❮ Projects page PhillyCAM

Spatial Analysis Project:

Community media centers play an important role as places where people from diverse backgrounds come together to learn to tell their stories through media. PhillyCAM’s methodology fosters an environment that promotes public discourse, explores issues in-depth and seeks to build more informed and engaged communities by connecting people through media production and distribution.

When researchers from the University of Texas looked at the impact of public access TV on frequent viewers, they discovered that minority and less educated viewers had significantly more social capital as compared with those who didn’t regularly view public access TV. This project will map data about PhillyCAM members, makers, donors, and viewers to attempt to show a correlation that in neighborhoods where high numbers of people are making or viewing hyper local media there is also an elevated level of engagement in community building activities and high voter turnout.

Data available:

• CiviCRM database of over 4000 current/lapsed PhillyCAM members & donors.
• Database of PhillyCAM nearly 1000 pieces of member content tagged by zipcode and content type.
• 5000 responses from an online survey of Philadelphia residents re: their cable viewing habits
• Open Street Maps Data infrastructure, schools, libraries, rec centers
• Census/ sociodemographic data for each neighborhood
• 2017 Election results by ward

Maps and Reports that will be created:

PhillyCAM is committed to serving the entire city and building an engaged constituency of people often left out or misrepresented by mainstream media including people of color, working people, sexual minorities, people with disabilities and young people. We believe that people who make, watch and/or listen to locally produced community media are more civically engaged. We want a map that visually demonstrates our impact and indentifies neighborhoods where we need to do more. The proposed spatial analysis project, will help identify:

• Neighborhoods within Philadelphia that have the highest concentration of PhillyCAM producers and productions.
• What type of media content is being produced and how does it advance our mission.
• Which active PhillyCAM producers reside in each Council district.
• Analyze what the barriers (income, language, education) are in accessing our programs.

How the maps and reports will be used:

It is our assertion that PhillyCAM facilitates the creation and cablecast of locally produced public access television and low power FM radio that reflects the diverse social, political, ethnic, and artistic communities found in Philadelphia. Our programming gives a direct voice to all neighborhoods, groups, and points of view that exist in such a diverse and vibrant city.

There are no specific figures regarding viewership of our channel since we do not subscribe to costly services such as Nielson. In a recent authenticated phone survey, conducted by the City of Philadelphia related to cable television service, responses indicated that 14% of all respondents who were cable subscribers watched PhillyCAM at least once a week. ESPN typically rates a 33% in similar surveys. The map and report will help us refine our communications and engagement strategies to go deeper into neighborhoods where we have not yet had any impact.