Internet and Political Censorship

     According to an article at GalesburgPlanet.com, the internet has gained the more traffic as a source of political news than any other category of mass media. Cable television is still the most prevalent, but the internet has grown the most in popularity, by a significant margin. A great majority of adult Americans has access to an internet connection in this day and age, so it makes a great deal of sense that it would become more convenient to get notified of political goings-on via internet. Indeed, there are a lot of subscription programs that an internet user can utilize to be notified of anything new that happens on a site they frequent. Content is available at any time you look for it, unlike cable television where a viewer is required to tune in at a certain time. The internet is capable of providing media of varying formats as well, from articles to videos, that pertain to a wider selection of topics than television is capable of portraying. For reasons like this, the internet is becoming a very attractive conquest for various political interest groups to target. Especially in this most recent presidential campaign, presidential candidates have been heavily using internet to get their points across, gain favor, and attempt to win more votes than the other guys. But also for reasons like this, politicians are having trouble with the lack of censorship on the internet. 

Media format article here: http://galesburgplanet.com/posts/19870

     One of the most striking examples of this was a campaign slogan Ron Paul ran under during the primaries this year. He had TV ads and banners and bumper stickers made that said "Google: Ron Paul." He recognized the fact that most of the modern political information available to the general public was available via the internet, and he wanted to get his name out there in people's minds. He knew that the easiest way to get the average person to learn more about him and his stances was to have them simply do a web search. And he was right. Most people spend more time on the internet daily, reading political articles, than they do channel surfing and looking for political news programs. And even if they do prefer to use television as a source of news, political news isn't constantly being aired. Usually, because there are multiple news blocks in a day, you can spend hours on end watching the news and get repeated stories. They often repeat the same popular story for each news block, because usually a person only watches one news block a day, if they watch any. In short, there's a very limited amount of political news one can gain from watching television, even if they spend a long time watching. Ron Paul made a pretty strategic move by turning the attention of his potential supporters to the internet. It made it easier for him to educate them about his actions and plans, and made it more convenient for them to educate themselves about it all. I can imagine how much more willing they were to get news this way, especially considering the fact that Ron Paul just told them to look at everything that existed about him, instead of directing their attention to certain chosen aspects through a televised speech or some other focused media outreach. I think it was a good move, even if it didn't exactly pan out for him. 

     The internet has also been a distinct target for the political interests that try to bring out younger voters, namely the Democratic Party. President Obama recently did an Ask Me Anything on the popular forum website, Reddit. Members of the forum could comment and ask him questions and he would answer them in subsequent posts. This was really the first political move of its kind, and it definitely brought Obama to the forefront of many internet-goers' attention. But as he found out the hard way, the internet isn't necessarily a gateway to popularity. Just like any other media outlet, it's subject to the judgement of the viewers. Admittedly, there are a great deal more viewers to be had on the internet than nearly anything else, and they have the opportunity to be interactive, unlike most other mediums, but most people were annoyed as a result of the AMA. They said that Obama dodged the questions that people most wanted answered, and planted questions that were convenient for him to talk about. So while it was a good way to get publicity, turning to the internet doesn't automatically result in good publicity. 

Reddit response article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/obama-reddit-ask-me-anything_n_1843568.html

     This, I think, is more related to censorship than the internet itself. While Ron Paul used the internet to share everything available about him and his stances, and received fairly positive feedback on this move, Obama tried a similar approach, but tweaked it to his own advantage. That goes so fundamentally against what everyone expects the internet to stand for that he was met with a pretty negative response. It's going to be interesting to see how politics continues to use the internet in future campaigns, because historically many aspects of politics have become a little less than truthful. It's common practice now for politicians to avoid topics that would make them unpopular and hype others far beyond where they need to be. The internet has come to be known as a frontier for uncensored information sharing. Any politician who tries to censor the information available on the internet is going to damage their popularity by doing so. It'll be interesting to see how they handle that fact in future.

Additional Sources:

Bettina Fabos, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.

