“Jack in, Young Pioneer”: Frontier Politics, Ecological Entrapment, and the Architecture of Cyberspace

This essay uncovers the environmental and historical conditions that played a role in cyberspace’s popularity in the 1980s and 1990s. Tracing both fictional and critical constructions of cyberspace in a roughly twenty-year period from the publication of William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy (1984–1988) to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, this essay argues that cyberspace’s infinite, virtual territory provided a solution to the apparent ecological crisis of the 1980s: the fear that the United States was running out of physical room to expand due to overdevelopment. By discursively transforming the technology of cyberspace into an “electronic frontier,” technologists, lobbyists, and journalists turned cyberspace into a solution for the apparent American crisis of overdevelopment and resource loss. In a period when Americans felt detached from their own environment, cyberspace became a new frontier for exploration and a so-called American space to which the white user belonged as an indigenous inhabitant. Even Gibson’s critique of the sovereign cyberspace user in the Sprawl trilogy masks the violence of cybercolonialism by privileging the white American user. Sprawl portrays the impossibility of escaping overdevelopment through cyberspace, but it routes this impossibility through the specter of racial contamination by Caribbean hackers and Haitian gods. This racialized frontier imaginary shaped the form of internet technologies throughout the 1990s, influencing the modern user’s experience of the internet as a private space under their sovereign control. In turn, the individualism of the internet experience restricts our ability to create collective responses to the climate crisis, encouraging internet users to see themselves as disassociated from conditions of environmental and social catastrophe.

A broadband integrated time series (BITS) for longitudinal analyses of the digital divide

To evaluate actions taken to implement the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the primary goal of which was to foster competition in the industry, the FCC created a standardized form (Form 477) to collect information about broadband deployment and competition in local telephone service. These data represent the best publicly available record of broadband provision in the United States. Despite the potential benefits offered by this database, there are several nuances to these data related to shifting geographies and reporting requirements that uncorrected, prevent them from being used as an uninterrupted time series for longitudinal analyses. Given the analytical challenges associated with the FCC Form 477 data, the purpose of this paper is to present a solution to the fragmented nature of these data which prevents meaningful longitudinal analyses of the digital divide. Specifically, this paper develops and describes a procedure for producing an integrated broadband time series (BITS) for the last decade (2008–2018). This includes the procedures for using these data, their value to social and economic analysis, and their underlying limitations. The core contribution of this paper is the creation of data infrastructure for investigating the evolution of the digital divide.

Distance (Media policy/ Meta journalism)

