From Franklin to Facebook: The Civic Mandate for Communications (original) (raw)
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On a Potential Paradox of a Public Service Internet
TripleC, 2024
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Government Information Quarterly, 1997
While accepting the importance of expanding the definition of universal service in the information age, this article forwards the argument that regulatory and rhetorical emphasis on telecommunications is skewing the policy debate and undermining the policy goals identified by Congress in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-104). The universal service provisions of the Act are critiqued in terms of their economic and social implications. The social objectives of expanding the definition of universal service are restated, and recommendations regarding their pursuit are offered. In the long run, improvements in technology are good for almost everyone. Technological progress is the fundamental engine of economic growth, and economic growth sooner or later raises incomes throughout a society.... Unfortunately, what is true in the long run need not be true over shorter periods. New technologies, even when they raise the productivity of the economy as a whole, can reduce the demand for once-valuable skills and thus gravely harm those whose incomes depend on those skills.' National Information Infrastructure: Agenda for Action* describes the Clinton administration's vision for creating a National Information Infrastructure (NII) to consist of "a seamless web of communications networks, computers, databases, and consumer
Library & Information Science Research, 1998
Passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and events leading up to it, brought to public attention a proposed National Information Infrastructure (NII) that would connect homes, businesses, universities, schools, and government offices. The policy discourse surrounding the Act reveals a variety of perspectives among stakeholders, including the Clinton administration, federal agencies, Congress, telephone companies, the computer industry, broadcast and cable TV companies, educators, and other interest groups. While there are many reports and commentaries on the NIT, few authors have tried to characterize the political viewpoints behind the public discourse. This article reviews more than 80 NIT-related documents, published from 1988 through 1997, and classifies their views and authors according to a two-dimensional typology by policy analyst William Dutton. Comparisons are made between those advocating Public versus Market leadership in NII development, and between Promotional and Restrictive statements regarding NII policy. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was a the most visible of a series of initiatives intended to create a proposed national infrastructure that would connect homes, businesses, universities, schools, and government offices through advanced telecommunications networks. Since 1988, hundreds of reports, articles and books have been written discussing, in some degree of depth, the resulting "Information Superhighway" and "National Information Infrastructure" (NIT). (Since the NIT-related literature is too large to review in this article, the reader is directed to other reviews, e.