Digital Destiny is one of the best books to date that seriously looks at the details and the consequences on the 1996 Telecommunications Act. For years people have been alluding to the 1996 Telecom Act and how it set the stage for the current media ownership battles, but Jeff Chester (Center for Digital Democracy) provides information as to how that telecom policy was crafted and who the players were.
Too often the current policy battles are framed in a partisan debate when, as Chester points out, the policy is market driven. The book does a great job at looking at past and current FCC commissioners and how there is a revolving door between government and big media. One example is that of William Kennard, who was appointed by Clinton and eventually became the FCC chair. When Kennard left in 2001 he went to work for the Carlyle Group's Global Telecommunications and Media Group. The Carlyle Group is a major political player and has strong ties to the military industrial complex. Chester documents that FCC commissioners are lobbied by big media and then go work for them in order to continue to lobby the FCC for more of the media pie.
This revolving door is bi-partisan according to Chester and was evident in the first term of the Clinton administration. In 1993, Clinton created the National Information Infrastructure (NII) since the Internet was fast becoming part of the media landscape. Deregulation was part of the plan early on with Al Gore stating "the Administration will support removal of judicial and legislative restrictions on all types of telecommunications companies: cable, telephone, utilities, television and satellite. Market forces replace regulations and judicial models that are no longer appropriate." In addition to the administration's acceptance of the deregulation model, media companies spent millions on lobbying to make sure that the specifics of the 1996 Telecom Act would put in place their plans for consolidation.
The book also exposes one of the more insidious outcomes of market forces dictating media use. In a section Chester calls The Brandwashing of America, he points out how the Internet has intentionally become the next major tool for targeting the public with advertising. Because of the electronic nature of the Internet, companies are able to track what sites you visit, and what consumer decision you make online. An example of how media companies use the digital technology to attract advertisers is explained by Chester with what Comcast offers on its webpage. "Comcast assures marketers that the latest in research is used to more accurately target audiences for advertisers, enabling them to collect the following: target audience identification/confirmation, purchase behaviors of your target, lifestyle activities of your target, viewing habits of your target by geographical region, and advertising activity of your competitors."
The other major area that Chester examines is the dangerous consequences with the merging and partnerships between telephone and cable companies. Companies like AT&T and Comcast are now positioning themselves to become the new media cartels that will control the means of communication in the broadband era. We have already seen the outcome of this merger with legislation that has in effect eliminated public access TV as we have reported on this site in late 2006.
The book ends with what Chester calls a "policy agenda for the broadband era." This is the weakest part of the book, which seems to be the case with other elements within the Media Reform movement, which is heavy on analysis, but low on concrete tactics and strategies for change. While some of the ideas are important, such as the idea of a "non-commercial media commons" there is not much offered other than creating legislative policy. It would have been refreshing to see a variety of ideas and practices from groups like the Prometheus Radio Project and the Oakland based Youth Media Council. This is in essence the difference between the media reform movement and the media justice movement.
Jeff Chester, Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy, (The New Press, 2007).
