Bob Devine

Bob Devine was a teacher, community media advocate, public access strategist, and longtime Antioch College leader whose work helped connect media education with democratic practice. As one of the founding faculty members of Antioch's critical communications, film, and video program, he taught generations of students to understand media not only as production, but as culture, politics, public speech, and social change. His influence reached beyond the classroom through students and colleagues who carried Antioch's media-for-democracy values into access centers, documentary work, organizing, and community television.

Bob's work also moved directly through the community media field. He was involved in public access and participatory democratic media, including policy planning, system design, community ascertainment, and access system development in places such as Dallas, Milwaukee, and Manhattan. He served as Interim Executive Director of Manhattan Neighborhood Network, contributed to Community Media Review, served on the Alliance for Community Media board, and later became president of Antioch College. Bob's contribution belongs to the intellectual and movement-building side of community media: the people who taught the field to see access as more than channels and equipment, but as a way communities could practice democracy.