ABSTRACT
Stan Thomas, one of the very few minority senior executives in emerging technologies, worries that the dominance of “techies” from overwhelmingly white technical ranks can lead to insensitivities in delivery and packaging of content on the information superhighway, just as it once did in other media. The government’s policy-making apparatus also reflects the demographic bias, offering little reassurance to those concerned that minorities might be left out of policy planning for the new technologies, exacerbating the gap between information haves and have-nots. Created by regulatory action and funded largely by a billion-dollar federal appropriation, big-budget public television and radio today appears to viewers and listeners as devoid of minorities as the new information technologies. In the weeks and months ahead, the federal policy apparatus will be active on several fronts, at the White House, in Congress and at various federal agencies, designing the regulations that will govern and shape the new media and the new information technologies.