Governmental Conglomeration

     In our day and age, most consumers are familiar with the concept of synergy, even if they don't know it by that name. They're used to popular books being made into movies and other related merchandise becoming available for them to purchase and add to their collections. It's commonplace for a major corporation like Disney to own a television studio, a publishing house, a series of theme parks, an airline, a cruise line, a car rental service, and countless clothing, game, and toy factories globally. As individual people are becoming more and more specialized, major corporations are growing larger and larger, and putting their hands and monetary interests into more and more industries where some argue they don't really belong. And as these big companies are continuing to grow and extend their reach, it seems that the American government is doing the same, following a very similar business model.
     Synergy refers to the sale and promotion of a certain media product across different mediums and usually from different subsidaries of the same media conglomerate. Harry Potter is a prime example. The books were published and became very popular so they were followed by a movie series. Numerous spin-off books were also published and sold by the same publishing company that the original books came from. Wizard Cards and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans and Chocolate Frogs became check-out line favors that any fan could purchase on their way out of Borders or Barnes and Noble. Warner Brothers, the company responsible for the movie series, put out Harry Potter editions of Clue, Monopoly, Scene-It, and other games like LEGO sets and jigsaw puzzles. There are Harry Potter themed chess sets and clothing and jewelry and figurines and stationery and mugs and stickers and iPhone cases and stuffed animals and any other kind of merchandise you can imagine, all from one series of books. In this case, Time Warner took that one popular series of books and made money off it through movies, games, and all the other merchandise formats I just listed and more. This is a prime example of synergy and it's very much in large companies' best interests for them to try this route and work as many angles as they can to make a profit.
     Unfortunately, though, this stifles competition. It's very difficult for more than one company to get their hands on the rights to anything Harry Potter-related. Only Time Warner can put out official Harry Potter merchandise because they're the only ones with the rights to it. If that weren't the case, numerous small businesses could benefit from a cultural phenomenon like Harry Potter and the merchandise that resulted would be of a better quality. If two candy companies both made Chocolate Frogs, people would buy the better ones and both companies would have to compete to make their product better. But as it is, the big corporation is the only one who can market Chocolate Frogs, so they have no motivation to make them good. They have no competition. This same sort of thing has been happening with a lot of government policies when the national government gets involved with something instead of leaving it to the states to work out.
     There are a lot of policies that I think should be left to individual states to decide for similar reasons that I think corporations shouldn't corner the market on things as much as they do. It stifles competition and diversity. If states have different policies that work for the majority of their residents, then the people who don't agree with a certain policy could move to a different state if it meant enough to them. Just like people can shop at different stores if they find one to be superior to another. Obviously moving to a different state is more significant than shopping at Target instead of WalMart, but it's the same principle of having the opportunity to choose something that suits you better. So, if a state has really high taxes and the residents don't think it's worth it to stay there, they'll go to a state that has a "better deal," so to speak. Then the first state will have to change its policies to make it more attractive for people to live there or they'll be in serious trouble.
     Leaving legislation largely up to state rule encourages the same sort of competition and motivation for improvement that you can see in the corporate world. And the same problems are posed when the federal government has its hands in something because they'll have no competition and won't be forced to make it worth the while of the country's residents. Most people find it much more difficult to move to a different country than to move to a different state, for obvious reasons. The federal government has no real competition as far as their business models go, like the states do. And the federal government has been steadily growing, much like the big corporations have. It seems natural because it's in the best interest of companies to grow like they've been growing, but that doesn't mean it's appropriate for national government. I think we should view the economical ramifications of giant corporations as a warning against what could happen if we let the government become the same way.

Additional Sources:

Bettina Fabos, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.

