The FCC has done what even a few months ago seemed to most totally unthinkable: they delivered real net neutrality policy, putting in place strong regulations to protect fairness in internet access. After a decade-long policy battle, net neutrality advocates got nearly everything we’ve been calling for: clear-cut Open Internet rules that prohibit broadband network operators from blocking, throttling, or prioritizing internet content and services, that apply to both wired and wireless networks, and— the most wonky, yet most important, point— are based in Title II of the Communications Act. In other words, the FCC can now stop broadband providers from restricting your internet traffic or charging extra for exclusive internet “fast lanes,” whether your connection is to a personal computer or a mobile device, all rooted in a long-standing regulatory tradition of “common carriage” that protects openness and equality for essential two-way communications infrastructure. (For more details, you can check out my previous coverage of net neutrality here on Antenna, where I’ve written about the importance of Title II and the politics of policy that led to this point. For more on what net neutrality even is, you can check out my explainer for the Media Industries Project.)

Overall, the FCC’s new Open Internet rules represent a major come-from-behind victory for net neutrality advocates and a significant achievement for more democratic communications in the US. So, what should we make of this landmark FCC decision? How in the world did this actually get done? And what exactly happens now? Let me mention a couple of quick points along these lines.

The first and perhaps most important point is that a resilient social movement succeeded in getting a meaningful progressive victory in communications policy— an affirmative victory to enact good policy, not a defensive victory to stop bad policy. This success came even on a seemingly arcane and technical regulatory issue of invisible infrastructure, within a policy arena where corporate discourse and dollars dominate. I’ve spent the last eight years following net neutrality and, while I remained cautiously (if, as many told me, irrationally) optimistic throughout that it could get successfully put into policy, even I have to admit that it was quite a long shot to get rules this good from the FCC. Net neutrality policy has a long history of half-steps forward and large tumbles backwards, on a policymaking playing field heavily tilted in favor of the large corporations that set the terms of engagement there. Nonetheless, a strong coalition of media reform and civil rights activists, legal and technologist advocates, and online creators and startups pushed net neutrality forward in the policy sphere and the public sphere. They mobilized millions of citizens to engage with the FCC in its Open Internet proceeding— a powerful popular force in support of net neutrality that made it more than good policy, but also good politics. Some cynical defeatists are content to ignore the real difference made by everyday people’s voices and actions, instead emphasizing the role of the tech industry in lobbying for net neutrality in service of its economic interests. This perspective is not only demeaning and disempowering in terms of activist strategy, but also not very accurate: Google, Amazon, and other tech heavy-hitters mostly sat it out this time around, while smaller outsider tech firms (the likes of Etsy and Kickstarter don’t exactly have much sway inside the Beltway) worked better with the activist coalition.

The second point is this: even though this is a historic victory that should be celebrated, the fight is far from over. This is true in an immediate sense of challenges to the Open Internet rules. Broadband network operators and their allies in Congress are already seeking to block the new rules. The FCC will also surely be sued as soon as the Open Internet rules go into effect, kicking off yet another long legal battle over the agency’s ability to regulate internet infrastructure. It’s worth noting, though, that Comcast and AT&T both have potential mergers being considered by the FCC currently and Verizon’s appeal of the much weaker 2010 Open Internet rules backfired pretty bad on them, making theses corporations perhaps a bit more lawsuit gun-shy than usual (the cable and wireless lobbies look most likely to sue). Regardless, because this time the Open Internet rules are built on the strong and appropriate statutory foundation of Title II, we can be confident that the rules will stand up in court.

But the fight is also not over in a bigger picture sense: as consequential a victory as this is, it is ultimately just one step on a longer journey toward more equitable media structures. On the internet infrastructure front alone, there is much more to be done to ensure faster, more affordable, more inclusive broadband network access (although the other FCC action that same day— to overrule state restrictions on municipal broadband networks— opens a door toward a more promising future of public internet infrastructure for more cities). Having net neutrality meaningfully enshrined in communications regulations, and having FCC policy moving toward treatment of internet access as an essential utility, is huge, but net neutrality has proven a resonant discourse that can speak to critical social justice goals and can be employed more widely. Net neutrality could ultimately end up most historically significant, then, for the powerful discourse and movement that advocates put together around it— if we can build on this success and use this momentum to push forward for more victories like this one.

