To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the most famous speech in broadcasting, the Federal Communications Law Journal dedicated its May 2003 issue to a collection of essays revisiting former FCC Chairman Newton Minow's "vast wasteland" speech to the National Association of Broadcasters.
Called a "shot across the bow of television complacency," his speech helped to shape 40 years of thinking about the public interest, broadcast violence and the special needs of children. CML Founder Elizabeth Thoman is among the list of distinguished contributors to the special issue which also includes Zoe Baird, Kathleen Q. Abernathy, Edward O. Fritts, Nicholas Johnson, Richard E. Wiley, U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey, Charles E. Firestone, and the late Fred Rogers.
Read Elizabeth Thoman's provocative article:
Screen-Agers...And the Decline of the 'Wasteland' (PDF)
Author:
Elizabeth Thoman, a pioneering leader in the U.S. media literacy field, founded Media&Values magazine in 1977 and the Center for Media Literacy in 1989. She is a graduate of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California and continues her leadership through this website, consulting, speaking and as a founding board member of the Alliance for a Media Literate America (AMLA).
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