Somebody [must] throw some more light on the practices of the would-be monopolists, the companies whose business models are predicated on poorly regulated control of both carrier and content. This is not the free market in operation. Rather, it’s large-scale “issues management” aimed at institutionalizing a set of anti-competitive regulatory structures. Issues management is the high-powered synthesis of lobbying, legal advocacy, public relations, and the quasi-intellectual work of “think tanks” … The cause of democracy would be greatly enhanced world-wide if the practices of issue management were thoroughly exposed and if clear, powerful metaphors for the process became as widespread as Big Brother and the Panopticon.
Predictor: Agre, Phil
Prediction, in context:The February 1994 issue of The Network Observer, an online newsletter, carries lead-in titled “Issues and Openness” by Phil Agre, TNO editor, who was, at the time, working in the Department of Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Agre writes:”Somebody [must] throw some more light on the practices of the would-be monopolists, the companies whose business models are predicated on poorly regulated control of both carrier and content. This is not the free market in operation. Rather, it’s large-scale Ôissues managementÕ aimed at institutionalizing a set of anti-competitive regulatory structures. Issues management is the high-powered synthesis of lobbying, legal advocacy, public relations, and the quasi-intellectual work of Ôthink tanksÕ. (One manifestation of issues management is the recent round of vague promises that unregulated telecommunications monopolies will connect large numbers of schools to the info highway, with little if any guarantees about the technical nature, economic terms, and equity of distribution of these connections.) This process is furthest along in Brussels, where a truly scary anti-democratic system is being shaped under the guidance of Europe’s largest trans-national companies. Issues management is being practiced at a high level of refinement in Washington as well, but the game is much more fluid at this point, due precisely to what little democracy is still operating in this country. The cause of democracy would be greatly enhanced world-wide if the practices of issue management were thoroughly exposed and if clear, powerful metaphors for the process became as widespread as Big Brother and the Panopticon.Ó
Biography:Phillip E. Agre was an associate professor of information studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and has been the author of research studies on the Internet. He edited The Network Observer, an online newsletter on Internet issues. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: The Network Observer
Title, headline, chapter name: Issues and Openness
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/tno/february-1994.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne