Media policy

TL;DR: The book "33:133 MEDIA, MARKETS, AND DEMOCRACY" explores the relationship between media policy, markets, and democracy. It examines various issues including the nature of media products, public goods and monopolistic competition, externalities, and policy responses.

Abstract: 33:133 MEDIA, MARKETS, AND DEMOCRACY by C. Edwin Baker (New York: Cambridge University Press “Communication, Society and Politics,” 2002—$25.95, paper, ISBN 0-521-00977-4, 377 pp., notes, index) asks what a “lack of paternalism and a commitment to democracy mean[s] for media policy." The volume is a revision and updating of three articles published in different law journals from 1997 to 2000 and appears in three parts, paralleling those articles. Serving audiences offers five chapters reviewing the special nature of media products, the question of public goods and monopolistic competition, the problem of externalities, the market as a measure of preferences, and policy responses. Serving citizens takes a different tack, reviewing different kinds of democracies and their media, journalistic ideals, fears and responsive policies, and constitutional implications of all this. And international trade is offered as an example of policies dealing with media products as discussed in two chapters. A brief conclusion argues that the Internet and other digital technologies will only change the basic framework (that government does have a role to play) at the margins—the issues assessed here are basic and continuing. Indeed, digital technologies make some of the issues (such as intellectual property) even harder to deal with. The discussion of the changing relationships of politics and economics here is very useful. Baker is a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and authored two previous books concerning freedom of expression. (Chris Sterling)