1. Y490 Politics of the
Internet
March 28, 2012

2. Critical Political Economy
“Traditionally, this type of analysis focuses
on how economic inequalities based upon
ownership and control serve to narrow the
range of media content available in market-
based societies.”
Source: Chadwick, p. 290.

3. Three Schools of Thought
 Strong political economy approach
 Media should be seen as directly servicing a wider
system of material production (e.g. Theodor Adorno
-- consumer capitalism)
 Weak political economy approach
 Greater role for individual leadership in the media
industries (e.g. Benjamin Bagdikian)
 Instrumental approach
 How owners and political elites use the media as
instruments of ideological mobilization (e.g.
Noam Chomsky)

4. Decline of Newspapers?
 Readership is down relative to other media use.
 Last year was the worst on record for the U.S.
newspaper industry advertising. Total advertising
revenues (both print and online) declined to $25.84
billion in 2010, according to the latest figures from the
Newspaper Association of America. That is down from
$48 billion in 2004.
 On-line newspaper advertising was up to $3 billion in
2010 from $1.2 billion in 2003 but that clearly does not
make up from the decline in other areas.
Newspaper Death Watch

5. Print Newpaper Ad Revenue

6. Print vs. Online Ad Spending

7. New York Times Revenues

8. Decline in Readership
 Online readership
is growing but
overall readership
is down according
to the Pew
Research Center

9. Newspaper Circulation, 2003-2010

10. Print and Online Advertising

11. Help Wanted Ad Revenues

12. Main News Source by Age

13. Closing of Newspapers
 At least 120 newspapers in the U.S. have
shut down since January 2008,
according to Paper Cuts, a Web site
tracking the newspaper industry. More
than 21,000 jobs at 67 newspapers have
vaporized in that time, according to the
site.
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/19/newspaper.decline.layoff/index.html

14. Origins of the Net Neutrality Debate
 Coalition of Broadband Users and
Innovators (CBUI) sent a letter to FCC
Chairman Michael Powell in November
2002
 It included the phrase “net neutrality”
coined by Tim Wu in an article written in
2002 and published in 2003
 CBUI called for “nondiscrimination
safeguards” to guarantee net neutrality

15. What is Net Neutrality?
“Net neutrality simply means that all like Internet
content must be treated alike and move at the
same speed over the network. The owners of
the Internet’s wires cannot discriminate. This is
the simple but brilliant “end-to-end” design of
the Internet that has made it such a powerful
force for economic and social good.”
Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney, “No Tolls on the Internet,”
Washington Post, June 8, 2006.
Ask a Ninja’s “What is Net Neutrality?” video

16. Eli Noam’s Possible Meanings
 No different quality grades for service
 No price discrimination among Internet providers
 No monopoly price charged to content and
application providers
 No discrimination against content providers who
compete with carrier’s own content
 No selectivity by the carriers over the content that
they transmit
 No blocking of the access of users to some
websites

17. Arguments of Proponents
 End-to-end architecture of the Internet
must be preserved
 This means preventing discrimination by
conduit companies against content and
services that they do not control
 Conduit companies will reserve lots of
bandwidth for services like cable TV
which will degrade Internet performance
for everyone else
Vint Cerf

18. Congress and the FCC Encourage
Telephone and Cable to Compete
 Telecom Act of 1996
 FCC decisions to permit telephone
companies to buy cable networks and cable
operators to compete in telephone markets
 FCC wanted telcos and cable companies to
compete in high-speed Internet and cable TV
services via new fiber optic networks built
without government subsidies

19. Top ISPs in the USA (2011)
 Comcast
 Time Warner
Cable operators
 AT&T
 Cox
 Optimum
 Charter Telephone companies
 Verizon
Source: http://isp-review.toptenreviews.com/

20. Top Global Web Sites (2011)
 Google
 Facebook
 YouTube
 Yahoo!
 Wikipedia
 Baidu
 Blogspot
 Twitter

21. Michael Powell’s Internet
Freedoms, 2004
 freedom to access content
 freedom to use applications
 freedom to attach personal devices
 freedom to obtain service plan
information

22. FCC Policy Statement 2005
 consumers are entitled to access the lawful
Internet content of their choice
 consumers are entitled to run applications and
services of their choice, subject to the needs of
law enforcement
 consumers are entitled to connect their choice of
legal devices that do not harm the network
 consumers are entitled to competition among
network providers, application and service
providers, and content providers

