The digital television transition, consumer power and the limits of cultural citizenship

The transition from analog to digital television [DTV] in the United States occurred in 2009, and according to press reports, the transition proceeded smoothly. Despite the fact that the government seemingly avoided disaster, the narrative of the successful digital transition overlooks the larger complexities of the shift to DTV. This article presents a ‘policy from below’ analysis of the DTV transition, examining consumer commentary documenting the transition on such sites as ConsumerReports.org, amazon.com, and AARP.org. Juxtaposing government anxieties about the preparedness of the American public with a portrait of technologically savvy consumers, this article qualifies the seeming success of the DTV conversion by questioning the government's equation of consumption with citizenship and by exposing the inadequacies of the neoliberal logics guiding government policymakers. As demonstrated by the DTV transition, the commitment of the government to protect consumer access to the information conveyed by a crucial common carrier technology signals troubling portents of a future dependent upon citizens accessing information through the Internet, a medium lacking television's comparatively strong regulatory frameworks. The DTV transition spotlights the failures of government regulation even while it also signals the stakes of exchanging the regulation enacted by the government to that enacted by the invisible hand of the marketplace.