The Negative Impact Of The Ongoing American Media Deregulation On Media Diversity And Democratic Participation

The effect of media on the general population is significant. As people need food, shelter and health care for their physical survival, they also require free access to communication and information as part of their social lives. In recent twenty years, the media regulative policy in America has gone through many dramatic changes. Since early 1980s, the American government has begun reversing regulation laws and systematically demolishing media restraints. To deregulate means that the government exercises less control over public goals and private pursuits. The Telecommunication Act of 1996 was a significant media policy change in more than 60 years. Many of the previous regulative actions to prevent the consolidation of the media were overturned. The third biennial review of FCC (Federal Communications Commission) in 2002 led to a new round of relaxation of regulation. Many once important roles were eliminated.The ongoing media deregulation caused a surge of concentrations. In the process, the media conglomerates acquire stronger influence over the society. Corporate control of the media becomes a powerful force in the socializing and politicizing the American public. The effects of such concentrations on media as well as on the public are largely negative. On the one hand, media fare is ever more closely linked to the needs and concerns of a handful of enormous and powerful corporations. It is subjected to an ever-greater commercialization as the dominant firms use their market power to squeeze the greatest possible profit out of their products. As a result, the extent and style media uses to convey issues are significantly affected. On the other hand, the media failed to fulfill their primary responsibility of serving the general welfare by informing the people and enabling them to make judgments on the issues of the time.This paper concerns the implication of media deregulation for American people's social lives. The argument is that media deregulation has a negative effect on media diversity and American democratic participation. Since the mass media are not only a category of business but societal activity, governmental regulation is needed toguarantee the diversity of the mass media and to facilitate the media's responsibilities in the democratic process and general creative expression.The public-interest theory provides the theoretical basis for the regulatory examination in the paper. Public-interest theory emphasizes that government is the guarantor of the public good. Proponents of public-interest theory contend that the economic regulation developed as a way to control a market system that was perceived to be unfair to both consumers and producers. Diversity will only result from a marketplace of ideas if the number of different providers of information is great and competition between them is full and fair, so that power domination does not exist. But frequently situations of oligopoly and monopoly occur. Monopolistic power structures, harmful business practices and general economic abuses of the public thus necessitated governmental protection through regulation.