Page 150 - Communication Commerce and Power The Political Economy of America and the Direct Broadcast Satellite

140 Communication, Commerce and Power

information and a commitment to a competitive capitalist market
system were recognized to be the 'two broad principles' driving 'US
telecommunications and information policy.' 35 More specifically, the
paper specifies eight policy goals:
1 enhance the free flow of information and ideas among nations
subject only to the most compelling national security and privacy
limitations;
2 promote harmonious international relations and contribute to
world peace and understanding through communications;
3 promote, in cooperation with other nations, the development of
efficient, innovative and cost-effective international communica-
tions services responsive to the needs of users and supportive of
the expanding requirements of commerce and trade by broadening
opportunities for competition and investment;
4 ensure efficient utilization of geostationary orbit and electromag-
netic frequency spectrum;
5 expand information access and communications capabilities of
developing countries to facilitate their economic developments;
6 ensure the flexibility and continuity of communications and
information required to maintain national defense and interna-
tional peace and security;
7 promote competition and reliance on market mechanisms to ensure
efficient prices, quality of services, and efficient resource utilization;
and
8 promote the continuing evolution of an international system of
communication services that can meet the needs of all nations of
the world, with attention directed toward providing such services to
economically less-developed countries. 36
These goals have direct and indirect implications for the interna-
tional development of DBS and the prospective internationalization
of US information-based products and services. For example, the
third goal is fundamental to the efficient maintenance and develop-
ment of markets for international advertisers - the initial source of
DBS revenues. More generally, in defining free flow of information
principles as trade issues involving a debate between free traders and
protectionists (rather than free flow versus prior consent), informa-
tion-based producers and service providers positioned themselves on
what became the free trade common-sense high ground. However, this
revised way of thinking about economic development required the
recruitment and political engagement of foreign proponents.