公共利益作为美国传媒政策的一个核心概念，一直缺乏清晰而统一的界定。以 政策决策者或诠释者的认知框架和意义阐释作为研究视角，本研究发现：在早期传 媒政策中，公共利益标准在根本上指向建立一个有序竞争的商业广播体制；在公共 信托模式下，公共利益标准的主要意义体现为对规制者权力的制约以及对被规制者 行为的约束；而自1960年代以来，市场至上开始成为FCC传媒政策的主要基调，所谓 的公共利益被等同于消费者主权和经济效益，成为一种通过市场力量就能够获取的 东西。总体而言，美国传媒政策中的公共利益标准存在两种不同的表征模式：以民 主理论为基础的社会价值模式以及以经济理论为基础的市场模式；而其概念诠释上 的模糊性，不仅可以解读为一种设计，而且在根本上源于媒体两重属性的独特性。

As a core standard of American media policy the public interest is a concept that has not been clearly defined yet. By tracing the history of American media policy and some key laws and clauses, this paper attempts to explore the nature of the public interest standard from three different stages: in the early media policies, the public interest standard fundamentally means constructing a commercial broadcasting system with orderly competition; In public trust model, the public interest standard mainly functions as the restriction of regulator’s power and trustee’s behaviors; But since 1960s, the market supremacy has dominated the FCC over media policy and the public interest standard is interpreted as consumer's sovereignty and economy benefits, which can be obtained by the market force. Generally speaking, the public interest standard of American media policy has two different representative schemes: the social value model based on the democratic theory, and the market model based on the economy theory. And the ambiguity of the concept is not only a kind of design, but also rooted in the distinctiveness of media’s double attribute.