media discourse and culture

1. MEDIA AND
GOVERNMENT

2. CONTENT:
1. Government Regulation of Media
2. The Law and Mass Media Messages
3. Censorship and Freedom of Speech
4. Intellectual Property Issues in the Mass Media
5. Digital Democracy and Its Possible Effects
6. Media Influence on Laws and Government

3. GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF MEDIA

4. MAJOR REGULATORY AGENCIES
Under the auspices of the federal government,
these agencies—
1. the FTC,
2. the Federal Radio Commission (FRC),
3. the FCC
have shaped American media and their interactions
with both the government and audiences.

5. FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION(FTC)
Founded on September
26, 1914, the FTC
came into being when
President Woodrow
Wilson signed the
FTC Act into law,
creating an agency
designed to “prevent
unfair methods of
competition in
commerce.”

6. FEDERAL RADIO COMMISSION
(FRC)
First established with the
passage of the Radio Act
of 1927, the FRC was
intended to “bring order
to the chaotic situation that
developed as a result of the
breakdown of earlier
wireless acts passed during
the
formative years of wireless
radio
communication.”

7. FEDERAL
COMMUNICATIONS
COMMISSION (FCC)
The FCC has been
“charged with regulating
interstate and
international
communications by
radio, television, wire,
satellite and cable.”

8.  Media Consolidation

9. THE LAW AND MASS
MEDIA MESSAGES
Media law comprises two
areas:
1. telecommunications law,
which regulates radio
and television
broadcasts;
2. print law, which
addresses publications
such as books,
newspapers, and
magazines.
Media laws involve First
Amendment protections. This section explores
several areas of media law: privacy, libel and
slander,
copyright and intellectual property, freedom of
information, and equal time and coverage.

10. THE FAIRNESS
DOCTRINE• was enacted in 1949, when
applications for radio broadcast
licenses outpaced the number of
available frequencies.
• the FCC thus instituted the Fairness
Doctrine to “ensure that all coverage
of controversial issues by a
broadcast station be balanced and
fair.”

11. DMCA
• The DMCA does allow
webcasting (the broadcasting
of media over the Internet) as
long as webcasters pay
licensing fees to the
companies that own the
material.
• while it requires websites to
remove copyrighted material, it
does not require websites to
monitor their content. A 3-year-
long court battle between
media giant Viacom and the
Google-owned website
YouTube was recently waged
over this factor.

12. Censorship is defined as suppressing or
removing anything deemed objectionable.
A common, everyday example can be
found on the radio or television, where
Potentially offensive words are “bleeped”
out. More controversial is censorship at a
political or religious level. If you’ve ever
been banned From reading a book in
school, or watched a “clean” version of a
movie on an airplane, you’ve experienced
censorship.
CENSORSHIP AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH

13. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. This is less of a
concern to some countries, such as China. However, modern
communication capabilities can affect free speech in a lot of ways, both
enhancing and diminishing, depending on how it is used. No matter how
you look at it, freedom of speech will be affected in every country.

14. ONLINE CREATIVITY AND INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY RIGHTS
Congress passed the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act in 1998 to
establish a protocol for online
copyright matters. Yet the nature of
the Internet causes very different
copyright and intellectual property
issues than older forms of media do.
Because of the ease of sharing
information online, for example, the
DMCA has not worked as
Congress expected.

15. Copying and sharing
materials online is
relatively simple and, as
such, piracy and rights
infringement run
rampant. In fact, many
have argued that despite
the DMCA’s
attempt to stop piracy, in
practice, it has done
nothing.

16. THE RIAA VERSUS PIRACY
Widespread piracy problems arose during the late 1990s with the
popularization of technology allowing peer-to-peer (P2P) music
sharing. Suddenly, software such as Napster, Scour, Aimster,
AudioGalaxy, popped up on computers everywhere, allowing
access to free music around the world—and fueling online piracy.
However, in 2003, the Recording Industry Association of America
(RIAA) put the laws into practice and began a campaign to stop
music piracy. Rather than go after the Software engineers, “the
RIAA investigators targeted ‘uploaders’—individuals Who were
allowing others to copy music files from their ‘shared’ folders.”

17. DIGITAL DEMOCRACY AND ITS POSSIBLE
EFFECTS
 E-democracy (a combination of the
words electronic and democracy), or internet democracy,
incorporates 21st-century information and communications
technology to promote democracy. That means a form of
government in which all adult citizens are presumed to be
eligible to participate equally in the proposal,
development, and creation of laws.[1] E-democracy
encompasses social, economic and cultural conditions that
enable the free and equal practice of political self-
determination.

18.  In an era when work, discourse, and play are increasingly
experienced via the Internet, it is fitting that politics have
surged online as well in a recent phenomenon known as
digital democracy. Digital democracy—also known as This
new form of democracy began as an effort to include
larger numbers of citizens in the democratic process.

19.  Recent evidence seems to confirm a rising popular
belief that the Internet is the most effective modern
way to engage individuals in politics. “Online
political organizations…have attracted millions of
members, raised tens of millions of dollars, and
become a key force in electoral politics. Even more
important, the 2004 and 2008 election cycles show
that candidates themselves can use the Internet to
great effect.”

20.  3 advantages of digital democracy:
 1. Digital democracy improves political information
retrieval and exchange between governments, public
administrations, representatives, political and
community organizations and individual citizens.
 2. Digital democracy supports public debate,
deliberation and community formation.
 3. Digital democracy enhances participation in
political decision-making by citizens.

21. MEDIA INFLUENCE ON LAWS AND
GOVERNMENT
 Media have long had a voice
and a role in politics. Some of
the earliest newspapers and
magazines used their pages as a
forum for political discourse.
When broadcast media
emerged during the 20th
century, radio briefs and
television reports entered the
conversation, bringing political
stories to the public’s living
rooms.

22.  In addition to acting as a watchdog, media provide
readers and viewers with news coverage of issues
and events, and also offer public forums for debate.
Thus, media support—or lack thereof—can have a
significant influence on public opinion and
governmental action.

23.  Sometimes the media appear
willing or unwitting
participants in chasing
stories the government
wants them to chase; other
times politicians find
themselves chasing issues
that the media has enlarged
by its coverage. Over the
decades, political scientists,
journalists, politicians, and
political pundits have put
forth many arguments about
the media’s power in
influencing the government
and politicians.