PLAZA SUITE

posted by James Reel

    Last week, I attended a KUAT staff meeting in which we brainstormed ideas for our new mission and vision statements. (Whatever one thinks of such exercises, there’s no denying that an organization—or an individual—needs to have a clearly articulated reason for being.) An especially popular concept was KUAT as a “plaza,” a place where members of the community can meet and exchange ideas.
    That’s a lovely thought, but I don’t see how it can be true. Broadcasting is a one-way activity. Now, of course, listeners can call me for information on something they’ve heard, they can badger the music director to play some favorite piece, they can complain to the station manager about this or that, and in public broadcasting they can phone in pledges. On rare occasions, a few people can participate in some broadcast as part of a studio audience. And a few people get interviewed for news and public affairs program. But for KUAT to be a “plaza,” for it to be a center of “community” (the big buzzword since the popularization of the Internet a decade ago), it must be truly interactive, and radio and television aren’t equipped for meaningful, large-scale interactivity. (Conducting an audience survey solicits information, but it isn’t really an example of free interactivity.)
    There’s always the Internet, and KUAT is gradually bolstering its online presence. Even in cyberspace, though, we encounter limits to the benefits of interactivity. From the beginning, my own blog has disabled the “comments” feature, not because I don’t want to hear from readers, but because I’m protecting readers and myself from the spammers and off-topic ranters who monopolized online forums. (Does anybody read Usenet newsgroups anymore? Spammers and wackos drove me away from Uselessnet by the late 1990s.) If you want to engage me in dialog, great. Click the “send me an e-mail” link in the panel on the right. I post comments that go beyond the nice “attaboy” level, even if commenters object to what I’ve written. But new-media freaks will object that this isn’t fully interactive, because I filter the responses. Well, I’m an old-media guy, and I believe in editing and sorting.
    One of my former employers, the Arizona Daily Star, was only the third American newspaper to have a meaningful Web presence when it launched StarNet on May 5, 1995. I was there, and it was exciting, but a lot of it didn’t pan out. Film and art critic turned Web guru Bob Cauthorn had a grand vision; not only did StarNet put newspaper articles online, but the Star became a full-fledged Internet Service Provider to compete locally with AOL, and, among other things, it established a big bunch of local-interest newsgroups. Most of those newsgroups went unused, though, and the comparatively popular ones were ruined by flamers and bullies. So much for building community.
    How could a radio station truly become a center of community conversation? By nature and design, radio is a conduit of carefully structured entertainment and information that flows from us to you. Listener-request shows don’t work in a classical format, because the popular pieces are so long that not many people would have a chance to participate. If somebody requests Carmina Burana, that shoots a whole hour. We could air call-in talk shows about the arts, but wouldn’t you really be far more interested in hearing music?
    Do you have any ideas about how KUAT could become a real community plaza? I’m stumped.