S uch is the necessity that confronts us. Let the world hear the reasons that compel us to assert our rights and to take an active role in the shaping of our common cultural environment. Humans live and learn by stories. They are no longer told by families, schools, or churches but are the products of a complex mass-production and marketing process. This radical transformation of our cultural environment has changed the roles we grow into, the way we employ creative talent, the way we raise our children, and the way we manage our affairs.
Communication channels proliferate but technologies converge and media merge.
Consolidation of ownership denies entry to newcomers, drives independents out of the mainstream, and reduces diversity of content. Media blend into a seamless homogenized cultural environment that constrains life's choices as much as the degradation of the physical environment limits life's chances. This change did not come about spontaneously or after thoughtful deliberation. It was imposed on an uniformed public and is enshrined in legislation rushed through Congress without any opportunity for public scrutiny or debate about its consequences and world-wide fallout. The airways, a global commons, have been given away to media empires responsible to no one but their stockholders.