The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Contents

• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments and Caveat
• Preface From LCEF
• Preface From MIT's CRCP
• Introduction: Off Course on a Long Dark Road

Part One

• Section 254
• Section 255
• Section 706
• The Impact on Rural America

Part Two

• Section 202
• Media Mergers (1995-2001)
• A Brief Note on Mergers
• Telecom Mergers (1996-2001) 
• Section 336

Part Three

• Section 257
• Section 714

Afterword

• Does the Digital Divide Still Exist?

Appendix

• The Authors
• About CRFCP
• About LCEF
• About MIT's CRCP

Preface From MIT's Center for Reflective Community Practice

The introduction of advanced communications technologies will have a profound impact on all of us. We at MIT's Center for Reflective Community Practice see this impact on a daily basis as we work with groups who struggle to bring about social jus-tice in their communities. As we assist community leaders reflect on and act to change their local environments, it is clear that the public policies which determine how new technologies are deployed matter to us all. This book, The Success and Failures of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, is a valuable tool for community groups seeking to understand the policies which will determine both their access to information and their opportunities to tell their own stories. It is valuable not only because of the insightful analysis but because of the questions it raises: What about disabled children? What about independent artists? What about those who cannot afford to receive or produce information in the information age? Here is a broad coIlection of perspectives rarely heard in the debate over telecommu-nications policy.

This collection of essays is also a call to get involved in determining those policies. It is a call to correct the failure of policies which have led to unprecedented media concentration, resulting in the silencing of local voices. And it is a call to protect the advances made in the universal service program which assists children and adults gain access to the Internet in schools and libraries.

We also note in these reports the many stories of community groups. This document is clearly attentive to local voices reflecting on the

difference the E-Rate has made, and the impact of the Telecommunications Act on rural communities. Through these stories we can begin to see the wealth of expertise of community groups, and the importance of their engagement in creating communications policies which will improve the lives of all Americans.

We are pleased to join in the publication of this work.

Ceasar McDowell, Ed. D, Director of Center for Reflective Community Practice Associate Professor Practice of Community Development Massachusetts Institute of Technology