[DMCA-Activists] Communication-Information Policy Activism: A New Environmentalism?

[Seth Johnson]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Citizen activism around communication-information policy: anew
environmentalism?
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 14:45:05 -0400
From: "Milton Mueller" <address@hidden>


================================
Research analyzing role of citizens' groups in shaping 
communication and information policy released.
================================


Communication and information policy (CIP) has taken its place  alongside
the environment as one of the main preoccupations of  lawmakers, according
to a new report by Syracuse University  professor Milton Mueller. The report
is titled "Reinventing Media  Activism: Public Interest Advocacy in the
Making of U.S.  Communication-Information Policy." 

The full report is available at http://dcc.syr.edu/ford/tnca.htm The
report's data on congressional testimony and public  interest organizations
will be downloadable from the project's  Web site.

The report traces the evolution of U.S. citizen advocacy from the  broadcast
licensing challenges of the late 1960s and 1970s through  the
telecommunication regulation reforms of the 1980s, the battles  over privacy
and Internet censorship of the 1990s and the conflicts  over digital
intellectual property and media concentration in the early  2000s.

"There are many parallels between the emerging citizens' activism  around
communication-information policy in the late 1990s and the  emergence of the
environmental movement during the 1960s," says  Mueller.

The report compiles data on how many public interest organizations  are
involved in CIP and how that population has changed over the  past four
decades. It also analyzes how many commercial and  professional interest
organizations are involved in CIP.

Key empirical findings of the study show how CIP has grown in  importance:

  * During the late 1990s and early 2000s, CIP replaced the  environment as
the policy domain of greatest congressional activity,  as measured by number
of hearings. 

   * From 1997-2001, the annual number of congressional hearings devoted to
CIP surged to approximately 100 per year.

   * The number of public interest advocacy organizations  focused on CIP
has not changed much since the 1980s, but the rise  of the Internet in the
mid-1990s brought a major change in  the nature of those organizations.
Organizations focused on  criticizing or regulating mass media content
declined in the late 1990s;  the new organizations that formed in the 1990s
and 2000s tend to be  focused on rights-oriented advocacy related to digital
technology, such  as privacy rights, First Amendment rights and rights to
fair use of  intellectual property.

   * In its measurement of congressional testimony by public interest 
groups, the study found that during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the 
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) dominated representation of  public
interest perspectives, accounting for 20 percent of all testimony  by public
interest groups on CIP topics. In the second half of the 1990s,  however,
organizations such as the Electronic Privacy Information  Center (EPIC), the
Consumers Union and Center for Democracy and  Technology (CDT) reached
parity with the ACLU.

   * The population of public interest advocacy organizations focused  on
CIP is overwhelmingly liberal in ideological orientation. Advocacy
organizations classified as liberal made up 68 percent of the total
population in the 2000s, up from 48 percent in the 1980s; the  conservative
share has declined from 21 percent in the 1980s to 13  percent today.

The research was supported by the Ford Foundation's Knowledge, Creativity
and Freedom Program.

The Convergence Center at SU supports research on and  experimentation with
media convergence. The Center is a joint effort of  the School of
Information Studies and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public  Communications.
Its mission is to understand the future of digital media  and to engage
students and faculty in the process of defining and shaping  that future. 

http://www.digital-convergence.org