Paper Tiger Television is an open media collective dedicated to raising media literacy and challenging corporate control over broadcast medium. Based in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, Paper Tiger was founded in 1981.

Paper Tiger Television (PTTV) is a non-profit organization made up of volunteers and run as a collective

Collective

A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together on a specific project to achieve a common objective...

 in response to systems of hierarchical power.

The collective celebrated its 25th anniversary on October 11, 2007 with a premiere of the video Paper Tiger Reads Paper Tiger Television at the Anthology Film Archives

History

Paper Tiger Television grew out of the Public-access television

Public-access television

Public-access television is a form of non-commercial mass media where ordinary people can create content television programming which is cablecast through cable TV specialty channels...

 series, Communications Update, which ran on Manhattan Cable TV. The first Paper Tiger programs featured communications scholar Herbert Schiller

Herbert Schiller

Herbert Irving Schiller was an American media critic, sociologist, author, and scholar. He earned his PhD in 1960 from New York University....

 reading the venerable New York Times the "steering mechanism of the ruling class."

Programs

The complete catalog of over 500 programs can be found at the Paper Tiger Television website.http://papertiger.org/search/video/results/all

Herb Schiller Reads The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

: The Steering Mechanism of the Ruling Class, 1981

Natalie Didn't Drown: Joan Braderman Reads The National Enquirer, 1982

Tuli Kupferberg

Tuli Kupferberg

Naphtali "Tuli" Kupferberg was an American counterculture poet, author, cartoonist, pacifist anarchist, publisher and co-founder of the band The Fugs.-Biography:...

 Reads Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

: Always Smile When You Give 'em the Shaft, Oct. 13, 1982

Bill Tabb

Bill Tabb

Bill Tabb is a retired American professional wrestler, known by his ringname The Black Assassin, who competed in North American regional promotions including the American Wrestling Alliance and National Wrestling Alliance, specifically Florida Championship Wrestling and Jim Crockett Promotions...

 Reads US News & World Report: Disrobing the Economy, May 26, 1982

Archie Singham Reads Foreign Policy: A Look at the Old Boy's Network, May 4, 1983

Joel Kovel

Joel Kovel

Joel Kovel is an American politician, academic, writer, and eco-socialist. A practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst until the mid-1980s, he has lectured in psychiatry, anthropology, political science and communication studies. He has published many books on his work in psychiatry,...

 Reads Life Magazine: It's a New Life, Painting a Corpse, Sept. 21, 1983

Stanley Aronowitz

Stanley Aronowitz

Stanley Aronowitz is professor of sociology, cultural studies, and urban education at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is also a veteran political activist and cultural critic and an advocate for organized labor.-Social Text:...

 Reads The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

: A Timely Look at Labor, 1983

Elayne Rapping

Elayne Rapping

Elayne Antler Rapping is a nationally known critic and analyst of popular culture and social issues. She is the author of several books covering topics such as media theory, popular culture, women's issues, and the portrayal of our legal system on television...

 Swoons to Romance Novels, 1983

Richie Perez Watches Fort Apache: The Bronx, 1983

Patty Zimmerman Reads Variety

Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

: Hooray for Hollywood, June 20, 1984

Pearl Bowser Looks at Early Black Cinema: The Legacy of Oscar Micheaux, 1984

Renee Tajima Reads Asian Images in American Film: Charlie Chan

Charlie Chan

Charlie Chan is a fictional Chinese-American detective created by Earl Derr Biggers in 1919. Loosely based on Honolulu detective Chang Apana, Biggers conceived of the benevolent and heroic Chan as an alternative to Yellow Peril stereotypes, such as villains like Fu Manchu...

 Go Home!, 1984

Marc Crispin Miller Reads Cigarette Ads: Lots More Ifs, Ands & Butts, 1985

Jean Franco

Jean Franco

Jean Franco is a British-born academic and literary critic known for her pioneering work on Latin American literature. Educated at Manchester and London, she has taught at London, Essex , and Stanford, and is currently professor emerita at Columbia University.-Research:Jean Franco's research is...

 Reads Mexican Novelas: Adios Machismo! Hola Maquilladora, 1985

Flo Kennedy Reads U.S. Press on South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

: The Hair in the Milk, Feb. 1985

Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...

 Reads The New York Times: Seeking Peace in the Middle East, June 1985

Thulani Davis Asks, Why Howard Beach?: Racial Violence and the Media, Jan. 21, 1987

Born To Be Sold: Martha Rosler

Martha Rosler

Martha Rosler is an American artist. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, where she now lives. She graduated from Brooklyn College and the University of California, San Diego . Rosler works in video, photo-text, installation, and performance, as well as writing about art and culture...

 Reads the Strange Case of Baby S/M, 1988

Class Dismissed: featuring Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn was an American historian, academic, author, playwright, and social activist. Before and during his tenure as a political science professor at Boston University from 1964-88 he wrote more than 20 books, which included his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United...

 and James Loewen

James Loewen

James W. Loewen is a sociologist, historian, and author whose best-known work is Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong .-Early life and career:...

, 2004

Stuart Ewen

Stuart Ewen

Stuart Ewen is a New York-based author, historian and lecturer on media, consumer culture and the compliance profession. He is also a Distinguished Professor at Hunter College and the City University of New York Graduate Center, in the departments of History, Sociology and Media Studies...

 Reads The New York Post: Fantasy, Morality and Authority, 1982

External links

• Paper Tiger Television's Home Page
• Paper Tiger Bloggi-Vision Paper Tiger TV's Videoblog
• Paper Tiger Television Review 1992 exhibit at San Francisco Art Institute
• Dueling Dancers at Paper Tiger TV's 25 Year Anniversary Video clip of performance from 25 Year Anniversary
• Paper Tiger Television in the Video Data Bank