Statement to the Federal Communications Commission Workshop on the Future of Media and Information Needs of Communities: Serving the Public Interest in the Digital Era, Paul Starr, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University

摘要

Thank you for the opportunity to bring a historical perspective to bear on the choices that America faces about the future of the media. At various times in our history, changes in politics or technology have opened up different alternatives for the media and confronted us with constitutive choices-core decisions-about the framework of communications. At those moments, Congress, the courts, and this and other executive agencies, as well as private organizations and citizens, have had to ask at the most basic level what values our laws, institutions, and technologies should embody. Now is such a time, as we are in the midst of one of the greatest upheavals in the history of communications. And so it makes sense to consider the experience of the past when Americans dealt with decisions of similar magnitude- sometimes wisely, and sometimes not so well.