Bio

Mark Lloyd is a civil rights advocate, lawyer and journalist. He is Visiting Professor and Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication and Journalism at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and former Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer at the US Federal Communications Commission. Research interest: civil rights, communications policy. ​

Mr. Lloyd graduated from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor with a double major in Journalism and Political science. He earned his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center. Before becoming a communications lawyer, Mr. Lloyd was an Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist, working for public and commercial radio and television, including work at NBC and CNN.

A distinguished analyst and activist, Mr. Lloyd has a broad background in universities, think tanks, government and media-related non-profits. He has been general counsel of the Benton Foundation, a domestic policy advisor at the Clinton White House, the executive director of the Civil Rights Forum on Telecommunications Policy and an attorney at the Washington, D.C. law firm Dow, Lohnes & Albertson. As a senior fellow at the Center of American Progress, he wrote, conducted research and analyzed communications policy. 

In 2009, Mr. Lloyd was the vice president for Strategic Initiatives at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights/Education Fund. From 2009-2012, he served as the Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity officer at the Federal Communications Commission. At the FCC, he advised the agency on how to promote diverse participation in the communications field, including work on the National Broadband Plan and the Market Entry Barriers Affecting the Critical Information Needs of All Americans.

The author of numerous articles and essays, including a contribution to the Encyclopedia of Journalism and work for the Aspen Institute, his book Prologue to a Farce, Communication and Democracy in America was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2007.

Mr. Lloyd has lectured at academic institutions in the U.S. and abroad, including: Harvard, UCLA, USC, UC-Riverside, NYU, and Penn State. As an affiliate professor of Public Policy at the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute, he occasionally teaches a course on the Public Policy of Communications.

From 2002-2004, he was an MLK Visiting Scholar at MIT in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), where he conducted research and taught communications policy.

Video

Publications

Books

Prologue to a Farce, Communication and Democracy in America, University of Illinois Press (Urbana: 2006).

African Americans and Information Communications Technology, Navigating the Network Society: The Challenges and Opportunities of the Digital Age (Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage Publications, 2005).

Anthologies

"Bringing Broadband Up to Speed," Science Next, Jonathan Moreno and Rick Weiss, editors (Washington, DC: Bellevue Literary Press, 2009).

"Lessons for Realistic Radicals in the Information Age," The Future of Media, Robert W. McChesney, Russell Newman and Ben Scott, editors, (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005).

"Whose Voices Count, a Proposal to Strengthen the Communications Capability of Community Groups," A Digital Gift to the Nation, Lawrence Grossman and Newt Minnow, Editors (Digital Promise Project-Century Foundation Press, Washington, DC, 2001).

Reports

Media, Creativity and the Public Good, (Washington, DC: Aspen Institute, 2007).

Local Media Diversity Matters: Measure Media Diversity According to Democratic Values, Not Market Values, (with Phil Napoli) Center for American Progress, Washington, DC, January 2007.

Progress and Proposals: A Civil Rights Agenda in Communications Policy, Rights at Risk - Equality in an Age of Terrorism (Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights, Washington, DC, 2002/ updated 2006).

Articles

"Red Lion Confusions," Administrative Law Review, Washington College of Law/American University, Vol. 60, Number 4, 2009.

"Access to Media," Encyclopedia of Journalism (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, September 25, 2009).

"Radio and Localism-What Went Wrong," Context, Winter/Spring 2006, Center for Communications and Community/UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, 2006.

"The Digital Divide and Equal Access to Justice," Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal (Univ. of California), Vol. 24, No. 4, Summer 2002.

"The Value of the Tax Certificate" (w/ Kofi Ofori), Federal Communications Law Journal, Vol. 51, No. 3, Indiana University School of Law – Bloomington, Federal Communications Bar Association, May 1999.

At MIT

Thursday, Sept. 19, 2002
5:00-7:00 p.m.

Bartos Theater
MIT Media Lab
20 Ames Street

Abstract

This fall the MIT Communications Forum will sponsor three linked conversations about changing notions of ownership, markets, invention and property.

The first will center on universities and on contested or emerging views of research and teaching. Who “owns” scientific data bases? Should research results be private and for sale? Are current definitions and emerging ground rules for patents comparable to recent changes in copyright law? Topics will include MIT initiatives in Open Course Ware and other non-commercial projects.

The second Forum examines Creativity/Markets/Copyright. The final Forum explores Copyright and Culture.

Speakers

Harold (Hal) Abelson is a founding director of Creative Commons and was instrumental in MIT's open courseware initiative. Abelson is Class of 1922 Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and a Fellow of the IEEE.

Ann Wolpert is Director of MIT Libraries and a member of the MIT Committee on Copyright and Patents. She also chairs the management board of the MIT Press and the board of directors of Technology Review, Inc., which publishes Technology Review.

Respondent: Mark Lloyd is the Martin Luther King Visiting Professor at MIT and is the executive director of the Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy where he works with leaders in the civil rights and public interest community to influence federal, state, and local communications policy. He worked on communications and arts policy in the Clinton Administration, co-founded the Civil Rights Telecommunications Forum in 1997, served as national coordinator of the People for Better TV campaign, and chaired the board of directors of the Independent Television Service.