Performative competition
The U.S. wireless communication market and the T-Mobile/Sprint merger
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12898640 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Pawel Popiel (0000-0001-5641-581X, Howard University, corresponding author), Chiku Ali (0000-0001-9688-1962, Don State Agrarian University), Hendrik Theine (0000-0002-5272-0670, Johannes Kepler University of Linz), Sydney L Forde (0000-0001-8955-1703, Center for Excellence in Education) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 88 |
| Issue | 1-2 |
| Pages | 91-108 |
| Publication date | 2025-12-30 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Communication Gazette (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1748-0485 • E-ISSN: 1748-0493 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/17480485251405601 |
| OpenAlex | W7117565760 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 27 |
We examine the evolving political economy of the U.S. wireless communications market through a case study of the 2020T-Mobile/Sprint merger. Drawing on industry data from the Global Media & Internet Concentration Project and policy documents from the merger review, we show how the merging parties and regulators worked to construct the perception of competition to justify the transaction's approval despite clear evidence of oligopolistic concentration. We conceptualize this strategy as performative competition , involving regulators downplaying antitrust concerns, reframing consumer harms, and emphasizing speculative promises of 5G deployment to approve a corporate merger. We argue that performative competition is an increasingly necessary regulatory strategy, which emerges from policymakers’ neoliberal deference to dominant industry actors in a political economy marked by the growing consolidation of wireless markets; entails an increasing decoupling of communications policymaking from regulatory empirical analysis; and fulfills a discursive policy function of legitimating policy decisions to policy stakeholders
Cognitive reframing · Competition (biology · Consolidation (business · Construct (python library · Deference · Function (biology · Monopolization · Oligopoly · Performative utterance · Politics · Cognitive Radio Networks and Spectrum Sensing · Digital Platforms and Economics · ICT Impact and Policies
The Curse of Bigness
Network Nation
Selling the Air
The Politics of European Competition Regulation
The Limits of Neoliberalism
Digital Disconnect
Media Ownership and Concentration in America
The New Brandeis Movement
Let’s Talk about Regulation
Antitrust’s Right Turn in the Late 1970s
Shifting Neoliberalism in US Telecommunications Policy
Case Study Research
Media Activism from Above and Below
Protecting ‘competition, not competitors’
When the Watchdog Neither Barks Nor Bites
Theses on media deregulation
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |