Paper Tiger Television (PTTV) is a non-profit video collective founded in 1981. Collaborating with artists, activists, and scholars, it pioneered experimental, improvisational, innovative, satirical, and alternative community media to analyze popular culture and politics. An early innovator in video art and public access television, PTTV developed a unique, handmade, irreverent television aesthetic combining art, academics, politics, performance, and live television. Founded on the ideal that freedom of speech through access to the means of communication is essential for democracy, PPTV exposed corporate media’s hidden agendas and influence through irreverent, ultra-low budget, radical critique. It became the first nationally disseminated public access television program, featuring notable media critics and public intellectuals doing critical analysis of the media. It offered an innovative community media model that spurred the global do-it-yourself (DIY) media movement. Programs critically deconstruct the communications industry from print media to TV to movies, a necessary step towards more equitable and democratic control of information resources.