Following up on Bill Moyers, who made it clear in his morning remarks that the future of the Internet is the future of the media reform movement, a panel of scholars, activists and journalists including Robert McChesney, Malkia Cyril, Tim Wu and Amy Goodman discussed the shifting landscape of media and media reform.

Amy Goodman, the moderator of From Broadcast to Broadband: The Next Frontier of Media Reform, began by trying to break down the borders between broadcast content and Internet content, pointing at her own show, Democracy Now which is broadcast over the air, over cable, and over the web as an example of the convergence that is occurring in this new digital age.

Robert McChesney, one of Free Press’s founders, outlined the shape of the modern media reform movement from its initial reaction against relaxing media ownership rules, to more recent battles for public broadcasting, fighting fake news and propaganda, and supporting community radio and TV. McChesney noted that while these issues will remain of vital importance, they are now utterly bound up in the future of the Internet. Increasingly, if we care about broadcast news and journalism, we must also care about net neutrality and bridging the digital divide.

“We are in a communications revolution,” said McChesney.

Tim Wu – who coined the term “net neutrality” – focused on his most recent research on the long term history of the media reform movement. Looking back over hundreds of years he suggests that the media has gone through cycles of decentralization and concentration. “Our media is like the robot in Terminator 2,” Wu said, “it constantly gets blown into a million pieces and somehow ends up pulling itself back together.” The forces that break up the media have been government action, citizen action, and new technologies.

The Internet is at a key turning point – it is blowing apart traditional media structures and systems, but we may not have much time before consolidation takes hold again. Wu warned that while the Internet still remains radically decentralized, the structures behind the Internet – telecom and cable companies – are consolidating their power and fighting for greater control over the web.

The last speaker on the panel was grassroots organizer and media strategist Malkia Cyril. Cyril challenged the speakers and the audience to probe the language we use to talk about the future of the Internet and media reform. “When we talk about a digital revolution, we should really think about the word revolution,” said Cyril. “When we say we are facing a new digital frontier, we need to think about the history of frontiers.” We need to be aware of the power of the words we use and be sure that we are approaching this new phase in media reform in a way that challenges the old power structures rather than reasserts them. “Will it amplify the cycles of consolidation or interrupt the cycles of consolidation?” asked Cyril.

“Technology doesn’t create justice, it is just a medium.” Cyril said, “The old power structures can either be translated through it or changed by it. But we can’t assume justice will just happen. We have to look at who our language includes and who it excludes.” When we talk about policy goals and strategies without asking these hard questions, we skip a vital step in the process and risk pushing people out of the movement. Cyril challenged the audience to connect national policy goals to real action and organizing in their local communities and regions.