The variable “distance” reflects the competitive relationships that exist between media organizations and outlets in terms of journalistic, economic and media policy interests, which can lead to reporting differences in media self-coverage (Pointner, 2010). This is due to the special situation that in the case of media self-coverage, both the reporting unit and the covered subject originate from the media sector. Several studies have shown that media organizations strategically use self-coverage to pursue their own interests, to legitimize their actions or to differentiate themselves from their competitors (Beck, 2001; Gilens & Hertzman, 2000; Hackett & Uzelman, 2003; Kemner, Scherer, & Weinacht, 2008; Lichtenstein, 2011; Löblich, 2011; Maier & Dogruel, 2016; Müller & Donsbach, 2006; Pointner, 2010; Snider & Page, 1997; Uzelman, Hackett, & Stewart, 2005; Weiß, 1986). Field of application/Theoretical foundation The variable serves as an indicator of potential conflicts of roles, interests and objectives at organizational level, which can lead to unbalanced or biased reporting. Example study Pointner (2010) Information on Pointner, 2010 Research interest: The study examines whether and how economic interests of media companies are reflected in the reporting on media companies. Object of analysis: A sample (one artificial day per month, all articles covering media companies) was drawn from four national German daily newspapers. Time frame of analysis: January 1, 1992 to December 31, 2006 Information about variable Level of analysis: article Coding logic: The relationship between the reporting unit and the covered subject is recorded on two levels. First, a distinction is made with regard to the media sector, i.e. whether the reporting concerns a subject originating from the same sector (intramedial, e.g. print observes print) or from a different sector (intermedial, e.g. print observes broadcasting). Within the intramedial level, a further distinction is made with regard to the organizational affiliation: Codes indicate whether the reporting relates to the own company (direct self-observation), affiliated companies of the own company (indirect self-observation), one or more direct competitors operating within the same media sector in the same media submarket (direct competitor observation), affiliated companies of competitors (indirect competitor observation) or media companies of other genres within the own media sector (general observation) (Pointner, 2010). For the implementation, it is recommended to first code the outlet in which a contribution appears, as well as separately code the outlet and the media sector that is the main subject of the coverage. Based on this, the assignment can be made with the help of an affiliation list of the outlets and affiliated companies of the publishing houses, media companies or media sectors investigated. However, it should be mentioned that in connection with the horizontal diversification of media companies into other media sectors and increasing convergence, the differentiation into intramedial and intermedial as well as direct and indirect is becoming increasingly difficult. Values: intramedial direct self-observation intramedial indirect self-observation intramedial direct competitor observation intramedial indirect competitor observation intramedial general observation intermedial Intercoder reliability: Holsti’s coefficient of .94 across categories (6 coders), not specified for individual category Codebook not available References Beck, K. (2001). Medienberichterstattung über Medienkonzentration. Publizistik, 46(4), 403-424. doi: 10.1007/s11616-001-0121-3 Gilens, M., & Hertzman, C. (2000). Corporate Ownership and News Bias: Newspaper Coverage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The Journal of Politics, 62(2), 369-386. doi: 10.1111/0022-3816.00017 Hackett, R. A., & Uzelman, S. (2003). Tracing Corporate Influences on Press Content: a summary of recent NewsWatch Canada Research. Journalism Studies, 4(3), 331-346. doi: 10.1080/14616700306486 Kemner, B., Scherer, H., & Weinacht, S. (2008). Unter der Tarnkappe. Publizistik, 53(1), 65-84. doi: 10.1007/s11616-008-0006-9 Lichtenstein, D. (2011). Kommerzialisierung des Medienjournalismus? Eine empirische Untersuchung zum „Fall Berliner Zeitung“. M&K Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft, 59(2), 216-234. doi: 10.5771/1615-634x-2011-2-216 Löblich, M. (2011). Frames in der medienpolitischen Öffentlichkeit. Publizistik, 56(4), 423-439. doi: 10.1007/s11616-011-0129-2 Maier, D., & Dogruel, L. (2016). Akteursbeziehungen in der Zeitungsberichterstattung über die Online-Aktivitäten des öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunks. Publizistik, 61(2), 145-166. doi: 10.1007/s11616-016-0258-8 Müller, D., & Donsbach, W. (2006). Unabhängigkeit von wirtschaftlichen Interessen als Qualitätsindikator im Journalismus. In S. Weischenberg, W. Loosen, & M. Beuthner (Eds.), Medien-Qualitäten: Öffentliche Kommunikation zwischen ökonomischem Kalkül und Sozialverantwortung (pp. 129-147). Konstanz: UVK. Pointner, N. (2010). In den Fängen der Ökonomie? Ein kritischer Blick auf die Berichterstattung über Medienunternehmen in der deutschen Tagespresse. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Snider, J. H., & Page, B. I. (1997). Does Media Ownership Affect Media Stands? The Case of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Institute for Policy Resarch at Northwestern University (IPR working papers 97-12). Uzelman, S., Hackett, R. A., & Stewart, J. (2005). Covering Democracy's Forum: Canadian Press Treatment of Public and Private Broadcasting. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 22(2), 156-169. doi: 10.1080/07393180500072053 Weiß, H.-J. (1986). Rundfunkinteressen und Pressejournalismus. Abschließende Analysen und Anmerkungen zu zwei inhaltsanalytischen Zeitungsstudien. Media Perspektiven, 2(86), 53-73.

Low Hanging Fruit: How Sports Talk Radio Hosts Discuss Racism

Talk radio has grown exponentially in the United States. The growth in talk radio was ignited by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed station owners to purchase more stations without antitrust scrutiny. One of the most popular formats on the radio is sports talk radio. Sports talk radio provides a unique entry point to understand how callers and hosts discuss racism in sport. The purpose of this study is to advance our understanding of race on the radio by examining how sports talk radio hosts discuss racism. The researcher interviewed 15 sports talk radio hosts over the phone to better understand how they discuss racism on the airwaves. After reviewing the transcripts and going through several rounds of data analysis, three themes were discovered: We can smell it, race is not always about race, and Black/White binary.

Accessible Media: The Need to Prepare Students for Creating Accessible Content

Electronic media accessibility has come a long way since the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In 2010, the Communication and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) mandated closed captioning many online videos and called for making video blind accessible through audio descriptions. The Department of Justice (DOJ) ruled Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) applied to the virtual world. Since January 2015, there have been over 240 online-accessibility lawsuits. As educators, we need to prepare students to understand what accessibility is and how to make electronic media accessible. This article outlines accessibility issues across the curriculum, including closed captioning, audio descriptions, and online documents, and calls for better integration of accessibility into the electronic media curriculum.