Mapping Information Policy Frames: The Politics of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was a significant milestone in congressional information policy legislation. However, the results were widely criticized in some circles as providing too much power to certain stakeholder groups. This paper uses computerbased content analysis and a theoretical taxonomy of information policy values to analyze congressional hearing testimony. The results of document coding were then analyzed using a variety of statistical tools to map how different stakeholders framed issues in the debate and determine if congressional value statements about the legislation conformed more closely to certain stakeholders. Results of the analysis indicate that significant differences in the use of information policy terms occurred across stakeholders, and showed varying degrees of convergence between congressional or other stakeholders when framing information policy issues.