NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Cultural policy in the United States is set
largely-and inadvertently-by federal agencies pursuing other goals.
During a daylong conference on Friday, March 19, four Vanderbilt
University experts and guest panelists from government and the arts
industries will present research about the consequences of America’s
cultural policy process.
The "Federal Regulation and the Cultural Landscape" conference will
be presented by The Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy
at Vanderbilt University. The event is made possible by a grant from
the Rockefeller Foundation.
The conference will be held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Alumni Room
at Vanderbilt Law School at Vanderbilt University. It is free and open
to the public.
"We’re bringing scholars, arts industry leaders and government
officials together to talk face-to-face about legislation, regulation
and America’s cultural landscape," said Bill Ivey, director of The Curb
Center.
"Making these policy and research connections is exactly what The Curb Center is all about."
The United States has no centralized cultural policy. Instead,
alterations in America’s cultural landscape arise from a hodgepodge of
corporate practice, legislation and government regulation.
Cultural policy is frequently the byproduct of business and government
actions directed at shaping the marketplace.
Examples abound: when the Federal Communications Commission recently
moved to relax limits on the number of radio stations which can be
owned by a single corporation, the resulting deregulated radio
environment enabled Clear Channel Worldwide to control more than 10
percent of U.S. radio stations. Alarmed by the specter of local
concerns submerged beneath homogenized broadcasting, minority and
community interests set off a firestorm of complaint that quickly
reached Capitol Hill. Like many regulations, investigations and
acts of Congress of the past decade, these new FCC ownership rules had
touched a cultural nerve-an all-too-familiar illustration of
inadvertent cultural policy in action.
Four research papers will be presented at the conference, each
addressing a component of the broad cultural policy question. Panel
discussions will follow.
The schedule:
7:30 a.m., Registration and coffee service
8 a.m., Opening remarks by Bill Ivey
8:30 a.m., Beverly Moran, professor of law and sociology, presents
her research on the United States Trade Representative and popular
media in Australia, Canada and India. She looks into how each of those
nations resists efforts by the USTR to import American products to
them. Moran contrasts how people in those nations view American culture
with how it’s viewed within the United States. Panelists include Carol
Balassa of the USTR.
10:15 a.m., Kenneth A. Paulson, executive director of the First
Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, presents a paper titled
"Regulation through Intimidation: Congressional Hearings and Political
Pressure on America’s Entertainment Media." His research looks at how
the threat of legislation has shaped and limited the content of films,
comic books, popular music and television. Panelists include Danny
Goldberg, CEO of Artemis Records, and Keisha Hoernner, assistant
communications professor at Kennesaw State University.
11:45 a.m., Lunch
1:15 p.m., Christopher Yoo, associate professor of law, presents
research on how government regulations imposed to promote economic
welfare and consumer choice have unintentionally resulted in a
reduction in the quantity, quality and diversity of media content.
Examples include rate regulation of cable television and restrictions
on the number of media outlets one entity can own in any local market.
Panelists include Jonathan Levy of the FCC, Professor Stuart Benjamin
of Duke University School of Law, and Professor C. Edwin Baker of the
University of Pennsylvania Law School.
3 p.m., Steven Hetcher, professor of law, will examine how social
norms that approve of online file copying and sharing may be at the
heart of the inability to deter mass-scale copyright infringement. This
presents the possibility that a social norms approach may be the best
solution to combat piracy. Panelists include Fred Von Lohmann of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation and Alec French, counsel for the
Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee of the House Judiciary
Committee.
4:30 p.m., Summary and closing by Bill Ivey.The Curb Center for Art
Enterprise and Public Policy was established in 2003 as the first
university-based policy program to fully engage the American cultural
policy system. It is funded by a $2.5 million endowment from music
industry executive Mike Curb and the Curb Family Foundation. Its
director is Ivey, who was chairman of the National Endowment for the
Arts from 1998 to 2001.
Media contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322- NEWS
Jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu