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How did the American media system become what it is today? Why do American media have so few public interest regulations compared with other democratic nations? How did the system become dominated by a few corporations, and why are structural problems like market failures routinely avoided in media policy discourse? By tracing the answers to many of these questions back to media policy battles in the 1940s, this book explains how this happened and why it matters today. Drawing from extensive archival research, the book uncovers the American media system's historical roots and normative foundations. It charts the rise and fall of a forgotten media reform movement to recover alternatives and paths not taken. As much about the present and future as it is about the past, the book proposes policies for remaking media based on democratic values for the digital age

Abstract
The 1940s was a contentious decade for US media policy. Activists, policymakers, and communication industries grappled over media's normative foundations and regulatory guidelines. At this time, a reform agenda was taking shape at both the grassroots social movement level and inside elite policy circles. This paper examines the tensions within this nascent media reform movement, many of which are still negotiated among media activists today. By recovering contingency and conflict, this research sheds light on larger paradigmatic shifts. It suggests that despite significant reform activism in the 1940s, a commercial, self-regulated media system emerged largely inoculated against further structural challenges. The failures of this reform movement hold important lessons for contemporary activists.

During the 1940s a media reform movement of grassroots activists and a progressive Federal Communication Commission (FCC) emerged to challenge the commercial interests consolidating control of US media. A key initiative born out of this movement was the so-called Blue Book, a high-water mark for FCC progressive activism that mandated social responsibility obligations for broadcasters in return for their use of the public airwaves. Ultimately, red-baiting tactics defeated the policy initiatives outlined in the Blue Book and the media reform movement was largely contained. The following analysis draws from archival materials to illuminate the resulting arrangement for US broadcasters.

This article examines how online political groups are co-opting internet technology from commercial interests to amplify various cooperative processes. After formulating a framework for praxis-based democratic theories of technology, I select four internet-based groups as institutional exemplars for analysis: Democratic Underground, Free Republic, Indymedia, and Move On. These groups implement distinct types of democratic applications of internet technology and embody specific strands of democratic theory. I conclude by commenting on the direction of internet-based democratic practices, their political efficacy in terms of strategy and tactics, and how they figure within US political culture.

What is media activism? / W. LANCE BENNETT -- Introduction / VICTOR PICKARD AND GUOBIN YANG -- Communication for Social Change / SANDRA RISTOVSKA -- The Future of Digital Enfranchisement / JEFF LANDALE AND SASCHA MEINRATH -- Towards Transformative Media Organizing: LGBTQ and Two-Spirit media work in the United States / SASHA COSTANZA-CHOCK, CHRIS SCHWEIDLER, TERESA BASILIO, MEGHAN McDERMOTT, AND PUCK LO -- Studying Media at the Margins: Learning from the Field / CLEMENCIA RODRÍGUEZ -- The Online Translation Activism of Bridge Bloggers, Feminists, and Cyber Nationalists in China / GUOBIN YANG -- Policy Interventions / TIM LIBERT -- The Battle over Diversity at the FCC / MARK LLOYD -- Feminist Activism and U.S. Communications Policy / CAROLYN M. BYERLY -- A return to prime time activism: social movement theory and the media / DES FREEDMAN -- New Political Genres / Jonathan pace -- Cahiers de doleance 2.0: crowd-sourced social justice blogs and the emergence of a rhetoric of collection in social media activism / PAOLO GERBAUDO -- Data activism as the new frontier of media activism / STEFANIA MILAN -- The Use of the Geoweb for Social Justice Activism / LESLIE REGAN SHADE, EVAN HAMILTON, AND HARRISON SMITH -- Feminism's Digital Wave / ROSEMARY CLARK -- Feminists, Geeks, and Geek Feminists: Understanding Gender and Power in Technological Activism / CHRISTINA DUNBAR-HESTER -- Analog Girl in a Digital World: Hip Hop Feminism and Media Activism / AISHA DURHAM

The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated attention to the public consequences of digital exclusion and to local, state, and federal emergency digital inclusion efforts. In this case study, we examine private sector, municipal government, and nonprofit efforts to close the divide during the pandemic in Philadelphia, which has one of the worst urban connectivity rates in the United States. Drawing on news accounts, policy documents, and interviews with city staff, we assess Philadelphia's digital inclusion efforts during the pandemic. Our findings show that inclusion efforts faced challenging logistics, limited data on the unconnected, funding concerns, and sometimes pushback from Internet service providers (ISPs). The latter were by necessity crucial partners in connectivity efforts but failed to address basic digital access gaps without significant public and governmental pressure, signaling the need for public alternatives. Our analysis foregrounds the disconnect among well-resourced ISPs, connectivity gaps marked by digital redlining in the poorest communities, and political constraints on robust public broadband policy.

This study examines whether and how public media systems contribute to the health of democracies in 33 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, the Middle East, Latin America, and South America. We gather national economic data and public media funding levels, audience shares, and regulatory data, primarily for 2018 and 2019 but in some cases earlier, due to lack of available data. We then assess correlations with strength of democracy indices and extend Hallin and Mancini's typology of North American and European media systems through hierarchical cluster analysis of these 33 countries. We find five models of public media systems around the world, ranging from "state-administered" systems with low levels of independence (Botswana and Tunisia) to systems aligning with Hallin and Mancini's "Democratic Corporatist" model, with strong and secure (multiyear) funding, large audience shares, and strong regulatory protection for their independence. In between, we identify three mixed models: a "Liberal-Pluralist" model, a "Direct Funding" model, and a "Commercial–Public" model. Correlations and cluster analyses show that high levels of secure funding for public media systems and strong structural protections for the political and economic independence of those systems are consistently and positively correlated with healthy democracies.

International audience ; This essay reflects on Ed Herman"s legacy by connecting his intellectual background to the anti-fascist project within the political economic tradition of communication research. Given that one of the authors (Todd Wolfson) was good friends with Ed and worked with him on independent media, we also consider how he applied his radical critique to local activist projects in Philadelphia. This analysis helps underscore the fact that Ed Herman"s insights hold much contemporary relevance for the many political problems facing American and global society today.

International audience This essay reflects on Ed Herman"s legacy by connecting his intellectual background to the anti-fascist project within the political economic tradition of communication research. Given that one of the authors (Todd Wolfson) was good friends with Ed and worked with him on independent media, we also consider how he applied his radical critique to local activist projects in Philadelphia. This analysis helps underscore the fact that Ed Herman"s insights hold much contemporary relevance for the many political problems facing American and global society today.

The growing subfield of media activism studies has gained wide attention in recent years, but little consensus exists regarding its central questions and concerns. This book begins to chart an evolving research agenda by providing a cross-section of provocative work in this area. Victor Pickard and Guobin Yang have assembled essays by leading scholars and activists to provide case studies of feminist, technological, and political interventions during different historical periods and at local, national, and global levels. Looking at the underlying theories, histories, politics, ideologies, tactics, strategies and aesthetics, the book takes an expansive view of media activism. It explores how varieties of activism are mediated through communication technologies, how activists deploy strategies for changing the structures of media systems, and how governments and corporations seek to police media activism. From memes to zines, hacktivism to artivism, this volume considers activist practices involving both older kinds of media and newer digital, social, and network-based forms. The book captures an exciting moment in the evolution of media activism studies and offers an invaluable guide to a vibrant and evolving field of research.