[ga] Re: [CRIS Info] FW: Communications issues as important as environment, says new Syracuse University Convergence Center report

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Myriam and all,

  Interesting.  Milton has a long standing tendency for practicing selective
sensorship, which doesn't jive well with media activism...  Yet Milton
over the past several years has been very active from his own perspective
in activism activities with respect to ICANN see www.icannwatch.com
and gnso.icann.com.  He does express very good ideas regarding
IT and media related issues from a standpoint of a professor,which
may or may not reflect the interests of activists seeking positive, and
broadly supported solutions to existing or contrived media related
problems.

Myriam Horngren wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: This listserv will be used to facilitate communication among alternative media academics [mailto:OURMEDIA-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rodriguez, Clemencia
> Sent: 02 July 2004 22:17
> To: OURMEDIA-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Communications issues as important as environment, says new Syracuse University Convergence Center report
>
> Español, resúmen: el siguiente boletín de prensa es sobre un estudio recién develado sobre los movimientos ciudadanos en torno a las políticas de información y comunicación en EEUU. Desafortunadamente el estudio sólo existe en inglés en http://www.digital-convergence.org/.
>
> **************************************************
> English:
>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   Contact:        Edward Byrnes
> Monday, June 28, 2004   Phone:          315-443-2782
>         E-mail:         edbyrnes@xxxxxxx
>
> Communications issues as important as environment, says new Syracuse
> University Convergence Center report
>
> 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,
> titled, "Reinventing Media Activism: Public Interest Advocacy in the Making
> of U.S. Communication-Information Policy," analyzes the role of citizens'
> groups in shaping communication and information policy.
>
> "This is a long-term analysis of organized efforts by citizens to change
> public policy toward communication and information," says Mueller. A short
> version of the report is published in the July/August 2004 issue of The
> Information Society. The full report is available at
> http://www.digital-convergence.org/.
>
> The report traces the evolution of 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
> interestorganizations are involved in CIP, and how public interest groups
> interact with business and professional lobbyists in the policy arena.
>
> 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.
>
> *       Although the number of public interest advocacy organizations
> focused on CIP has not changed much since the 1980s, the rise of the
> Internet in the mid-1990s is associated with a major change in the nature of
> those organizations. Many organizations focused on criticizing or regulating
> mass media content died off 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 25 percent of all testimony by public interest
> groups on CIP topics. In the second half of the 1990s, however, the ACLU
> lost its dominance to new organizations such as the Center for Democracy and
> Technology (CDT), the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and the
> Consumers Union.
>
> *       The top five public interest organizations testifying before
> Congress on CIP issues from 2000-2002 were:
> 1)      CDT, with 13 percent of the testimony slots of public interest
> groups;
> 2)      Consumers Union, with 9 percent of the slots;
>    3-4)   EPIC and ACLU, tied with 8 percent of the slots;
> 5)      U.S. PIRG, with 5 percent of the slots.
>
> *       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 report's databases on congressional testimony and public
> interest organizations will be downloadable from the project's Web site at
> http://www.digital-convergence.org/.
>
> Mueller says his research began with a realization that there was little
> long-term strategic analysis of CIP advocacy, despite the fact that
> philanthropic foundations fund public interest advocacy and many people join
> or support such groups.
>
> "As far as we know, this is the first study to apply the tools of
> organizational ecology and recently developed data sources on congressional
> hearings specifically to communication and information policy," Mueller
> says. SU doctoral students Brenden Kuerbis, Christiane Page and Kasama
> Kongsmak compiled and analyzed the data.
>
> 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 between 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.
>
> Officially chartered in 1870 as a private, coeducational institution of
> higher education, Syracuse University is a leading student-centered research
> university. Syracuse's 12 schools and colleges share a common mission: to
> promote learning through teaching, research, scholarship, creative
> accomplishment and service while embracing the core values of quality,
> caring, diversity, innovation and service. The 938-acre campus is home to
> more than 18,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students
> from all 50 states and 90 countries.
>
> ###
>
> --------------------------------------
> OURMedia/NuestrosMedios
> a global network of activists, academics, and practitioners
> working toward stronger alternative, community, and citizens' media.
>
> Una red global de activistas y academic@s apoyando
> los medios alternativos, ciudadanos y comunitarios
>
> Contact: Clemencia Rodriguez
> University of Oklahoma
> clemencia@xxxxxx
> www.ourmedianet.org
>
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Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
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