CPRN-FCC LIT REVIEW (07/16/12)
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Executive Summary
Overview
In response to the Federal Communications Commission’s request (FCC12Q0009), the
University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism in
collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Communication and
Democracy, together with a national, non-partisan, multi-disciplinary network of social
scientists, legal scholars, journalists, and communication experts, the Communication Policy
Research Network (CPRN), presents a critical literature review and assessment of the provision
of, and barriers to, critical information needs for all Americans in the contemporary media
ecosystem. This report is prepared in the context of radical and far-reaching changes in the ways
all Americans are able to meet their information needs, changes that are both worrisome and
promising. [see FCC Report on Information Needs of Communities, July 2011]
The report presents a multidisciplinary overview of available data and literature from the
past two decades covering a wide range of social science and communications research
approaches that can complement existing FCC research on ownership, localism, and diversity,
and inform stated FCC goals (as per Sec. 257) to ‘identify and work to eliminate barriers to
market entry,’ to develop policies to advance the goals of diversity, to assess the need for
government action and targeted policies to address existing gaps in media ecosystems’ ability to
serve and deliver critical information to the American public.
We address three core questions:
1. How do Americans meet critical information needs?
2. How does the media ecosystem operate to address critical information needs?
3. What barriers exist in providing content and services to address critical information
needs?
The goal of the review specifically was to summarize research on the diversity of views
available to local communities, on the diversity of sources in local markets, the definition of a
range of critical information needs of the American public, how they are acquired as well as the
barriers to acquisition. Having considered multiple frames of reference that take into account
current conditions and trends, we identify existing knowledge and gaps in information. This
research points to the importance of considering multiple dimensions and interactions within and
across local communication ecologies rather than focusing on single platforms or categories of
owners. The converging media environment together with demographic trends and evolving
variations in communities of interests and culture among the American public require a more
complex understanding of these dynamics as well as of the populations affected by them, in
order to effectively identify and eliminate barriers to market entry and promote diversity.
The review therefore recommends the application of a wider set of analytic tools and
performance metrics to measure the provision of and barriers to information in the public interest
for all the pluralities of the American public, including but not limited to women and
marginalized or at-risk communities. We seek to elucidate changes in demographics and in
media systems, and the relations between them.
Summary of Analytic Approach