Saving the Information Commons: A New Public Interest Agenda in Digital Media

Abstract

"Sweeping changes in our nations communications infrastructure and markets over the past twenty years have radically changed the topography of the public sphere and democratic culture. But the mental maps which many people use to conceive the public interest in communications hark back to circa 1975, a time when the traditional broadcast model dominated and there were only three commercial television networks, cable TV consisted of community antennae to reach rural areas and even the VCR had not yet been unleashed. In the 1970s, the public interest in broadcasting was about the Fairness Doctrine, general content guidelines and public television subsidies."