Master Communication , Sciences Po Paris Digital innovation and change management .

1. The Master Switch
The Rise and Fall of Information
Empires
Tim Wu

2. History of
Phones, Radio,
TV and Internet
in USA

3. What is a “Master Switch”?
Fred Friendly, CBS News
executive
- Free speech laws and
exclusive custody of the
master switch

4. Why should you be interested in this
book?
"We sometimes treat the
information industries as if
they were like others, but they
are not, for their structure
determines who gets heard."

5. THE CONCEPTS OF
THE BOOK

6. “The Cycle”
“History shows a typical progression of
information technologies from somebody’s
hobby to somebody’s industry; from jury-rigged
contraption to slick production marvel; from a
freely accessible channel to one strictly
controlled by a single corporation or cartel from open to closed system”

7. Political power & media
“All power that derives from the control of information” must be
constrained (for both political powers + industries)
“If we believe in liberty, it must be free from both private and
public coercion”
“The government’s only proper role is a check on private power,
never as an aid to it”

8. Separation principle
● A form of industry selfregulation by the FCC
● Competition comes from an
independence between three
players: content owners,
network infrastructure, and
tools of access

9. Internet: what is at the stake?
● Convergence
● Taking the same path
as previous techs?
● What lessons to be
drawn out from the
telephone industry?

10. CRITICISMS

11. What the book omits
● Not so savvy regarding
the Computing/ Internet
era
● Newspapers, magazines,
books ?1
● Lack of geographical
variety

12. Shortcomings in his theory
● Dubious
proposal of
Separation
principle
● Limits in the
Cycle theory

13. Take away
● How USA is made
● Media power
● Deep reflection on the
modern media
● Consumer awakening