ABSTRACT
When community access television1 was launched more than twenty years ago, it set imaginations afire with its utopian promises: ordinary people communicating directly with one another and with government, reversing the traditional top-down command model of both communications and government. It was the convergence of technology and demands for social change which launched community access TV as a viable, democratic alternative to the older hierarchical, authoritarian forms of government and communications: interest turned from the ‘global village’ to ‘electronic town hall democracy’ (Dolan 1984). However, as with the promise of every new media technology this century, community access TV also promised to democratise the process of government through citizen participation in direct communication with the powerful, vested interests in society. Somewhat paradoxically, it was a Canadian government agency which initiated the process, institutionalising access from the top down, while in the US, a more complex and contradictory development took place which included grassroots organising.
