Public Interest Disagreements

Wk 5 Discussion - Public Interest Disagreements
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Wk 5 Discussion - Public Interest Disagreements
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioners can have different perspectives on the rules or restrictions that should be in place and what it means to serve "public interest." Calvert et al. (2018) noted that there is a debate on whether public interest means what the public wants or what the public needs. One obvious catalyst of the disagreements among FCC commissioners is party loyalty. A key rule regarding the membership of the commission is that "no more than a simple majority of the commission (three members) can be from the same political party" (Calvert et al., 2018, p. 620). During President Obama's tenure, three commissioners were Democrats while two were Republicans, while Republicans made the majority of the commissioners during President Trump's era. Given this understanding and the fact that the Republican Party is primarily conservative and the Democratic Party liberal, ...