On Community TV and other issues....
By MJ Kim Jan 2002.

In Korea, for the past two years, there have been a lot of changes concerning community TV (or public access TV) and alternative media. The followings are brief information on each subject. LNP and PRISM had the initiative to make the following things happen with fights, researches and lobby...

1. Public access structure realised...
   
   When Kim Dae Jung took power in 1999, it opened up more opportunities for liberal ideas that had not been tolerated in previous governments. The same year, the Broadcasting Law passed in South Korea. Like the US Telecommunications Act of 1996, it was essentially a neo-liberal gift to telecommunication conglomerates with a few but significant articles thrown to media activists. One of these articles referred to public access. It had two parts: KBS (one of the national public broadcast channels) must run programmes produced by viewers (literally: viewer production participation programmes). Very few details were specified in the legislation. The Ministry of Culture was given the responsibility for turning this vague concept into reality. The Ministry, rather arbitrarily, decided that 100 minutes per month was adequate. KBS immediately concurred, adding that they would be happy to allow 50 minutes on their radio station and 50 minutes on their television station.
   
   At this point, several media activists, who saw where this was heading, decided to take action. They formed the Coalition for Viewer Participation and argued that all the time must be on television and it should be more than 100 minutes per month (how do you program 100 minutes in a month anyway?). Eventually a compromise was reached in which KBS agreed to program 30 minutes per week of television programming. The decision to choose the programmes was left to a sub-committee with some activist representation, but with a majority of more conservative KBS types. Although the subcommittee doesn't sound great, and 30 minutes per week isn't much, it is still amazing to consider that this is broadcast television and the 30 minutes are scheduled during prime time Saturday evening.
   
   Another remarkable aspect is that you can apply to the subcommittee before you produce your tape. If accepted, you are awarded $3-4,000. If your tape, after being produced, is accepted to be shown, you receive an additional $3-4,000. After years of wrangling over these details, the first show was broadcast last May. It was an activist produced tape by Purn Productions. And since then, about 8 programs were broadcast until this month. The second aspect of the legislation concerned cable and satellite operators. Even more vaguely worded, this part of the law states that cable and satellite operators must broadcast viewer produced programs if there is demand and there is no special reason to refuse it.
   
   The Korean Broadcasting Commission (like the FCC) was given the responsibility for making sense out of this portion of the law. Rather than improving it, they seemed to have made it worse, deciding that cable and satellite operators can edit program before showing them (provided they discuss the changes with the producers and they do not alter the basic meaning of the programme). In addition, they can refuse tapes with "illegal" content.
   
   In Korea, illegal content can mean a lot of things (including saying anything positive about North Korea). This aspect of the law has not had any test cases yet and still seems to need some work. But more importantly, this anyhow provided a starting point to make the regional community TV structure.
   
   
   
2. Media centre
   After two year negotiation between Association of Korean independent film and videomakers (KIFV), and Korean Film Commission (KFC), finally the contract was made on Seoul Media Center the offical name is Media Access Centre Media ACT. (www.mediact.org - still just in Korean) KFC provided 2 million dollars as an initial budget to establish the centre to KIFV. The location of the centre will be at downtown Seoul (centre of the downtown) and the agenda for this centre is to serve the public in the non-profit area of public access and independent film and videomaking. The centre will have 80 seat lecture room, 20 seat digital editing lecture and screening room, 8 digital editing sets, 11 DV cameras, 3 film editing sets, 10 seat seminar room, sound production room, subtitle room, lighting equipment, sound equipment and will provide the various training programs and also the space for training programs by other organisations, low cost camera and editing facilities which can be used by public, etc. The executive committee of Seoul Media Center appointed me as a president.
   
   Also for the past one year, there have been a lot of activites to establish the media center locally. And maybe two three cities will establish centres similar to Seoul Media Center which will be a local hub for media activism and community TV. PRISM is responsible for information research and networking for these activitites.
   
