Social Science Research Network

As the main drivers of the digital divide evolve, digital inclusion efforts that seek to increase digital skills, build consumer trust in digital technologies, and promote information about affordability plans and other broadband availability programs have fast become key to getting everyone online. This report argues for the creation of a national digital skills framework and explains the immediate policy context.

The availability of reliable, high-speed internet throughout the United States has been a focus of policymakers for decades, with the need for an expansive broadband infrastructure listed as “the great infrastructure challenge” of the 21st century by the Federal Communication Commission. However, federal guidelines have never set a benchmark for what “reasonable prices” might mean for residents in each state, and there are no established benchmarks for determining what an affordable level of broadband service would look like throughout the country.

There are concerns across government, industry, and academia over the adequacy of data about broadband Internet connections. Due to the uneven availability and adoption of broadband, these inadequacies are important to consider because government policy and regulation, industry and business strategies, and scholarly research can be impacted by inaccurate or distorted data.

This paper explains how Mobile Network Operators (“MNOs”) are transforming their networks to meet the 5G challenge and the implications this transformation has for the structure of the cellular industry and broadband competition more generally. Among the many changes both large and small, the transition to 5G is driving MNOs to embrace: (a) agile management of diverse spectrum assets; (b) small cells; and (c) softwarization and virtualization. I explain how the 5G Future will be a converged market in which promoting the survival of fewer but stronger MNOs will promote the healthy evolution

Multisided platforms are ubiquitous in today’s economy. Although newspapers demonstrate that the platform business model is scarcely new, recent economic analysis has explored more deeply the manner of its operation. Drawing upon these insights, we conclude that enforcers and courts should use a multiple-markets approach in which different groups of users on different sides of a platform belong in different product markets. This approach appropriately accounts for cross-market network effects without collapsing all of a platform’s users into a single product market.

The results of a study of Internet (non)use in three neighborhoods of Detroit, Michigan. The findings of this study identify key digital divides within these neighborhoods, and illuminate a common pattern of Internet use in the city – what might be called Detroit’s Internet ecosystem – that helps explain the relative lack of Internet access across its households. The findings provide the basis for a set of recommendations for narrowing the digital divide, including ways to address such issues as the affordability of the Internet.

International flows of personal information are more significant than ever, but differences in transatlantic data privacy law imperil this data trade. The resulting policy debate has led the EU to set strict limits on transfers of personal data to any non-EU country—including the United States—that lacks sufficient privacy protections. Bridging the transatlantic data divide is therefore a matter of the greatest significance. 

A common position amongst online content providers/aggregators is their resistance to being characterized as media companies. Companies such as Google, Facebook, BuzzFeed, and Twitter have argued that it is inaccurate to think of them as media companies. Rather, they argue that they should be thought of as technology companies. The logic of this position, and its implications for communications policy, have yet to be thoroughly analyzed. However, such an analysis is increasingly necessary as the dynamics of news and information production, dissemination, and consumption continue to evolve. This paper will explore and critique the logic and motivations behind the position that these content providers/aggregators are technology companies rather than media companies, as well as the communications policy implications associated with accepting or rejecting this position.

The danger here is that the production, dissemination, and consumption of journalism will increasingly be dictated by institutions devoid of any governance structure oriented toward serving the public interest as it pertains to the role of journalism in a democracy. From this standpoint, should communications policymakers embrace the notion that these online content providers/aggregators are technology companies rather than media companies, the implications for how well the contemporary media ecosystem serves the information needs of citizens in a democracy could be profound.

[Philip M. Napoli is associated with Duke University. Robyn Caplan is associated with Rutgers University, New Brunswick/Piscataway, School of Communication and Information.]