While preparing my latest Forbes column, “Does the Internet Need a Global Regulator?” I collected some excellent resources. I figured I would just post all the links here since others might find them useful as we work our way up to the big U.N. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai this December. Please let me know of other things that I should add to this resource database. I’ve divided the database into “General Resources” and “Opinion Pieces”:

General Resources:

• World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) official website
• White House statement on WCIT: “Ensuring an Open Internet,” by Lawrence Strickling, Philip Verveer, and Daniel Weitzner, May 2, 2012.
• Internet Society “What is the WCIT?” F.A.Q.
• Internet Society’s Scoop.It page curating news on WCIT
• Center for Democracy & Technology briefing paper by : “ITU Move to Expand Powers Threatens the Internet,” March 12, 2012.
• David A. Gross & Ethan Lucarelli, “The 2012 World Conference On International Telecommunications: Another Brewing Storm Over Potential UN Regulation Of The Internet,” November 2011.
• Michael Joseph Gross, “World War 3.0,” Vanity Fair, May 2012.
• [BOOK] Milton Mueller – Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance (2010).
• Internet Governance Project blog.
• [RADIO] National Public Radio: “Who — If Anyone — Should Control The Internet?” January 12, 2012.

Opinion Pieces:

• Robert McDowell, “The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom” Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2012.
• ITU Secretary General Dr. Hamadoun Touré, “Securing the Future Benefits of Technology,” The Guardian (U.K.), March 6, 2012. [+ a recent speech on the issue.]
• Andrea Renda, “The U.N., Internet Regulator?” Wall Street Journal Europe, April 25, 2012.
• Gordon Crovitz, “The U.N. Wants to Run the Internet,” Wall Street Journal, May 6, 2012
• Adam Thierer, “Does the Internet Need a Global Regulator?” Forbes, May 6, 2012
• Gregory Francis, “UN Moves on Internet Governance: Latest Dispatch,” CircleID, April 26, 2012.
• Aspen Institute, Toward a Single Global Digital Economy: The First Report of the Aspen Institute IDEA Project, (April 24, 2012).
• Edward J. Black, “UN’s ITU Could Become Next Internet Freedom Threat,” Huffington Post, March 9, 2012.
• Jerry Brito, “The Case Against Letting the U.N. Govern the Internet,” Time TechLand, February 13, 2012.
• Tom Tauke, Verizon, Speech at New Democrat Network Internet Governance Event, April 19, 2012
• former Rep. Rick Boucher “U.N. Efforts Put Internet Freedom at Risk,” Politico, May 3, 2012.

Over at DrewClark.com, earlier today I reported today that television networks – which in recent years have had a strained relationship with local broadcasters on a variety of fronts – joined with the National Association of Broadcasters in calling for a time out on the politically simmering issue of “white spaces.” Here’s the start of the story, and you can read the full post at DrewClark.com

WASHINGTON, October 23 – The top executives of the four major broadcast networks on Thursday urged the head of the Federal Communications Commission to delay a vote on a politically simmering issue that pits broadcasters against Google and high-tech executives.

In the letter, the CEOs of CBS Corp., NBC Universal and Walt Disney, and the chief operating officer of News Corp., urge that the FCC exercise caution before taking irreparable action with regard to the vacant television channels known as “white spaces.”

Google and the other technology executives, including Microsoft, Motorola, Philips and others, want the FCC to authorize electronic devices that capable of transmitting internet signals over vacant television bands.

The network executives – CBS’s Leslie Moonves, Disney’s Robert Iger, NBC’s Jeffrey Zucker and Peter Chernin of News Corp. – want a time out.

They join their local broadcasting colleagues, as well as manufacturers and users of wireless microphones, like the National Football League and Boadway theater owners, who have been actively lobbying the issue.

[…]

Read the rest of the story at my blog, DrewClark.com – The Politics of Telecom, Media and Technology

Over on the Poynter Online blog, Amy Gahran has a very smart piece on some of the confusion surrounding debates about “media localism.” In her essay asking “How Important is Local, Really?”, she challenges some of the assumptions underlying the Knight Foundation’s new Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy.

I particularly like her line about how, “in many senses, ‘local’ is just one set of ripples on the lake of information — especially when it comes to ‘news.’ And for many people, it’s not even the biggest or most important set of ripples.” That is exactly right. Today, local choices are just a few more choices along the seemingly endless continuum of media choices. It’s foolish to assume that “media localism” in a geographic sense is as important now as it was in the past for the reasons Gahran makes clear in her essay:

I’m glad that the Knight Foundation is asking basic questions about what kinds of information people need support community and democracy. However, I question the Commission’s strong focus on geographically defined local communities. It seems to me that with the way the media landscape has been evolving, geographically defined local communities are becoming steadily less crucial from an information perspective. I suspect that defining communities by other kinds of commonalities (age, economic status/class, interests, social circles, etc.) would be far more relevant to more people — although more complex to define.

I suspect that clinging reflexively to “local” as the paramount criteria for “relevant” reflects a newspaper perspective that was never a good fit for most people, and that never really served most people’s information needs well. I’m not saying local doesn’t matter. Local is important. It’s especially important for people who are newcomers to communities. It’s especially important for identifying accessible resources and services that people might need in their daily lives. But in many senses, “local” is just one set of ripples on the lake of information — especially when it comes to “news.” And for many people, it’s not even the biggest or most important set of ripples. So my question for Knight is: Why do you assume that geographically defined local communities should be the paramount focus of people’s informational diet, or even to support democracy? Did you seriously consider any other perspectives? Today, you’re at Google — where folks are used to viewing people’s information needs as a complex mosaic, where no one filter is paramount for everyone. I hope you take advantage of their insight.

Gahran has it exactly right, but over at the Knight Foundation blog, a debate is raging about her comments. I posted some of my own thoughts on the topic, which were originally posted here in my essay on Our Continued Wishful Thinking about “Media Localism”. Read that for more details on the forgotten dimensions of this debate.