美国德国马歇尔基金会-美国公共媒体的“全套”方法（英）-2021.7-23正式版.ppt

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1、Policy PaperJuly 2021A“Full Stack”Approach to PublicMedia in the United StatesSanjay Jolly and Ellen P.GoodmanWashington,DC Ankara Belgrade Berlin Brussels Bucharest Paris WarsawPolicy PaperJuly 2021SummaryOver the course of U.S.history,and especially in turbu-lent times,the federal government and c

2、ivil societyhave sought to promote civic information.They havesought to make it easier for citizens to get accurate,local,and timely information,and for suppliers ofthat information to reach citizens.Exposure to civicinformation and engagement with it is what makesself-rule possible,which is why the

3、 First Amendmentis the cornerstone of democratic liberties.As a policymatter,the United States has treated civic informationas a critical infrastructureone that should be resil-ient and decentralized.The infrastructure built at thenations founding started with the postal service.Afterthe authoritari

4、an surge in Europe around the SecondWorld War,the focus turned to modifying a highlyconcentrated commercial system of informationproduction to shore up democracy.Amid the turmoilof the 1960s,the commitment to civic informationinfrastructure powered the creation of a decentralizedpublic media system.

5、pushes them toward disinformation and discord.problem is so bad that the U.S.Surgeon General hasissued an Advisory on health misinformation.Disor-1The2dered information flows are a global phenomenonand some of the responses will require coordinatedeffort to change the incentives and characteristics

6、ofsocial media and digital advertising.But there are alsodistinctly U.S.responses that are available,drawing onthe countrys decentralized public media tradition.This paper outlines what a“full stack”approachto new public media might look like.The“full stack”involves all the layers in communicating i

7、nformation,from production through distribution.In consideringwhat a reinvigorated infrastructure for civic infor-mation might look like,the paper asks anew whathave always been questions for media policy:Howcan community anchor institutions like libraries anduniversities participate?How can we ensu

8、re robustand resilient physical infrastructure everywhere?What technical and regulatory protocols will free citi-zens from exploitative commercial control?How canwe support accurate,high-quality content that themarket does not produce?Today,the challenges to democratic practice andgovernance are as

9、severe as they have ever been.ManyAmericans live in separate realities,lack access to localnews,distrust expertise and institutions,feel antago-nistic to tens of millions of their fellow citizens,andstruggle to access or accept credible information.Theyare manipulated by a digital advertising machin

10、e thatThe United States needs to invest in a new digitalpublic spherea new civic infrastructureif ithopes to sustain democratic practice and informedparticipation.12See Matthew Crain and Anthony Nadler,“Political Manipulation andInternet Advertising Infrastructure,”Journal of Information Policy9(201

11、9).U.S.Health and Human Services,Confronting Health Misinformation:e U.S.Surgeon Generals Advisory on Building a Healthy InformationEnvironment (2021).Jolly and Goodman:A“Full Stack”Approach to Public Media in the United States2Policy PaperJuly 2021Introductionattend to their own particular informat

12、ion needs andcontribute to those of the national polity.Supple-menting this diverse,pluralistic base of communitieswere initiatives for research,innovation,and profes-sional training.The system was,according to itsauthors,a distinctly U.S.approach to social progressand technological innovation.The C

13、arnegie Commis-sions report formed the basis for the Public Broad-casting Act of 1967,initiating a lasting experiment indistributed and democratic media.A half-century ago,the United States embarked upon aremarkable democratic experiment.In the mid-1960s,the Carnegie Commission on Educational Televi

14、-sion conducted a major study to research the role ofnoncommercial television in U.S.society.Broadcast1television had by then established itself as a break-through technology,enabling unparalleled formsof communication and,in its ubiquity,presentingprofound implications for social life.Observing tha

15、ttelevision was“a miraculous instrument,”the Carn-egie Commissions task was“to turn the instrumentto the best uses of American society,and to make itMore than 50 years later,the United States suffersfrom an information disorder.The business models forlocal media are all but defunct.Although the mark

16、etfor digital advertising is worth hundreds of billionsof dollars,the platforms market power means thatof new and increased service to the general public.”2The power of television,in other words,could beharnessed for more than just commercial value.It hadthe capacity to remake civic life for the bet

