This report analyses the potential impact of digital intermediaries (such as news aggregators, search engines, social media and digital stores) on plurality in the news media. It finds that although digital intermediaries play an important role in enhancing plurality in many ways, concerns remain over their gatekeeper position over the news as well as the exercise of editorial judgment over different sources. It further argues that digital intermediaries are likely to have a significant impact on the future of news economics and may even develop considerable political influence. The report, however, concludes that hasty attempts to regulate may prove to be ineffective.

The author analyses the effect of competition law on telecommunications policy, observing that counter-intuitively, universal service is likely to endure rather than perish, because its support is ensured as advanced connectivity becomes even more essential; while on the other hand, common carriage is likely to be replaced by private carriage. It suggests that in a competitive environment, non-discriminatory common carriage can be maintained by enforcing the rule of third-party neutrality.

In this paper, Tim Wu and Christopher Yoo make clear the connection between net neutrality and broader issues of national telecommunications policy. The paper is structured in the form of a debate between these two scholars, with both of them engaging with each other and presenting arguments and counter-arguments.

This paper discusses the debate over whether the owners of broadband internet access systems should be required to provide open access, and argues that mandating open access is unnecessary to prevent monopoly leveraging or monopoly maintenance by cable companies.

This paper examines the evidence on vertical integration in television programming in the United States. It documents its prevalence and presents findings relating to whether integrated producers systematically discriminate against independent content in favor of their own content.

This paper argues, empirically, that among the most popular and profitable cable TV channels, ownership by a cable operator is irrelevant to carriage decisions, and also shows that cable TV networks owned in whole or in part by cable TV operators succeed in gaining carriage on systems owned by other cable systems about as much or even more often than on cable systems owned by their parent company. The analysis then examines whether there is anti-competitive vertical foreclosure in the market leading to cable operators inefficiently favouring their own  program networks.

This article considers internet system development with reference to the net neutrality debate; with the objective of developing improved ways of reasoning about the role of the public interest in networked communications infrastructure.

This paper discusses the lead up to the 2006 Quadrennial Regulatory Review of the Federal Communications Commission in the United States, focusing on the television duopoly rule and relying the analytical framework relied upon by the Commission in its previous Reviews.

In this article, the author explores the possibilities of a dramatically different regulatory framework in a post-convergence “Broadband Age.” She suggests that future media policy and regulation, she says, will have to address the entire “media ecosystem,” viewed as a “regulatory space” in which self-regulation and the market are all part of the basket of regulatory tools. Traditional rules limiting media ownership or setting content requirements are unlikely to be viable, and will be replaced by increased reliance on sectoral ex ante competition regulation. She concludes that traditional media regulations rooted in spectrum scarcity are not sustainable in the long term.

In this article, the authors develop a model of the Internet ecosystem in terms of three primary players: consumers, ISPs and content providers. They analyse this issue from the point of view of the consumer, describing the desired state of the system as one which maximizes consumer surplus. By analyzing different scenarios of monopoly and competition, they obtain different conclusions on the desirability of regulation.

The book chapter can be accessed from the Taylor and Francis Group website, but access is restricted by a paywall.