Why does the United States control the content of broadcast more strictly than it controls the content of print? In this provocative book, Matthew L. Spitzer explores the various rationales that support such different treatment and concludes that broadcast media should not be as strictly regulated as it is.

Spitzer attacks the three most prevalent arguments in favor of broadcast control, utilizing insights from economics and social psychology and relating them to basic questions of First Amendment law and regulation of broadcasting. First, he shows that arguments centered on economic...