From Broadcast to Broadband: Policy Silences in the "Compromise and Consensus" of Industry Capture

Through a narrative policy framework (NPF) analysis, we compare official White House press releases from Bill Clinton’s 1996 Telecommunications Act, and Joe Biden’s 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). Our purpose is to identify similarities and differences in the way the two administrations, 25 years apart, addressed issues pertaining to telecommunication regulation. This analysis reveals major distinctions between how the acts were framed, specifically in terms of who was responsible for the policy problem being addressed. Most significant was the shift from clearly addressing media consolidation as a threat (in the 1996 Act), to avoiding any mention of the increasingly consolidated media industry (in 2021). We reflect on these distinctions through Des Freedman’s notion of ‘policy silences’—the omissions of policy discussions—as they relate to contradictions between normative democratic theory and the role of private interests in US policymaking.