Most policy research on media and communications is either industry-generated or produced by an academic hired by industry. It's no surprise that most of the research adheres to the dominant school of thought -- neoclassical, free market libertarianism. The Necessary Knowledge program has been willing to support work from other perspectives -- public interest obligations, civil and consumer rights, and so on. This is very important in terms of developing different analytical frameworks and ways of thinking about metrics. We need theory and frameworks that can weave together strands around these different issues: cable public access, community wi-fi, media diversity, etc. They are all part of the same idea. We need a framework that will emphasize maximizing individual participation and civic engagement and help secure the federal and local policies that will support them.
In the halls of policymaking, this is where we got killed. Our failure to get traction again and again -- our failure to have the desired effect on policy -- was because we didn't have the data. Unfortunately, the other side has, not good or valid data, but data. Policymakers accept any data over no data.
-- Peter Jaszi, Washington College of Law, American University
We need networks that can help our movements be proactive and long term rather than reactive. We need our own ideas about policies and models that people want that can help make progress on other social issues, such as immigration and health care. We see a lot of scholarly papers, but they don't provide the contextualized knowledge that communities need to move forward. The Necessary Knowledge program has provided a big missing piece.
-- Hye-Jung Park, Media Justice Fund, Funding Exchange
The struggle between corporate lobbies and public interest groups in Washington is in part a struggle over the evidentiary basis of policy, defined through research. The influence of coin-operated think tanks has become far too pervasive in this context. The academy can act as the public’s think tank, bringing real research and objective analysis to the policy decisions that shape the future of the media, and more broadly, our economic and social lives.