This teachable work provides a comprehensive introduction to the technology, economics, law, and policy of modern communications. The book is organized by analytic concepts instead of current industry lines, which are constantly made out-of-date by technological convergence. The basic ideas—power, entry, pricing, access, classification, (indecent) content, privacy, and intermediary—equip students with a durable and yet flexible intellectual structure that can help parse a complex and ever-changing field.
Replete with concise technological and legal summaries, the text provides carefully edited opinions and FCC reports. It provides “just-in-time” display of the relevant text of statutes and regulations so that students get accustomed to parsing statutory material as they analyze legal questions. Technical diagrams and conceptual illustrations also help students navigate between minutiae and the big picture.
This edition covers all major communications industries including broadcast radio and TV, cable TV, DBS, wireline and mobile telephony, and the internet. Cutting edge issues such as broadband regulation (“net neutrality”) and privacy are also discussed. With myriad refinements and substantial additions, this edition maintains the conceptual clarity of the first six editions while improving on lean coverage, currency, and teachability.
If you are looking to teach a complete communications class, and not just a cyberlaw or Internet seminar, this casebook provides the most pedagogically coherent choice.