Despite some worries that Hurricane Isabel may wash away TPRC, it was held this past weekend in Arlington, VA and lived up to its reputation as a wonderful meeting for those interested in various communications policy issues. It is the only conference I have attended consistently without fail since I first showed up there five years ago. It is always held in the DC area to ensure a good turnout from government representatives (or I’m assuming that’s a reason for its location).
It’s a good conference for the following reasons:
1. high quality of papers (this year’s acceptance rate was around 25%)
2. a relatively small and friendly group that has been getting together for years but is also very open to meeting new participants
3. a great mix of people from government (mostly the FCC but others as well), the private sector (fewer reps now than a couple of years ago) and academia (mostly economists and legal scholars but various other social scientists and some others as well)
Not surprisingly, the issue of media deregulation came up throughout the conference. There was a lunch-time debate between Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project and Randolph May of the Progress & Freedom Foundation about this. A point Andy Schwartzman kept bringing up was that now with the availability of so much information on the Internet, there should be less concern about what is available via other media.
This is a point that has come up numerous times during discussions about media deregulation in the past few months as well. But there are problems with this approach. Some of the biggest news sources online are just replicas of more traditional news sources. CNN, ABC, NBC are some of the largest online players for news. You could argue that if that’s where people prefer to get information then so be it. However, it would be hard to argue that people’s actions simply reflect their preferences. Work I have done shows that many people lack the necessary skills to find anything and everything on the Web. So even though lots of material is available, it is not necessarily realistically accessible to many. Moreover, given the way content is organized online - the way ISPs and big portals feature some content more prominently than other content - not all Web pages are created equal regardless of their quality.
Related to this issue was an especially intriguing presentation by Eli Noam on the increasing market concentration in the Internet sector. His work finds that the Internet sector is more concentrated than other media industries. Unfortunately, the paper does not offer details about methodology (e.g. what exactly counts for Internet sector in his analyses), but he seems to be writing a related book so hopefully there will be more information available on this.
Overall, it was good to see that representatives from the FCC did not seem to take for granted the Internet’s role in bringing diversity of opinion to the masses.
I just posted an entry on my own little blog that asked, among other things, if acceptance rate is a good measure of quality. Your comment about this conference suggests that it is.
I was asking in terms of journals specifically, but the question is still valid. For acceptance rate to be a measure of quality, there has to be a sufficient range of submissions. A journal that publishes 100 articles out of a thousand per year would be better, ceteris paribus, than one which published 10 out of a 100, I suspect.
Another way of asking the question would be, if you know nothing about a journal’s content and need to evaulate it, would acceptance rate and total submissions be enough information? Also, how common is it for journals to misreport this information to gathering bodies?
Yes, that’s a good point. I felt confident making that comment because I was on the Program Committee of TPRC this year, which means that I took part in evaluating the submissions. We had about 85 accepted papers from over 300 submissions. Having read through dozens and dozens of submissions, I can say with confidence that this is a very selective conference given that we had to turn down numerous good papers.
What has amazed me the most about media de-regulation is the success that activists have had in communicating their concerns to politicians. Superficially, this doesn’t seem like a big deal — at least, not compared to bread-and-butter policy like entitlements, education, etc. — yet a good cross-section of the Senate voted to override the FCC’s de-regulation. People like Trent Lott, even.
Responding to the previous comment -
I think it is a mistaken perception that Senators overrode the FCC’s rule changes because they were responding to an outraged public, or even a slightly distraught constituency. Most people do not know about the rule changes or even care about them that much.
Not surprisingly, many politicians feel they have a vested interest in ensuring media diversity. Trent Lott, in particular, has voiced his opinion against the “liberal” media bias. Meanwhile, Democrats are shriveling at the growing Murdoch empire. Politicians may be acting in their own interest by opposing the FCC’s rule changes. Whether or not their perception of media influence is accurate is another question.
Media deregulation? Oh, please, give me a break.
The FCC creates an artificial shortage for broadcast media—in the form of licenses—which hasn’t been deregulated. The only thing that IS being deregulated—or for which regulation is being loosened—is ownership rules for those licenses. Thereby fostering an increase in concentration.
And regarding cable, most cities and towns license one—count them, ONE—cable provider for the town. And, other than local broadcast outlets that it is required to carry, the cable provider determines what it will carry. And, quite frankly, more than a few of the various channels that are provided over cable (and over satellite dish, for that matter) are owned by only a very few media companies.
The internet? Information? Let’s not get started on that. There is much that is useful available over the internet. But any idiot can set up a web site, and more than a few have.
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review