The stated rationale for the Fairness Doctrine was to encourage more information to be aired by radio and TV stations, on the theory that private broadcasters would tend to underprovide a public good-news about important social issues. Yet, the danger has been seen, at the U.S. Supreme Court, the Federal Communications Commision, and elsewhere, that there exists a potentially unconstitutional "chilling effect": the prospect of having to award equal (unpaid) time to dissenting points of view institutes a tax on controversial speech. In that the Doctrine was abolished in 1987, the radio market now allows us to observe licensees' unregulated choices in selecting the profit-maximizing quantity of informational programming. Industry data show a clear break in the trend around 1987, when informational formats began rising relative to others-evidence suggesting just the "chilling effect" feared by the Supreme Court. Copyright 1997 by the University of Chicago.
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Volume (Year): 26 (1997) Issue (Month): 1 (January) Pages: 279-301 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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