A Brookings Institution Press and American Enterprise Institute publication The 1990s witnessed a major revolution in telecommunications policy in North America and Europe. The electronics revolution swept the world, and most countries began to realize that they could not compete in many markets without a vibrant, competitive telecommunications sector. As a result, the European Union, Canada, and the United States launched major new liberalization policies aimed at opening all telecommunications markets to competition. This report presents two views of the progress towards competition—one for North America and one for Europe. The authors provide an overview of the market structure on both continents prior to the 1990s, discuss significant regulatory changes during that decade, and analyze changes in rate structures and competition that have occurred since liberalization. They conclude with a look at the present and future impact of the Internet and other new technologies on the telecommunications industry.

Culture, politics, economics and technology all impact upon policy decisions. To investigate the factors that influence communications policy, however, one has to go beyond conventional views of media and communication studies and combine these with policy studies. Communications Policy: Theories and Issues utilizes new research to highlight key debates and developments, and addresses a broad spectrum of contemporary concerns regarding the structure and the organization of communications systems in the past, present and future. Combining theoretical analysis with empirical research findings, this comprehensive text explores the contemporary theories and issues in communications policy that affect all democratic societies as they seek to address the challenges of emerging information and communications technologies. Featuring contributions from distinguished authors across a range of media disciplines, Communications Policy introduces challenging ideas about how communications should be structured in the future and is essential reading for all policy makers, researchers and students of communications policy. Editors: Stylianos Papathanassopoulos is Professor in Media Organization at the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He is the author of Television in the 21st Century (2005), Media and Politics (2004) and European Television in the Digital Age: Issues, Dynamics and Realities (2002). Ralph Negrine is Professor of Political Communication in the Journalism Studies Department at the University of Sheffield. His previous books include The Transformation of Political Communication (Palgrave, 2008), Television and the Press Since 1945 (1999) and The Communication of Politics (1996). Contributors: Bram Abramson, Johannes M. Bauer, Sandra Braman, Dom Caristi, Alistair Duff, Gisela Gil-Egui, Alison Harcourt, Jackie Harrison, Robert W. McChesney, Serge Proulx, Marc Raboy, Concetta M. Stewart, Yan Tian and Roxanne Welters.