2025 Articles

How Media Concentration in the Age of Radio Prefigured Today’s Big Tech Debate

John, Richard R.

In the 1930s, staffers at the newly established Federal Communications Commission devised a novel rationale for limiting network power in radio, telephony, and the press. While much has changed since the “age of radio,” the concerns they raised inform the present-day debate over the control that social media platforms exert over public discourse, writes Richard R. John.

This article is based on remarks that John gave at the 2025 Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference this past April.