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US regulators preparing to auction airwaves craved by wireless providers to meet demand from data-hungry smartphones are facing a divisive choice: how much to devote instead to mobile service that can be free. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, who has pushed for broader access to high-speed Internet, backs a vision shared by Google and Microsoft of setting aside spectrum for mobile services not yet invented. He’s accused opponents of waging a “nascent war on Wi-Fi,” the aerial Internet connection found globally in coffee shops and offices. Airwaves withheld from the auction and allocated to new uses would mean fewer frequencies for established carriers. “The largest holders of spectrum have no interest in seeing new competition,” said Cathy Sloan, vice president of government relations with the Computer & Communications Industry Association.

The advent of President Obama’s second term marks a new era in American power politics.

Whereas the old left-wing definition of “who rules” focused on large corporations, banks, energy companies and agribusinesses, the Obama-era power structure represents a major transformation. This shift stems, in large part, from the movement from a predominately resource and tangible goods-based economy to an information-based one. In the past, political struggles were largely fought over how to divide up the spoils generated by the basic productive economy; labor, investors and management all shared a belief in the ethos of economic growth, manufacturing and resource extraction. In contrast, today’s new hegemons hail almost entirely from outside the material economy, and many come from outside the realm of the market system entirely.

Facebook spent nearly $4 million trying to influence Washington policymakers in 2012, the most the social networking company has spent on lobbying in its short history.

The company, which has come under increased scrutiny from regulators and Congress on its handling of users’ personal information, spent $1.4 million on lobbying in the fourth quarter of 2012. That's more than three times the amount Facebook spent during the same period a year ago, when the company’s lobbying spending totaled just $440,000. In total, Facebook nearly tripled the amount it spent on lobbying in all of 2012, up from $1.3 million in 2011. In the fourth quarter, Facebook lobbied lawmakers and federal agencies on a range of online privacy issues, such as protecting children's safety online and "Do Not Track" privacy policies, as well as high-skilled immigration reform, international regulation of software companies, cybersecurity and educating lawmakers on online advertising. Facebook also lobbied on issues regarding restrictions on Web access in foreign countries and protecting freedom of expression online.

Andy Carvin’s official title is Senior Strategist, Social Media Desk at National Public Radio, but that bureaucratic fog undercuts the scale of his work. More emphatically, The Columbia Journalism Review has called him a "living, breathing real-time verification system," while The Washington Post declared him “a one-man Twitter news bureau.” The Guardian described him as "the man who tweets revolutions," while The Daily Dot labeled him “Edward R. Murrow 2.0,” referencing the World War II-era radio broadcaster often cited as one of journalism’s most inspiring figures.

Whatever @acarvin’s doing, it has many observers reaching for superlatives. Fundamentally what he’s doing is quite simple: he tweets, and he retweets. A lot. Sometimes he goes 20 hours at a stretch, collating from those he follows and passing information on to his eighty thousand followers. He often interjects questions or critiques, building on what he’s read and recruiting fact-checkers. The result can be simultaneously cacophonous, intimate, and illuminating.