[Ipg-smz] Fwd: [Cybertelecom-l] 📚What I'm Reading: Rehearsal for Media Regulation: Congress Versus the Telegraph-News Monopoly, 1866-1900

[Tom Henderson]

This is a comparatively good history, but it also leaves out the 
components associated with utilities in general, including the histories 
that came from English law about how easements, rights-of-way, 
ingress/egress law (and litigation) have evolved to shape how the cost 
infrastructure to utilities work-- issues that we still face today as 
Marshall McLuhan's "The medium is the message" evolves.

In the USA, the salient places to deep dive are in the Communications 
Act of 1935 (as amended). This legislation congealed a lot of diverse 
philosophy, although NOT at the state level. Very slowly the state's 
involvement in communications infrastructure has been handily usurped by 
corporate influence on the US Congress. Look in the sky shortly to see 
how insane it will become, as tens of thousands of satellites become new 
stars in our skies, each of them also subject to Moore's Law, but 
difficult to retrieve once situated.

Tom


On 12/1/19 10:56 AM, Stephen Satchell via Ipg-smz wrote:
> This may be of interest to our membership as well.
>
>
> -------- Forwarded Message --------
> Subject: [Cybertelecom-l] 📚What I'm Reading: Rehearsal for Media 
> Regulation: Congress Versus the Telegraph-News Monopoly, 1866-1900
> Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2019 10:13:51 -0500
> From: Bob Cannon <cybertelecom at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: cybertelecom-l at googlegroups.com
> To: cybertelecom-l <cybertelecom-l at googlegroups.com>
>
> I knew this story... but I have never read it in detail.  This is an
> excellent rendition.  Connects a lot of dots.
>
>> https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1373&context=fclj 
>>
>
> In this Article, Menahem Blondheim presents a critical historical 
> analysis of the dawn of communications regulation as it began with the 
> evolution of domestic telegraphy and developed into a coherent link 
> between 19th century technological, business, and social developments 
> and twentieth century First Amendment thought. First, the Article 
> examines the political and economic environment which led to the 
> development of national telegraph and news networks, like Western 
> Union and the Associated Press. The Author then proceeds to assess the 
> role of the mid-to-late nineteenth century American legislature, and 
> how the debate over telegraph and wire service regulation realigned 
> the powers of government, judiciary, and corporate America. Next, the 
> Article explores the tensions that developed with respect to the 
> Associated Press and Western Union monopolies, and how the judiciary 
> entered the scene of communications regulation at this critical 
> juncture. Finally, the Author suggests that the history of the 
> development of this early communications network frames current legal 
> debates over the proper
> roles of government and private industry in the communications 
> regulatory environment.
>
>
-- 
Tom Henderson
ExtremeLabs, Inc.
+1 317 250 4646
Twitter: @extremelabs
Skype: extremelabsinc