Obama’s statement calling on the FCC to implement the strongest possible net neutrality regulations in its Open Internet policy proceeding is significant for many reasons: how unusual it is for a sitting president to dive so deep into the weeds of communications regulation, the influence it can have on the policy the FCC actually adopts, and (amazingly) just how right on the President is in his plan. Obama’s net neutrality statement is also especially important, though, for what it signals about the politics of media policy: a legitimate social movement is pushing for fairness and equality in internet access by engaging in historically corporate-dominated policymaking processes and strategically “boring” regulatory discourses to successfully bring undoubtedly arcane yet crucially political media policy issues to the front and center of the national political stage. Simply put, the President wouldn’t jump this far into this fight with powerful phone and cable corporations and their allies in the incoming Republican-controlled Congress (and perhaps even the FCC Chairman he appointed) if it weren’t for wide public pressure to act boldly on net neutrality. The FCC is an independent agency that doesn’t have to answer to the President, so it remains to be seen if any of this is enough to shift the Commission’s current direction in Open Internet rule-making— right now toward a (likely untenable) attempt at compromise through a “hybrid approach”— but at the least it is heartening to see such prominent attention to obscure issues like paid prioritization (known as internet “fast lanes”) and Title II reclassification (somewhat misleadingly being called “utility regulation”).

In Obama’s statement, he surprised nearly everyone by laying out in unambiguous terms an Open Internet policy plan that would deliver pretty much exactly what most net neutrality advocates (myself included) have seen as what has been needed all along: a clear-cut set of rules against blocking and discrimination that apply to both wired and wireless broadband providers and prohibit paid prioritization “fast lane” deals with online content providers, all based in a “common carriage” regulatory framework with legal authority from Title II of the Communications Act. (Yes, this is the super nerdy, but now increasingly central, terrain on which this battle is being fought!) This is a stronger set of rules than those proposed by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler this past spring and the rules that were previously adopted by the FCC in 2010 but struck down in court in January. As I explained in a post here in the aftermath of that case, the reason why the 2010 rules failed in court (and in enforcement) is that they were not implemented with appropriate legal authority to regulate openness and equal access and if the FCC wants to move forward with meaningful and sustainable net neutrality policy, it has to reclassify broadband. What the Commission needs to do— as called for by advocates for strong net neutrality, now including the President— is to implement Open Internet rules through Title II, where the Commission has authority to regulate essential infrastructure for two-way communications (which internet access clearly is).

This traction in the political debate around net neutrality comes as a result of a popular movement that has seen nearly 4 million public comments to the FCC’s Open Internet proceeding (a record-breaking total, of which up to 99% were in favor of net neutrality), protests and demonstrations both online (like the Internet Slowdown Day) and offline (like occupations of the FCC building and even Chairman Wheeler’s driveway), and John Oliver’s tour-de-force explanation and call to action. All of the public participation in the process (just like the President’s) may not even count for much to the FCC, but it has worked to shift the discursive terrain of the issue and, therefore, the range of possible policy action. Chairman Wheeler has backed away from his initial weak proposal and is now hinting toward wireless broadband regulations and at least partial reclassification.

Right now, though, the FCC is stalling while it decides what to do and its next move will come no sooner than 2015. For passing strong Open Internet protections, Wheeler has the votes at the Commission (with two pro-net-neutrality Democratic commissioners to make a majority with him) and now political support from President, but he may be waiting for more backup from the bigger tech industry players like Google and Facebook, which have been conspicuously quiet in this round of the fight. Strong public pressure will continue to be key to keep up this progress toward meaningful net neutrality policy.

It has been the most significant moment in Australian media policy since the early 1990s, when the Broadcasting Services Act and the Telecommunications Act, as well as the Classification Act, were legislated. While these were major initiatives at the time, they were pre-Internet forms of media law that did not anticipate the tsunami of change associated with digitalization, convergence and the globalization of media content.

While other countries are considering changes to adapt their media laws for convergence, Australia has been a world leader in commissioning such major studies that address these challenges head on. A common theme of these reports is that incremental change and policy “muddling through” are no longer sufficient.

In particular, media regulation continues to be primarily based upon the platform of delivery (print, radio, television, telephony, the Internet), whereas media convergence has dislodged the technological bases that tied content to platforms. The Australian Communications and Media Authority has referred to a resulting series of “broken concepts”, ranging from the truly anachronistic, such as the ban on live hypnosis on television, to those which addressed a once-important concept that has been overwhelmed by new developments, such as the separation of carriage and content.

