Digital Media Center

The Digital Media Center (DMC) is a program of The Media Institute that brings clarity to key issues at the heart of today’s digital revolution.  The Digital Media Center examines these issues in ways that illuminate a path forward for innovators and policymakers alike – offering a post-pandemic perspective on key digital issues.

The Media Institute is uniquely positioned to undertake this effort.  Building on four decades of thought leadership, the Institute is regarded as one of the country’s leading non-partisan organizations that focuses on free speech and communications policy.  The Digital Media Center allows the Institute to shine a light on issues facing digital media and the wider digital world while continuing to address core issues affecting all media and telecom companies.

Issues

The Digital Media Center addresses an evolving menu of issues at the heart of discussion among media executives, tech company leaders, IT professionals, data users, academicians, and government policymakers.  “Core issues” include:

• Privacy
• Cybersecurity
• Online Advertising
• Content Moderation
• Digital Trust.

Goals

Digital Media Center activities further three key goals:

• Serve as a forum for bringing together professionals from different fields for discussion and the exchange of ideas.  Foster a climate of open discussion, mutual respect, innovation, and intellectual curiosity in seeking solutions.
• Define issue parameters by identifying areas of agreement and disagreement, differing value structures, differences in preferred outcomes, institutional biases, and vested interests that help or hinder issue resolution.
• Approach issue resolution with a presumption in favor of American democratic values that include capitalism and free markets, freedom of expression, and the rule of law.

Projects

The Digital Media Center has published issue papers on digital media trends and an issue brief on targeted advertising, and will conduct various activities including conferences, working groups, and panel discussions.

The Center also plans to host a series of Virtual Executive Briefings in which each briefing will take a deep dive into one timely digital issue.

Program Coordinator

Coordinating the DMC’s program activities is Media Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow Fellow Stuart N. Brotman.  Professor Brotman is the inaugural Howard Distinguished Endowed Professor of Media Management and Law and Beaman Professor of Journalism and Electronic Media at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.  He also serves as an annual lecturer in entertainment and media law at Stanford Law School, and is a recent Woodrow Wilson Fellow.  Professor Brotman’s most recent books are Privacy’s Perfect Storm: Digital Policy for Post-Pandemic Times [August 2020] and The First Amendment Lives On [2022].  He is a member of The Media Institute’s First Amendment Advisory Council.

DMC Advisory Council

The DMC Advisory Council will gather representatives from various industry segments including media, telecom, tech, equipment manufacturers, marketers, and data users.  The Advisory Council will also include selected academicians, legal scholars, and experts.  This group will help set the direction for the Digital Media Center and help provide the various resources necessary to pursue the Center’s goals.

A Unique Entity

The Media Institute’s Digital Media Center is uniquely positioned – as an independent and nonpartisan entity – to address the issues facing digital media creators and users across the spectrum.  It will serve as an interdisciplinary forum and pursue an ambitious agenda of projects and activities.

Unlike trade associations, single-issue coalitions, or lobbying groups, the Digital Media Center is a broad-based program.  Experts from various industry, government, and academic sectors will engage with each other in ways that advance mutually shared goals of common understanding, best practices, and sound public policy.

The Digital Media Center will play a pivotal role as the country comes to grips with the realities of a new, post-pandemic digital world.