Race, Ethnicity, and Communications Policy Debates: Making the Case for Critical Race Frameworks in Communications Policy

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In our working paper, we discuss how civil rights and minority-focused advocacy groups have engaged – or circumvented – Internet policy issues to better serve the communication and technology needs of their underrepresented constituents. In addition, in accordance with critical race theorists (e.g. Kimberle Crenshaw and Cheryl Harris), we explore the complexity of the concerns and experiences of a variety of communities of color in order to promulgate inclusive communications policy and frameworks in current and future policymaking.As a result of our analyses of the aforementioned organizations and three distinct communications issues and debates, the co-authors concluded that the policy sphere needs to:

  1. Expand beyond a technical, market-centric definition of Internet issues and involve more non-corporate, non-state groups in policy discussions;
  2. Encourage increased exchanges between academics and policymakers, especially involving scholars with expertise in areas of critical race theory and issues of social inequality as their core foci; and
  3. Take care to foreground and map out the multiplicity of debates within and between communities of color, striving to unpack what causes these differences rather than assume that all underrepresented communities are part of the same monolith.

[The Charles Benton Junior Scholar Award recognizes significant achievement by a junior scholar in the areas of digital inclusion and/or broadband adoption, as evidenced by an empirically-based research paper, a policy proposal with justification, or an original essay. Matthew Bui and Rachel Moran are the 2018 recipients of the award.]


Race, Ethnicity, and Communications Policy Debates: Making the Case for Critical Race Frameworks in Communications Policy