Public Relations

     It's very difficult to draw a line between public relations and advertisement, especially where politics is concerned. It seems that every piece of news you find is slanted favorably in the direction of one of the two main candidates and against the other. It's all basically advertisement, telling the masses to vote for this person and not that one, and often for similar reasons that you should buy a certain product in favor of another. It'll cost you less money, they say, and it'l make your life better if you vote for this guy and not that one. But in a way, this can be considered public relations as well. Even though it's not coming straight from the organization that's being promoted, it still promotes the organization fairly effectively. Perhaps it's even more effective on the grounds that it doesn't come straight from the benefiting organization (assuming that whoever wrote the article wasn't actually directly paid by said benefiting organization.) People see it and think, "oh, someone else besides Obama wants Obama in office," and are curious as to why. So they read the articles about racist Pro-Romney shirts and Sensata scandals and are greeted by a bunch of emotional appeals and very little actual fact and analysis into the potential ramifications. That sure sounds like public relations to me.
     This first article caught my eye because of the picture at the top. I was interested to see what this writer would say about the guy wearing the slogan "Put the White Back In the White House." I wanted to see what it would say about the potential social ramifications of the Presidential race coming down to actual Presidential race. I wanted to read about how our modern society would be subtly affected if racial discrimination reared its ugly head yet again. But instead, I ended up reading a very heartfelt article about how depressing it was for the writer to see this shirt. Because race was being dragged back into things while everything nowadays is trying to stop race from being a contributing factor to all things social? Actually, no, that wasn't his point. He was depressed because Romney seemed to be trying the "good old days" comfort plea, portraying himself as a reasonable, middle-aged white man with a political history, exactly the type of person an American President should look like. The writer didn't want people to be taken in by this facade. It's a very interesting point, but he also didn't back it up with very much fact. He presented his own version of what he thinks Obama should say and use as a defensive stance, and it was very nicely said, but there was little substance to it. It was still an appeal to the emotions of the reader. It said "look at how much we owe Obama, don't you think we should continue to trust him?" It said "don't be taken in by Romney and his acting, because he'll let us down." The internet is chock full of articles like these, full of fancy fluff words and very little fact. A man wore a shirt. Feel obligated to vote Obama back into the Presidency and don't believe Romney's lies because my 72-year-old mother is wonderful.    
     Here's a link to that article: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/12/1143940/--Put-the-White-back-in-the-White-House
     This second article caught my interest because I saw a tabloid in Price Chopper last night about some outsourcing scandal that Romney was involved in and decided to do a bit more research. Apparently the asset management firm he co-founded, Bain Capital, has decided to outsource a company they recently bought out, Sensata Tech, to China. I was expecting an article discrediting this choice and raising lots of issues about how we, the American people, don't want all our business and manufacturing to be outsourced. I wanted to hear about the economical ramifications of not making anything on home turf, and how we could expect the government to conduct itself on these matters if Romney was voted in as President. Instead, the article raised a bunch of points that I feel are completely unnecessary. They brought in Chinese workers to be trained before the outsourcing. So what? That makes sense from a business standpoint if you're planning to outsource a company. They put up a Chinese flag at the plant in Illinois. That has nothing to do with our economy whatsoever, it's just a cause for affront to those who feel personally offended by the situation. The company is set to close one day before the election. Again, this has nothing to do with the political or economical ramifications of this event. It's just a chance for the writer to be scathing and sarcastic. I thought the whole article was scathing and sarcastic and too short to impart much information at all. Though, I'm not confident it would have been very much more informative had it been longer, anyway. It just seemed like a chance for someone to rail on Romney's personal business decisions because of the effect they'll have on the nation as a whole, without explaining the connection they saw. I do think there's a connection, which is why I was disappointed this article didn't expand upon it, and only provided a few shallow talking points for anyone who's already against Romney to utilize in their next argument. It was all fluff words with very little fact.
     Here's a link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/13/1143996/-The-Sansata-Story-Could-Destroy-Romney
The writer was kind enough to include some source articles where it's possible to find actual information and news, though. Those are worth looking through.
     Needless to say, I won't be getting my political news from the Daily Kos any time soon. It's one of those sites that acts very much like a forum, though, and makes it very easy to share your opinions with others and read up on what people think. For that reason, it's pretty popular among bloggers and redditers who love the discussions that are available. Unfortunately, because of the form these articles take, they end up arguing over emotionally-based points and not factually-based opinions, so the discussions aren't worth very much. People frequently talk about how bad something is without digging very deep to figure out why. It's all a battle of public relations.

