Research

VP


My research explores the intersections of U.S. and global media politics, media history, democratic theory, and communications policy. Since entering graduate school in 2001, I have investigated the ways in which media both constrain and enable democratic practices.
During my Master's degree at the University of Washington, my work followed two tracks, both falling under the rubric of political communication.

The first drew from my research on Internet activism, issue networks, and social movement theory. This focus informed my thesis, which was based on a nearly three-year study of the first Independent Media Center, an innovative communications model formed in Seattle during the 1999 WTO protests. Several journal articles came out of this research.

The second track fell within a more traditional political communication research area exemplified by several content analysis studies of how political elites used mainstream print media strategically and how these media were representing elites and social issues such as the global justice movement.

During my doctoral work at the Institute of Communications Research I focused more on the historical and political economic dimensions of these issues. This research has produced a number of papers on telecom and journalism history, Internet policy, and global communications.

My dissertation, "Media Democracy Deferred: The Postwar Settlement for U.S. Communications, 1945-1949," explores the origins of the social contract between U.S. media institutions and the public that emerged from 1940s media policy debates and initiatives, such as the Hutchins Commission, the FCC Blue Book, and the Fairness Doctrine. This research demonstrates how these historical debates hold much contemporary relevance for the media problems facing U.S. society today.


Selected Publications

Academic Journal Articles
Victor Pickard (In Press). The Battle over the FCC Blue Book: Determining the Role of Broadcast Media in a Democratic Society, 1945-1949. Media, Culture & Society.

Victor Pickard (In Press). 'Whether the Giants Should Be Slain or Persuaded to Be Good': Revisiting the Hutchins Commission and the Role of Media in a Democratic Society. Critical Studies in Media Communication.

Victor Pickard (2010). Reopening the Postwar Settlement for U.S. Media: The Origins and Implications of the Social Contract between Media, the State, and the Polity. Communication, Culture & Critique 3, 2, 170-189.

Victor Pickard & Sascha Meinrath (2009). Revitalizing the Public Airwaves: Opportunistic Unlicensed Reuse of Government Spectrum. International Journal of Communication, 3, 1052-1084.

Sascha Meinrath and Victor Pickard (2008). Transcending Net Neutrality: Ten Steps Toward an Open Internet. Journal of Internet Law, 12, (6), 1, 12-21.

Victor Pickard (2008). Cooptation and Cooperation: Institutional Exemplars of Democratic Internet Technology. New Media and Society 10 (4), 625-645.

Sascha Meinrath and Victor Pickard (2008). The New Network Neutrality: Criteria for Internet Freedom. International Journal of Communication Law and Policy, 12, 225-243.

Victor Pickard (2007). Neoliberal Visions and Revisions in Global Communications Policy from NWICO to WSIS. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 31 (2), 118-139.

Victor Pickard (2006). Assessing the Radical Democracy of Indymedia: Discursive, Technical and Institutional Constructions. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 23 (1), 19-38.

Victor Pickard (2006). United yet Autonomous: Indymedia and the Struggle to Sustain a Radical Democratic Network. Media Culture & Society, 28 (3), 315-336.

Lisa McLaughlin and Victor Pickard (2005). What is Bottom Up About Global Internet Governance? Global Media and Communication, 1 (3), 359-375.

W. Lance Bennett, Victor Pickard, David P. Iozzi, Carl L. Schroeder, Taso Lagos, and Courtney Evans-Caswell (2004). Managing the Public Sphere: Journalistic Construction of the Great Globalization Debate. Journal of Communication, 54, 437-455.

Kevin Coe, David Domke, Erica Graham, Sue John and Victor Pickard (2004). No Shades of Gray: The Binary Discourse of George W. Bush and an Echoing Press. Journal of Communication, 54, 234-252.

Book Chapters
Sascha Meinrath & Victor Pickard (In Press). The Rise of the Intranet Era: Media, Research and Policy in an Age of Communications Revolution. Globalization and Communicative Democracy: Community Media in the 21st Century (Ed. Kevin Howley), to be published by Sage.

Reference Articles
Victor W. Pickard (2008). Communication Rights in a Global Context. In Robin Anderson and Jonathan Gray (Eds.), Battleground: The Media, Vol. 1. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp. 91-97.

Victor W. Pickard (2008). The Indymedia Model: Strengths and Weaknesses of a Radical Democratic Experiment. Global Civil Society Yearbook 2007/8: Communicative Power and Democracy. London: Sage Publications, pp. 207, 210-212.

Victor W. Pickard (2007). Alternative Media. In Todd M. Schaefer and Thomas A. Birkland (Eds.), The Encyclopedia of Media and Politics. Washington, DC: CQ Press, pp.12-13.

Victor W. Pickard (2007). Telecommunications Act of 1996. In Todd M. Schaefer and Thomas A. Birkland (Eds.), The Encyclopedia of Media and Politics. Washington, DC: CQ Press, p.280.

Book Reviews
Victor W. Pickard. Future Active and the Future of the Internet. Review of Graham Meikle's Future Active: Media Activism and the Internet. Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies. November 2005.

White Papers and Policy Reports
Victor Pickard, Josh Stearns & Craig Aaron (2009). Saving the News: Toward a National Journalism Strategy. Free Press.

Victor Pickard & Sascha Meinrath (2009). Revitalizing the Public Airwaves: Opportunistic Unlicensed Reuse of Government Spectrum. New America Foundation.

Op-eds
Victor Pickard, Cracks in the Pay Walls. SavetheNews.net, August 24, 2009.

Victor Pickard, Take the Profit Motive out of News. Guardian UK, July 23, 2009.

Victor Pickard, Costs of the Journalism Crisis. SavetheNews.net, July 22, 2009.

Victor Pickard & Joe Torres, Saving America's Democracy-sustaining Journalism. Seattle Times, July 5, 2009.

Victor Pickard, Confronting the Crisis in Journalism. Smart Assets: The Philanthropy New York Blog, June 12, 2009.

Victor Pickard & Sascha Meinrath, Internet for All: Competition, Consumer Choice, and the Cost of Connectivity. InternetforEveryone.net, December 5, 2009.

Victor Pickard & Sascha Meinrath, No Room for Neutrality on Net Neutrality. Public i, V6, 8, Oct. 2006.

Victor Pickard, The Battle for the Internet's Soul. Public i, V5, 10. Dec./January 2006.

Victor Pickard, Silencing the Violence of War. Public i, V5, 9, November 2005.

Victor Pickard, Right wing moving in on Sesame Street. Public i, V5, 8, October 6, 2005.