What Is Media Policy?

• Published date: 01 May 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00027162231211387
• Author: Philip M. Napoli
• Date: 01 May 2023
• Subject Matter: Part I: Policy

ANNALS, AAPSS, 707, May 2023 29

DOI: 10.1177/00027162231211387

What Is Media

Policy?

By

PHILIP M. NAPOLI

1211387ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYWHAT IS MEDIA POLICY?

research-article2023

This article offers a definition of media policy and,

through a discussion of specific areas of public policy,

describes the scope of media policy as an area of poten-

tial government intervention. I argue for a more expan-

sive conceptualization of media policy than has typically

guided the work of 21st-century media policymakers. I

also argue that there has been a troubling tendency to

apply a technology policy framework to contexts that

would be better served by a media policy analytical

framework. The result has been a neglect of core media

policy principles that are focused on cultivating an

informed citizenry and ensuring that communities’

information needs are being met.

Keywords: media policy; technology policy; diversity;

localism; competition; community infor-

mation needs

In this volume of The ANNALS, we consider

the legacy of a significant and forward-look-

ing media policy inquiry (Waldman and

Working Group on the Information Needs of

Communities 2011) and explore the issues and

concerns that this inquiry brought to the fore.

At the outset, it is worth reflecting on and

clarifying a broader question that I am asked

with surprising frequency: exactly what is media

policy? Sometimes this question arises out of

pure unfamiliarity with the field and its associ-

ated concerns. Other times, it reflects an effort

to distinguish between related and/or intersect-

ing policy domains, with the nature of the over-

lap and intersection between media policy and

technology policy being a particularly timely

Correspondence: philip.napoli@duke.edu

Philip M. Napoli is James R. Shepley Professor of

Public Policy in the Sanford School of Public Policy at

Duke University, where he is also the director of the

DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy. He

has provided research and testimony to the Federal

Communications Commission and other government

agencies.

30 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

and important case in point. Hopefully, my effort to answer the question, “What

is media policy?” can provide useful context for the other contributions to this

volume.

With these aims in mind, this article delineates not only what media policy has

been but also what it should be. Indeed, the domain of media policy is a con-

tested space, with differing interpretations of how broadly—or how narrowly—

the field should be defined. How these parameters are defined has tremendous

implications for the extent to which policymakers are empowered to tackle

today’s most pressing challenges related to ensuring that communities’ critical

information needs are being met.

The answer to the question, “What is media policy?” depends to some degree

on how broadly or narrowly one defines “media” and to what extent one thinks

technological changes have effectively addressed the policy goals that have tradi-

tionally guided media policymakers. These goals include, but are not limited to,

preserving/promoting competition, ensuring the availability of a diversity of view-

points, and ensuring that at least some content providers operate under some

reasonably defined notion of serving the public interest.

My primary goal here is to advocate for a particular interpretive approach to

media policy—one that can effectively be brought to bear on the challenges and

opportunities present in our contemporary digital media landscape. Specifically,

this article pushes back against contemporary tendencies to limit the parameters

of media policy to traditional “mass media.” In doing so, I explore what exactly

the term “media” in media policy has meant and should mean in this digital age.

An overarching theme of this article is that technological changes have created

conditions and (mis)perceptions that have tended to draw policymakers’ focus

away from core media policy issues and concerns—a pattern that helps to explain

some of the dilemmas currently confronting our media and information

ecosystem.

The Contested Meaning and Scope of Media Policy

The parameters of media policy are contested territory. This section explores

some of these contested notions of what is—and what is not—media policy. As

a starting point for this exercise, I begin with a consideration of the term

“media.” Media is one of those terms that we often presume has a clear, shared

meaning, but the reality is more complicated. It is perhaps telling that the

Oxford Encyclopedia of Communication (Nussbaum, n.d.) contains 52 entries

with the term “media” in the title (e.g., “media literacy,” “media ownership,

“media systems,” etc.) but no entry focused on explicating the term “media” on

its own.

The complexity alluded to above has to do with how broadly or how narrowly

we conceptualize the term—particularly within the context of policymaking. This

conceptual flexibility is reflected in the two definitions offered by the Oxford

English Dictionary: