DrewClark.com

When Washington’s telecommunications policy-makers escape the heat and humidity of the capitol in Aspen, Colo., they brought something else with them — the urge to lobby.Here, former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt stopped current FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, and Martin’s chief of staff Dan Gonzalez, on Tuesday, August 14, after a speech in which […]

[Read more →]

Below is a matrix for the broad themes of the discussion on “Media and Values” that have taken place at the Aspen Institute Forum on Communications and Society from August 13-15, 2007.

Aspen Values

Non-government

Government

*ensuring universal access

creating a national broadband policy

Universal Service Fund for broadband
loans and grant […]

[Read more →]

[Read more →]

ASPEN, Colo. – Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin on Tuesday offered two proposals that he said would address concerns about objectionable content and add “access to new voices in the media.”
Martin repeated his proposal to require cable operators to sell television programming a la carte, or on a per-channel basis. “The ability to pick […]

[Read more →]

ASPEN, Colo. – Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, said Monday that he regretted voting to extend copyrights 20 years when Congress did so in 1998.
“When it comes to pangs of guilt for things I have done, I have to say that the substantial […]

[Read more →]

Tracy Westen, founder and CEO for the Center for Governmental Studies, has just outlined some pointers on thinking about the regulation (or lack of regulation) of media content.
He suggested breaking the field up into offensive content, harmful content, and missing content. Offensive content is that sort of material that can be avoided through filtering […]

[Read more →]

Internet companies offering user-generated content should actively filter violent, pornographic and copyright-infringing content, even when not required to do so by law, said Michael Eisner, former CEO of Disney and founder of Tornate Company.
Eisner, speaking at a panel at the Aspen Institute’s Forum on Communications and Society, criticized Google for refusing to remove violent videos […]

[Read more →]

In Jeff Cole’s plenary, he outlines the stresses — and opportunities — for various forms of media. Some takeaway messages:

While film, music and print will survive (and thrive), it may be as smaller industries, especially on the web.
This is not true of television, which will remains significant and immensely popular.
On the web newspapers and magazines […]

[Read more →]

All this week, I’ll be blogging from the Aspen Institute’s Forum on Communications and Society, where I’m participating as a rapporteur. Jeffrey Cole, executive director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Digital Future, has just begun an open plenary session. He has predicted that teenagers:

Will never read a newspaper
Will soon never watch […]

[Read more →]