The relationship of emerging telecommunications networks to our social situation, especially in terms of technical, economic, and legal arrangements, has not yet been fully defined or decided. James Carey (1989) established a fundamental distinction between two models of communication that is important for understanding sociocultural implications of contemporary telecommunications policy. In this essay, these contrasting models are used to illuminate historical tensions between the policy goals of liberalization and democratization. Current telecommunications policy discourse, drawing upon a transmission framework, aims to achieve liberalization of telecommunications markets. It also invites us to ignore questions of power in the context of democratization, which the community, cultural, and ritual aspects of Carey's model explicitly demand we address.Our age is witness to the realization of the global village. Driven by the demands of global commerce, the world is being compressed into interconnected financial, technological, and ecological systems. Numerous transnational networks are making distance, and consequently boundaries of ethnicity, cultural diversity, and indeed, national sovereignty, of reduced significance. Consequently, this time is of great importance for those concerned about the relationship between the emerging global economic forces of liberalized telecommunications markets and the values of democratic society.Reflecting this concern, present telecommunications policy discourse features two recurring and oppositional themes characterized by the concepts of liberalization and democratization. Acknowledging that liberalization and democratization are deeply contested terms, I offer my own definitions. At the risk of oversimplification, liberalization means, in that often-cited formulation of former President Reagan, "the unleashing of the magic of the marketplace." The hallmark of a policy of liberalization is a relatively easy-to-understand focus on achieving comEdward M. Lenert (PhD, University of Texas, Austin, 1993) is assistant professor in the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. His research interests include media and democratic societies, digital information networks and electronic commerce, and critical and cultural studies.