1. Monthly archive
  2. July 2016

July 2016

How the fall of the godfather of conservative media could save the GOP

[Commentary] Roger Ailes’ downfall is one of the most consequential events in years when it comes to the evolution of the conservative movement and even the fate of the Republican Party. This is the end of an era — and we might even look back and say that it was the best thing that’s happened to the GOP in a long time. So why is this so important? It’s because Fox News is the epicenter of the conservative media universe, and it in turn shapes the way every Republican from the loftiest elected official to the loneliest viewer sees the political world.

Ailes, who had been both a TV producer and a Republican media consultant before Murdoch tapped him to create the channel two decades ago, was an undeniably brilliant executive, fashioning a network that perfectly balanced two goals: Making gobs of money, and serving the interests of the Republican Party as he saw them. There is almost no one who has been more influential in the last two decades in shaping how Republicans see themselves, Democrats, and the world. But during the Obama era, some people have begun to question whether Fox’s undeniable power is really serving the movement in the way they thought it was. For many years, Fox was seen as a source of nothing but benefit for the right: It offered a megaphone to disseminate conservative arguments and talking points, a forum for Republican politicians to get exposure, a means of uniting the right around common ideas (instructing everyone on what to be angry about and what to celebrate), and a way of pressuring the mainstream media into adopting a more conservative-friendly outlook.

The FCC Tried to Cap Rates on the Prison Industrial Complex — Here's What Happened Instead

You may have heard of the prison industrial complex, but there is also an entire industry that just manages prison phones — the Verizons and AT&Ts of American prisons. Recently, those companies gained major ground in the fight to keep them in check. After legal pressure from the prison telecommunications industry, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed a new set of caps on what those telecoms can charge vulnerable families to keep in touch with incarcerated loved ones over the phone. The former cap on phone calls was 11 cents per minute. If the new proposal passes, it'll be a sliding scale of 13 to 31 cents, based on the size of the facility.

For decades, the cost of keeping in touch with a relative in jail has been crippling. The Ella Baker Center published in September found that one in three families of inmates goes into debt just to cover the cost of calls and communications with that inmate. In 2000, some of those families filed a class-action lawsuit called Wright v. Corrections Corporation of America to put a cap on those costs, and in 2013, the FCC finally decided to cap prices for calls at federal and state facilities at 11 cents a minute. But what looked like a resounding victory was met with blowback from the prisons communications industry, who filed complaints and lawsuits alleging that the new caps would cut unfairly into their ability to stay profitable. In March, two of the big three prison telecoms, GTL and Securus, won a lawsuit that bought them some time before the changes take effect. The FCC's new decision is a compromise, and it gets the caps finally put in place after years of struggle.

Digital Divide Narrows for Latinos as More Spanish Speakers and Immigrants Go Online

The long-standing digital divide in Internet use between Latinos and whites is now at its narrowest point since 2009 as immigrant Latinos and Spanish-dominant Latinos make big strides in going online, according to newly released results from Pew Research Center’s 2015 National Survey of Latinos. Meanwhile, broadband use among Latinos is little changed since 2010.

The story of technological adoption among Latinos has long been a unique one. While Latinos have lagged other groups in accessing the Internet and having broadband at home, they have been among the most likely to own a smartphone, to live in a household without a landline phone where only a cellphone is available and to access the Internet from a mobile device. Since 2009, the share of Latino adults who report using the Internet increased 20 percentage points, up from 64% then to 84% in 2015. Over the same period, Internet use among whites grew too, though at a slower rate, moving from 80% to 89%. As a result, the gap in Internet use between Latinos and whites declined from 16 percentage points in 2009 to 5 percentage points in 2015.

Sen Markey floats bill bringing Internet to developing world

Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) is pushing to increase Internet access in the developing world with new legislation. The Driving Innovation and Growth in Internet Technology And Launching Universal Access to the Global Economy Act (DIGITAL AGE) would provide the State Department a “Special Representative for the Global Connect Initiative,” a face for the Global Connect Initiative it announced in April.

While 80% of the developed world has access to the Internet, less than 40% of the developing world has that access. The Global Connect Initiative aims to shepherd an additional 1,500,000,000 people online by 2020. The special representative would be an ambassador for the program to other nations, private business and US agencies. The president would appoint the special representative with approval from Congress. The bill would fund the position, three staff members and an additional $200,000 to be spent on the broader initiative. DIGITAL AGE further appropriates $5 million to the Overseas Private Investment Corporation in furtherance of getting the developing world online and $1million to USAID to create “digital literacy” programs. It also directs the president to create a more comprehensive plan in bringing the internet to the developing world.

Trump speechwriter takes blame for Melania Trump ‘plagiarism’

After a tortured 24 hours in which Donald Trump’s campaign struggled to come up with a coherent explanation for how portions of a 2008 speech by Michelle Obama had reappeared in remarks delivered by Melania Trump at the Republican National Convention, a Trump staff writer said that she was responsible and apologized for the “confusion.” Meredith McIver said she was an “in-house staff writer” who had worked with Melania Trump on the speech. McIver took responsibility for including the passages from the first lady’s speech — though she said she had not revisited the earlier speech herself, only listened as Trump read parts of it that she liked to McIver over the phone. McIver said she had offered her resignation to Donald Trump and his family on July 19, but they declined to accept it. “Mr. Trump told me that people make innocent mistakes and that we learn and grow from these experiences,” she said.