17、ter.TheCarnegie Commission sought to design a new systemas an alternative to existing commercial networks,onethat would use broadcast technologies to enable freeand open expression,serve the diverse informationneeds of the public,and foster connection and mutualunderstanding among communities.conten

18、t creators collect a tiny share of ad revenues.3Throughout the country,once-vibrant media ecosys-tems serving local communities have collapsed,leavingvast news deserts in their wake.As outlets shutter orlook to cut costs,the production of high-quality infor-mation like local news reporting and inves

19、tigativejournalism is often the biggest casualty.Meanwhile,4when a user accesses content on a platform throughsearch functions and content feeds,opaque artificialintelligence algorithms prioritize information basednot on whether it will inform the user but on whetherit will maximize“engagement,”ofte

20、n in the form ofoutrage.By capturing a users attention,the platformcan monetize greater volumes of personal informa-Throughout the country,once-vibrantmedia ecosystems serving localcommunities have collapsed,leavingvast news deserts in their wake.tion,generally without meaningful consent.So while5Wh

21、en the Carnegie Commission published its finalreport in 1967,it laid out a grand vision for publicmedia.The reports recommendations proposed amajor network of community infrastructures,imag-ined not just as a collection of uniform broadcaststations but as an interconnected system of varyinginstituti

22、ons and technologies.At its foundation werethe talents and energies of local communities that,with adequate technical and financial support,wouldhigh-quality information languishes,low-qualityinformation like clickbait,racist and misogynist abuse,conspiracies,and disinformation abound.34Ranking Memb

23、er Maria Cantwell,Local Journalism:Americas MostTrusted News Sources reatened,U.S.Senate Committee on Com-merce,Science,and Transportation,October 2020,p.16.David Ardia et al.,Addressing the Decline of Local News,Rise of Plat-forms,and Spread of Mis-and Disinformation Online:A Summary ofCurrent Rese

24、arch and Policy Proposals,UNC Center for Media Law andPolicy,October 2020,11.12Carnegie Commission on Educational Television,Public Television:AProgram for Action:e Report and Recommendations of the CarnegieCommission on Education Television,1967.5Luke Munn,“Angry by Design:Toxic Communication and T

25、echnicalArchitectures,”Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 7:53(2020).Ibid.,p.11.Jolly and Goodman:A“Full Stack”Approach to Public Media in the United States3Policy PaperJuly 2021This situation has already proven profoundlyharmful to U.S.democracy,from undermining trustin elections to fuel

26、ing xenophobia to hindering publichealth responses.One positive sign is that there doesappear to be a public consensus that the problemsfacing the U.S.information environment are real andserious.In recent years,the digital platforms haveresponded primarily through content-moderationregimes.Put most

27、simply,these systems rely on oftenelaborate frameworks to discern and then sift goodrefer to a layered,interconnected network comprisedof information infrastructures“hard”technologiesand“soft”institutional arrangementsoperatingaccording to civic principles.Through technolog-ical characteristics such

28、 as open-data protocols andaccountable-governance principles,the public mediastack should be designed to devolve decision-makingpowers to end-users,while amplifying local infor-mation,opportunities for cultural exchange,andconstructive engagement in the democratic process.By decentralizing control o

29、ver the flow of informationthrough the network,the public media stack shouldempower users,rather than platform authorities,withthe tools to“boost the signal of good information”and“dampen the noise created by bad actors and disinfor-information from bad.Content moderation,however,6gives a few platfo

30、rms excessive power to punish andsilence,as well as to ignore and condone.Contentmoderation as a focus of the information disorderelides the problem of private platforms controlling theflow of important information.It is readily apparentthat new approaches are necessary.mation.”While public media co

31、mmentary has long8focused on content decision,technical and gover-nance design choices that encourage informed civicdiscourse are just as important to combat informationdisorder.Strangely,public media has not figured prominentlyin the discourse surrounding information disorder,notwithstanding the fa

32、ct that public media entities areamong the most trusted institutions for both conser-vatives and liberals.7This absence may be due to anCivic Information Principles in the U.S.Traditionoverly narrow conception of what public media is orcould be.As the history of the Public Broadcasting Actshows,the

33、public media agenda is about much morethan any specific technology(broadcasting)or anyset of legacy institutions.It is a vision for how alterna-tive,noncommercial infrastructures can be deployedto support communicative practices for a healthydemocracy.If public media is to play a significant rolein

