Thinking About Policy

COMS 225September 28, 2011

Why Does Policy Matter?

• It is an increasingly important site of deliberation and contestation as media and ICTs become a necessary ingredient in our everyday lives as we traverse our various and interrelated roles: as consumers, students, workers, family members, and citizens.

• Next slide – a variety of digital policy issues…

ACCESS CONTENT PRIVACY IP/COPYRIGHTOwnership(ISPs, mobile phone carriers)

Commercial-ization & advertising in online spaces

Collection & retention of personal information by online sites/ search engines

Terms & conditions on online sites

Net neutrality, ‘traffic shaping’ debates, UBB

Acceptable Use Policies (AUP): online, schools/universities

Third party marketing; data mining, surveillance in SNS

Peer2Peer file-sharing, downloading politics, piracy discourse

Community & public access (libraries, schools)

Data retention Obligations of social media companies

Fair use/fair dealing

Cyber-cafes, other WiFi enabled spaces

Representation & diversity

Behavioral marketing

Digital rights management

Spectrum Management

Freedom of speech vs. censorship

Privacy policies Open source culture, Creative Commons

Gaps/dividesSocial inclusion

Authentication Mobile marketing Plagiarism

How to define policy?

• Communication policy is broadly construed as the principles, processes, and procedures of various legal actions (legislation, court orders, or policy directives) that govern the diverse uses of communication resources at the global, national, or community level.

• Policy is constituted through an array of legal actions: legislation, court orders, and policy directives and decrees from government entities.

• An increasing trend is ‘self regulation’ or co-regulatory mechanisms by industry bodies.

• Since policy-making processes are increasingly fragmented, it is necessary to examine the various levels and agencies of governments, the increasing role of multi-lateral organizations such as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the role of civil society and activist groups.

• Given rapid increases and trends in globalization, a comparative analytic framework of policy as articulated and defined by national governments, and attempts at harmonizing regulation across national borders is apt

Policy is About Power

• Policy is highly politicized. • Policymaking is about power. Who has it? Who

doesn’t? • Who can influence the agenda? Who can

mobilize one particular set of issues or agendas over the other?

• Who can make this power more visible? Whose ideology takes center stage? Whose frames rule?

Des Freedman argues that “media policy, the systematic attempt to foster certain types of media structure and behavior and to suppress alternative modes of structure and behavior, is a deeply political phenomenon” (2008, p. 1).

Practices inherent to media policy comprise a space wherein “different political preferences are celebrated, contested, or compromised” (ibid, p. 3).

Policy Silences

• From Des Freedman:• “Policy silence refers to the options that are

not considered, to the questions that are kept off the policy agenda, to the players who are not invited to the policy table, and to the values that are seen as unrealistic or undesirable by those best able to mobilize their policy-making power” (2010, p. 355).

Structures of Participation

• Policy processes also require knowledge of various structures of participation in policymaking.

• Analyzing structures of participation requires an understanding of:-- the specific institutions of policy governance--the numerous formal to informal mechanisms of public participation--the role of diverse stakeholders interested and involved in the policy issue. Activism is key: what are effective modes of intervention to potentially shape policy, by citizens, advocacy groups and NGOs?

In Canadian context, what are the various political and policy questions surrounding media and tech policy that have been with us for the last 50-odd years?

• the role of the state with respect to the market in the distribution of communication resources

• the priority of national-cultural or commercial-industrial objectives and the tensions between them

• the democratic imperative to make sure that all Canadians have access – universal access – to communication services, throughout the country, and the means to achieve this

• the liberal imperative of free expression in communication

• the structure of ownership and regulation in Canadian communication industries, inc. state ownership, private ownership, community ownership

• the need to stimulate and promote and distribute domestic production / indigenous content and consumption of Canadian content; regulations to encourage this

• the role of public consultation in the policymaking process

• the notion of the public interest • the importance of separating control over carriage

infrastructure from content• Common carrier = telecom companies are service

providers offering transmission services for a fee; obligated to carry any message (content) that any member of the public wishes to send for equitable rates for that carriage.

