Sustaining Democracy in a Digital Age

This post was originally published on the blog of the National Alliance for Media Art + Culture.

Guest post by Rob McCausland

"Do we need PEG anymore?" asked Ellen Goodman in an FCC Future of Media hearing she co-moderated last April. Panelists Joaquin Alvarado and Nan Rubin responded, in so many words, yes. Another response however could be added from the countless municipalities who use community access cable TV day-in and day-out to present live and repeat coverage of various government meetings to their residents.

At a Nov. 30 event at Columbia University, “Big Media: Pro and Con,” Journalism School Dean Nicholas Lemann analogized media policy to a football field: Just as the size and shape of the field dictates the way the game is played, so too does media policy dictate the development of American telecommunications. And on the heels of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s announcement last week of a new net neutrality proposal, we see more clearly than ever that government legislation and regulation are crucial to this field. In that vein, Columbia Journalism School Prof. Richard R. John’s book Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications, published in May, makes the case that policy intervention has been commonplace throughout American history with a sweeping survey of the history of electrical communications from the early Republic to the modern day.

Each day as we log on to the Internet, use our cell phones for more than just talking, watch television, and connect on social networks, we are part of a small group of giants.