Mission
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Open MIC is unique among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in that it seeks to use private sector and capital market mechanisms to influence corporate media management policies. By empowering shareholder activists, and providing media management with positive and negative feedback on both short-term and long-term business practices, Open MIC seeks to help shape the emerging “eco-system” of global media. Open MIC operates at the intersection of several very powerful trends. The first is the surging global growth and popularity of media, fueled by multiple advances in digital technology. As the Economist magazine has put it: “Society is in the early phases of what appears to be a media revolution on the scale of that launched by Guttenberg in 1448.” At the same time, investors and other stakeholders are increasingly demanding more information and accountability from media enterprises on a broad range of issues. Many of the issues are familiar. Do media companies protect the public interest by providing content that fully informs the public? Do they reflect the diversity of the communities they serve? Do they recognize the special needs of children? Are they too big? A recent poll of U.S. adults, for example, found that more than 69% believe media companies are “becoming too large and powerful to allow for competition.” (Zogby, January 2007.) And as digital technology expands the definition of media, new issues arise. The list expands to include questions of even greater media consolidation; broadband internet access and “net neutrality”; copyright and trademark; database protection; privacy and internet security, among others. In that context, Open MIC’s mission is to:
Open MIC’s initial goals include the development of a reporting framework for media companies. A key element of Open MIC’s working plan is the establishment of working groups and advisory panels composed of multiple stakeholders, including industry executives and financial analysts. The model is similar to one that has been successfully employed in the environmental arena by CERES (www.ceres.org), which has built an influential and effective coalition of varied stakeholders while working with corporations to mitigate climate risk. |
The Open MIC Blog
In the News...
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The Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved the use of broadband wireless devices in the “white space” radio spectrum that will be freed up when U.S. television broadcasters switch from analog to digital transmission in February 2009. Commission chairman Richard Martin says opening the white spaces "will allow for the creation of a WiFi on steroids. It has the potential to improve wireless broadband connectivity and inspire an ever-widening array of new Internet based products and services for consumers."
Over a hundred million Americans have high-speed Internet access. Most of them likely assume that, in return for paying a hefty monthly fee, they can use their Internet service privately, for whatever purpose they want, as long as it’s legal. They’d be wrong.On Friday, for example, a bi-partisan majority of the Federal Communications Commission ordered Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company, to stop blocking Internet access for some of its subscribers and "secretly degrading” their service.
A smaller piece of a much bigger pie. That’s the very simple, but very powerful, thinking behind much of the latest news in wireless communications in the U.S. It’s helping to create a media environment that’s potentially much more open, diverse and innovative – which would be good news for consumers as well as investors in wireless stocks.