Can public interest media survive the conglomerate era?
Compaine s enthusiasm for market-driven media is reminiscent of former FCC Chief Mark Fowler s, who suggested that television is a simple appliance, a toaster with pictures . But media are not merely appliances to be used by consumers. Media constitute a central political and social institution, one that is essential for the construction of citizenship and the maintenance of a healthy public sphere. This unique status of media in a democracy is reflected in the legal protections the industry enjoys in most democratic societies. The broad embrace of market-driven media and the growing power of the media conglomerates have produced global media policies aimed at deregulation. In the United States, the deregulatory climate has advanced so far that the FCC is on the brink of eliminating what s left of the pre-Telecommunications Act of 1996 s regulatory framework. Indeed, the Telecom Act helped to usher in this new round of conglomeration by removing or relaxing several media ownership rule
