All around us, often invisibly, institutions and systems shape our lives, the ways we communicate, transact, entertain ourselves and learn about the world about us. Policy making is the way that society structures and instructs these institutions and systems. It involves organizing and influencing their elements and relationships to serve collective and individual needs and promoting well-being, safety, security, innovation and social progress. Deciding the best ways to achieve those outcomes is subject to considerable debate.
Without policy, much of what we take for granted in our daily lives would be impossible. Consider our mobile phones, for example. They would only be pieces of industrial design and useless technology unless policy decisions had spurred innovations in radio, telecommunications and electronics, allocated unique radio spectrum necessary for them to operate, formed standards for mobile interconnectivity to fixed, microwave and satellite telecommunications systems, produced a common address system to reach other phones and internet connections, provided authority for telecommunications companies to stretch wire and cable on governmental and private rights of way, and created and supported market structures and incentives for companies to build and operate the requisite infrastructures. These policy choices make possible the systems and markets necessary for us to call, text and share with friends, family and business partners around the world and to access all kinds of digital content wherever we happen to be. Similarly, when we switch on our television sets, few ever consider the policy behind their operations: technical standards for the sets are established to coincide with the technical standards for broadcast transmitters; licenses are given to firms to operate broadcast channels; operating standards are established; interconnectivity to cable, satellite and internet is standardized; content standards are promulgated; and broadcast carriage requirements for cable/satellite systems are all set by policy.
Hundreds of public policies at the national, regional and global levels influence the structures and operations of our media and communications systems. This book explores the policy processes and the environments in which these take place.
Why Study Policy and Policy Making?
The fundamental purposes of studying policy and policy making are to understand the policy-making environment, how policies are made and what influences their development, approval and implementation. Policy provides the bases for decision-making, providing principles, frameworks and approaches for dealing with issues that will become the bases of governmental action, laws and intervention.
Although related to political science , policy studies do not primarily focus on political philosophy, governmental structures and systems, parties, political behavior and political activity. Policy studies are more focused on how policy develops, how to critically analyze proposed and existing policy, how to develop better policy and how to advocate more effectively for policy. Policy making is nevertheless political by nature because it involves making decisions among preferences of varying actors and social interests and issues of power and influence arise in the decision-making processes. Policy studies is a branch of social science that draws from political science, political economy, economics, political sociology, management, communication studies and other established academic disciplines.
Policy studies use theory and evidence to develop and evaluate policies with the purpose of improving policy-making practices and their outcomes. In doing so, it is critical in evaluating institutional influences on policy making and decision-making and the effects of policies on people, enterprises and organizations.
Policy studies and its theories, models and approaches are thus central to investigation of policy making and outcomes regardless of what other disciplinary theories and methods are employed. Studying policy making is also crucial for those who may subsequently become participants in policy-making processes because it provides context and knowledge necessary to effectively engage in policy making.
Although the focus is on media and communications, this book is rooted in public policy and the activities that shape the types of communication in which we participate and consume. It is concerned with policy participants, processes, mechanisms and outcomes. It differs from much media and communications legal and policy research because of this approach. It is designed to help develop understanding of policy making in widely varying jurisdictions and contexts and to show how policy research facilitates comparative analysis. It is rooted in policy studies that are based on the idea that policy emerges from processes within a system involving institutions, and official and non-official actors (Birkland 2015).
At its most fundamental level, policy is the expression of what society wants—if the policy-making process is not skewed toward the interests of a few—and it guides the creation of mechanisms for pursuing those wants. Those interested in policy studies focus on policy institutions, systems and processes, rather than the outcomes in terms of laws, agencies, regulations and incentives that are primarily the purview of those in law and economics. The study of policy and policy making is thus concerned with why and ho...