Key policy issues facing communities today
I think there are a couple of key policy issues facing communities today: net neutrality, threats to cable franchise fees, media deregulation, and campaign finance.
Net neutrality affects communities because it affects the free flow of information on the Internet. The major telecoms want to have control over what content is transmitted over their systems. This is something like a telephone company wanting to control what we can say in our telephone conversation. If the telecoms succeed in gaining control over information transmitted over their networks, they can charge fees for access to content, and limit transmission speeds for data that doesn’t support their interests. This limits the free flow of information and ideas essential to the “public sphere”. Communities rely on freely flowing information in order to assemble and accomplish their goals. Limiting this will severely limit the effectiveness of community organizations to have their viewpoints heard and considered.
Threats to cable franchise fees would devastate many of the community media organizations that exist today. A large amount of the funding for public access television comes from franchise fees and, in many communities, this is the only form of community media that exists. Cable companies argue that the Internet provides the access to media distribution that the public access channels were supposed to provide and that the public access channels and their funding are no longer necessary. This argument neglects the fact that many of the people served by public access and community media stations do not have consistent access to the Internet (if they have access at all).
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 removed some of the regulation that kept the mainstream media representative of the public. The Act allowed major media companies to consolidate. Ultimately it reduced competition and removed many of the minority owned media companies from the market altogether. The free market ultimately favors monopolization and monopolization in the media reduces that chances for public discourse and community formation. The major media companies would love to have more of the regulations surrounding their business removed so that they can further their choke-hold on the media diet in America. Further deregulation would be a disaster for communities because it would further reduce the opportunities for community formation, interaction, and dissemination of information.
Finally, I think that campaign finance is a major policy issue facing communities today. The problems mentioned above stem from government policies. Deregulation, destruction of net neutrality, and the repeal of cable franchise fees are all decisions that would be made by legislators. Campaign finance rules provide too much influence to big business. When it comes to media issues, the big businesses are major media companies. These companies provide substantial funding to politicians in order to put them in office. In return, the expect that the politician will support their position on any issues that concern them. In a sense, the major media companies are buying the government decisions that will support their business interests. This has serious consequences for communities. When the people elect officials because the media tells them to (which is how all politicians win elections today) and those politicians feel indebted to the media companies, there is little chance that the public will win on issues where the public interest differs from media company interests. If the media companies constantly win, they can suppress any community activities they feel run contrary to their profit base. Any community activity that pulls people away from the TV, Movies, Radio, etc. for real community interaction will eventually hit media companies’ bottom line if it catches on with enough people. Therefore, it is in the media companies’ best interests to prevent the formation of strong communities. They may not have thought it out that far but they effectively do this by treating community media as their competition and lobbying politicians to favor mainstream media over public and community media. Campaign finance reform could return the power to the people and prevent the major media companies from dictating policy that hurts community. That is why I think that campaign finance is a major policy issue facing communities today.
