Media Access Project
Encyclopedia
The Media Access Project (or MAP) is a non-profit group
Nonprofit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 that promotes the public’s interest before Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 and the US court system
United States federal courts
The United States federal courts make up the judiciary branch of federal government of the United States organized under the United States Constitution and laws of the federal government.-Categories:...

. MAP grew out of a 1960’s lawsuit against the United Church of Christ
United Church of Christ
The United Church of Christ is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination primarily in the Reformed tradition but also historically influenced by Lutheranism. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches united in 1957 to form the UCC...

 and was eventually formed in 1972 in order to advance the rights of the public wanting to participate in the democratic process. Some of their first cases involved two TV stations in Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

 not catering to the African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 Community, resulting in the stations almost being shut down. From that era and cases came the thought "that members of the viewing and listening public have the legal right, derived from the First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...

, to participate in FCC
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

 proceedings." Their most common way of fighting cases is through lobbying
Lobbying
Lobbying is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by various people or groups, from private-sector individuals or corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or...

.

Comcast NBC-Universal deal

On January 18th 2011, cable and internet giant Comcast
Comcast
Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...

 acquired NBC Universal in a blockbuster deal. At the time, Comcast was the largest distributor of video services in the United States. The FCC voted in favor of it by a 4-1 count. The deal gave Comcast a 51% ownership of NBC Universal, and "For Comcast, the purchase is the realization of its long-held ambition to be a major producer of television shows and movies". There was some concern about media consolidation, as expressed by Michael J. Copps, commissioner of the FCC. "Every citizen has a stake here,” given the size of the combined entity. “The lodestar for this review must be the public interest". The Media Access Project is concerned that the terms of the deal prevent competition, and could result in price gouging due to fewer media sources. Critics fear that "Comcast will act as a gatekeeper by limiting the ability of independent voices to get a slot on cable distribution systems, or by withholding NBC-Universal content from other platforms and providers".

Media ownership

The issue resolves around the idea that those who control the media control what information people do and don't have access to. If you have an ownership group who is very bias towards, or against a certain argument, or cause, then the media that they own will only give one side of the story. According to Free Press
Free Press (organization)
Free Press is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, national organization working to reform the media in the United States.It was founded in 2002 by media scholar Robert W. McChesney, The Nation contributor John Nichols, and Josh Silver, current CEO of the Democracy Fund, a foundation challenging the influence...

 "But these massive conglomerates — like General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...

, Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...

 and News Corporation
News Corporation
News Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...

 — only care about the bottom line, not serving the public interest. And allowing these few firms too much control over the flow of news and information is dangerous for our democracy".

In 2003, the Media Access Project's lawyers filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals, trying to nullify the FCC's media ownership rules that were going to take effect. The case was filed on behalf of Prometheus Radio Project of Philadelphia and the Media Access Project wanted to prevent the new media ownership rules until the judicial review was completed. The court ended up siding with the Media Access Project and struck down the FCC's new media ownership regulations.

On March 23rd, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals
United States courts of appeals
The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal court system...

 lifted a ban that had prevented media companies from owning both a TV station and newspaper in the same region, or market.

Part of the media ownership debate includes that of media concentration. Media concentration is when a large amount of media outlets are owned by a small number of companies. According to the MAP website, media concentration not only limits diversity, but also "threatens an outlet’s accountability to local communities, since big companies are often unfamiliar with a community’s specific needs." In the early 1980's, the Reagan administration started deregulating the broadcasting industries, which led to the trend of media consolidation. Media Access Project Director Andrew Scwartzman commented: "Deregulation has brought a new breed of broadcaster to whom public service matters less."

Net neutrality

One of the larger issues that Media Access Project concerns itself with is the concept of Net Neutrality. However a concern that still comes up quite often is that ambiguity in network management may diminish opportunity and innovation within the internet business which in turn may lead to unfair competition. For MAP the main focus with net neutrality is urging the FCC to ensure that network operators do not block or slow down the transmission of certain types of online content. One of the bigger cases that lead to current net neutrality rules was in 2007 when internet service provider Comcast was caught directly manipulating or blocking their subscriber’s access to the popular file sharing service BitTorrent. MAP filed a petition with the FCC stating that Comcast had violated several of the agencies policies.