Shortly before McIver’s statement was distributed by the campaign, Trump himself addressed the controversy on Twitter, though he did not weigh in on allegations that his wife had borrowed language from the first lady’s speech to the Democratic National Convention eight years ago. “Good news is Melania’s speech got more publicity than any in the history of politics especially if you believe that all press is good press!” he wrote in one message. And he attempted to shift blame onto his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, writing, “The media is spending more time doing a forensic analysis of Melania’s speech than the FBI spent on Hillary’s emails.”

Convention nets Trump free media, but Clinton dominates ad landscape

Tens of millions of Americans are tuning into the Republican National Convention to hear from Donald Trump and the party’s rising stars from across the nation. But when television networks cut to commercial, viewers will see a different story — one dominated entirely by Democrats and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The presumptive Democratic nominee’s campaign is spending $4.9 million on television advertisements this week across 32 media markets in nine swing states. The Trump campaign has not aired a television advertisement for months; two pro-Trump groups are spending just $105,000 on TV ads boosting the GOP nominee this week. Clinton’s campaign is spending most heavily in Florida, where it has committed $1.1 million on broadcast and cable television commercials in eight media markets throughout the state. She’ll appear in the Sunshine State on July 22 and 23 for events. The campaign is spending $922,000 this week in Ohio — including $250,000 on broadcast and cable television in the Cleveland market, where Republicans are holding their convention. By contrast, Trump’s supporters are virtually ceding the airwaves during the convention: The National Rifle Association is spending just $34,000 on cable television advertisements in four Iowa markets. Rebuilding America PAC, a pro-Trump outside group, is spending $71,000 on national cable television ads.

After Net Neutrality

[Commentary] The DC Circuit Court’s decision to uphold the Federal Communications Commission’s 2015 reclassification of broadband as a telecommunications service was a big deal. Going forward, there’s now a meaningful protection against the abuse of Internet monopoly power (complexities related to plans like “zero-rating“ notwithstanding). But we should be clear about what this decision does not do. While it establishes a crucial safeguard and changes the larger conversation about the role of digital communications in a democratic society, it doesn’t strike at the core problem: corporate capture of the Internet. The decision doesn’t weaken the stranglehold that a handful of Internet firms hold over broadband and it doesn’t significantly lessen the digital divide.

In many ways, it was a defensive victory that undid past damage. The history of American media policy suggests there are three general ways to prevent commercial capture of a communication system:
1) Breaking up or preventing media monopolies and oligopolies (e.g., the FCC forcing NBC to divest itself of a major network in the 1940s, the establishment of media ownership restrictions, and antitrust action against AT&T in the 1980s).
2) Creating alternative public infrastructures (such as public broadcasting or community/municipal-owned broadband).
3) Mandating strong public interest protections (via the Equal Time Rule or restrictions on advertising).

Challenging corporate dominance of crucial infrastructure like the Internet will take long-term organizing and tremendous grassroots energy. What we know thus far about Hillary Clinton’s tech policy agenda suggests there’s room for improvement, especially in contesting corporate capture of the Internet. Confronting the structural roots of internet monopoly power will require the same commitment to democratic principles and the same activism that won net neutrality.

[Victor Pickard is an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication]

T-Mobile’s Zero-Rating of Pokémon GO Raises Questions for the Open Internet

Beginning July 19, T-Mobile is offering a limited-time promotion tied to the wildly popular augmented reality game Pokémon GO, in which the mobile data used by the game will not count toward a customer’s data cap. This is yet another form of zero-rating, a practice that can raise serious concerns about competition policy, network neutrality, and consumer choice.

Amidst a global Poké-craze, we shouldn’t lose sight of what this may portend for the future of the open Internet. So we want to take the opportunity to raise a number of questions about this promotion which would also be important to answer for any other zero-rating service proposal. Before concluding anything about this promotion or any similar plans that may be proposed, it is important to better understand their potential dangers and benefits. Whether or not the zero-rating of Pokémon GO constitutes an unreasonable interference or disadvantage, it at least raises important questions that deserve close and immediate scrutiny.

Democratic Reps Probe Niantic on Pokémon Go Data Usage

Democratic Reps asked the the company that makes hit game "Pokemon Go" what they were doing to make sure players don’t run up high mobile data charges using the application. The letter to Niantic CEO John Hanke was signed by the House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), as well as Reps Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Diana DeGette (D-CO).

"In addition to issues related to the game being played inappropriate locations, safety, and privacy, recent reports suggest that playing Pokemon Go could exhaust a consumer’s available monthly mobile data,” they wrote. The lawmakers specifically asked the company what practices it had in place “to minimize the amount of data consumers use when playing" the game and whether the company was working with wireless providers to make sure that customers aren’t running up huge data bills. The letter comes despite the fact that some have argued the program does not use up particularly large amounts of wireless data.

© 1994-2024 Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. All Rights Reserved.