Additional Sources:

Bettina Fabos, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.

   

*Absence Make-up*

     This blog entry is to make up for the recitation I missed on September 26th, so I'm going to talk about a recent Supreme Court case I find interesting.
     There's one case this year that hasn't gotten much attention when compared to many other Supreme Court cases, about how to treat used goods. There was an appellate court ruling that the Supreme Court may uphold, and if they do, it might become illegal to sell something that was manufactured overseas. The ruling would make it mandatory to get permission from the copyright holder of the goods you wanted to sell in order to be able to sell them. If you own a Mazda and want to sell it to your nephew when he graduates college so you can make a down payment on a new car for yourself, you'd need permission from Mazda to do so. You may even be required to pay a cut of the sale back to Mazda in royalties, even though you paid royalties the first time you bought the car. I don't like the idea that selling something you own is copyright infringement.
     Upholding the appellate court ruling and passing legislation to make permission mandatory to sell a used item would completely destroy the used goods market. Websites like Craig's List and Ebay would die out. Every thrift store across the country would shut down and close. People wouldn't be able to hold neighborhood yard sales or flea markets. It would be virtually impossible to find anything vintage without paying through the nose and antique dealers would probably riot in the streets. Not that rioting across the nation's antique-dealing community is the biggest concern I have with this topic, but I agree with them that it's fundamentally wrong. I don't want to be forced to buy something new every time I want to make a purchase. If someone wants to part with something they no longer need, and I'm in the market for whatever that thing may be, whether it's a second-hand couch for my college apartment, or a tv series on DVD that they don't actually manufacture anymore, I want to be able to buy it from them as much as they want to be able to sell it to me. It's killing two birds with one stone. But I'm sure the manufacturers of the chair would much rather me find it far too inconvenient to buy one used and go directly to them to buy a new one. I live in a country with a "free market," right? I should be able to sell something I directly own and have paid for the first time around to anyone I want to at whatever price we've agreed upon.
     I also don't think the copyright holders should have the right to make money on a single product more than once. You shouldn't have to pay a cut of the second-hand sale back to the company that made the item if you've already paid it to them once. You bought the item, now it's yours, you can do what you want with it. The company you bought it from owns the rights to the concept behind the item, but they don't still own the item itself. If that were the case, then you paid full price for a cellphone or a book just to rent it. As far as I know, that's not what a purchase is. If you bought a DVD and started making copies to sell to people, that's a different matter. Then the rights owners would be totally within their rights to demand a cut of those sales (or throw you in prison) because you're making new iterations of the product they copyrighted. But I don't think they should have a right to a portion of the sale you make when selling that first copy of the DVD.
     This whole concept also feels kind of backwards when you consider the way the entertainment industry has been going. If you buy a DVD, often times it comes with a BluRay copy, too. And a digital copy that you can use on your computer and upload to your tablet and phone. The fact that you own a copy can be noted in an online account, and you can log into XBox Live and watch your movie through your gaming console. Once you buy a copy of the movie, it's yours to watch, in any way you want, on basically any digital device you own. If you buy a subscription to Netflix or Hulu, you can log into your account on your laptop and watch movies and shows. You can also log in on your tablet, phone, gaming console, and, again, any internet-capable device you have. It's the same way when you buy digital copies of books or music. Once you own it, it belongs to you in quite a few different ways. Not only would it be extremely difficult to monitor the selling of pre-owned goods like these, the digital kind that prove virtually impossible to track, but even making the attempt goes completely against the ideal behind this sort of progression. If you buy something and can then access it from anything else you also already own, then it belongs to you pretty completely. Why should you be required to check in with anyone, or pay them a direct cut, if you want to sell it to someone else? I don't think you should.
     There have been internet rumors that President Obama has declared himself in favor of the Supreme Court upholding the appellate ruling that would make all our upstanding antique dealers riot in the streets, but I haven't been able to find any articles about that, unfortunately. It could just be a rumor.
     This is the best article I've found on the actual court case, though: http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-10-04/finance/34240922_1_copyright-iphone-john-wiley-sons/2
   

