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EVOLUTION OF GLOBAL MEDIA and CIVIC DISCOURSE
This Week...
In a three-to-two vote along party lines, the five-member Federal Communications Commission appointed by President Biden revived the rules that declare broadband a utility-like service regulated like phones and water.
The net neutrality regulations adopted Thursday prohibit providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon from selectively speeding up, slowing down or blocking users’ internet traffic. They largely reflect rules passed by a prior FCC in 2015 and unwound in 2017.The rules also give the F.C.C. the ability to demand broadband providers report and respond to outages.
Broadband providers are expected to sue to try to overturn the reinstated rules, while Republican lawmakers warned that regulating broadband providers like a utility would harm the growth of the telecommunications industry.
The core purpose of the regulations is to prevent internet service providers from controlling the quality of consumers’ experience when they visit websites and use services online. When the rules were established, Google, Netflix and other online services warned that broadband providers had the incentive to slow down or block access to their services. Consumer and free speech groups supported this view. See more...
Jim VandeHei Discusses “Application Journalism,” His New Book, and the New Breed of Media Companies
In Puck, Jim VandeHei, co-founder of both Politico and Axios, promotes his new book Just the Good Stuff: No-BS Secrets to Success (No Matter What Life Throws at You) and offers some trenchant media observations and industrial analysis.
“I think there is a very bright future for what I would call application journalism, where, as journalists, we learn a lot, we know a lot, and now we try to help people put that to use,” VandeHei said. “What I like about all of them is that they’re staying smaller, longer. They’re much more focused on revenue. All of them are very focused on a very specific audience and produce high-quality content and figure out more ways to make money off of it … I think anything that is kind of niche works.”
Journal of Democracy Debates if Democracy is in Decline
It appears to be dark days for democracy across the globe. Authoritarian regimes are ascending, scholars and citizens alike fear that democracy is on its last legs. The Journal of Democracy’s authors have set out to answer the question: Is global democracy really in freefall? Democracies are under stress, but are they about to buckle? Yascha Mounk, Larry Diamond, Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way and other leading scholars discuss whether the erosion of norms and other woes may or not spell democratic collapse. in the face of would-be autocrats. Published by the National Endowment for Democracy and Johns Hopkins University Press.
Pew, Gallup Show Worsening Trust, Attention to News
Scholars take international approach to digital information landscape
Earlier this week, the Pew Research Center reported the results of a survey that found news consumption fell significantly between 2016 and 2023. The results follow a survey last month from Gallup that found Americans’ trust in media news is at an all-time low. Specifically, the Pew Survey found that in 2016, 51% of U.S. adults said they followed the news all or most of the time. But that share fell to 38% in 2022, the last time Pew asked.
In Gallup’s survey, 32% of U.S. adults said they trust mass media to report the news in a full, fair and accurate way “a great deal” or a “fair amount”. It matched the lowest amount recorded in 2016. In 2022, the amount had been 34% and in 2021 it was 36%.
The Gallup survey found an additional 29% of U.S. adults have “not very much” trust. Gallup also found a record high 39% of U.S. adults answered “none at all”. By comparison, in 2016, when Donald Trump first ran for President and had been critical of the news media, 27% of U.S. adults responded “none at all."
Both surveys continue a disturbing trend that is sparking even greater concerns at a critical time with wars raging in Ukraine and Middle East and tensions with Russia, China and North Korean become more tense. It is exacerbated by the approach of another contentious political landscape in 2024's presidential election. with a former President, who openly attacks news media.
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