The Convergence Review identified three areas where continued government intervention is justified. First, there is the need to maintain a degree of diversity in media ownership and control. Second, there is the question of content standards, both in terms of news standards and classification of media content in line with community standards. Finally, there are expectations that Australians have around the continued availability of locally produced content that is broadly reflective of Australian culture, identity and diversity.

The question of who should be regulated has become much more complex in a convergent media environment. In discussions of media influence, a distinction is commonly made between “big media” on the one hand who should be regulated more – the name “Rupert Murdoch” will often appear at this juncture – and the Internet on the other, which should not be regulated at all.

But “the Internet” is as much The Guardian Online, BBC World or CNN.com as it is blogging, citizen journalism, or online mash-ups. The commercial mass media and non-commercial user-created content co-exist in the online digital space, so questions of media influence return in a different form.

The Convergence Review sought to address that question of when a media organization becomes “big”—and hence appropriately subject to regulations based on its potential for influence—with the concept of a “Content Service Enterprise” (CSE). The Review defined a CSE as a media content provider that has over 500,000 Australian users per month, and $50m per annum of revenues from Australian-sourced professional content. Interestingly, the 15 companies that met these guidelines are all conventional media businesses, but the CSE label could in principle be extended to companies such as Google and Apple.

If the CSE concept were extended to global media companies, the question would arise of Australian jurisdictional authority over these businesses. At present, there is a regulatory stand-off, but it may be that future jurisdictional authority will be shared and brokered between Australian agencies and other authorities. In the ALRC Review, this was referred to as deeming, where the classifications given to media content by online “stores” such as Apple ITunes or the Google Android platform could be recognized under Australian media law, subject to approval by the Australian regulators.

Much attention has been given to the question of “who regulates”. One of the difficulties with these discussions is that we think of regulation in terms of how much, rather than in terms of the relationship between its instruments and its outcomes. One message that came through from the ALRC Review was that Australians were less concerned with who classified different media than with the question of trusting those doing it to have an appropriate professional distance from corporate self-interest.

Another difficulty is that convergent media policy brings together different organizational cultures and traditions of regulation. Whereas it is still pretty clear who constitutes the television industry or the newspaper industry, it is less clear what constitutes the Internet, digital content or social media industries.

Meeting with Apple, Google, Facebook or Microsoft introduces you to very different corporate entities, with very different organizational cultures, business models, and relationships to their consumers. Establishing a new regulatory framework for convergent media raises not only the challenges of established media operating across different platforms, but the ever-growing fluidity attached to the concept of “media” itself.

The public’s response to Google’s plans ranged from delightfully silly stunts to movingly earnest appeals. Most famously, Topeka renamed itself Google, Kansas (and Google, on April 1, honored the effort by renaming itself Topeka for a day), but the variations were rich and creative.  To help their towns compete, mayors in northern states jumped into frozen lakes while mayors in southern states jumped into shark tanks. An Oregon microbrewery produced a “Gigabit IPA” for the occasion, and citizens in Greenville, SC gathered in a park to spell out “Google” in light sticks:

Google’s YouTube became a rich repository of these appeals.  Bellingham’s vision of community was genuinely touching, while Fresno’s “I Want My Google Fiber” rap was simply awesome.

This competition for Googlish affections might be dismissed as an especially theatrical “politics of supplication,” a demeaning beg-a-thon in which the fame whores of reality TV meet the eternal desire to get something for nothing.  After all, these campaigns have little to do with policy as understood by the official regulatory apparatus.  They are trivial diversions to the “real” work done in Washington.

But what if we take these Google Fiber campaigns seriously as a kind of popular policymaking?  They reveal what people can do when asked to imagine themselves as empowered stakeholders in policy decisions. In articulating why their communities deserve the fiber, citizens were required to identify local needs and construct local civic identities, assess the impact of infrastructure options and organize coordinated responses.  In other words, they had to become policymakers.

And unlike what writers on localism often tell us, this grassroots policymaking was not restricted to local elites; the campaigns were truly popular in participation, as even the sample above begins to demonstrate.

In contrast, how should we assess the National Broadband Plan?  Instead of calling for popular policy production, the NBP was an invitation for insider political posturing.  Instead of inspiring rap videos, it inspired … comments.  Lots of comments. The Commission boasts of 23,000 comments on its public notices, 1,500 comments to its blog, etc.  And check out this inspiring statement:  “Public comment on the plan does not end here. … The public will continue to have opportunities [to comment] all along this path.”  Hoorah, more comments!