With each new communication technology these various issues raise their head;

How can we look at media policy?• Look at policy in a political-economic framework

A critical political-economic perspective is broadly defined as studying the relationship between communication industries and institutions and economic and political systems (Mosco, 1996, 2009).

• Media policy research from a political-economic analysis tends to be critical, oppositional, and linked to public interest and social mobilization groups. It focuses on democracy, defined as meaningful public participation in all facets of decisions that affect social life, including participation in decisions and movements towards equality.

• Structural research is also characteristic of political economic policy research; while typically deployed to look at how media industries are created and maintained, here the salient structural factors, such as those characteristic of the neoliberal agenda, wherein communication policies became increasingly linked to economic interests (Chakravartty and Sarikakis, 2006) foreground the oppositional tensions inherent in the public interest versus market fundamentalism.

• This tension has both dramatically weakened the public interest in government policy discourse while strengthening the resolve of citizens’ organizations (Mosco and Rideout, 1997).

• William Dutton’s ecology of games – role of stakeholders

Dutton (1999, 287) suggests using a framework which incorporates the multiple dimensions shaping communications policy, which he refers to as ‘an ecology of games’:

“a policy ecology is defined by a set of games, structured by rules and assumptions about how to act in order to achieve a particular set of objectives”. This model investigates the various players involved in the policy process, the intended beneficiaries, and the process of policymaking.

• Canada’s policy space is also increasingly fragmented: Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)Senate sub-committeesParliamentvarious federal departments (Industry, Canadian Heritage, Human Resources Skills Development, Status of Women Canada)courtslocal and municipal governmentsinternational institutions… all play a role in delineating policy agendas. …Their agendas and priorities can complement, contradict, or contravene each other.

How to analyze policy?

• Identify stakeholders and vested interests in the policymaking process

How is policy and law designed and enacted? It’s important to look at the various stakeholders…from those on the political left, to those on the political right, and those in between…What is the role of industry lobbyists? Of public interest groups? Methods of investigation can include: analysis of policy documents and interviews with key policymakers; analysis of public interest group policy and interviews with key activists; and investigation of the media discourse (both mainstream and ‘alternative’) of communication policy.

Who Has a Stake?

• In examining the larger picture of communication policy, it is also important to concentrate not just on the obvious stakeholders involved in the communication-policy sector (such as economic elites, industry and transnational corporations) but on identifying groups that are left out of the policy process, as well as the increasingly active role of public interest groups.

• Policy has tended to discount how ordinary citizens and consumers of communication products understand and handle complex issues, as illustrated in Dervin and Shields’ (1999) case study of telephone privacy.

Comparative Perspectives

• Given rapid increases and trends in globalization, it is also necessary to analyse the goals of policy in a comparative framework, and to provide an analytic framework of policy as articulated and defined by national governments, and attempts at harmonizing regulation across national borders (Melody, 1996).

How is Policy Constituted?

• Legislation and laws, e.g. Broadcasting and Telecommunication Act

• Decrees from government entities, e.g., FCC in U.S., or CRTC in Canada

• Courts • Trends in ‘self regulation’ or co-regulatory by industry bodies –

e.g. the Canadian Association of Internet Providers, broadcasting monitoring bodies etc.

• Community based policies – local physical sites (e,g. community radio)

• International forums (e.g. World Summit on Information Society)

What should be the role of consultation in policy?/Structures of participation…

• Canada– Aird Commission road show• vs. current climate (online consultations)• And now, multi-stakeholderism…role of civil

society in policymaking (ex: WSIS)• Media reform and media justice movement

• What should policy accomplish?• Who should it be accountable towards?• Who decides what the issues are that need

policy intervention?

What is meant by the public interest?

• The notion of the public interest has been reflected in traditional broadcasting policy in both Canada and the U.S. The public interest has been enshrined in the work of two major communication regulatory organizations – the CRTC in Canada and the FCC in the U.S.

• PI is the normative standard ostensibly adhered to in decision-making. Rather than catering to the interests of particular groups, policy that meets the public interest shares a concern with a broad awareness of the policy outcomes for a wide citizenry.

