government communications

Government printing jobs have contributed significantly to the development of the printing industry. In North America from 1640 to 1790, printed government documents probably accounted for about 30% of printed documents considered to have enduring significance. In the U.S. at the end of the twentieth century, the number of titles that the Government Printing Office issued was equal to about a quarter of the total number of new books and new editions that other printers published. Other countries have probably had an even higher share of government publications. Government printing contracts are typically highly sought for the stable and predictable demand they provide. In addition, government documents have had a distinctive role in the evolution of copyright.[1]

Like print communication about government proceedings, video communication about government proceedings is intimately related to the functioning of democracy. In a letter to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Carl Malamud stated:

Based on 25 years of experience in the field of computer networking and a 2-year investigation of this specific issue, I have absolutely no doubt that it is technically and financially feasible for the U.S. Congress to provide a permanent broadcast-quality video record of proceedings and hearings for download on the Internet. Technically speaking, this is a “no-brainer.” This is simply a matter of will.

Adopting a goal that by the end of the 110th Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives will offer broadcast-quality video of the floor and all hearings for download on the Internet is a reachable goal and one that will set a standard for transparency and openness. Your leadership in embracing this goal would set an example for all branches of the federal government, indeed for all governments here and abroad. If a hearing is to be considered truly public, the public has to be able to see it, both now and forever. I encourage you to adopt this standard as a goal for the 110th Congress.

The Government Printing Office (letter) and C-SPAN (press release) (after some controversy) have recognized the democratic importance of making video of government proceedings more widely available. E-government initiatives have tended to focus on information provision and electronic transactions. Video is not necessary for either. Video, however, is a powerful mode for attracting attention and creating a sense of personal relationship between government representatives and citizens. Thus politicians are typically keen to gain access to television, and political campaign fund-raising in the U.S. primarily serves to provide money for buying television time.

Expanding government video production can foster more capable and less costly video distribution networks. As Malamud explained in a Google Tech Talk, his proposal would make about 50 hours per day of original Congressional video available to the public. That large video source could serve as a testbed for the development of annotation technologies and might help to move along multicast capabilities for the Internet. Moreover, when potential state and local government video sources are added to federal sources, government video could amount to a significant share of video on the Internet. Government video might become as significant in the development of video communication as government printing has been in the development of print communication.

Related News: The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) recently established a new communications contract for voice, IP, wireless, satellite and IP-centric services for the federal government. The GSA estimates that the over-all federal contract, called Networx, has a value of $20 billion across ten years.

Note:

[1] The North American Imprints Program (NAIP) provides a database of items that were printed from 1640 to 1790 and preserved in American libraries. In a categorization of these items, the largest five categories, with percent of total records, are: government printing (30%), sermons (13%), almanacs (8%), poetry (5%), and juvenile/schoolbooks (5%). These statistics exclude records for booksellers’ advertisements, subscribers’ lists, playbills, and sections of books (analytic records). Printing statistics based on page counts, or page area, produce different values, but that government printing was significant for the printing industry is clear. See Amory, Hugh (2000), “Appendix One: A Note on Statistics,” in Hugh Amory and David D. Hall, eds., The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World (New York: Cambridge University Press). For late twentieth century statistics, see Galbi, Douglas (2001), “E-Government: Developing State Communications in a Free Media Environment” p. 2. In the U.S., federal government documents are in the public domain (no persons holds copyright to them). Moreover, a case concerning U.S. federal court reports settled the statutory basis of copyright. See Wheaton v. Peters (1834).