Alternate media

The harsh reality of our society is a male dominated world. No mater how progressive we may claim to be we aren't; what we should watch is decided upon by a group men. We all know the affect media has on the public and to think that kids are adapting to a set of values from the misrepresentation of women and minorities in mainstream media is scary. Cummings mentions "I want my son to see women as more than eye candy" suggesting that is how women are depicted to be. Depictions of such somehow makes the sons of our society believe they are intangible and they have every right to look at women as an object. Cummings also questions why we need film festivals for women only if we are trying to break down the gender powers. In a sense, yes we are encouraging the difference but if we don't set up outlets geared towards a certain group of people then men are going to continue to win due to their male supporters and the talents of women will continue to be silenced.Women and minorities have no real say in the media industry be it print, news, or films. Alternate media acts as an outlet to challenge as well as work towards changing this.

Mainstream media is sponsored by big corporations which means what ever is presented to us via mainstream media is all filtered in favor of the corporate world. Alternate media, on the other hand, are independent media outlets which  run on public funding received from foundations or the government. Alternate media strives to present it's audience with plain facts or information mainstream media may restrain from. 

PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, is an alternate media platform most people are familiar with. It receives  funding from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB), foundations, government agencies and private citizens (www.pbs.org). CPB is a not- for- profit foundation created by congress to facilitate the development of public media (www.cpb.org). In order for PBS to allow a program to air, it must pass a set of three tests before further evaluation; test 1 is the editorial control test which means producers cannot allow anyone including sponsors to exercise editorial control over content. Test 2 is the perception test in which PBS must guard against the audience's perceptions of editorial control; viewers should not feel as if what they are watching is filtered in any way. The third test is the commercialism test where programs must be commercial free including its characters.

With such tight regulations, PBS makes sure it's programs confine to the alternate media platform but a closer look at the system controlling the channel provides a different dynamic. The gender ratio of male to female as directors of programming is 4 to 3 (www.pbs.org) .  This is better then boards which don't have a single woman but it still isn't fair considering that PBS has 2 men assisting/ working with  their woman  head of the department. PBS defiantly broadcasts amazing programs directed towards empowering women which are  attract audience but the question then is how realistic  are their messages? Is PBS just another male dominated channel which likes to fool its audience? How much do they actually believe and practice what they preach? To me they almost seem hypocritical in that sense but then again I don't know exactly what goes on in their board meeting or how they come to conclusions and that can't fully be judged based on numbers.

Do to financial crises funding for PBS has plummeted since 2007. According to Amy Chozick, New York Times reporter, in an effort to make a come back, the channel in trying to become more like HBO and Showtime, channels people are willing to pay for. In trying to do so, PBS seems to forgo the principles it used to be applauded for. It is now airing shows such as "downtown Abby" and " Sherlock" which are skewed more towards males. PBS's strategic attempt to increasing revenues is by  holding branded nights airing clusters of shows on the same subject. This new approach is to attract well-off viewers, who in turn, have a greater chance of making donations (Chozick, PBS Takes on the Premium Channels). From a business perspective, male geared programs bring revenue but it defeats the essence of alternate media and becomes more like mainstream media. Although their argument is that the extra revenue goes towards PBS kids programmings that have been proven to help underprivileged children, how would we define the balance? Should and would PBS be considered alternate media or will it at some point converge with its counter mainstream media channels?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxiG5XYJ000
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbqGRLC_cWg