Media Policy and Globalization - Blogs Unpad

60 MEDIA POLICY AND GLOBALIZATION
regulators and policy-makers were concerned, at least in principle, with
how best to achieve national public interest through the equitable distribution
of service at the most reasonable prices: ‘The arrangement served
the important goal of interconnecting society and operated as a means of
redistribution’ (Noam 1992: 3).
Slow rates of technological change coupled with national monopoly
control over the network and monopsony (single buyer) control over
equipment ensured a period of relative stasis in the arena of national
telecommunications policy. In the US, the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) was established in the 1920s as an independent body
‘with a high degree of autonomy from executive government power’
(O’Siorchu et al. 2002: 13). The FCC was composed of governmentappointed
experts who were to serve as ‘neutral’ commissioners ‘insulated
form the winds of politics by formal institutional boundaries and
rules’ (Streeter 1996: 122). AT&T as a state-sanctioned private monopoly,
was required by the FCC to fulfill specific ‘public-interest’ obligations
with the most important goal being universal service, explicitly making
telecommunications services economically viable for all citizens.
In much of the rest of the world, with the state directly involved in the
operation and provision of telecommunications services, there was no
need for a separate regulatory agency monitoring the private sector. In
Western Europe, for example, the corollary for ‘universal service’ as monitored
by the FCC was the broader notion of ‘public service’ provided
through the state-operated telecommunications services. As Nicholas
Garnham has argued, public interest is assumed to be synonymous with
the interests of the state:
Within this tradition the State, by definition represents, through the
political process, the best interests of all citizens. Thus the delivery of a
public service by the State, whether directly or by delegated authority,
does not require a more specific universal service remit nor is there a
requirement for the State to be held accountable for its actions, legally,
or otherwise, to individual citizens. (Garnham and Mansell 1991: 29)
In most cases, the state also fulfilled what was assumed as a publicinterest
mandate in its role as employer and/or mediator in a sector
that has historically been highly unionized around the world. Although
national telecommunications unions have varied histories of militancy
and cooperation (Dubb 1999), it is fair to generalize that this was a
largely stable era of industrial relations with job security for those who
had access to what were mostly permanent unionized positions. Writing
about the Canadian telecommunications sector, but with relevance for