Milton Mueller, Christiane Pagé, and Brenden Kuerbis
This paper initiates exploratory empirical research on how civil society collective
action has reacted to and affected communication-information policy, a policy
domain that has been reshaped by technological and industrial change. It reviews
the relevant theory on social movements, citizens groups and interest groups
from political science. Data is gathered on two dimensions of the research question.
1) We quantify the number of public interest advocacy groups focused on CIP
in the United States from 1961 to the present, using organizational ecology
methods. 2) We track the number of U.S. Congressional hearings held each year
on CIP issues. The results show that CIP now exceeds other social movement issues
(women, civil rights, the environment, human rights) as a major concern of Congressional
activity, that the issues are becoming more interdependent, and that modes of
citizens advocacy have undergone drastic changes in recent years.