34、alleviating information disorder,however,it mustbe reimagined for the challenges and opportunities ofa 21st century communications environment.Every so often,Americans face a collective reckoningover the role of communications technologies intheir democracy.Social,political,and technologicalupheaval

35、s generate previously unimagined opportuni-ties alongside new dilemmas,unsettle notions of theirinformation needs and vulnerabilities,and presentrecurrent questions in new contexts:What is therole of media and communications in a democraticsociety?How can new communications technologiesbe harnessed

36、to increase freedom and well-being?What is the appropriate responsibility of govern-ment in ensuring a free,vibrant,and just informationecosystem?This paper proposes an agenda for transformingpublic media,broadly understood,into a vital bulwarkfor digital democracy.We use the term“public mediastack,

37、”based on the concept of a technology stack,toThe Hutchins CommissionIn the late 1940s,amid the massive social changes of67See,for example,Facebook,“Community Standards.”the postwar period and still coming to terms with theChristopher Ali,et al.,“PBS Could Help Rebuild Trust in US Media,”Columbia Jo

38、urnalism Review,March 9,2021.(describing independentresearch showing“the political leanings of PBS viewers span the spec-trum from extremely liberal to extremely conservative”and PBS researchfinding the network to be“Americas most trusted institution”).8Karen Kornbluh,Ellen P.Goodman,and Eli Weiner,

39、Safeguarding Dig-ital Democracy:Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative Roadmap,German Marshall Fund of the United States,2020,p.28.Jolly and Goodman:A“Full Stack”Approach to Public Media in the United States4Policy PaperJuly 2021advent of broadcast technologies,disparate sectors ofcivil society

40、including educators,religious organiza-tions,civil rights groups,civil libertarians,and laborunionscoalesced around a mistrust of the nationscommercial media system.Animated by concernsnot unlike todays,this movement of media reformerstook aim at monopolistic control of media entities,the underrepre

41、sentation of racial minorities in mediacontent and ownership,and the excesses of commer-sion to a business model beholden to the narrow profitmotives of advertisers.Even as that concentrationwas a threat,however,aggressive government actionto mitigate the threatwhether through antitrustenforcement,s

42、ubsidies,or direct regulationcoulditself imperil free expression insofar as it impinged onthe private media companies production and circula-tion of information.cial advertising.9What emerged from these critiquesThe Hutchins Commissionconcluded that constraints onmedia concentration advancedfree spe

43、ech interests.were calls for policy changes responsive to the infor-mation needs of a diverse and pluralistic democraticpolity.The 1947 report A Free and Responsible Presswas one response,published by the Commission onFreedom of the Press(better known as the HutchinsCommission for its chair).10 Comp

44、rised of the erasleading intellectuals in the field,the commissionundertook an in-depth study of media to determinehow American society could protect freedom ofexpression within an increasingly complex and inter-connected information environment.The Hutchins Commission recognized the difficul-ties o

45、f its task in a booming market economy.The U.S.form of industrial organization in the mid-twentiethcentury drove toward high concentrations of corporatepower.At the same time,informed democratic partici-pation was ever more reliant on mass communications.While a competitive economy might tolerate re

46、lativelyhigh degrees of corporate concentration,a competitivemarket in ideas could tolerate less.Concentrations ofpower in the communications industry posed acutethreats to the free circulation of ideas.This bottle-neck control over information flows,or gatekeeping,11hurt free expression not only be

47、cause it concentratedspeech power,but also because it harnessed expres-In light of its historical understanding of the FirstAmendment,the Hutchins Commission concludedthat constraints on media concentration advancedfree speech interests.It understood the constitutionto mean that“Where freedom of exp

48、ression exists,the beginnings of a free society and a means for everyextension of liberty are already present.Free expressionis therefore unique among liberties:it promotes andprotects all the rest.”12 But the freedom had to belongto the general polity,not only to the press.Rejectingthe binary oppos

49、ition between government inactionto create the conditions for free speech and tyrannicalgovernment oppression,the Hutchins Commissionadopted a positive rights view of First Amendmentprotections.In other words,it put the“freedom for”the public to participate in civic dialog on a par with“freedom from

50、”government coercion.13The Hutchins Commission bolstered its readingof the First Amendment with a historical accountof comparative threats to free speech.In the eigh-teenth century the biggest threat to free expressionwas government censorship,rather than economicwherewithal,because it was relativel