Political Consumerism

     Americans these days are busy. Most Americans spend more time at work than they do at home, not counting time spent sleeping. Most Americans don't have nearly enough time on their hands to look into their political options and make well-informed decisions, and media bias takes advantage of that fact. It's too time-consuming and too much of a hassle to look past what's presented to you directly, and the easiest way to get news on current events is to sit in front of the television and simply watch.
     It's easy to get home from a busy day of work, grab some dinner from the kitchen in one form or another, and plop onto the couch to eat, flipping on a news station as you do so, in order to stay current and politically aware. And campaign offices know this; they know how many of their voting citizens do this at the end of every day. That's why there are so many television ads promoting political candidates that show up between news programs and even regular shows. They want to take advantage of your undivided attention while they have it, and they're pretty successful. Here are a couple campaign promotion ads that have been airing recently:
          Pro Obama: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bZxs09eV-Vc
          Pro Romney: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3rJO4JuYd8
They're short and to the point, if a little bit silly, matching the standard length of the average business or product advertisement. And I think that it's largely because American society has become so consumer-based that people accept these ads without questioning them and don't place any more import upon them than they do upon an ad for a new car or a different restaurant.
     The Presidential elections become a spectacle to behold every four years when they take place. It seems more like a spectator sport than anything else; the media treats it like they would treat two rival teams trying to win a championship of some sort. And to everyone else it seems like some sort of game, rigged like professional wrestling. It's not portrayed as maturely as it should be, because most of the media coverage goes to publicizing the drama of it all instead of the direct truth of events. If you watched the debates last weekend, you saw everything each of the candidates said in response to the questions given by the moderator. If you missed the airing and don't have the time to watch a replay of it, most of the articles you'll find on the internet are about how much time Obama spend snoozing, or the number of times Romney interrupted the moderator. The information presented at the forefront of the news coverage isn't very helpful if you want to choose a candidate for reasons with actual substance.
     Because of this, picking a President doesn't seem like much more than a game to most. It feels more like choosing between two warring brands of toilet paper or rooting for your football team to win and grind the other guys into the dust. It's more about who wins than the consequences of a particular party controlling the position of President. This mentality has become pretty second-nature to many modern Americans because of how rooted our society is in consumerism. There's a strong "Keep Up With the Jones's" instinct in most middle-to-higher class people. If a neighbor has a nicer car than you, you feel the need or desire to outdo them and get a newer, sleeker, more-powerful car. If your kid comes home from school complaining that every other kid but him or her has an iPhone, you feel it necessary that your kid have an iPhone, too. Not all people feel this way, but it's a fairly common mentality. They don't really care whether they need a new car, or whether their child will get any practical use out of an iPhone, but they'd fall behind in the race if they didn't purchase them. This is what the Presidential campaign feels like to me. The Democrats express how important it is for them to win because if they don't win, Romney will be President and that's bad. The Republicans insist that they should win because if they don't, Obama will be President and THAT'S bad. Neither side talks nearly enough about what they actually plan to do as President, and most Americans will still vote for one of the two of them.
     The common convenience store chain, 7-Eleven has recently implemented a sales promotion to sell lattes. When you buy coffee at any participating 7-Eleven, you get your choice of two cups. You can pick a red cup with Romney's name all over it or you can pick a blue cup with Obama's name all over it. On their site, they're keeping count of who's in the lead as far as their coffee ticker goes: http://www.7-eleven.com/7-Election/   It's very reminiscent of how it feels to cast a vote for American Idol. All of the advertisements involved with the Presidential Elections are giving it an insubstantial, routine feel when it should be one of the most seriously considered choices a citizen has to make. It's definitely the biggest choice in American politics. American consumerism is causing it to feel like just another consumer's decision, like which take-out to get on your drive down the turnpike, and I find this fact fairly discomforting.

