Continuing crisis in public broadcasting: A history of disenfranchisement

The history of federal policy for U.S. public broadcasting is reviewed. The conventional accounts of the pre‐1967 period are reinterpreted from critical cultural studies perspectives, raising new questions about the significance of the Communications Act, the FCC's reservations policy, and the educational broadcasting era. The 1967 and subsequent financing laws are related to that earlier history and to recurrent problems involving the public, new technologies, and commercialization, demonstrating how the recent difficulties are part of a chronic minimalist policy pattern towards public service broadcasting.