Research

Although my scholarship spans a number of research areas,
it is united by a central concern with how media
institutions and systems constrain and enable democratic
practices. In particular, my work focuses on the policies,
politics, history, and democratic theory that structure
media institutions, and how media figure within the broader
U.S. and global political economy. More specifically, my
work focuses on global and U.S. media policy, the politics
driving specific policy regimes, and activist efforts
toward changing them. I have published on the following
subjects: The history and future of journalism; Indymedia
and Internet politics; global communication, Internet
governance policies, and communication rights; the complex
relationships between media activists, political elites,
and the mainstream press; and the politics of digital media
policies such as network neutrality.
Much of my current work focuses on the future of journalism
and news media. In particular, I focus on alternative
journalistic models in global, historical, and contemporary
contexts, and their implications for the current challenges
facing advertising-supported news media. In this vein, I
was the lead author on an influential white paper, "Saving
the News," which was the first comprehensive study of the
journalism crisis that erupted in 2008-2009. These
interests led to a co-edited book with Robert McChesney,
Will the Last Reporter Please Turn out the Lights: The
Collapse of Journalism and What Can Be Done To Fix It,
published with the New Press in May 2011.
My dissertation, "Media Democracy Deferred: The Postwar
Settlement for U.S. Communications, 1945-1949,"
historicizes current media policies and reform efforts.
Based on extensive archival research, it analyzes the
postwar critical juncture when policymakers, social
movements, and communication industries grappled over the
role of a commercial press in a democratic society. By
focusing on policy formations around the Hutchins
Commission, the FCC Blue Book, and the Fairness Doctrine, I
chronicle how a vibrant media reform movement was largely
co-opted and quelled, resulting in a "postwar settlement"
marked by three assumptions: media should remain self-
regulated, practice social responsibility, and adhere to a
negative conception of the First Amendment--a freedom of
the press privileging the rights of media producers and
owners over listeners, readers, and the broader public.
This social contract between the state, the polity, and
media institutions consolidated an industry-friendly
arrangement that contained reform movements, foreclosed on
alternative models, and discouraged structural critiques of
the U.S. media system. These outcomes continue to have a
major impact on much of the media Americans interact with
today.
I am drawing from my dissertation research for a book-
length study based on the 1940s media reform movement, the
resultant normative foundations for media policies like the
Fairness Doctrine, and the lessons these antecedents hold
for contemporary policymakers and reformers, particularly
around questions regarding the future of news media and its
role in a democratic society. A future book project will
examine how this "postwar settlement" has helped create a
"misinformation society" that structurally undercuts
democratic ideals of civil deliberation around important
policy issues. I also am working on a book that examines
the tactics, strengths, weaknesses, tensions, and
democratic theories underlying different types of media
activism. Finally, I am in the early stages of planning a
monograph-length comparative analysis of the normative
foundations of global media and telecommunication policy
regimes.
Selected Publications
Academic Journal Articles
Victor Pickard (2011).
The Battle over the FCC Blue Book: Determining
the Role of Broadcast Media in a Democratic Society, 1945-
1948. Media, Culture & Society 33(2)171-191.
Victor Pickard (2011).
Can Government Support the Press?
Historicizing and Internationalizing a Policy Approach to
the Journalism Crisis.The Communication Review
14 (2)73 - 95.
Sascha Meinrath, James Losey & Victor Pickard (2011).
Digital Feudalism: Enclosures and Erasures from
Digital Rights Management to the Digital Divide.
CommLaw Conspectus: Journal of Communications Law and
Policy, 423-479.
Victor Pickard (2010).
'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, 27, 4,
391-411.
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).
A
ssessing 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 (2009).
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), London:
Sage Publications, pp. 327-340
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 Pickard (2011).
Understanding Communication Power.
Invited review of Manuel Castells's Communication Power,
for
Global Media and Communication 7 (1), 54-56.
Victor 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.
Magazine Articles
Victor Pickard,
Forgotten Lessons for Journalism's Future.
Communication Currents, December, 2010.
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.
Public Documents
Federal Communications Commission (1946)
Public Service Responsibility of Broadcast Licensees
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