Additional Sources:
Fabos, Bettina, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.

Socially Responsible Media

As much as the general public complains about the bias in their media outlets, the United States should count itself as lucky in comparison to other countries around the world. The US follows what can be considered the “social responsibility model” when it comes to media outlets, meaning society is responsible for the media that becomes available. News providers try to make news pieces on topics that they think will be popular, topics that will sell papers or hike up the station ratings. In a lot of countries around the world, most notably in Asia and Africa, media outlets follow a “state” or “authoritarian model.” In a state model, the government directly controls what media is released and in an authoritarian model, the organizations in control of the media omit and slant information to achieve a certain end. (Cambell, Martin, Fabos. 480) Sometimes these ends can be benevolent, but sometimes they’re not. I think that we’re fortunate to have a system of media that focuses around free speech and the First Amendment, but there are obviously several distinct drawbacks, as there are with anything.

            Perhaps the most obvious shortcoming of the United States’ socially responsible mass media is how often personal opinion creeps into stories. When you read a newspaper article, you can tell whether it’s an account of an event or an opinion or editorial piece based on where in the paper it’s located. Television is much more difficult to distinguish because they don’t usually preface an opinion with something that tells you outright that you’re hearing an opinion. Television talk shows and news interviews aren’t scripted and edited like a newspaper is, so where a reporter has a chance to try to make his article sound more objective, an interviewer on television doesn’t have the time to take that sort of care. There’s also a very fine line between direct quotes and libel.

            News providers are always careful not to broadcast or publish or post anything that could be considered libelous, because that’s where their rights as news providers end. Libel is a form of expression that’s not protected by the First Amendment as free speech. So news companies can effectively be sued by someone who feels they were offensively and falsely portrayed by one of their articles or broadcasts. This, I think, works as a good incentive to keep reporters of all kinds a little more neutral than they may otherwise be. It doesn’t, however, stop them from quoting two opposing sides to try to get the story across. There are numerous articles on sites like the Huffington Post and NYTimes that are full of slander and mudslinging, but are presented with impartiality. In cases like these, it’s easier to figure out who stands where in relation to certain issues, because the reporter is simply telling the reader straight out. A lot of times, though, article writers use direct quotes as a way to get their own opinions across. This online article from Salon’s politics directory, for example, is full of name calling and spitting contests, but mainly in the form of direct quotes. [ http://www.salon.com/2012/10/01/the_billionaire_obama_hate_club/ ] But still, the writing that ties them together into a story is anything but impartial. So, although the threat of prosecution for libel stops news providers from creating their own slander, it doesn’t stop them from using pre-made slander to tell their stories, for better or worse.

            The one place where reporters really don’t have to worry about libel regulations is the internet. It’s very easy to maintain and write under a penname, thereby avoiding any ramifications on personal reputation that would be associated with unpopular inappropriate reporting. Because of this, it’s virtually impossible to sue an internet reporter for an offensive or unfavorable article. So there’s nothing to regulate the news that’s published on the web because there’s no threat of real consequences for writing a piece that’s full of libel. Just this week, legislature was passed in the Philippines in an effort to hold internet publications to the same standard as printed and broadcast media. Section 4 of the new law “criminalizes libel, not only on the internet, but on any other similar means which may be devised in the future.” [http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/10/02/12/anti-cybercrime-law-takes-effect ] This makes me wonder how long it’ll take for other nations to attempt something of this sort, or if they’ll even try. In a country like the US, where media is a direct product of the many people living here who feel they have news to share, I wonder if it would even be possible.

            And even with the insane amount of information out there and the high ratio of it that’s made up primarily of opinions, it’s still preferable to media that’s directly regulated by government. American media has more of an opportunity to regulate government by making media consumers aware of political events. Its greatest merit is that it comes directly from society to inform society. We have democracy of media, and for that I’m personally grateful.

Additional Sources:
Fabos, Bettina, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.