Goldie Burns

Goldie "Red" Burns was one of the early architects of public access and participatory media, a teacher and media innovator who helped people imagine technology as something communities could use, not simply consume. At NYU, she co-founded the Alternate Media Center with George Stoney, creating one of the important early homes for public access training, video experimentation, and citizen media. The Center helped ordinary people learn to use portable video and helped make the case that cable television could serve public voice, not only commercial programming or government communication.

Goldie's work reached beyond television channels into a wider vision of communication as public life. During the 1970s, she designed and directed telecommunications projects that included two-way television for senior citizens, applications serving people with developmental disabilities, and one of the early teletext field trials in the United States. Those projects carried the same belief that shaped public access: technology mattered most when it helped people connect, learn, solve problems, and express themselves.

Her later leadership of NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program extended that legacy into the digital era, influencing generations of artists, designers, technologists, storytellers, and public-interest media makers. Goldie's place in community media is foundational because she helped join training, experimentation, social purpose, and imagination. She understood that access was never only about having equipment. It was about what people could do once someone trusted them with the tools.