Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-2000

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Communication

Major Professor

Benjamin Bates

Committee Members

Herbert Howard, Mark Miller, Doug Raber

Abstract

The passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 represented the culmination of the theoretical shift in the philosophy of broadcast ownership regulation. After decades of government regulations maintaining the structure of local broadcast markets,policies of deregulation slowly began to restructure local media markets under a marketplace approach to broadcast regulation. This dissertation explored the consequences of shifting from a managed structure of regulation to an open market structure of deregulation in small media markets. In particular,this dissertation sought to answer research question and test hypotheses related to the public interest standards of ownership and content diversity under both types of regulatory philosophies. To answer the research question and test the hypotheses,this dissertation operationalized the public interest concept of media ownership and content diversity at the local market level. Using data from industry yearbooks about daily newspapers,television stations and radio stations in small metropolitan statistical areas, a database of information related to the number of owners,type of owners,news content and numerous other variables was created for a time period from 1972 to 1998. Multiple regression analyses tested the hypotheses. Overall,the statistical analysis suggested that there was a limited impact on ownership and content diversity when considering the gradual change from regulation to deregulation.However,the data analysis suggested that there has been a negative impact on ownership and content diversity since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 in the small markets.The results indicated that the Federal Communications Commission and other agencies should reconsider certain ownership policies in small media markets.

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