COMM 130 Exam 2
History of the internet
-1931: Emanuel Goldberg and Robert Luther in Germany receive a US patent for a "Statistical Machine" that uses photoelectric cells and pattern recognition to search for specific words on microfilm documents -1945: Scientist Vannevar Bush publishes an aricle "As We May Think" in The Atlantic magazine predicting the invention of technology that would allow ideas in different parts of text to link to one another -1947: UPenn engineers create ENIAC, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer -1958: Eisenhower requests funds to create the US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) -1961: Len Kleinrock, professor of Computer Science at UCLA, writes the first paper on "packet switching" -1965: Larry Roberts at MIT sets up an experiment in which two computers communicate to each other using packet-switching technology -1966: ARPANet project begins in Cambridge Massachusetts; lead by Larry Roberts -1969: ARPANET connects computers at four US universities -1972: Ray Tomlinson creates the first email program, along with the @ sign to signify "at" -1973: ARPANET establishes connections to two universities in the UK and Norway -1976: Apple Computers -1981: IBM announces its first personal computer (PC). Microsoft creates the PC's disk operating system (DOS) -1983: The domain name system for the internet is created -1987: 25 million PCs are sold in the US and the first Cisco routers are shipped -1990: Tim Berners-Lee creates the World Wide Web -1993: Carnegie Mellon University offers the first campus-wide wireless access to the internet -1993: Marc Andreesen invents the Mosaic Web brewer at the University of Illinois -1995: Microsoft releases Microsoft 1995 -1996: The New York Times establishes a website -1998: US Congress passes the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act -1998: Sergey Brin and Larry Page incorporate Google -2001: Apple introduces the iTunes media player and library application -2001: The European Council adopts the first treaty addressing criminal offenses committed over the internet -2003: The RIAA sues 261 individuals for allegedly distributing copyrighted music files over peer-to-peer networks -2004: Facebook -2006: Twitter -2006: Google Inc. buys YouTube for $1.65 billion -2007: Search engine giant Google surpasses software giant Microsoft in having the most visited website -2011: Nearly half (44%) of US mobile subscribers own a smartphone
Forms of internal self-regulation
-Editorial standards -Ombudspersons at the level of individual organizations: an individual who is hired by a media organization to deal with readers, viewers, or listeners who have a complaint to report or an issue to discuss; those who act as intermediaries in conflict situations. -Professional codes of ethics: a formal list of guidelines and standards designed to establish standards of professionalism within an industry -Journalism reviews: publications that report on and analyze examples of ethical and unethical journalism -Content Ratings and Advisories at the industry level
Military operations prior restraint
-Ex: Espionage Act and Sedition Act (formalized press censorship) -pool reporters: selected members of the media who are present at a news event and share facts, stories, images, and firsthand knowledge of that event with others -embeds: reporters who receive permission from the military to travel with a military unit across the battlefield --> criticized as being biased/a conflict of interest because the journalists become close to the troops and people that they stay with -Unilateral: US reporters allowed to freely travel within and report within a US war zone
Retargeting
-Most common way companies use cookies to track people offsite -Companies get permission to put cookies on thousands of sites -The only person that can track using the cookie is the company that dropped it -When you visit Neimans.com, third party company puts a cookie on your computer for their company, and when you visit NYT.com, on which site the same company is able to see your cookies, the third party company goes to neimans and asks if they want to advertise to you, if they don't then they open up bidding to all companies and awards cookie to the retargeter (person who wins bidding) - retargeter then advertisers on NYT.com
3 responsibilities for the mission of the FTC (and also can be said for the FCC)
1) Creating technical order -regulating electronic spectrum space between companies 2) Encouraging Competition 3) Consumer Protection
Media practitioners have an obligation to be ethical for which 6 parties or constituencies?
