ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter we saw how the rapid adoption of microelectronic components and the introduction of digital technology were, by the 1980s, beginning to transform the established media and communications industries. However, this transformation was not solely a technological one. It was just as much, if not more, a political one, and many of the recent transformations in media and communications actually precede the widespread introduction of digital technologies. This chapter argues that these transformations can only be understood in the context of the enormous changes which took place in the relationship between the state and the media and communications industries during the 1980s and 1990s. It outlines the history of state policy towards media and communications concentrating primarily on the US and the UK. After a survey of policy as it existed before the 1980s, when telecommunications and broadcasting systems were heavily regulated and limited in number, attention focuses on the changes in policy which occurred after the 1980s, when deregulation and competition based on free market ideology became the guiding principles for the governance of these industries.
