A Ten-Point Plan for Media Democracy

A TEN-POINT PLAN FOR MEDIA DEMOCRACY
[SOURCE: The Nation, AUTHOR: Jeffrey Chester]
[Commentrary] Ten years after the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, digital technologies are rapidly reshaping the country's communications system. It will be the most powerful media environment ever created -- always "on" with connections via PCs, digital TVs and an array of mobile devices, delivering a torrent of personalized, interactive and virtual content, much of it coming from the nation's most powerful traditional and new media companies. The next several years are critical to insure that the promise of what we now experience online -- and its vast potential to help build a just civil society -- is fulfilled. With Congress poised to pass legislation that rewrites key parts of the Telecom Act, the following ten action items should be on any media reform agenda: 1) media ownership, 2) mergers, 3) network neutrality, 4) spectrum management, 5) community broadband, 6) privacy, 7) intellectual property, 8) universal service, 9) diverse content and 10) minority ownership.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060703/chester