A more recent court case dealing with the current net neutrality rules being challenged by cellular giant Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless
Cellco Partnership, doing business as Verizon Wireless, is one of the largest mobile network operators in the United States. The network has 107.7 million subscribers as of 2011, making it the largest wireless service provider in America....

 was thrown out because the company supposedly filed the lawsuit prematurely. Specifically Verizon Wireless was challenging the Open Internet Framework and felt that the FCC had too broad of an authority for the new regulation of broadband network. However MAP senior vice president Andrew Schwartzman hinted that Verizon was trying to exploit the system saying “It was a blatant effort to steer the case to a sympathetic court, but the judges agreed that the appeal was prematurity was incurable.”

Spectrum access

Spectrum access refers to the electromagnetic spectrum, which is a set of frequency bands that transmit electronic communications. According to their website, the Media Access Project has three principles involving spectrum management: “Spectrum belongs to the public, and the law prevents the FCC from turning it into private property; those with exclusive rights to use spectrum must also serve the public interest; and the public is best served by allowing as many people, institutions, and other entities to use spectrum space as technology will permit, the FCC should therefore expand unlicensed uses to the extent technology allows.” The MAP argues that allowing greater public access to the spectrum would allow greater social and economic growth.

In 2002, the FCC granted additional flexibility for spectrum use, which led to many public interest groups and wireless carriers to send comments about the policy change. The comments covered a variety of topics from redefining harmful interference and rural spectrum management. There was also a debate between whether or not there should be an increase in usable spectrum between public interest groups and wireless service providers.

The FCC allowed a new portion of high-frequency spectrum to be allocated for WiFi
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...

 networks in 2003. The spectrum was open to any company and did not require the purchase of a license, but was limited by how much power a device could use to transmit the signal. Associate Director of the MAP, Harold Feld, claimed that combining a high frequency and low power limits would mean that the allocated spectrum would be too weak its intended purpose.

In 2007, the Media Access Project was a part of the Save Our Spectrum Coalition, whose goal was to allow consumers to use any equipment, content, application or service without interference or discrimination from network providers. The group wanted network providers to bid on the spectrum through separate affiliates operating under open access conditions. Later, the Media Access Project claimed that the incumbent companies that already owned spectrum access blocked new competitors from entering the market. The group stated that if the auction had been anonymous, smaller companies would be more likely to bid against the incumbent companies.

Andrew Jay Schwartzman

Andrew Schwartzman is a media attorney who has worked with MAP since June 1978. He is currently the Senior Vice President and Policy Director, and previously held the position of President and CEO. He has worked with MAP since He now holds the title of Senior Vice President and Policy Director.

Andrew represents MAP before "Congress, the FCC and the courts on issues such as cable TV regulation, minority and female ownership and employment in the mass media,“equal time” laws and cable “open access”.

The Media Access Project’s policy director Andrew Schwartzman developed an idea and filed a petition with the FCC in March of 2011 “arguing that it should force political groups to disclose information about their top donors when they run political ads.” Schwartzman noted that the FCC had the ability to put this policy into act for several decades under the Communications Act of 1934
Communications Act of 1934
The Communications Act of 1934 is a United States federal law, enacted as Public Law Number 416, Act of June 19, 1934, ch. 652, 48 Stat. 1064, by the 73rd Congress, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, codified as Chapter 5 of Title 47 of the United States Code, et seq. The Act replaced the...

. Previous rules only required disclosure from the group claiming responsibility for the advertisement. The specifics of the petition are that it “asks the FCC to revise its rules to require groups to disclose financial backers who contribute more than 10% of the group’s budget and on-air disclosures from donors who provide more than 25% of a television commercial’s budget or more than 33% of the cost of a radio commercial.”
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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