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COMM 175 / FINAL EXAM ESSAY QUESTIONS / FALL 2014
Respond to any one of the following three options. Draw on everything you have learned this semester (text book, in-class discussion, group presentations, independent research).
1.) Would the overall trend of mass media over the past century indicate a greater variety of voices being heard, or less variety? Describe what you see as the general trend, and give specific examples to support your conclusion. In your response, please explore multiple forms of media.
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2.) What do you consider the two most important problems facing media and society today? What solutions would you propose? Give both specific and general ideas. In your response, please explore more than one type of media. (For instance, do not focus only on issues related to the newspaper industry. Instead explore two distinct problems that, though possibly inter-related, effect different forms of media, i.e. decline of newspapers and the upheaval of the music industry.)
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3.) Older media forms have a history of adapting and surviving when a new mass media technology emerges, such as radio to television. In what ways are pre-digital forms of mass media adapting to the Internet? Is this adaptation fundamentally the same as what has happened in the past, or is it significantly different? Be sure to give examples from at least two different forms of mass media.
“The Fear That Everything Has Already Been Done”
Interesting video connected to the first book review presentation about photography and the idea of how despite a same subject is being captured, there will always be something in it creating a new perspective, making it unique. Do you think after seeing the video this is true?
An Interview with the Only Female Photojournalist in Gasa
Read this interesting article on Vice about this woman, Eman Mohammed, who is the only photojournalist in Gaza. Check it out!
Net Neutrality Legislation
As of today, November 10, 2014, the topic of Net Neutrality is still coming into play. I was scrolling through Facebook and found an article about Obama’s stance on Net Neutrality, read to find out what Obama thinks.
“All songs use the same damn chords”
Here’s a song by comedian/musician Rob Paravonian about the derivative nature of modern music.
Extra Credit Opportunity
EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITY (20 points)
1. Attend a presentation at the Center for Digital Ethics and Policy symposium:
Friday, November 7 — Regents Hall & Beane Hall — Lewis Towers (111 E. Pearson)
CLICK HERE FOR SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE
2. Write a short paper (2-3 pages) about the experience.
Please include:
– a summary of the topic(s) addressed in the presentation,
– your observations on the presenter(s) approach to the topic(s)
(are they taking a critical perspective, or merely reporting their research findings?)
– what’s your reaction to the information presented?
– what’s your reaction to the experience of attending an academic symposium?
MESSAGE FROM THE SYMPOSIUM COORDINATOR
Students will need to register using 8762 as the code.
If that fails, they should plan to show a Loyola / state photo ID at our various registration check points.
It’s not stealing, it’s PARODY.
Artists slave away in their studios to create record-breaking music, box-office winning movies, best-selling books, life-altering poems, and jaw dropping paintings only to have other amateur “artists” create parodies of their works. For a long while, there was no such thing as a parody: it was called copyright infringement. The parody artists take the works of others and add their own twist to it. It’s a little like an innovation of an original invention, and sometimes end up more popular than the original song or work of art.
2 Live Crew faced a very close call with their parody of Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman.
Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, one of the best-known paintings of all time, has gotten its fair share of duck faces, cat whiskers, and bat masks.
“Wierd Al” Yankovic does parodies of a lot of popular songs, his most famous one being of Chamillionaire’s “Ridin'”. Wierd Al’s “White and Nerdy” has gotten 91 million views, compared to Chamillionaire’s 47 million.
James Joyce’s Ulysses is considered a parody of Homer’s Odyssey and T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.
YouTube personality “ChokeOnFunny” sings a parody of Eminem’s “Rap God.” (The parody is nowhere near as popular as the original song, but it has gotten more than 450,000 views.)
Even Walt Disney, who is basically the creator of our childhoods, has gotten a parody by YouTube personality “Paint” dedicated to his works. Paint has gotten more than 42 million views on his Disney parody.
Some argue that a parody can also be seen as a form of free publicity for an artist and their work of art. The parody will never substitute the original because the two hold “separate market functions.” Others argue that the parody takes away the importance of the original song, and the artists make money off of another’s work.
Are parodies a form of copyright infringement? Should they be protected by the Fair Use Doctrine and/or the First Amendment? Should parodies and covers of various forms of art be made money off of? Are their exceptions?
Libel and Slander: You Can’t Hide Behind the First Amendment Forever
One may think that all that he or she says is protected under the First Amendment and it’s free speech clause, but there are limitations to this law. Libel and slander are unprotected areas of speech, as its only motive is to harm the person or topic. According to our text book, libel is the defamation of character in written or broadcast forms, while slander is spoken language that can hurt someone. A libelous or slanderous statement could be any false statement that ridicules or harms someones business or profession.
