Is pubcasting open enough to new media?

Pubcasting blogger John Proffitt today tackles “Closed vs. Open: Why Public Media Struggles With New Media.” The two types “are philosophically different, possibly opposed. One embraces community, drawing in participation and ‘hosting’ conversation and engagement. The other treats the public as a media receiver. Sure, there are some middle grounds here, but this is a big difference that has powered, silently, a lot of conversations in which I’ve participated, without realizing it. No wonder we struggle with this. No wonder there’s both dismissal of the new as irrelevant to the mission and nevertheless pitched battles over who will control the social network engagements, who gets or shares in the online revenue, and how and when content will or won’t appear online. We’ve been experiencing the ‘misery and failure’ of a closed system trying to adopt an open one, not understanding why it’s not working.” He’s quoting journalism prof Jay Rosen, who says that “Open systems don’t work like closed systems; if you expect them to you’ll get nothing but misery and failure.”