Adam Fish
Anthropology
UCLA
Current TV, VC2 Producer

Class and Competency in Internet/Television Production Cultures

The topic for this paper is Current TV, a US/UK/Italy cable television/internet news network founded by US Vice President Al Gore in 2005. Based on ethnographic work as a freelance producer, I discern Current as having a conflict and complicity of two identities, one a brand and another a class-based material reality. (1) The corporation’s public identity or brand is self-conceived around internet/television convergence and citizen journalism. (2) Producers’ identities are positioned within the professional managerial class (PMC). I intend to provide evidence that the brand and the class are both complementary and antagonistic. The PMC identity works well with the convergent/citizen journalism identity in an emergent youth-centered new media market requiring technological sophistication and political engagement. Contradictions exist, however, between the homogeneity of these young PMC media professionals and Current’s mandate for freelance multicultural producers and content. I claim that the democratization of the modes of media production, a corporate and activistic goal of the architects at Current, is stifled by the elitist habitus of the viewer/producers, both in-house and freelance.