Media policy plays a central role in shaping the evolution of the structure and functioning of media systems. In understanding the opportunities and problems arising from the functioning of—and innovation within—the media sector, media policy-makers now face some of the greatest challenges in the history of mass and personal communication. Freedman (2008: 1) defines media policy as "the systematic attempt to foster certain types of media structure and behavior and to suppress alternative modes of structure and behavior," a process taken part in (unevenly) by individual and group actors, comprising institutions of government and governance, firms, civil society, and people.

This challenge mirrors the one faced by scholars of media policy themselves. Academic research on media policy matters reflects the complex, nuanced, controversial, and contested character of human communication. It is a dynamic and varied field, constantly in search of refined and new ways of determining causal relationships, characterizing complex phenomena, and providing solutions to deliver better understandings of fast-evolving communications environments (Simpson, Puppis and Van den Bulck, 2016).

This Research Topic invites contributions that provide a better understanding of the core range of media policy challenges faced by policy-makers in the contemporary media system. The following questions will be explored:

• What are the current matters of controversy?
• What are the core positions in key debates?
• Who/what are the main individual/group actors in the debates?
• What are the main affordances held by each party and how is this playing out in terms of the current outcome?
• What are the likely policy outcomes and their implications in the future?
• To what extent is the policy area in question characterized by both continuity and change?
• What does the policy case tell us about the nature of media policy in the 2020s?

This Research Topic calls for contributions ranging across the media system and may focus on:

• networks and infrastructures
• platforms (search, social media, and commercial)
• media services
• media content.

The Topic theme invites contributions that explore media policy matters from conceptual/theoretical, empirical, and dualistic perspectives. Theoretical and conceptual analyses should illuminate the position, role, and dynamic interplay between key actors, interests, and institutions of media policy. Often theoretical analyses of recent and current media policy matters lead to conceptual problematization and, thence, new explanations that bring the state of the art forward. Empirical contributions can be goods and service provider; consumer/user/citizen; regulator and state-focused; or any combination thereof.

Potential subject areas might be (though are by no means limited to):

• policies for the digital economy and commerce
• the changing and enduring nature of policies for telecommunications and the audiovisual sector, including public service media
• policy responses to the challenges and problems arising from the use of artificial intelligence across media content and services
• policy challenges and responses in journalism
• media policy as an environmental matter.

We invite contributions with, various, national, international regional, or global focuses. Contributions from cases in the Global South are particularly welcome, as are articles that tackle pressing media policy matters from the perspective of equality, diversity, and inclusiveness.

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Frontiers in Communication

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