Victor Pickard

This report proposes principles to guide contemporary media and communications policymaking in democratic countries seeking to improve the contributions those operations and systems make to society. It articulates statements of principles to inform the development of policy objectives and policy mechanisms and to provide consistency across varying issues, technologies, and actions by defining fundamental criteria that can be used to inform discussion and guide policy decisions.

This report steps back from specific policy measures to articulate principles that are relevant and applicable to a wide range of media and communications platforms, infrastructures, and activities addressed at the local, national, regional, and global levels. The purpose is to help policymakers and policy advocates think initially at a more principled level and then link policy objectives and tools to these normative foundations rather than merely seeking immediate problem solutions.

[Prof Robert G. Picard is a senior research fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at University of Oxford. Dr Victor Pickard is an associate professor at the Annenberg School forCommunication, University of Pennsylvania.]

[Commentary] In the coming weeks and months, we will hear from AT&T representatives that the merger with Time Warner will provide many public benefits. But the lessons from recent history should give us pause as to the veracity of these claims. Challenging this merger may provide a crucial test case for whether the era of digital media monopolies has begun to recede. But successfully turning the tide will require tremendous grassroots energy and organizing, including educational efforts that connect the dots between people’s daily grievances with their communication services and the excesses of corporate media power.

Poor service and outrageously high bills are the costs of living under lightly regulated media oligopolies—which is the broader context for why such a merger deserves close regulatory scrutiny from the Justice Department and from the Federal Communications Commission regarding, respectively, antitrust and public interest concerns. One corporation controlling so much production and distribution of news and entertainment media could raise prices and reduce media options for millions of consumers, and it could harm the information system that supports our democracy. America’s communication networks are already plagued by unnecessary costs and poor services, and this merger would likely make things worse.

[Victor Pickard is an Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication]

[Commentary] More than in any recent presidential race, the news media have become a central issue in the 2016 campaign. Some have complained about the way candidate Donald Trump has been given free access to media outlets while others have critiqued journalists for the job they have done as moderators of candidate debates. But, as Victor Pickard points out this month, the news media's primary goal is not to distribute information to the public but to garner ratings and revenues. Here, he traces the history of how profit undermined public service in the news media.

[Victor Pickard is an Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication.]

[Commentary] The DC Circuit Court’s decision to uphold the Federal Communications Commission’s 2015 reclassification of broadband as a telecommunications service was a big deal. Going forward, there’s now a meaningful protection against the abuse of Internet monopoly power (complexities related to plans like “zero-rating“ notwithstanding). But we should be clear about what this decision does not do. While it establishes a crucial safeguard and changes the larger conversation about the role of digital communications in a democratic society, it doesn’t strike at the core problem: corporate capture of the Internet. The decision doesn’t weaken the stranglehold that a handful of Internet firms hold over broadband and it doesn’t significantly lessen the digital divide.

In many ways, it was a defensive victory that undid past damage. The history of American media policy suggests there are three general ways to prevent commercial capture of a communication system:
1) Breaking up or preventing media monopolies and oligopolies (e.g., the FCC forcing NBC to divest itself of a major network in the 1940s, the establishment of media ownership restrictions, and antitrust action against AT&T in the 1980s).
2) Creating alternative public infrastructures (such as public broadcasting or community/municipal-owned broadband).
3) Mandating strong public interest protections (via the Equal Time Rule or restrictions on advertising).

Challenging corporate dominance of crucial infrastructure like the Internet will take long-term organizing and tremendous grassroots energy. What we know thus far about Hillary Clinton’s tech policy agenda suggests there’s room for improvement, especially in contesting corporate capture of the Internet. Confronting the structural roots of internet monopoly power will require the same commitment to democratic principles and the same activism that won net neutrality.

[Victor Pickard is an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication]