Beginner's Guide

Are you new to media reform? Looking for someplace to start? This is it.

Why care about media?

Media play a huge role in our lives.

The Internet, TV, radio, newspapers, movies and books inform our ideas, values and beliefs. They shape our understanding of the world.

Media are also essential to our democracy. We depend upon the news and information we get from the media to make informed decisions and to hold our government and corporate leaders accountable.

What's wrong with media?

Our media system is in a crisis.

The takeover of our country's media outlets by a small handful of giant conglomerates puts too much power and influence in too few hands. That's bad for our democracy, which depends on our ability to access diverse sources of news, information and opinion.

Our media is in trouble in other ways, too.

The big cable and phone companies that control access to the Internet want to be gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites and services you can use depending on which companies have paid them the most. They want to turn the open Internet we've always had into a closed, private toll road.

And public broadcasting, one of our most valuable public resources, is under constant threat by those who would cripple alternatives to the commercial media and muzzle the critical voices and diverse fare that public media offer.

It's up to us to change the media. The way we do that is by changing media policies.

Isn't it just the result of market forces?

No, it's shaped by the government.

There's really no such thing as "deregulation." We're always going to have rules. The question that matters is whom those rules will benefit. Do the laws and regulations benefit the public or do they just benefit big companies that can afford high-priced lobbyists?

For decades, communications policies have been made behind closed doors in the public's name but without our informed consent. That's unacceptable in a democracy.

Only by restoring public input in the policymaking process can we create policies that serve the public interest.

Who owns the airwaves?

Believe it or not, you do!

The "airwaves" are the transmission frequencies used by radio, TV and satellite broadcasters, cell phone companies — even your TV remote control — to transmit signals.

Although the airwaves are used for many different purposes, they ultimately belong to you — the American public — in the same way that your sidewalk or your local park belongs to you. The airwaves are a public resource. Unfortunately, citizens rarely even get to use the airwaves to make their own voices heard!

Some businesses, like cell phone companies, pay the government to use the airwaves (also called "spectrum"). Radio and TV broadcasters, though, use these airwaves free of charge. In return for this generous government handout, broadcasters are required by law to serve the public interest.

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• Building a Media Reform Movement