Electronic Information as a Commons: The Issue of Access

Abstract

"Existing regulatory frameworks for the traditional mass media (television, radio, print) are ill- suited to the new information environment because they fail to encompass the interactive nature of the new information and communications technologies that comprise the Internet. These earlier frameworks emphasize the function of media as 'transmission,' with information flowing in one direction, from very few media outlets to the mass media consumers. The Internet, however, enables a high degree of participation, with multi-direction information flows, in which the behaviors of a great many participants can have broad effect on many others. Existing frameworks also emphasize location and place in regulatory policy for media, but the Internet operates on a global level with almost no regard for physical geography or national borders.

"An analysis of the Internet as a commons has the potential to shift the basis of analysis from this existing framework to one that examines more closely the roles and behaviors of participants, and the effects of their collective actions. A new framework for analyzing the Internet as a commons would focus on the exchange of information and on the activity of participants as both producers and consumers of information. Such a framework can help policy makers understand the complexity of this multifaceted information exchange, and thereby to draft policy that promotes or protects the many types of communications activities that take place in this new information environment, with specific attention to the importance of access to the Internet and ideas related to 'deliberate democracy' and collective action situations."