"The Government’s $19.3 Billion Auction of Spectrum (as of Round 61 on February 12, 2008) Why don’t you know more about the government’s allocation of this vital natural resource?"

Supper and Conversation with J.H. Snider, Shorenstein Fellow
Tuesday, February 19, at 6 p.m.
Kalb Seminar Room, Taubman 275

Rsvp: camille_stevens@harvard.edu

The most valuable natural resource of the information age is arguably the electromagnetic spectrum, which is used for wireless transmission of information and is the foundation of next generation portable media. The FCC is currently conducting an auction of broadcast band spectrum (part of the so-called “digital TV transition”), which in its first 61 rounds (as of February 12, 2008) had raised $19.3 billion, making it the largest government auction in U.S. history. With so much money at stake, the press confused and scared by the issue’s complexity, and the public ignorant and apathetic about the issue, spectrum policy has become a paradigmatic example of special interest politics and media failure. J.H. Snider’s most recent report on U.S. spectrum policy and politics is The Art of Spectrum Lobbying: America's $480 Billion Spectrum Giveaway, How it Happened, and How to Prevent it from Recurring.

Brief Bio
J. H. Snider, is a scholar who has written extensively about new technology and democracy. He is the president of iSolon.org and an affiliated researcher at Columbia University’s Institute for Tele-Information. He was research director for the New America Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think tank. His books include Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick: How Local TV Broadcasters Exert Political Power and Future Shop. Snider has a Ph.D. in American Government from Northwestern University, an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School, and an undergraduate degree in Social Studies from Harvard College. His work at the Shorenstein Center will focus on the role of information policy in enhancing democracy.