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Technology and Culture 43.1 (2002) 198-200



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Book Review

Radio and Television Regulation: Broadcast Technology in the United States, 1920-1960


Radio and Television Regulation: Broadcast Technology in the United States, 1920-1960. By Hugh R. Slotten. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Pp. xv+308. $45.

In his new book, Hugh Slotten traces the development of a regulatory infrastructure for radio and television broadcasting in the middle years of the twentieth century, beginning with the emergence of a commercial radio industry presided over by Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover in the 1920s and proceeding through the development of FM radio and broadcast television to the definition of color television standards by the end of the 1950s. He outlines the persistent questions facing decision makers during this period--spectrum assignments, technical standards, and broadcast licensing policies, for example--and gives particular emphasis to the role of engineers and other technical experts in informing broadcasting policy.

Slotten's central thesis is that broadcast policymaking is shaped by a tension between what he calls technocratic and nontechnocratic perspectives. The technocratic perspective proceeds from the notion that regulatory and policy decisions regarding communications media should be limited to those issues that hinge upon quantifiable scientific and engineering information. Its fundamental premise is that because of the complexity of issues like spectrum scarcity, the propagation characteristics of radio waves, and the potential for interference based on station distance, bandwidth separation, and atmospheric conditions, technical experts should be the primary [End Page 198] source of policy recommendations. It is motivated by a concern for efficiency, and informed by a technological determinism that sees technical innovation as inevitable. In contrast, the nontechnocratic perspective relies upon the idea that policymaking requires the additional consideration of political, social, and economic issues. Its fundamental premise is that the variety of publics whose interests are at stake in mass media regulation demands adherence to pluralist decision-making regimes. It is motivated by a concern for economic and social fairness, and informed by a kind of populist anxiety over the dominance of big business interests.

Thrust into the middle of this field of tensions were the scientists and engineers whose advice and recommendations were sought by policymakers during this period. Relying on an ethic of professional objectivity and scientific disinterest (despite often being in the employ of corporations involved in the broadcasting industry), and carefully distinguishing between technical and nontechnical aspects of communications technology (despite often eliding those distinctions by implicitly favoring particular, especially commercial, interests over others), radio and television engineers pursued a vision of technological utopianism in their advocacy of different kinds of policy.

Slotten draws upon archival data relevant to the policymaking process, including the testimony and technical reports of participants, and he has clearly given those records a careful reading. He has to juggle a number of different threads in presenting his account of the broadcast policymaking process, including (a) the contending policy options and their adherents, (b) the consequences of policies as they are implemented, modified, and rescinded, and (c) the patterns of alliance and rivalry among the political, economic, and social actors involved. The breadth of detail he is able to provide is a strength of this work.

However, the technocratic/nontechnocratic distinction does not always serve him well as he weaves these disparate threads together, since it conflates quite distinct attitudes toward policy processes and policymaking roles. For example, as I read Slotten, an engineer who believed that his role in the policy process should be limited to technical evaluation of alternative systems and a regulator who believed that all questions of broadcasting policy should be decided by reference to the recommendations of engineers would both fall under the "technocrat" rubric, even though their beliefs are not wholly complementary. A more fully elaborated analytic scheme that paid attention to different conceptions of role, process, and scope would have enabled Slotten to make finer distinctions among the discursive positions adopted by the various actors he involves in his account.

Slotten's work usefully augments the body of literature concerned...

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