MIT political scientist Pool's chief contention echoes his title:
contrary to the viewers with-alarm (like David Burnham, above),
"electronic technology is conducive to freedom." Pool proceeds from
a free-market bias, and from a technocratic weakness for the
electronic cottage (or Cambridge); nonetheless he lucidly develops
a great deal of complex material about the new communications
environment, its technology and free-speech linkages, set in a
historical context; and on that basis presents a clearly organized,
intellectually sophisticated (if sometimes myopic) argument. In the
American past, there have been three models of communication: the
print model (newspapers, magazines, books), protected from
regulation by the First Amendment; the common carrier model (the
telephone, telegraphs, and postal systems), regulated by the
government to assure universal service and fair access; and the
broadcast model, government-regulated on the grounds that the
resources are scarce, or not easily divisible, and therefore might
be monopolized by a privileged few. Pool's purpose is to show that
the broadcast model does not generally apply to the new electronic
media - though he does admit of some divergences from the print
model that would require adherence to the common carrier concept.
On the side of deregulation: "The use of coaxial cable and of very
high frequencies has eroded spectrum shortage. . . . Satellite
communications has reinforced this trend, for nothing prevents
there being several competing satellite transmission
organizations." Or, in the emerging area of electronic publishing:
"electronic information systems are in the same business as the
print media. . . . It would confuse the mechanism with the function
to subject data networks and storage devices to legal precedents
from the previous electronic media rather than to the law of
print." There are economic, political and civil-rights problems
with the argument. Pool rests, for one thing, on the new model of
monopoly newspaper, sanctioned by the courts: responsibly, he
notes, it prints divergent opinions (columns, letters to the
editor); irresponsibly, says Bagdikian (above) and others, it
caters to the market for its advertising. Pool does assert,
however, that "where monopoly exists by public favor, public access
is a reasonable condition." The grounds of the debate are set out
here. (Kirkus Reviews)
How can we preserve free speech in an electronic age? In a masterly
synthesis of history, law, and technology, Ithiel de Sola Pool
analyzes the confrontation between the regulators of the new
communications technology and the First Amendment.
General
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