Our good friend Spiderman helps to explain the two terms.
In 2011, soccer star David Beckham sued a magazine for $25 million for publishing that he had slept with a prostitute. However, the judge for the case rejected Beckham’s case, because the libel laws in the United States hold celebrities to a different standard than to those who are not famous. The court said that Beckham had to produce evidence of “actual malice” to prove that the magazine had published libel against him. Although Beckham’s lawyer had proof that he was not with the prostitute, there was not enough evidence to keep the case in the court system.
If you’d like to read more about Beckham’s experience with libel, read this.
While Beckham’s case was a recent bout of libel in the public eye, still the most known case of libel and slander was that of the New York Times v. Sullivan case of 1964. This case led to many stipulations being put on court cases that revolved around libel and slander. Some of those being different categories of people that can be affected by the published works, a long list of things that must be proven against the publication, and a differentiation between public and private plaintiffs. They say that the best defense against libel and slander is the truth. Those in the court cases are granted privilieges not given in other cases, to help protect themselves more.
Cute and pertinent to the discussion :)
After reading this chapter and focusing mainly on libel and slander, I cant help but wonder how the increase in social media and online publications is going to effect these types of publications.
Do you think that it is easier to make a libelous or slanderous comment online? Should a comment made online be treated the same as something published in a reputable source? Are libel and slander less of a big deal with the introduction of social media and the anonymous nature of the internet?
Challenging the Powers of National Security
Since World War I, national security has claimed itself a requirement in order to maintain the survival of the state through various assumed powers. The extent of these powers has been in question, though, since as early as 1931 in the court case Near v. Minnesota. While the major claim to the authoritative enforcement of national security has always been through the identifying of clear, major threats, many have claimed that the actions impose unconstitutional contradictions to the First Amendment. Recent articles, regarding the disclosure of military information and apprehension of public information, demonstrate a possible over-extension of the regulatory statures encompassing the powers of national security.
An article published last week by Senior health Scientist, Charles C. Engel, entitled “Compromised Confidentiality in the Military is Harmful,” claims that mental health effects of the “stigma” imposed through the reluctance to seek medical attention by war veterans is reason enough for national security to disclose information forfeited this way. Engel states that the unregulated disclosure “hobbles military capacity to provide effective mental health services because military members rightly perceive that seeking treatment can harm their careers.” likewise, the same can be said about non-military employed citizens who fear that the repercussions of sought medical attention may affect their own careers. The article addresses the concern for both military and non-military employees, but only makes a push for the regulations behind the disclosure of military employees. This possible favoritism may be constituted as a first priority concerning the immediate deployments in wartime, but this logic challenges the overarching principle of national defense: who are they defending?
Another recent article concerning the constitutionality of national security letters (NSLs) explains the questioning of the federal government’s right to secretly apprehend personal information from major mobile service providers. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit digital rights group, explains that “the statutes governing National Security Letters empower the FBI, without prior judicial authorization, to both demand customer records directly from Internet and telecommunication providers and to issue permanent gag orders that prevent the recipients from disclosing anything about the government’s demand.” This NSL was eventually ruled unconstitutional under a judge explaining that the gag order issued, “violate[d] the First Amendment; and that the lack of judicial oversight is a violation of the separation of powers.” The client received two more NSLs afterword, in which the attempt to fight the appeal was “thwarted by a court ruling that the NSL could be enforced.”
Ultimately, it is the up to the Supreme Court to determine if the foundational reasoning behind the government’s pursuing of public information is constitutional to enforce. The disclosure of this nearly-same information is understandable for soldiers because they are under federal contract, and thus the federal government claiming ownership of this information is technically expressing their right. However, public information is protected under no such disclosure, as demonstrated through the demand to claim this personal information through mobile service providers. Furthermore, The terms of the initial NSL in the case backed by the EFF showed that the federal government demanded no disclosure of the personal information they wished to gather. In this slight contradictory method displaying the controversial tools used to enforce national security, it raises the question whether the terms of those tool overstep their own regulations.
Consider the following questions for discussion:
-Should the enforcement of national security allow the full range of of the apprehension and disclosure of public and federal information?
-If yes, what justifies the the federal government’s methods of enforcing national security?
-If no, in what ways do you believe the powers of the federal government enforcing national security should be limited?