Amending Equal Time: Explaining Institutional Change in American Communication Policy

the lens of historical institutionalism. The amendment created broad exemptions for newscasts, documentaries, interviews and news events when it came to triggering the equal time provision for candidates for public office. While this study offers a variety of new empirical details, the chief goal is explanation based on an examination of historical mechanisms – path dependence, critical junctures, agglomeration, asymmetries of power, reinforcement of expectations, and temporal sequencing – that shaped the policy options leading up to the amendment. The “equal time ” provision in U.S. communication policy, or Section 315 of the Communications Act of 1934, provides, under certain conditions, equal opportunities to the airwaves for candidates for public office. The rationale has been that broadcasters can have significant influence over political discourse and election outcomes (Godfrey, 1979; Haines, 1999). But policymakers also have sought to balance an interest in equal opportunities for candidates with broadcasters ’ First Amendment-derived right to use their own discretion when it comes to deciding what belongs on the air (Napoli, 2001). Thus, the 1959 amendment to the Communications Act of 1934 created broad exemptions for newscasts, documentaries and news events when it came to triggering the equal time provision. Today, the amended provision continues to govern candidate-sponsored political advertising and nonexemp