After discovering the attempt made by Sky Vivo to produce participatory television in Italy, I kept thinking that was nothing new, and I remembered reading a post by Robin Good, one of my favorite blogs, in 2005 about Nessuno TV, wonderful italian experiment of participatory channel, dating back to 2002, 4 year earlier than Al Gore’s Current TV.
In this post, Robin Good describes a “virtual talk show” presented by Nessuno TV, with real guests in the studio and other guests on screens inside the studio interacting via webcam. The program was broadcasted in streaming and on satellite TV at the same time.
What I am trying to point out is how grassroots production most of the time leads the way for mainstream communication, and, like in Maurizio Costanzo’s case, how can we preserve the potential of the new communication methods so that they promote better communication, better understanding, a more democratic approach to media, and avoid cross media to be used just as a gimmick to add a novelty flavor to an otherwise very conventional approach to television.