23. More Arguments of
Proponents
 There is insufficient competition between
cable operators and telcos to guarantee
non-discrimination
 There is a potential for violations of
freedom of speech in the absence of net
neutrality guarantees
Gigi Sohn Larry Tim
Lessig Berners-Lee

24. Organizations that Support Net
Neutrality
 ACLU
 ALA
 Christian Coalition
 Gun Owners of America
 Consumers Union
 Google, Amazon, Yahoo!
 American Electronics Association

25. The Opponents’ Perspective on
Net Neutrality
 NCTA anti-NN ad
 Fox News coverage
 Glenn Beck
David Farber

26. Arguments of Opponents
 Net neutrality guarantees constitute
unnecessary regulation
 The threat of discrimination is overblown
 Cable and telephone companies need
new revenues to build out the network
 Need to have “intelligent networks” to
obtain “quality of service”
 Competition is sufficient to prevent
abuses

27. The Video Franchise Bill, 2006
 Attempts by Democrats led by Ed
Markey in the House to add net neutrality
amendments failed in committee and on
the floor
 Net neutrality amendment proposed by
Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) failed to
pass in an 11-11 committee vote
 Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) voted
against the amendment

28. Ted Stevens’ Tubes Statement
 And again, the Internet is not something you just dump
something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes.
And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and
if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in
line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into
that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous
amounts of material.
June 28, 2006
Video by Y490 class memb

29. People React to Stevens’ Explanation

30. Telecom Lobbying Money Spent in
the First Half of 2006
Category Specific Firms and Amount in $
Organization millions
Telephone AT&T, Verizon, BellSouth, 30.3
Interests and USTA
Cable Interests Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, 12.2
and NCTA
Internet Google, Yahoo!, eBay, 8.8
Interests Microsoft, Amazon.com
Total 51.3

31. Wyden Saves the Day
 Ron Wyden used his Senatorial privilege to
place a hold on the Video Franchise bill
because of the lack of net neutrality
guarantees. Since Ted Stevens did not have
the 60 votes needed to override Wyden’s hold,
the bill was not put up for a vote on the Senate
floor.

32. Barack Obama Supports Net
Neutrality
 Speech on net neutrality at Google in 2007
 Net neutrality becomes part of the official
Democratic party platform in 2008
 Obama appoints Julius Genachowski as head
of the FCC in 2009
 American Recovery and Investment Act of
2009 provides $7.2 billion for broadband
infrastructure and mandates that the FCC
prepare a National Broadband Plan

33. Genachowski Adds Two Items to
FCC Policy Statement of 2005
 “broadband providers cannot discriminate
against particular Internet content or
applications”
 • “providers of broadband Internet access
must be transparent about their network
management processes.”
Video of Genachowski

34. Comcast Throttling of Bit-
Torrent Traffic in 2007
 Robb Topolski discovers delays in delivery of
Bit-Torrent files for his barber shop quartet
 Topolski publishes this on TorrentFreak blog
 EFF and AP verify independently
 Comcast eventually admits that it was “traffic
shaping” using an application called Sandvine
that prevents “seeding”
 The FCC told Comcast to stop doing this
 Comcast complied but appealed to courts

35. The Comcast Ruling
 US Circuit Court of Appeals of DC ruled
on April 6, 2010, that the FCC did not
have the authority to regulate ISPs under
the Telecom Act of 1996 (therefore
Comcast was not bound to obey FCC
rules regarding traffic management)
 Ruling was based on FCC decision to
reclassify cable modems and DSL as
information services

36. The National Broadband Plan
 FCC announced intention to guarantee
net neutrality in spite of Comcast ruling
 Genachowski spoke of a “third way”
between “heavy-handed prescriptive
regulation” and the “light-touch approach”
of the past
 FCC would attempt to reclassify
transmission component of broadband as
a “telecommunication service”

37. Conclusions
 Net neutrality was framed by Republicans as a
regulatory issue.
 Republicans and their supporters carried the day until
June 2006 when the political tide began turn against
them.
 The 2006 and 2008 election results meant that
Democrats and their allies would attempt to pass
legislation guaranteeing net neutrality.
 However, the Comcast ruling and strong Republican
opposition to net neutrality made legislative action very
unlikely. It was not clear whether the FCC strategy to
reclassify broadband transmission would work.