• Policymakers use PI as a standard for decision-making

• And as an evaluative tool for policy analysts

With the Public Interest…

• Governments realize that communication is a social good and promotes communication rights;

• Governments recognize that information and communication flows must be equitable and that there should be freedom of flows between and amongst diverse countries;

• Regulations must increase interconnections of all kinds• Access must be provided for all citizens; • Cultural and political freedoms must survive and

thrive.

Wagman & Winton Chapter

• Cultural policy: “legal, regulatory, and technical instruments that structure and support artistic activities from broadcasting to ballet”

• Policies seek a balance between the aesthetic and the economic

• Policies seek to bring together Canada as a nation (e.g., the Broadcasting Act, Section 3, p. 216 of Mediascapes)

Why Cultural Policies?• 1. Geographic reasons: to stitch together the nation, North & South,

East & West, rural and urban. Need for solid, stable infrastructures of cable, satellite, broadband internet.

• 2. Economic reasons; Arts and culture contribute to the economy. See Statistics Canada study.

• Social reasons. Culture create a sense of shared citizenship. A way to exchange ideas and information, to edify, to entertain, to educate. Creates a sense of shared democracy, and of civic culture.

• Nationalistic reasons. (what Charland has to say)• Cultural sovereignty–the ability of a country to enact laws and

policies that protect and promote its culture and cultural industries – has been a fixation in scholarship, both in critical communication studies

Establishing Canadian Cultural Policies

• Legislative:Acts of the federal Parliament set in place the legal & regulatory structure for cultural industries. e.g., The Broadcasting Act, The Telecommunications Act.

Issue – convergence of the two of these?

Big issues: foreign ownership. Limited now. Opening it up for competition?

• Cultural Institutions:– a variety of cultural policy apparatuses for regulation and fundingCBCCanada CouncilCRTCNFB, etc Federal level and provincial … and community driven

Policy Instruments • Funding mechanisms

film (Telefilm) the Canadian Television Fundbook publishing industryFactor for music (The Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings).

• Canadian content laws – MAPL:In order to meet the requirements of the Broadcasting Act which stipulates that broadcasting is a public service essential to Canadian culture and sovereignty and that a diversity of programming reflecting the spectrum of Canadian “attitudes, opinions, ideas, values and artistic creativity” be created, the CRTC has created Canadian content quotas. These ‘CanCon’ rules regulate the amount of Canadian content broadcast on television and radio.

Canadian cultural policies aim to contribute to ‘Cultural Sovereignty’

• …the ability of a country to enact laws and policies that protect and promote its culture and cultural industries

• cultural policies on heritage, film, television, and digital media are instituted through legislation, regulation, program support, or taxation measures --ex: tax credits for corporations that support Canadian cultural industries. The Income Tax Act allows Canadian advertisers to claim expenses on advertising placed in periodicals and on television stations that are Canadian owned.

Should We Care About Protecting Canadian Culture?

• Do we need measures to protect us from the dominance of our neighbors to the south?

• Graham Spry in early radio days: “It is a choice between the State and the United States”

• Cultural imperialism thesis: Are Canadians swamped by an intrusion of American monoculture? Will the Canadian identity be eroded if Canadians are not able to consume and produce their own media products?

How do we keep up with policy in an era of digitization and a ‘YouTube’ Generation?

• we have multiple creators - they repurpose an remix

• we have content that goes viral and global• we have many diverse platforms from aptops

to mobile devices• we have many place to stream, view etc

New Challenges

• We are going from mass audiences bound by time/space/place by their media consumption practices and habits -- to niche audiences – fickle & literally mobile, eclectic and impatient

• There are profound cultural shifts in how we consume media. Madmen: HBO original timed release, purchased through iTunes, illegally downloaded on Pirate Bay and other sites, DVD extra packaging with extra material, official HBO website>> screenshots, character reviews, discussion boards, avatars, and multiple online fan sites dissecting the latest episode.

Policy Challenges

• Copyright / fair use (use of material for limited educational and non commercial uses).

• Net neutrality – principle that all traffic on the internet be treated in a non-discriminatory manner -- regardless of source, content, destination.