The Ecology of Games Shaping Telecommunications Policy

A game is an arena of competition and cooperation structured by a set of rules and assumptions about how to act in order to achieve a particular set of objectives. An ecology of games is a larger system of action composed of two or more separate but interdependent games. Defined in this way, the idea of an ecology of games is a sensitizing concept, developed within a participant-observer, case-study mode of inquiry. It helps make sense of the dynamics of communication policy processes. Aspects of an ecology of games—games, rules, strategies, and players—offer a grammar for describing the system of action shaping public policy. As a framework for analysis, it overcomes some limitations of sector-specific policy studies and some weaknesses of other frameworks for the study of public policy, including group, pluralist, and elite theories of decision making. This article develops the concept of an ecology of games as an approach to the study of communication policy. It also illustrates its application by sketching the ecology of games surrounding telecommunications policy in the United States and some of the principal ways it differs from the ecology of games in other nations.

[1]  L. Milbrath,et al.  LOBBYING AS A COMMUNICATION PROCESS , 1960 .

[2]  Peter F. Cowhey,et al.  When Countries Talk: International Trade in Telecommunications Services, Jonathan David Aronson and Peter F. Cowhey. 1988. Ballinger Publishing Co., Cambridge, MA. 288 pages. ISBN: 0-88730-284-X , 1989 .

[3]  Kenneth Flamm,et al.  Changing the Rules: Technological Change, International Competition, and Regulation in Communications , 1989 .

[4]  Henry Mintzberg,et al.  Power in and Around Organizations , 1983 .

[5]  Mayer N. Zald,et al.  Actors and Systems: The Politics of Collective Action. , 1980 .

[6]  Johan P. Olsen,et al.  The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life , 1983, American Political Science Review.

[7]  Varun Grover,et al.  Recognizing the politics of MIS , 1988, Inf. Manag..

[8]  Michael X Cohen,et al.  A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice. , 1972 .

[9]  Kenneth L. Kraemer,et al.  Wired Cities: Shaping the Future of Communications , 1987 .

[10]  Floyd Hunter,et al.  Community Power Structure: A Study of Decision Makers , 1954 .

[11]  C. Mills,et al.  Power Elite , 1956, Encyclopedia of Social Network Analysis and Mining.

[12]  Paul J. Quirk,et al.  The Politics Of Deregulation , 1985 .

[13]  Robert B. Horwitz,et al.  The Irony of Regulatory Reform: The Deregulation of American Telecommunications , 1988 .

[14]  I. Pool,et al.  American Business and Public Policy: The Politics of Foreign Trade , 1972 .

[15]  J. Neumann,et al.  Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. , 1945 .

[16]  Robert A. Dahl,et al.  Who Governs: Democracy and Power in an American City. , 1961 .

[17]  Dan Schiller.  Telematics and government , 1982 .

[18]  Jill Hills,et al.  Deregulating telecoms: Competition and control in the United States, Japan, and Britain , 1986 .

[19]  Howard Raiffa,et al.  Games and Decisions: Introduction and Critical Survey. , 1958 .

[20]  Roger Friedland,et al.  Powers of theory: Contents , 1985 .

[21]  C. Alderfer,et al.  The Human Perspective in Sociology: The Methodology of Participant Observation. , 1967 .

[22]  E. E. Schattschneider.  The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America , 1960 .

[23]  W. Dutton,et al.  The Faltering Development of Cable Television in Britain , 1988 .

[24]  H. Schiller.  Who Knows: Information in the Age of the Fortune 500 , 1981 .

[25]  J. Pfeffer.  Organizations and Organization Theory , 1982 .

[26]  M. Edelman.  Politics as Symbolic Action: Mass Arousal and Quiescence , 1971 .

[27]  Toby Adams.  Information technology R&D: Critical trends and issues: U.S. Office of Technology Assessment Washington, D.C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1985, 341 pages, $9.50 Y 3.T 22/2: 2In 3/3. S/N 052-003-00976-5. LC 84-601150 , 1986 .

[28]  Ithiel de Sola Pool,et al.  Technologies of Freedom , 1983 .

[29]  L. Galambos,et al.  The Fall of the Bell System: A Study in Prices and Politics , 1987 .

[30]  T. Skocpol,et al.  The Dead End of Matatheory@@@Powers of Theory: Capitalism, the State, and Democracy. , 1985 .

[31]  Roger Friedland,et al.  Powers of theory: THE CLASS PERSPECTIVE , 1985 .

[32]  D. McQuail,et al.  New Media Politics: Comparative Perspectives in Western Europe.@@@Inventing Reality: The Politics of Mass Media. , 1987 .

[33]  Johan P. Olsen,et al.  Rediscovering institutions: The organizational basis of politics , 1989 .

[34]  W. Goldfrank,et al.  MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975. , 1982 .

[35]  Nicholas Garnham,et al.  Public Service versus the Market , 1983 .

[36]  David Bicknell Truman,et al.  The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion , 1951 .

[37]  Norton E. Long.  The Local Community as an Ecology of Games , 1958, American Journal of Sociology.

[38]  R. Lane.  Concrete Theory: An Emerging Political Method , 1990, American Political Science Review.

[39]  William H. Dutton,et al.  The development of telecommunications: The outcome of an ecology of games , 1987, Inf. Manag..

[40]  W. Dutton,et al.  New media politics: shaping cable television policy in France , 1990 .