Research

In 2018, the Federal Communications Commission estimated that 35 percent of Americans living on tribal lands lack broadband service compared to 8 percent of Americans overall. Various federal programs support increasing broadband deployment in unserved areas, including tribal lands. Tribes can form partnerships with private sector companies and others to deploy broadband infrastructure on tribal lands. The US Government Accountability Office was asked to provide information on these partnerships.

Creditworthy consumers can face difficulties accessing credit if they lack a credit record that is treated as "scorable" by widely used credit scoring models. These consumers include those who are "credit invisible," meaning that they do not have a credit record maintained by one of the nationwide consumer reporting agencies (NCRAs). They also include those who have a credit record that contains either too little information or information that is deemed too old to be reliable.

Gallup survey data indicates that Americans are increasingly distrustful about potentially biased news. But they should also worry about the partiality of their own judgment as well as how their news consumption habits may affect it. The bias consumers bring with them distorts their rating of news content, new research shows, and those who are most distrustful of the news media tend to be the most biased readers. The evidence also suggests that people are at greater risk of bias if they habitually turn to more extreme sources — such as those least often preferred by political moderates.

"Our media is precious. It’s how, outside of our strictly personal spheres, we speak to each other, inform each other, learn from each other, entertain each other, increasingly how we govern ourselves." With these words, Michael Copps opened a public hearing on media ownership rules. The hearing was not in Washington, DC, but Chicago, Illinois. Copps was not a local official, but a commissioner at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

This report, part history, and part strategy playbook, examines the tactics and policy priorities of former-Commissioner Michael J. Copps during his 10 years at the FCC. An analysis of Commissioner Copps’s tenure, his political strategies, and his legacy is a timely endeavor, both for its historical importance and for its contemporary relevance. As a commissioner in the minority during the George W.

After a year of continued tension between President Donald Trump and the news media, the partisan divides in attitudes toward the news media that widened in the wake of the 2016 presidential election remain stark, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis. Specifically, strong divisions between Republicans and Democrats persist when it comes to support of the news media’s watchdog role, perceived fairness in political coverage, trust in information from both national and local news organizations, and ratings of how well the news media keep people informed.

Could home broadband access help ease the burden of the "bandwidth tax" (the phenomenon of not being able to focus on long-term goals because so much cognitive effort is spent simply figuring out how to make ends meet in the short run) by giving low-income people a tool to better manage time and information? A new survey of recent Comcast Internet Essentials (IE) subscribers suggests that it might. In particular, the survey shows that a high-speed internet subscription at home helps low-income people to better manage time and money.

I am thrilled to return to TPRC to present the winners of the Charles Benton Early Career Scholar Award. Deeply embedded in the DNA of the Benton Foundation are three key values: access, equity, and diversity. Today we celebrate a paper that, we feel, makes an important contribution to communications and media policy literature. We know that communities of color face complex challenges achieving equitable outcomes. This paper delves into why. There are a couple of takeaways here that I’d like to highlight.

A growing number of governments now benchmark the status of broadband in their national broadband plans. The report shows for the first time that at least 15 countries now have strategies in place for promoting the safe use of Artificial Intelligence.

The lack of broadband access for 6.3 million electric co-op households results in more than $68 billion in lost economic value, according to new research by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). The new report, Unlocking the Value of Broadband for Electric Cooperative Consumer-Members, investigates the cost of the digital divide and the growing economic advantages to America’s rural communities. The study analyzed the value that households place on broadband access.