As a lifelong public television viewer and current employee at Seattle’s KCTS 9 public television station, I’ve often heard the Public Broadcasting System’s (PBS) popular tagline, “Viewers Like You” to demonstrate its gratitude to viewers who support or directly contribute to the production of programming. However, as the traditional top-down dissemination model of public television is replaced with an open, many-to-many networked media model, this tagline could change to “Participants Like You” to more accurately reflect today’s public media.
This paper focuses on the strong relationship between public television and education—a relationship fueled by technology. I invite you to read my research on the past, present and future of PBS as America’s largest digital classroom.
