This article is a good introduction to com policy - from telecom to cultural policy.

- media policy extends beyind electronic media, to print, music and motion pictures
Defining media policy: "freedom of expression and particpatory decision making regarding the structures of society" p3

Types of media policy research: effects research, audience behaviour research, and content analysis

Theoretical Foundations:
- attempting to assess the performance of media systems (and enhance it)

Free Speech
- 1st Amendment (US)
- right to communicate - core of media policy
- free flow of info and widespread dissemination of ideas, linked with democratic process
- enhancing speech opportunities vs. ownership of media (central tension in coms policy)
- "the issue of the appropriate distribution of this speech right on the part of policymakers" p7
- right to receive information, too
- collective good vs. individual rights

Public Interest
- (trad view) policy should not cater to special interest groups, but larger populace
- public interest contains "specific normative criteria"- shapes media orgs. cult. dimensions of media industry
- advocacy for change - judgment of performance of individual media market

The Marketplace of Ideas
- role of policy in protecting and promoting - tension b/w political and cultural
- growing importance to new media tech
- emphasis on link b/w citizenship and democratic process

Substantive Areas of Concern:
- content, structure, infrastructure (distribution networks)

Content
-protect citizen's from harm (mostly children)
- eg. V Chip in TV for parental control over violent programming
- accidental exposure
- social value (what is offensive to the typical media consumer)
- difficult to regulate Net
- National restrictions on foreign content
- affirmative requirements (enhancing national id?)

Structure
- ownership patterns and structure of media systems
- impact of new media and globalization - reassessment of approach to regulation
- examples in US, Italy and Australia - trend appears to be a "relaxation of these rules" p17
- measuring the impacts of privatization and commercialization

Infrastructure
- transmission mechanisms for media content
- gov policy
- spectrum policy
- establishing key components of regulatory apparatus, mechanisms for license allocation
- privatization and digitization
- barriers to access

Contemporary Challenges to Media Policy
- increasingly complex tech terrain
- new mechanisms for delivery
- impacts of migration to interactive media platforms and prominence of user-generated content
- assess impact of individual policies

Questions:
- unclear about what "spectrum policy" is (p16)
- unclear about what "individual policy" refers to (p19)