Deregulation and the market in public discourse: the AT&T divestiture, the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and the development of a commercial Internet

This research surveys public discourse surrounding three critical periods in US telecommunications policymaking, sampling articles from the New York Times, Newsweek, US News and World Report, and Wired Magazine. During the years surrounding the AT&T divestiture, the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and the 1990s new Internet economy, dominant conceptualizations of the government and its proper regulatory role shifted substantially in discourse, accompanied by changing views of the public interest. The state’s traditional role as a protector of social goods such as affordable telephone service or broadcast media diversity markedly recedes while the public interest is increasingly defined in terms of consumer opportunities, technological innovation, and national economic strength. This project studies the development of public discourse surrounding communications policy over time, assuming that while the press coverage may often reflect dominant policy concerns, public discourse also can contribute to conditions conducive to particular policy trends and demonstrate dominant assumptions or “common-sense” concerning the role of the state, the public interest, and the relation between regulation and the strength of the economy. The analysis of this media coverage seeks to answer two key questions. First, how is the role of the state constructed in the press surrounding the AT&T divestiture and the 1996 Telecommunications Act? News stories published during these two watershed moments of deregulation reveal a variety of competing discourses on the ideal role of the state and the necessity of government regulation. Second, how is the new economy implicated in press coverage of Internet regulation? The nascent new economy and the naturally unregulable nature of the Internet are both invoked as primary arguments against regulation of the increasingly commercialized 1990s Internet. In answering these research questions, this project provides a systematic, empirical investigation of trends in public discourse and relations between material circumstances and ascendant frames while analyzing the primary characteristics of the deregulatory paradigm that is currently dominant in US public discourse, represented in selected popular press coverage.Radio-Television-Fil