Spring 2018 - 60717 - PA 388K – Advanced Topics in Public Policy

This course examines the U.S. communication policy in light of domestic and international structural, economic and technological changes. We will investigate how notions of control, access and expression have changed during the 20th and into the 21st centuries, examining communication policies and regulation against a backdrop of technological innovation. Our point of departure is that definitions of and debates on what constitutes the public interest intersect with policies for broadcasting, cable TV, computer networks and the Internet, and various other telecommunications systems. The course begins by examining some of the framing documents and events that established expectations about how communications and telecommunications systems should function for society; the course pursues the events and shifts in broadcasting, cable, telephony, and network communication - particularly the Internet - history in order to discover how original conceptualizations have been reshaped.