Telecommunications networks have long constituted a core infrastructure, supporting an array of social, cultural and economic activities, and vested with varying public service responsibilities.  Historically, how, why and to what extent have telecommunications systems been endowed with such public service functions?  What are the lessons of this history for us, today, as a newly versatile and capacious telecommunications infrastructure becomes the foundation of an intensively informationalized social process?Leading international scholars will address these urgent issues, with two tasks in mind: first, to extract what may be learned from the historical record about the uneven movement to define public service principles and to enact public service policies; and second, to begin to bring this knowledge to bear on contemporary policy making, by attempting to distinguish the key challenges and issues we face during our own momentous work of infrastructural development.

Symposium sponsored by: Center for Advanced Study; Graduate School of Library and Information Science; Institute of Communications Research; Office of the Provost

Organized by: Dan Schiller (GSLIS)

Friday, April 14, 2006
Morning Session

Looking Back: North American Origins of Public Service Telecoms

Patricia Mazepa (York University, Canada)
Dan Schiller  (UIUC)

Afternoon Session
Vectors of Change and Conflict (part I)

Jill Hills (University of Westminster, England)
Michael Bernstein (University of California at San Diego)

Vectors of Change and Conflict (part II)

Greg Downey (University of Wisconsin at Madison)
Andrew Calabrese (University of Colorado)

Saturday, April 15, 2006
Morning Session

Looking Forward:  Needs, Blockages, Forecasts

Colin Blackman (editor, info and foresight, England)
Christian Sandvig (UIUC)

Afternoon Session

Looking Outward:  Needs, Blockages, Forecasts

Pradip Thomas (University of Queensland, Australia)
Yuezhi Zhao (Simon Fraser University, Canada)
Vincent Mosco (Queen’s University, Canada)

General Discussion:  Conclusions and Directions

Link to publication