Three Myths of Internet Governance

Richard Collins is Professor of Media Studies at the Open University, UK. He is the author of numerous books and articles on the media, and was Specialist Advisor to the House of Lords' Select Committees on BBC Charter Review and on Communications in 2005-6 and 2008-9.

• CONTENTS Acknowledgements          [7]Introduction          [9]Chapter 1: Online and Legacy Media in the UK: A Half-Empty Glass?          [19]Chapter 2: Online and Legacy Media in the UK: A Half-Full Glass?          [33]Chapter 3: Three Myths of Internet Governance and the Internet in the UK          [49]Chapter 4: The BBC, the Internet and Public Value          [79]Chapter 5: Hierarchy to Homeostasis? Hierarchy, Markets and Networks in UK Media and Communications Governance          [89]Chapter 6: Trust and Trustworthiness in the Fourth and Fifth Estates          [111]Chapter 7: Associative or Communal Society? The Globalization of Media and Communications and Claims for Communality          [135]Chapter 8: Rawls, Fraser, Redistribution, Recognition and the World Summit on the Information Society          [151]Chapter 9: Trilateralism, Legitimacy and the Working Government on Internet Government          [173]Chapter 10: E-governance and the Governance of the Global Internet          [191]References          [207]Index          [225]

'The real gifts of this book. There are two. There is a very detailed and accessible history and description of the entanglements of the British government with internet governance and of the impact of the internet on the British media industries. British policy-makers and students of internet governance, as well as those interested in comparative analyses, should find this quite valuable. The second is the use of important thinkers such as Max Weber, John Rawls, and Nancy Fraser to think about macro-level effects of internet governance. Efforts to understand just how it is that the internet has changed the material and social environment and how we relate to it must utilize theories native to the contemporary environment but will go the furthest if they start by seeing what key social theorists can tell us about the new environment before going on. There is too little of this kind of analysis available; in this book, Collins thus adds to the reading list of those in graduate seminars around the world who are studying the internet and society ... the discussion of British detail and the engagements with important theorists should keep this book on the shelf for a while' – Sandra Braman, New Media and Society 'Does a fine job of dragging media studies kicking and screaming into the age of ‘medium studies’, the convergence of all media onto the Internet”; “successfully marrying policy-oriented and theoretical work” ... has both immediate pertinence and longer-term substantive analysis”; “very well-informed and well-researched analysis”; “much recommended”' – Chris Marsden, The International Journal on Media Management