protect community media that provides trusted, localized news,” said Senator Baldwin. “I am proud to support the Protecting Community Television Act to invest in high-quality community broadcasting and ensure folks in Wisconsin and across the country can access the relevant and timely news they rely on.”

The full article can be viewed at:

https://www.allcommunitymedia.org/ACM/Public_Policy/National/FCC/Reintroduce%20Legislation%20to%20Protect%20Community%20Television.aspx?WebsiteKey=3b84a8a8-b739-4842-8f94-8 3672fcd9f10

MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY UPDATES

Recent Tech Headlines Solutions with Closed Captions originally Posted: March 17, 2022 by bduthaler

article by Randy Visser, East Sales, Cablecast Community Media Video play-out systems provide community media operations the tools they need to distribute their content to members of their communities, and beyond.

Early systems involved the use of multiple video tape machines, and eventually DVD players that were programmed by external devices to play, and then switch, programming from one source to another. You never knew if this complex chain of events was going to work as planned, and the set-up time to cue tapes and calculate “pre-roll” times for every event made the process challenging and time consuming.

Fast forward to the 21st Century…and here we are, comfortably pecking away at our keypads and smartphones sharing video content like it was just another call to a friend. YouTube, the first successful video sharing platform and Facebook, have suddenly become the video viewing platforms of choice, and our local PEG channels are having to re-invent the way we support our communities through video distribution.

After all, YouTube and Facebook are indeed commercial platforms. They make money by selling user data and “phishing” for customers engaged in niche

content viewing. Not ideal. Cablecast has the solution.

Our company has been right beside you all the way providing the tools you need to manage this work in the 21st Century. Our new “VIO Omni” servers have the combined power to schedule video files, or live shows, while providing an easy interface to make that content available as a live stream, or as easy to use VOD (video on demand) files complete with the ability to chapter those videos (either while you’re recording…or after the fact). You can even attach .pdf files like meeting agendas that viewers can download.

One box does this all using Cablecast’s easy to use interface and award winning bulletin board software (also available for small, or large, digital signage throughout your community).

Full article avaialbe at: https://jagonline.org/new-all-in-one-omni-solutionswith-closed-captions/

The biggest tech trends to watch for in 2022 originally published by Tatum Hunter and Chris Velazco January 3, 2022|Updated January 4, 2022 at 2:34 p.m. EST Electric vehicles, interoperable smart homes and ‘the metaverse’ will all make an appearance at CES — if it doesn’t get canceled first.

2022 will be a year of big tech promises.

Whether companies can deliver is another question.We’ll get our first clues at this week’s CES electronics show in Las Vegas — a sprawling event that offers an exclusive glimpse at the tech that could help shape the year. (That is, unless the high transmissibility of the omicron variant of the coronavirus forces organizers to shutter the show. Big-name attendees including Intel, Meta and Amazon have pulled out, and show organizers have shortened the event by one day — it now runs Wednesday through Friday.)

Before the show and the rest of the year kick off in earnest, we wanted to break out our crystal ball to suss out what the new year will mean for the tech in your life. Some of the developments we’ll discuss are long overdue.

Some build on progress or change we saw in 2021.

In many ways, 2022 will be a year of “hurry up and wait,” Carolina Milanesi, a technology analyst with research firm Creative Strategies, told us. Big tech developments like “the metaverse,” autonomous vehicles and greater repairability will take time to catch up to their hype, and companies must be careful not to overpromise, Milanesi said.

At the same time, companies need our buy-in more than ever. Smart home technology, health wearables and virtual reality all depend on our personal data to improve. If we don’t trust companies enough to share a whole lot of it, that technology gets stuck in the “my voice assistant still doesn’t understand me” phase. to read the full article, visit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/01/03/personal-tech-trends-2022-metaverse-chip-shortage/

Social Media Pioneer dies at 74

originally published By Scottie Andrew, CNN, Updated 11:37 AM ET, Thu March 24, 2022 James Van Der Beek sobbing. The guy who blinks in disbelief.

That disturbing dancing baby.

For these and millions more GIFs, we have Stephen Wilhite to thank.

GIFs, those looping animated images, are a universal language -when words fail, a clip of a cool cat spinning beats on a turntable or Homer Simpson slowly backing into a hedge should do the trick.

Wilhite may not have known it when he created the first GIF in 1987, but his memes in motion would go on to rule the internet from the days of Web 1.0 to the present, and likely for years to come.

Wilhite, whose humble GIF changed the way we communicate online (and made it more fun), died March 14. His wife, Kathaleen, told CNN that Wilhite died from complications of Covid-19. A stroke he had a few years ago had weakened his right lung, she said. He was 74.

How Wilhite created the GIF In the 1980s, Wilhite, then a developer at online service provider CompuServe, and his team were tasked with overcoming slow dial-up speeds, incompatible computer systems and images that were too large to send to another user efficiently, especially color images, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

Read the full article, at: https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/24/tech/gif-creator-stephen-wilhite-death-cec/index.html

HOT LINKS PEG CHANNELS Boston Neighborhood Network Media Boston Neighborhood Network is a nationally recognized, award-winning community media center and 501(c) (3) nonprofit that acts as a public forum for all Boston residents, nonprofit and community-based organizations, and governmental and educational institutions, providing them with affordable training and access to emerging media technologies. visit them at: https://bnnmedia.org Bronxnet BronxNet provides hands-on television production education, equipment access and channels for Bronx residents.media technologies. visit them at: https://www.bronxnet.org/ Chicago Access Network Television CAN TV is an independent nonprofit established in 1983 as the public’s space on cable television free of commercials, filters, and censors. visit them at: https://cantv.org/ Citizens Television Citizens Television, CTV, is the community access provider of cable television programming for New Haven, Hamden and West Haven, Connecticut. CTV offers around the clock Public, Education and Government access cable only on Comcast channels 26, 27 and 96. visit them at: http://www.citizenstv.net/ CreaTV San Jose CreatTV’s mission is to inspire, educate, and connect San José communities, using media to foster civic engagement. We fulfill our mission by providing the training, tools, and platforms that allow diverse and often under-served communities to tell their stories and express their views through digital media. media visit them at: https://creatvsj.org/