Media Law & Lit[eracy]

Have you ever been apart of a team or group when suddenly a question is raised and the others quickly make their opinions known? Before you can answer you find that the rest of your team have already agreed on one idea/opinion. Even if it's not something you fully agree with you decide to stay silent as to not rock the boat? Or have you ever been the odd person out because you decided to share your opinion? There's a theory on that: The Spiral of Silence. What is the Spiral of Silence? The spiral of silence is a theory regarding people's willingness to express their opinions on public controversial issues. Often these opinions are affected by the unconscious perception of that opinion being popular or unpopular. When the opinion is unpopular, people will often keep from openly expressing their opinion.  However when an opinion is popular people will be eager to express it. Where did the Spiral come from? In 1965 communication researcher Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann an

Wag the Dog An insight into the importance of Ethics in Communications   Rebecca Smith The movie selected was Wag the Dog. The film begins with the president’s communication/crisis team meeting to discuss a recent scandal about the president. The president was being accused of making sexual advances to an underage girl right before the election, 11 days to be exact. The man in charge Ames, comes up with an idea to fake a war in Albania, mainly because no one knows much about Albina. To help sell the idea they reach out to a ‘spin doctor’ Conrad Brean. Brean agrees to do for the ‘fun’ of it and takes overbuilding the narrative of war. Brean builds his own team where they plan to use a casted girl as a poor orphan running away with a kitten, and faking an old theme song for the war. They ‘leak’ to the press the rumors about the war, and eventually, with the footage of the orphan, the media solo focus is on the war. Until the CIA who knows this is all, a hoax reports the war ended

When I was around 12 years old (2010), the song Tik Tok by Kesha had become extremely popular. One of my friends at the time show me a funny parody, and we laughed so much and thought it was so great that my friend quickly logged into her Facebook. With no context, she just literally wrote down her favorite lyrics, and with a click, it was there on her wall for everyone to see. That was one of the first distinctive moments in my life that I felt like I was missing out on. I remember later that day when I was picked up by my mom, I asked her when I could get a Facebook. Several of my friends and classmates at that point had made an account, so I thought my mom would be more than okay with me making one. Instead, my mom showed great concern and told me I was going to have to wait until I was 16 to create an account. She was terrified of all the horror stories in the news and was convinced somehow I would cyber-bullied.  So I waited….until that summer when my closest friends were play

A Marketplace of Ideas In our current age of social media and digital dominance, the world has never been more connected. Every day people are making connections from all around the world. One of the consequences of all this is the exposure to other cultures and ideas. Even people from some of the most secluded/tightly-knit groups can learn more about the outside world through the internet. However just because people can now find these new ideas doesn't mean that every encounter is welcomed. In some cases, new ideas and knowledge are actually rejected and mocked. Simply belonging or identifying with a group’s beliefs or identity can earn you great negative attention. To reduce this social media will tailor content seen by users to fit their specific interests. Which ultimately reduces them into sets of groups. John Milton suggested this idea known as the marketplace of ideas being vital to every society an individual's journey in discovering the truth. The marketpla

Print considered a dying medium in today's tech-dominated world. It's ironically considered how one of the most important inventions in human history is going out of style. 600 years ago in Europe, an emerging literate middle class was calling for more books being produced. However, in 1000 years the process of creating a book hadn't changed. A single book would often take up a year, and most of the books being printed were done by monks by hand. These books were privately commissioned due to being high in price, but often beautifully illustrated text and images.  The middle class could not afford to pay these prices nor did they have the time to wait. Block books were another popular choice, a sheet of wood would have cut out letters which then would be inked and pressed onto a piece of paper. This was less expensive but very time-consuming.  A new way of printing had to be invented, one German man was genius enough to find that new invention. Johann Gutenberg was a

Emojis, we use them daily to communicate from texts, emails, and social media posts. These colorful icons, though, have a far more humble a simple beginning as emoticons. Emoticons got their name from emotional icons and were invented on September 19, 1982. At Carnegie Mellon Univeristy Computer Science professor Dr. Scott Fahlman saw a problem in the newly emerging computer forum landscape. Establishing the tone of posts, especially on forums, hadn't yet been mastered. Dr. Fahlman suggested that people use a smiley face :-) to mark joke posts and a frowny face :-( to mark serious posts. Fahlman students like the idea and used it in their emails, which spread to other universities, which led to more people using them online. Today the school still celebrates the invention of the smiley face with cookie they hand out every September 19th. Students felt that it was a great way to address emotions and tone in the computer landscape. It would allow them to express quickly and c