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When the U.S. Congress created the Federal Radio Commission in 1927, what we now call cyberspace was just "ether." Broadcasting had only begun to carry tinny human voices and music across the fields and prairies, while Sunday afternoon phone calls to Aunt Mabel snaked through wires below, courtesy ...

When the U.S. Congress created the Federal Radio Commission in 1927, what we now call cyberspace was just "ether." Broadcasting had only begun to carry tinny human voices and music across the fields and prairies, while Sunday afternoon phone calls to Aunt Mabel snaked through wires below, courtesy of an army of operators who switched each circuit by hand. It didn't take long, though, for the wires and airwaves to fill up with untrammeled chatter, so much so that by 1934 after complaints by the Navy that ship to shore communications had become hopelessly chaotic, and under the unproved but widely held belief that the broadcast spectrum was a finite natural resource all federal authority over electronic communications was forged into a new, powerful Federal Communications Commission. The amount of information traversing the airwaves has increased a million fold since 1927, but has the FCC changed along with the technology? The answer, according to Peter W. Huber, in Law and Disorder in Cyberspace: Abolish the FCC and Let Common Law Rule the Telecosm, is an emphatic No. In this well researched, lively, even witty polemic, Huber recounts the history of telecommunications over the last century to argue that the FCC "should have been extinguished years ago." With scarcity of communications channels no longer an issue, and the virtual elimination of distinctions between carriage and broadcast,the Commission's anachronistic laws have no basis for existence, and have in fact impeded growth and progress to the tune of billions of lost dollars. Today, the "telecosm," that complex universe of invisible communications traffic, has expanded, supplanted, and subdivided itself many times over with each new technological breakthrough. Cable television, direct broadcast satellite, cell phones, the V chip, Caller ID, personal computers, and the Internet have transformed the world. Huber argues that large bureaucratic entities like the FCC fail to adjust to such rapidly changing technologies because they see their mission as maintaining the status quo, and that instead of preserving the rights of common citizens they actually favor rich monopolies. Addressing charged points of conflict such as free speech vs. censorship, privacy vs. right to know, and market vs. controlled pricing, Law and Disorder in Cyberspace energetically proposes that sensible national telecommunications policies evolve through common law--the accretion of decisions arrived at in specific cases where basic principles such as private property and fair business practice are challenged and upheld--and not through the top down, government imposition of inflexible regulatory mandates created in the vacuum of uninformed, theoretical disussion. Given the heated climate on Capitol Hill surrounding debate over ways to reduce federal spending, Peter Huber's arguments are timely, urgent, and meticulously documented. Law and Disorder in Cyberspace is not only informative and entertaining, but will be one of those rare books that will influences public policy before the end of this decade.

Media Diversity: Economics, Ownership, and the FCC provides a detailed analysis of the regulation of diversity and its impact on the structure and practices within the broadcast television industry. As deregulation is quickly changing the media landscape, this volume puts the changing structure of ...

Media Diversity: Economics, Ownership, and the FCC provides a detailed analysis of the regulation of diversity and its impact on the structure and practices within the broadcast television industry. As deregulation is quickly changing the media landscape, this volume puts the changing structure of the industry into perspective through the use of an insider's point of view to examine how policy and programming get made. Author Mara Einstein blends her industry experience and academic expertise to examine diversity as a media policy, suggesting that it has been ineffective and is potentially outdated, as study after study has found diversity regulations to be wanting. In addition to reviewing diversity research on the impact of minority ownership, regulation of cable and DBS, duopolies, ownership of multiple networks, and cross ownership of media on program content, Einstein considers the financial interest and syndication rules as a case study, due to their profound effects on the structure of the television industry. She also poses questions from an economic perspective on why the FCC regulates structure rather than content. Through the presentation of her research results, she argues persuasively that the consolidation of the media industry does not affect the diversity of entertainment programming, a conclusion with broad ramifications for all media and for future research about media monopolies. This volume serves as a defining work in its examination of the intersection of regulation and economics with media content. It is appropriate as a supplemental text in courses on communication policy, broadcast economic and media management, broadcast programming, political economy of the mass media, and media criticism at the advanced and graduate level. It is also likely to interest broadcast professionals, media policymakers, communication lawyers, and academics. It is a must-read for all who are interested in the media monopoly debate.