Page 48 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

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COMMISSION
OF THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS
DEREGULATION
the political science faculty at Wisconsin in the early 1960s after earning his
Ph.D. in political science at the University of Chicago. Dennis has mentored
dozens of graduate students over the years in political communication, political
socialization, and public opinion. Particularly important are his contributions to
our understanding of mass media as agencies of political socialization among
children and preadults.
SOURCES: Jack Dennis, "Political Independence in America," British Journal of Po-
litical Science, January 1988; Jack Dennis, "Preadult Learning of Political Independence:
Media and Family Communication Effects," Communication Research, July 1986; Jack
Dennis, ed., Socialization to Politics: A Reader, 1973.
Lowndes F. Stephens

DEREGULATION OF THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMIS-
SION. Efforts to deregulate broadcasting and cable television in the United
States stem largely from a view that seeks to limit government intervention in
a variety of areas and instead advocates reliance on marketplace forces as the
optimum means of control. Within the context of the electronic media, as in
other areas, this political philosophy took root and blossomed during the Reagan
administration, which began in 1981. More recently, particularly when Newt
Gingrich became Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1995, calls were
heard for the eventual elimination of the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC).
Deregulating broadcasting and/or cable television necessarily means limiting
the scope and power of the FCC. While the FCC itself chose to abandon several
minor regulations in the 1970s, not until 1981 did it begin to remove more
substantive rules in earnest. These included regulations dealing with stations
ascertaining local community needs, program log keeping, and maximum allow-
able advertising airtime. Subsequently, a host of other rules and regulations was
modified in an effort to reduce FCC involvement. Most recently, the Telecom-
munications Act of 1996 liberalized licensing, ownership, and programming
rules. For example, where prior to 1980 broadcast stations were licensed for
three years at a time, the 1996 act extends that to eight years. Where a single
company was limited to owning seven AM, seven FM, and seven television
stations prior to 1980, national ownership limits have been eliminated in radio.
In television, the limit is that the number of people reached by a single owner's
stations may not exceed 35 percent of the country's population. Where broad-
casters were required to air and treat fairly all sides of controversial issues, in
1987 the FCC eliminated that requirement when it ceased enforcing the Fairness
Doctrine.
The future of broadcast and cable deregulation is unclear. While there is a
desire to reduce the intrusion of government, even legislation like the Telecom-
munications Act of 1996 introduced some new regulation and bureaucracy. It
did so specifically by a provision that requires new television sets to be equipped
with a chip to block certain programming.