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The photo credit for the 2020 Volume 29 cover of the Democratic Communiqué is given to Jeffrey Layne Blevins,Associate Professor & Head, Department of Journalism at the University of Cincinnati.

Many of you will be reading this issue of Democratic Communiqué for the first time while following stay-at-home orders and adjusting to remote working arrangements as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across the globe. Although, the articles in this issue (Vol. 29, No. 1, Spring 2020) were written prior to the coronavirus outbreak, the issues they address –including fake news, telecommunication infrastructure, the gig economy and popular politics – have featured prominently in how our work lives, social relationships and political discourses are shaped during viral outbreaks.

In a recent series of us court cases involving media ownership regulation, broadcasters have invoked the First Amendment to the US. Constitution to resist ownership limitations, while civil society organizations and critics of media consolidation have raised free speech rights as a rationale to promote the idea of ownership restrictions. This study reviews First Amendment jurisprudence on broadcast ownership regulation since the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (TCA) and explores the potential for a fundamental shift in how the US federal courts allocate speech rights in broadcasting. While the courts have remained consistent with pre- TCA landmark cases that recognized public interest concerns over broadcasters' individual speech rights, dissenting justices have empathized with broadcasters' argument that reducing ownership regulations is in the public interest. Informed by political economy, 1 argue that this nascent perspective should be rejected in accordance with a collectivist interpretation of the First Amendment.

Abstract
This research explores the usability of the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC's) online Public Inspection Files to measure the sources and quantities of political advertising on broadcast television. We compared data from FCC files with data purchased from a commercial vendor in a presidential caucus campaign that stretched across nine months, including advertising sponsored by over 40 groups and totaled tens of millions of dollars. The FCC-derived and commercial data were consistent in reporting the quantity of advertising, but sponsor identification was inconsistent between data sources, raising concerns about the FCC's ability to disclose reliable information about political ad spending.

Abstract
This research explores the usability of the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC's) online Public Inspection Files to measure the sources and quantities of political advertising on broadcast television. We compared data from FCC files with data purchased from a commercial vendor in a presidential caucus campaign that stretched across nine months, including advertising sponsored by over 40 groups and totaled tens of millions of dollars. The FCC-derived and commercial data were consistent in reporting the quantity of advertising, but sponsor identification was inconsistent between data sources, raising concerns about the FCC's ability to disclose reliable information about political ad spending.

This analysis brings a range of theoretical perspectives on the politics of the communications policy-making process to bear on US Congressional efforts to protect children from internet pornography. The examination of the Congressional information gathering hearings during the formulation of the Communications Decency Act, Child Online Protection Act and Children's internet Protection Act shows an excess reliance on anecdotal evidence and a lack of social scientific research in informing Congressional inquiries. The authors here argue that such incidental involvement of academic scholarship could be explained through the lenses of `symbolic politics' and `class power', which have important implications for communication scholars who wish to be more closely involved in the communication policy-making process during future debates.

Social media and our political and economic lives -- Social media and social justice in the digital age -- Social media power in #Ferguson -- Affected and effective: @Blacklivesmattercincy -- Political discourse on social media, twitter trolls and hashtag hijacking -- Election 2016: trolling in the twittersphere and gaming the system -- Fake news, bots and doublespeak -- The political economy of social media networks, social justice, and truth -- Social justice, national cultural politics, and the summer of 2020 -- Conclusions: the political economy of social media and social justice.

Social media platforms have broadened the scope of voices responding to social justice movements, significantly impacting public conversations of important social justice issues. This social network analysis examined hashtags that were invoked on Twitter in the aftermath of the Mike Brown shooting in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson in 2014. From the millions of tweets globally, the use of specific hashtags appeared to focus the conversation on Twitter toward the personal meaning of story events and framed the shooting as something relatable to the posters' own lives and experiences.