For the past twenty years, P.O.V. has presented groundbreaking documentary films on PBS, working with filmmakers both emerging and established to present their perspectives to a national audience. The series has always challenged the notion of television as a one-way medium by pioneering innovative projects such as our Talking Back and Community Engagement campaigns, which promoted the idea of “two-way TV” by featuring on-air viewer responses to films and fostering dialogue within communities in local screenings. Since 1996, P.O.V. Interactive has created companion websites for P.O.V. films, providing articles, interviews with filmmakers and experts, innovative interactive features, and acting as a destination for viewer feedback and discussions after broadcast.
As an interactive producer at P.O.V., the question of community and participatory media in this digital age is of the utmost importance to me. As we approach the redesign of the P.O.V. website for our 20th anniversary season in 2007, we have been thinking about how best to serve the communities involved with our documentary films. In a connected world, community means that people who live in different places can work together based on their common interests and goals; the notion of community, now more than ever, is no longer shackled by geography. Communities of people, who otherwise might never have met, can exchange points-of-view, share resources and work toward common goals. The creation of these virtual communities is especially exciting to us at P.O.V.: We’re thrilled to see communities of citizens actively seeking solutions to the social issues addressed by our films; communities of viewers discussing our films after every broadcast; communities of documentary filmmakers sharing their knowledge and experiences with each other; and a growing community of new-media makers learning, creating and experimenting with new technologies in their work both online and off.
Alongside communities of viewers, educators and activists, this community – of new-media makers – is the one that P.O.V. Interactive would like to do a better job of supporting and encouraging with our website redesign. Digital video has taken the Internet by storm, and huge numbers of young media makers are participating in media and making their voices heard. We can support this community by providing the guidance and expertise of established documentary filmmakers, by cultivating a virtual space where they can meet other like-minded media makers to discuss ideas and best practices and share their work, and by presenting their work on PBS.org, acting as the microphone through which their voices could be amplified.
As we think about how to best serve the diverse communities in the 2007 redesign of the P.O.V. website, we’re paying close attention to their needs and desires, and to the trends, technologies and practices of participatory, community-building sites around the Net. We would like to attend the We Media Conference to find out more about new ideas, trends, prototypes and success stories from participatory media culture. We’d also like to meet other organizations that are interested in enhancing communities through digital media to explore possibilities for collaboration. The We Media Conference speaks acutely to some of the issues we at P.O.V. are thinking about as we get ready to re-conceive our website to reflect the “points-of-view” of the various communities that we serve. We believe that attending the conference would be a wonderful opportunity to learn from the organizers, panelists and participants about building and improving P.O.V.’s online community in the 21st century.
Ruiyan Xu
Associate Producer
P.O.V. Interactive