   
   
3. Rapidly growing workers video collective activities.
   Since 1992 when LNP provided the first training programs for rank and file workers, a lot of workers video collectives have been made. As you can see from the following festival report, these activities are entering the new stage. And one of the powerful technologies we use more are broadband. And the video shot by Daewoo workers video collective last April became a big scandal for the government because of the use of the broadband of workers with the help of Jinbo Net.

Labour film festival report - MJ kim

1. Introduction: During 6 days from 20th of November until 25th of November, the university hall located at downtown Seoul City Daehang-no was full of energy and enthusiasm of labour activists, independent film and videomakers, workers video collectives, and rank and file workers. (You can have access to the information on the festival such as introduction to each film, trailer, etc at www.lnp89.org/5th_SILFVF/index.html and we are very sorry that still the English information on Korean entries is not available - under construction).
   
   
2. Entries: Final entries were 25 programs in 7 sections. 12 of them are from foreign countries and Korean producers make 13 of them, 2 of them are dramas and others are documentaries. The total number of entries were fewer than last year but the total running time was more than that of last year, and we think the overall quality of the entries were the best comparing with the past 4 festivals, politically, aesthetically and technically. One of the characteristic of this year's festival was that the technical quality of workers video collective programs are much higher than the past (One of the reason for this is 3 semester free 8 week digital workshop for workers provided by Labour News Production this year) and many of the programs cover the issues such as contingent workers, immigrant workers, women workers who are the victims of Neoliberalistic globalisation.
   
   
3. Schedule and screening: Each entry was screened twice during daytime and evening time so that any workers who are on shift can come to see the films. We had some problems while reserving the location and had to postpone the festival a week later than originally scheduled. This is one of the reasons for Labour News Production to advocate the special theatre for independent film and videos funded by public funding Concerning the technical quality of the screening was great because BARCO (the company which is famous for digital TV projection in the industry) provided DLP projector.
   
   
4. Audience: Even concerning the audience, this year's festival was a great success although we can't have any financial success with free of charge on admission. The location has 200 seats and during the weekend, more than 300 people attended and some of the audience had to leave because of the lack of the seats although we tried hard to give them the space (We even put newspapers on the floor so that people can seat) Considering multiple viewing of some audience, we estimate the total audience as 3000 people for six days. The combination of the audience was diverse and exciting. There were documentary producers, wanna-be producers, students, workers video collective, immigrant workers (two groups ; teachers who are mostly from North America, and workers who are mostly from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Philippines), rank and files, producers working in broadcasting systems and union officials. And there was a lot of official and unofficial discussion and debate happened during the festival. For some Korea and screenings, the workers featured in that film came to the festival, so the discussion session between director, audience and characters were exciting and moving (Some of them made us shed tears, especially women contingent workers and Daewoo workers) It was interactive, political and most of all, the people had a lot of fun.
   
   
5. Finance: Because the festival was free of charge, the financial structure is always pretty bad. For this year, we got about 3,000 dollars from Korean Film Commission, 500 from democratic lawyers committee, 400 from Korea confederation of trade unions (KCTU) and 80 from trade union of Korean Film Commission. Although the whole cost (around 10,000) is more than the whole funding (Labour News Production has to raise more money for the shortage), this festival was possible with the enormous support from all the producers who provided us the programs free of charge and more than 30 volunteers who helped graphic design, translation, subtitling, administration, promotion, etc. And we really appreciate whole efforts of the people in Korea and around the world.

In conclusion, the festival was a great success and we are proud of our continuing efforts to protect and develop this kind of rare festival. But at the same time, we think there are more things that we can do for the next labour film festival and we will try our best. We already have some ideas for next year. In addition to regular programming, there can be a section on Spanish war, Retrospective, and we hope we can get some funding for inviting foreign producers, and above all we hope we can establish more stable information exchanging structure on labour video and film so that not only screen the films but also strengthen overall activities of labour video and film activism.

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