From Franklin to Facebook: The Civic Mandate for Communications (original) (raw)

It has become a cliche to predict that the most fundamental innovations in information technology in the twenty-first century will originate in the garage of some teenage entrepreneur. While this prediction is intuitively appealing, it is almost certainly wrong. N o one can predict the future, and forecasting is notoriously inexact. Yet we will have a better chance of avoiding detours, wrong turns, and traffic jams if we have in front of us a road map of where we have been. In the past two centuries, the vast aggregations of power and authority known informally as "big government" have exerted a potent and enduring influence on communications networks in the United States. Three governmental institutions have been especially consequential: the postal system; the regulatory agency; and the Internet. The postal system and the Internet are federal institutions; regulatory agencies, in contrast, have derived their authority not only f rom the federal government but also f rom ...