I found this item on Techdirt interesting. The article links to several techno-libertarians finding themselves in the uncomfortable position of evaluating the reality that (a) countries such as South Korea, Japan, Estonia, France (and more!) are now zooming ahead of us in just about every measure in broadband deployment and adoption; (b) these countries rocketed past us after they adopted intrusive regulatory regimes and market-warping government incentives; and, (c) our supposedly superior, libertarian, deregulatory approach has not produced the competitive and productive nirvana the theoretical literature promised.
So why do “free market” arguments keep working, so much so that just about every piece of state or federal telecom reform legislation introduced right now assumes that competition happens as a result of deregulation? Why, despite all evidence to the contrary, do Democrats and Republicans alike still rush to deregulate with the religious zeal usually associated with someone who just spotted a burning bush in their back yard? As the Techdirt piece shows, this can’t be explained by the usual cynical response that Congress and the FCC are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Bells or cable cos.
So my buddy Greg Rose and I have written a paper explaining why the same arguments keep working time and again for the 34th Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (you can see a rough draft here). As an aside (in the final version, not yet posted), I explain why Lakoff and his buddies should perhaps spend a little less time on the linguistics of framing and a little more time worrying about the structure of media. To paraphrase McCluen, “whoever owns the media frames the message.” In a world where the mass media can trigger riots by showing a picture of the Pope and pulling a single line out of an academic speech delivered to an academic audience, it’s optomistic to the point of delusional to believe you can frame a message just by picking the right words.
Basic summary below . . .