The Americans
The Dale City (Virginia) Junior Chamber of Commerce operated what a Rand report said, "appears to be the first community-operated closed-circuit television channel in the United States." In 1968, Cable TV, Incorporated, provided a channel for the public access center (Gillespie, 35-36), but poor financing, low-quality equipment and lack of a permanent studio contributed to the center's failure two years later (ibid, 36, 59).
Guerilla Television
In the 1960s and 1970s, counter-culture video collectives with names like Videofreeks, Video Free America and Global Village worked to extend the role of the underground press to new communication technologies. Michael Shamberg, Paul Ryan and other video enthusiasts co-founded a video collective called Raindance Corporation (Engelman, 24).
Paul Ryan had been a student and research assistant of Marshall McLuhan (ibid, 25), who believed modern technology, such as television, was creating a global village and challenging cultural values (Playboy). Ryan coined the term "cybernetic guerrilla warfare" to describe how the counter-culture movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s should use communication technology to get its message to the public (Engelman, 26). Despite an anti-technology bias in the counter-culture movement, people like Ryan and former Time-Life correspondent Michael Shamberg believed new technology held hope for social change (ibid, 26). According to Shamberg, "cybernetic guerrilla warfare" meant "re-structuring communications channels, not capturing existing ones" (ibid, 28).
But Shamberg preferred the term "Guerrilla Television" (the title of his 1971 book), because despite its strategies and tactics similar to warfare, guerrilla television is non-violent (Shamberg II, p. 8). He also saw Guerrilla Television as a means to break through the barriers imposed by broadcast television, which he called "beast television" (Shamberg I, p. 32). Shamberg provided the example of NBC commentator Sander Vanocur broadcasting from a platform above a crowd of demonstrators in Washington, D.C. contrasted with a Raindance video shot within the crowed, allowing people to "speak for themselves." "Guerrilla Television is grassroots television," he wrote. "It works with people, not from up above them" (Shamberg II, p. 8).
He urged combining the video Porta-Pak and cable TV to permit ordinary people to communicate a diversity of opinions to their communities (Engelman, 26-27). Shamberg wrote, "The inherent potential of information technology can restore democracy in America if people will become skilled with information tools" (ibid, 28).