ABSTRACT

This article assesses the significance of the Gay Cable Network (GCN), a production company that aired a dozen shows on public access cable television made by and for LGBTQ New Yorkers. Drawing upon archival research and interviews with producers, hosts, and assistants at GCN, I argue that LGBTQ producers experience both transformational opportunities for political engagement as well as precarity, frustration, and loss through public access cable television production. I evaluate the social experience of television production to analyze what I am calling affective production value: a metric that establishes how community media production generates a range of powerful emotional experiences for its producers. I examine the daily experience of queer television production through GCN founder Lou Maletta’s tireless efforts to produce and distribute LGBTQ programming for more than twenty years as well as the continuing efforts of his contemporaries on Gay USA, an LGBTQ news program that still airs weekly. Examining cable access shows in terms of affective production value allows scholars to decenter normative standards of production quality in order to understand how local production generates meaning for its producers, offering us the opportunity to explore the personal and cultural impact of community television production.

摘要

本文评估了同性恋有线电视网络 (GCN) 的重要性，该制作公司在公共有线电视上播放了由 LGBTQ 纽约人制作并为其服务的十几部节目。根据档案研究以及对 GCN 制片人、主持人和助理的采访，我认为 LGBTQ 制片人在公共有线电视制作中既经历了政治参与的转型机会，也经历了不稳定、沮丧和损失。我评估电视制作的社会体验，以分析我所说的情感制作价值：一种衡量社区媒体制作如何为其制作者产生一系列强大情感体验的指标。《Gay USA》是一个 LGBTQ 新闻节目，仍然每周播出。从情感制作价值的角度审视有线电视节目，可以让学者们分散制作质量的规范标准，以便了解本地制作如何为其制作者产生意义，为我们提供了探索社区电视制作对个人和文化影响的机会。