How Mass Media Use Crisis Communications for Political Gain

HOW MASS MEDIA USE CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS FOR POLITICAL GAIN: THE BROADCAST INDUSTRY, 9/11 AND HURRICANE KATRINA
[SOURCE: J.H. Snider]
The paper describes how the broadcast industry has used its emergency information service claims -- one of its most important type of public interest claims -- to lobby for favorable regulations and laws from the FCC and Congress. Both Congress and the FCC are currently considering ways to bolster America’s emergency information system. Accordingly, the broadcast industry, as well as other telecommunications industries, have sought to reframe their long-standing lobbying agendas to take advantage of this concern. The resulting self-serving framing, however, may lead to harmful policy outcomes. Snider critiques that framing and recommends a new telecom model to enhance America’s emergency information system including: 1) the government should foster free, local broadcast satellite service so broadcast satellites can deliver free and local emergency information, and 2) the government should bypass the proliferating emergency alert middleman and send emergency alerts directly to citizens as well as to the middlemen.
http://s173754652.onlinehome.us/MyWritings/06-08-30--APSA--HowMassMediaUseCrisisCommunicationsForPoliticalGain.pdf