If we want Americans to think creatively about media policy in a networked society, perhaps the place to start is the difference between wonks posting blog comments and mayors swimming with sharks.  I want more of the latter.

The FCC means well, and this particular commission grasps the need for public involvement  better than previous ones.  But there’s a structural imbalance built into the process, a divide that makes decreasing sense between policymakers and the “policymade,” i.e. those citizens whose lives will be shaped by compromises devised elsewhere.  The FCC seems only able to imagine the public as Providers of Comments, all of which will be politely considered until, at the end of the day, they write the rules.  The FCC is saying, “Your call is very important to us.”  Go ahead and leave your message at the beep; in the meantime, we all know that Julius Genachowski picks up when Ivan Seidenberg rings.

What alternative roles might official policymakers imagine for the public?  Put another way, what might the politics of popular policymaking prove to be?  They must be distinct from the politics of “capture,” of officialness, and of insiderdom.  They must build on–not remain loftily above–the public’s creative energy, competitive spirit, and taste for fun. Google can provide a model here:  the FCC has to choose those first 100 million homes somehow, and if officials can re-imagine popular policymaking in the process, they might shift not just the tone but the outcomes of policy debates. After all, when the public doesn’t bother commenting, but simply acts, the official policy world gets nervous, and making powerful incumbents nervous is always in the public interest.

In 2008, after some substantial acquisitions on the European television audience measurement front, Nielsen proudly informed its clients that it now controlled three quarters of the world’s television currency data.  But again, traditional television ratings represent only the tip of the iceberg for a company that is also a primary source of information about video sales (Nielsen VideoScan), book sales (Nielsen BookScan), video game sales (Nielsen Games), music consumption (Nielsen SoundScan), newspaper audiences (Scarborough Research), mobile device usage (Nielsen Mobile Media) and Web traffic (Nielsen NetRatings).  Nielsen has even begun competing head to head with Arbitron in the measurement of radio audiences (Nielsen Radio Audience Measurement).

And yet there remain many more media audiences – or at least aspects of these audiences –  to capture.  Today, Nielsen’s growth involves expansion across three dimensions.  The first is geographic.  For instance, Nielsen now provides television audience data in over 30 countries around the world.  The company’s NetRatings service has established panels and site-centric measurement systems in countries around the world, to the extent that Nielsen now claims to monitor 90 percent of global Internet activity.

The second dimension involves expansion across platforms.  One of Nielsen’s most significant ongoing initiatives is the development of its Anytime, Anywhere Media Measurement (A2/M2) system, which seeks to provide comprehensive audience data integrated across the “three screens” (television, computer, mobile device) by which the bulk of electronic media consumption takes place.  Nielsen also measures audiences for what it calls the “fourth screen” – location-based video outlets such as those found in health clubs, bars, gas stations, and elevators. As new media platforms enter the mediascape, Nielsen is there.

And the third, and perhaps least discussed, involves expansion across the criteria by which audiences are valued.  That is, today, buying media audiences has become about much more than simply buying audience exposure. Data on the size and demographics of the audience that consumed a particular piece of media content represent only scratches the surface of audience understanding in today’s rapidly changing media environment.  Today, advertisers and marketers also want information about how engaged those audiences were, how well they recalled what they consumed, and how their behaviors were affected (to name just a few of the emerging currencies).

Nielsen is continuing to expand to meet these demands as well.  For instance, Nielsen recently invested in a firm called NeuroFocus, which specializes in applying brainwaves research to the analysis of advertising and content effectiveness.  And just this month, Nielsen acquired an online audience measurement firm called GlanceGuide, whose primary product is an “attentiveness score” for online video content.  Nielsen IAG measures the extent to which television audiences recall the details of the programs they watched.  And Nielsen BuzzMetrics measures how much online conversation is taking place about various media products – both in advance of and after they are released.

The obvious question that arises from this scenario is whether it is a good or a bad thing for one firm to play such a dominant role in the construction of media audiences.  Even Congress has looked into this question.  I’m not going to try to answer the question of whether this situation is good or bad.  It’s too big a question to try to answer here. But what I will say is that this situation may very well be inevitable.  Media companies and advertisers hate uncertainty, and what a sole audience measurement service provides is a bit less uncertainty. Competing providers means competing – often contradictory – numbers.  And such contradictions equal uncertainty.  This isn’t to say that Nielsen’s numbers are necessarily right.  But as long as everyone involved chooses to treat them as right, uncertainty is reduced.  Such are the somewhat bizarre machinations of the audience marketplace.