Taking It to the States: The Origins of Critical Information Needs

• Published date: 01 May 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00027162231208301
• Author: Lewis A. Friedland
• Date: 01 May 2023
• Subject Matter: Part I: Policy

ANNALS, AAPSS, 707, May 2023 21

DOI: 10.1177/00027162231208301

Taking It to the

States: The

Origins of

Critical

Information

Needs

By

LEWIS A. FRIEDLAND

1208301ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYTAKING IT TO THE STATES

research-article2023

This article provides a firsthand account of research

conducted for the Federal Communications Commission

in connection with its inquiry into communities’ critical

information needs and how well they were being met

by local news and information sources. I detail the

industry and political pressures brought to bear in

opposition to that inquiry and the extent to which oppo-

sition to this kind of research undermines the develop-

ment of prosocial local information ecologies. Finally, I

discuss what can be done to develop research in this

vein and shore up local information needs.

Keywords: critical information needs; Federal Communi-

cations Commission; research; local journal-

ism

In 2011, a review of the literature on critical

information needs (CIN) for the Federal

Communications Commission (FCC) set out to

ask and provide provisional answers to four

seemingly simple questions: Do Americans in

their communities have critical information

needs? If so, what are they, and how would we

define them? And are they being met?

In this article, I briefly describe how and

why the concept of critical information needs

was formulated and placed on the FCC’s

agenda, why these four questions themselves

were threatening to the broadcast industry and

right-wing politicians, and what can still be

done to address them today.

Correspondence: lew.friedland@wisc.edu

Lewis A. Friedland is Vilas Distinguished Achievement

Professor Emeritus in the School of Journalism and

Mass Communication and an affiliate of the depart-

ment of sociology at the University of Wisconsin–

Madison. He is founding PI emeritus and co-PI of the

Center for Communication and Civic Renewal and

coauthor of Battleground: Asymmetric Communication

Ecologies and the Erosion of Civil Society in Wisconsin

(Cambridge University Press 2022).