Robert Waterman McChesney is an American professor notable in the history and political economy of communications, and the role media play in democratic and capitalist societies. He is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He co-founded the Free Press, a national media reform organization. In 2002–12, he hosted Media Matters, a weekly radio program every Sunday afternoon on WILL (AM), Illinois Public Media radio.
Ben-hur Haig Bagdikian was an American journalist, news media critic and commentator, and university professor. An Armenian genocide survivor, he moved to the United States as an infant and began a journalism career after serving in World War II. He worked as a local reporter, investigative journalist and foreign correspondent for The Providence Journal. During his time there, Bagdikian won a Peabody Award and a Pulitzer Prize. In 1971, he received parts of the Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg and successfully persuaded The Washington Post to publish them despite objections and threats from the Richard Nixon administration. He later taught at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and served as its dean from 1985 to 1988.
Media democracy is a democratic approach to media studies that advocates for the reform of mass media to strengthen public service broadcasting and develop participation in alternative media and citizen journalism in order to create a mass media system that informs and empowers all members of society and enhances democratic values.
Public Service Responsibility of Broadcast Licensees was a report published in 1946 by the (U.S.) Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which sought to require radio broadcasters in the United States to abide by a number of public service requirements. The report was informally and commonly referred to as the FCC Blue Book because of the report's blue cover.
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism is the primary journalism institution at Harvard University.
Citizen media is content produced by private citizens who are not professional journalists. Citizen journalism, participatory media and democratic media are related principles.
Robert L. Kuttner is an American journalist, university professor and writer whose works present a liberal and progressive point of view. Kuttner is the co-founder and current co-editor of The American Prospect, which was created in 1990 as an "authoritative magazine of liberal ideas," according to its mission statement. He was a columnist for Business Week and The Boston Globe for 20 years.
Eric Boehlert was an American journalist, writer, and media critic. He was a senior fellow at Media Matters for America for ten years and a staff writer at both Salon and Billboard.
Robert Georges Picard is an American writer and scholar in the field of media businesses and media policy economics. He heavily influenced media economics studies.
Free Press is a United States advocacy group that is part of the media reform or media democracy movement. Their mission includes, "saving Net Neutrality, achieving affordable internet access for all, uplifting the voices of people of color in the media, challenging old and new media gatekeepers to serve the public interest, ending unwarranted surveillance, defending press freedom and reimagining local journalism." The group is a major supporter of net neutrality.
The Brass Check is a muckraking exposé of American journalism by Upton Sinclair published in 1919. It focuses mainly on newspapers and the Associated Press wire service, along with a few magazines. Other critiques of the press had appeared, but Sinclair reached a wider audience with his personal fame and lively, provocative writing style. Among those critiqued was William Randolph Hearst, who made routine use of yellow journalism in his widespread newspaper and magazine business.
Michael E. Moran is an American author and analyst of international affairs and digital transformation who currently serves as a senior executive at the technology firm Microshare.
Mark Lloyd is a former associate general counsel and Chief Diversity Officer at the Federal Communications Commission of the United States from 2009-2012. He was previously the vice president for strategic initiatives at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. Lloyd was also an affiliate professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, and in the years from 2002-2004 Lloyd was a visiting lecturer at MIT where he conducted research and taught about communications policy.
Media reform refers to proposed attempts to reform mass media towards an agenda which is more in tune with public needs and away from a perceived bias toward corporate, government or political biases. Media reform advocates also place a strong emphasis upon enabling those who are marginalized or semi-marginalized by their individual incomes, immutable characteristics or desperate conditions to possess access to means of publication and dissemination of information. They do not come from a concern with policy, or with a desire to democratize federal bureaucracies and regulations.
Ben Scott is an American policy researcher and advocate.
Adrienne Russell is an American academic whose work focuses on the digital-age evolution of journalism and activist communication. She is currently Mary Laird Wood Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington and co-director with Matt Powers of the department's Center for Journalism, Media and Democracy.
Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It is the sixth book by Harvard law professor and free culture activist Lawrence Lessig. In a departure from the topics of his previous books, Republic, Lost outlines what Lessig considers to be the systemic corrupting influence of special-interest money on American politics, and only mentions copyright and other free culture topics briefly, as examples. He argued that the Congress in 2011 spent the first quarter debating debit-card fees while ignoring what he sees as more pressing issues, including health care reform or global warming or the deficit. Lessig has been described in The New York Times as an "original and dynamic legal scholar."
Mass media regulations are a form of media policy with rules enforced by the jurisdiction of law. Guidelines for media use differ across the world. This regulation, via law, rules or procedures, can have various goals, for example intervention to protect a stated "public interest", or encouraging competition and an effective media market, or establishing common technical standards.
The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy is a Harvard Kennedy School research center that explores the intersection and impact of media, politics and public policy in theory and practice.
Charles Siepmann (1899–1985) was a British-born media scholar and policy advocate who spent much of his career in the United States where he was a professor at New York University's graduate communication program for over two decades. Siepmann was instrumental in drafting the FCC document "Public Service Responsibility of Broadcast Licensees", which became known as the "Blue Book" for its distinctive colour. Though he was an academic, Siepmann remained an advocate for the democratic potentials of radio and television and was "overtly political and engaged with media policy interventions" during his career. His advocacy was met with a "storm of protest in the [broadcast] industry" and he was frequently red-baited for his views.
