The Internet and U. S. Communication Policy-Making in Historical and Critical Perspective: McChesney

Two oppositional and epoch-defining trends dominate U.S. and global media and communication. On one hand, there have been both rapid corporate concentration and commercialization of media industries. The proposed 1995 mergers of Disney with Capital Cities/ABC and Time Warner with Turner Broadcasting, as well as the sale of CBS to Westinghouse, highlight this trend. Most business analysts expect even more merger and buyout activity, leading to as few as six to ten colossal conglomerates dominating global communication before the market stabilizes (Stille, 1995). According to some political theorists, this rampant commercialization of communication poses a severe challenge to the social capacity to generate a democratic political culture and public sphere (Habermas, 1989). Virtually all known theories of political democracy would suggest that such a concentration of media and communication in a handful of mostly unaccountable interests is little short of an unmitigated disaster. On the other hand, newly developed computer and digital communication technologies can undermine the ability to control communication in a traditionally hierarchal manner. The most dramatic development along these lines has been the Internet, which permits inexpensive, global, interactive, and mass computer communication, as well as access to a previously unimaginable range of information. The Internet has been alternately described as a “functioning anarchy” that is virtually impossible to control from a centralized command post (Lipson, 1995) and “a grass-roots, bottom-up system” (Flowers, 1995, p. 24). Kapor (1994) notes the historical significance of what is now termed cyberspace: “Instead of a small number of groups having privileged positions as speakers-broadcast networks and powerful newspapers-we are entering an era of communication of the many to the many…the nature of the technology itself has opened up a space of much greater democratic possibility.” The executive director of the Internet Society characterizes the Internet as “a profound turning point in the evolution of human communication-of much greater significance than the creation of the printing press” (Flowers, 1995, p. 26). The long-term trend toward corporate concentration derives from the core logic of capitalism and is presently the dominant force of the two. My fundamental question, then, is to what extent can the emerging communication technological revolution, particularly the Internet, override the antidemocratic implications of the media marketplace and foster more democratic media and a more democratic political culture? This issue is addressed here as a matter of communication policy-making, concentrating upon the U.S. experience. In the first section I locate the current communication policy debates in the broad tradition of U.S. political history and discuss how corporate control of communication has been effectively removed from these debates. This is especially true in the 1990s, as Congress, the White House, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) address how best to develop the information highway. This presupposition of corporate, for-profit control reduces the range of legitimate policy debates to tangential issues. According to this premise, corporate control of communication should be maximized and the technological possibilities for decentralized, citizen communication should remain minimized, except where profitable. I argue for genuine, democratic, public participation in communication policy-making, with the aim of establishing nonmarket mechanisms to achieve socially determined goals. In the second section I take up the claim that the traditional policy concerns outlined in the first section are irrelevant for the new computer communication technologies, because these technologies have such a powerful intrinsic democratic bias that the traditional issue over who should control is address this I locate the of the new technologies in the of global corporate capitalism and the democracy and I argue that the new communication technologies in the and a of a global capitalism that social the Internet and the information to democratic the of policy now I Internet and communication to the historical of the in the technologies suggest that develop along The Internet has more as an of democratic communication, and the issue before is how much of that be I that the policy the emerging communication be a of in the are to the democratic of these The communication a challenge to the of communication in the and as the global and the communication are in the of a communication and in the are a The communication toward communication in the the of the for Two of fundamental political the development of communication The first who control the technology and for what The to this who control the new technology and what be In the of U.S. for a few to control the for the of which would be the the development of a a that which in most of The second of with the and political of the new communication technology the and the new communication technology is The to the first of policy the to the second In much of communication this second of to the communication and would The in point would be the the of the the second of policy be to would to be of how a communication technology is and have that are and and in to the culture of U.S. in the and has a upon the nature of and public The which these can be as The more a is democratic, the more that policy debates the and development of communication technologies be and of how democratic the these and be in one a of dominate a political dominate communication and the first of policy even be to is and has been with the in for the most with business interests in this The is in the of a fundamental of communication as the information the era of the This is a era because of the and in because these new digital and computer technologies are to the traditional communication media and a of the the In the first of have and the to well the of development for the current communication the historical communication has to the political and of the and to a few are in this new era of the information highway. 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