When the wires cross: Ensuring diversity in the era of video dialtone

For more than 50 years, the Federal Communications Commission, Congress and the courts have regulated different mass media differently to achieve an ill‐defined objective of diversity. Contemporary communications innovations that increase the intermingling of media exacerbate the difficulty of clarifying diversity objectives and distinguishing between regulators’ economic and speech concerns. Hybrid media, such as telephone provision of video (called video dialtone) challenge historical assumptions, definitions and mechanisms for achieving communications diversity.

This article explores video dialtone as a case study of the diverse and sometimes contradictory efforts of federal policy makers to adapt the historical goal of diversity to emerging and rapidly changing communications technologies. The author suggests that the much‐touted era of communications abundance is not a utopia. Technical and financial constraints will inhibit the development of virtually infinite communications capacity. Moreover, increased communications capacity alone will not necessarily preserve or enhance communications diversity or resolve power differences among owners and users of communications media.