Working group focuses on communications policy for new administration

WORKING GROUP FOCUSES ON COMMUNICATIONS POLICY FOR NEW ADMINISTRATION
[SOURCE: The Pennsylvania State University]
The Future of American Communications Working Group, a group of Penn State faculty members and colleagues from across the country, is working on an outline -- as well as the practical steps necessary for implementation -- of a new U.S. communications policy for the next Administration. Supported by a $75,000 grant from the Media Democracy Fund, the Working Group plans to produce a volume outlining a comprehensive telecommunications policy agenda for the federal administration to be entering office in January 2009. That agenda will emphasize the potential of information technologies for improving democratic discourse, social responsibility and the quality of life. It will specify the means by which those technologies can be made available to all Americans. The volume produced by the working group will include a comprehensive vision for the United States as a 21st-century information society that is both internally inclusive and globally competitive; an analysis of the reasons for the failure of the previously most ambitious attempt at rewriting American telecommunications policy (the Telecommunications Act of 1996); and an international benchmark and best practices survey. It will address issues such as: public service media; network neutrality; universal broadband policy; rural connectivity; universal service funding mechanisms; media ownership; minority ownership; municipal networks; spectrum policy; access, unbundling and structural separation; wireless and mobile services; and media ethics regarding matters such as product placement, "fake news" and the fairness doctrine. A concluding chapter will summarize and contextualize the recommendations in the various fields and present them in the form of a plan for action.
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