1) Duty to self: making sure your actions, as a media practitioner, do not harm you 2) Duty to audience 3) Duty to employer: a practitioner owes the firm that pays them good work 4) Duty to the profession 5) Duty to promise holders: people that the practitioner made promises to along the way/process of the production 6) Duty to society: positive or negative social impact
Defamation
A highly disreputable or false statement about a living person or an organization that causes injury to the reputation that substantial group of people hold for that person or entity -2 forms of defamation: 1) Slander 2) Libel
Clear and present danger to public safety prior restraint
A situation in which media content itself poses a threat to the physical welfare of citizens -ex: A KKK video that urges members to commit physical violence against African Americans at a particular date, place, and time -Note: Supreme Court has emphasized this prior restraint should be used rarely: when the danger is close in time, likely, and lawless in approach
Search advertising, how it works
Companies bid (as in an auction) for keywords -google chooses who gets the keyword by how well your site will do (how much it will get licked on - this is how google is paid), not by how much the company's bid is
When are restrictions on speech or the press legal?
When they: -apply to everyone -are without political bias -serve a significant government interest -leave ample alternative ways for the communication to take place
Libel
Written communication that is considered harmful to a person's reputation -Libel per se: written communication that is considered obvious libel; "red flag words" -Libel per quod: words, expressions, and statements that, at face value, seem to be innocent and not injurious but that may be considered libelous in their actual context --> saying that Bradley is married to Marisol doesn't sound libelous, but if you know that he is married to Nadia, it would make him a bigamist, thus that statement would be libelous
Advertising network
a collection of many websites that a company knits together in order to sell ads on them -Company that groups together thousands of websites to send ads to those websites; cheap, you can be buying a lot at one time
Internet service provider (ISP)
a company that sells access to the internet -the exhibitor/exhibition aspect of the internet -most ISP's provide WiFi for their customers
Algorithm
a complex set of mathematically based rules that search engines use to come up with sites that relate to your search items
HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
a computer language system that allows people to access a system of interlinked documents through the internet, HTML is used to define the structure, content, and layout of a page by using what are called tags
Actual malice vs. Simple malice
-Actual malice: "knowledge that the information was false" or that it was published "with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." --> difficult to prove, which makes it hard for public figures to sue a media firm for libel -Simple malice: (aka common law malice) indicates hatred or ill will toward another person
Contextual advertisements
-Banners: (top/bottom of sites) large, draws attention -Interstitial: ad that comes between pages -Rich Media: Banners that are interactive, audio visual ad, speaks out -Video Ads: the whole ad is a video, most expensive and lucrative --> Pre-role is video for right before video consumer wants to watch --> Mid-role is video in middle of video consumer wants to watch --> Post-role is video at end of video consumer wants to watch -Power vs. Image advertising --> Power ads: direct ads that try and get you to click right now --> Image ads: ads that are designed to make you feel good about a product, display the product and get you to think about it, don't necessarily think you'll click (ex: car ad) -Sponsored stories: company telling you to do something because your friend did --> ex: "your friend liked Obama on fb so you should too" -Promoted tweets: someone else's tweet in your newsfeed -Promoted trends: paying to have your event/content "trending" on twitter --> ex: ABC paying to have #grammys trending -Below the fold: Having to flip the page of a newspaper or scroll down in order to see an ad -cost per impression: how many people saw it; many can't afford pay per click because they don't get as many searches
Comcast and Time Warner Cable
-Comcast agreed to buy Time Warner Cable for $45 billion in a deal that would combine the two largest cable providers in the US -Antitrust enforcers will have to decide whether there is a significant group of customers who would be expected to pay higher prices or have reduced services -Which government agency will need to deal with this? -->The FTC because they are in charge of determining that competition within the market is still available for smaller, independent companies
Why do media firms care about what the government does?
-Constitutional value of free speech conflicts with another constitutional value (ownership of work) -Sometimes free speech conflicts with an important social value (ugly rumors)
Regulating Content after Distribution
-Defamation -Invasion of privacy -Databases and Privacy Concerns
Program Practices Department for CBS
-Department has developed broadcast guideline standards that its staff applies to program and non-program material before they are aired -Department determines parental information guideline labels and advises the CBS owned television stations on commercial and program clearance issues -If advertisers challenge competitive commercials on CBS, the Department oversees these proceedings and resolves the challenge
Obscenity prior restraint
-Obscene: offensive to accepted standards of decency or modesty -What makes something obscene? --> Content (nudity and words) --> Lacks something about it that redeems it (artistic component) -Audience is critical - time, place, and manner matter -For prior restraint of sex depictions: --> the work has to portray in a CLEARLY offensive manner, in pictures or writing, certain sexual conduct specifically described as unallowable by state law --> the full media product (such as a tv episode or entire film) must be considered, not just an excerpt --> an "average person", applying current standards of the community, would have to find that the work as an entirety reflects an obsessive interest in sex --> a "reasonable person" must agree that the work lacks serious literary, artistic, scientific, or political usefulness
Metrics
-PPC: Pay-per-click, Advertisers only get charged if a computer user click on the ad link --> Toyota will pay Google a "bidded" amount if someone clicks on the Toyota ad off of the Google page - still make a fair amount of money since millions of people are doing it --> Cheaper than PPA because it could be clicked on by accident, easier to make a mistake than PPA where if you do it it's not a mistake, it's because you really care -PPA: Pay-per-action, Advertisers only get charged if a computer users actually buy something -->Toyota will pay Google a "bidded" amount if someone clicks on the Toyota ad off of the Google page and buys something -Less than 1% of people click on the ads online, but Google makes so much money because billions upon billions of people are using Google
Parents Television Council vs. Television Watch
-PTC says that in order for the system to work properly, content ratings must be accurate, consistent, transparent and publicly accountable --> They believe that the current system is none of that -TV Watch says the PTC doesn't have the right to pressure the rating system
MPAA "Check the Box"
-Rating system, created for parents to advise and regulate what their children watch -Explanations of why a film is rated the way it is -Tension between filmmakers and the exhibition community as to what sells
SOPA and PIPA
-SOPA: United States bill introduced by U.S. Representative Lamar S. Smith (R-TX) to expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to combat online copyright infringement and online trafficking in counterfeit goods. Provisions included the requesting of court orders to bar advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with infringing websites, and search engines from linking to the websites, and court orders requiring Internet service providers to block access to the websites -PIPA: A proposed law with the stated goal of giving the US government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to "rogue websites dedicated to the sale of infringing or counterfeit goods", especially those registered outside the U.S.
Basis for ethical actions at every level
-Values -Ideals -Principles
The spread of digital media
-digital media: devices with computer processors that allow access to textual, audio, and/or visual material -key aspect of the spread of digital media is their link to the internet --> internet accelerates the speed of convergence -challenges brought by the spread: --> competition among publishers and exhibitors
Feature phone vs. Smartphone
-feature phone: a mobile telephone that carries extras unrelated to calling ("features" such as texting, calendars, cameras, and media players) but does not have the sophisticated web-browsing, app-importing operating system of a smartphone -smartphone: a mobile telephone that uses a special computer operating system to offer connections to the internet through a web browser as well as through special applications (apps) that are compatible with that operating
Keyword advertising vs. Contextual advertising
-keyword advertising: when software uses the words in the search box to send the person ads for products that advertisers consider related to the topic -contextual advertising: when software determines what a person is reading and sends the person ads for products that advertisers consider related to the topic
Audience fragmentation and segmentation
-proceeded the rise of digital media -channel fragmentation: the great increase in the number of mass media outlets that has taken place during the past two decades --> started well before the web --> but the internet rise accelerated the trend -audience segmentation: producers and distributors try to reach different types of people with content tailored specifically for them -with the mass amount of digital media, audience fragmentation is a bigger issue now than ever: instead of trying to attract everybody, today's media executives respond to the situation by focusing on a specific audience
Internet Industry
-the web is at the core of the business -only things not on the web: apps, email (unless gmail) --> these are purely on internet -Producers: web designer, Facebook designers of their web "look" -Distributors: "publishers", youtube (ex) -Exhibitors: ISP (internet service provider) - each comp has an iSP address -and support: internet infrastructure --> (Tier 1, 2, 3 internet providers), companies who are paying for what you see
Irving Berlin and Mickey Mouse
-when Mickey Mouse was made, copyright only lasted for 14 years -created a problem for Disney -Berlin's first song: "Marie from Sunny Italy", in 1907 and had his first major international hit -wrote many hits in the 1920s and 30s -Annie Get Your Gun songs -Holiday songs: White Christmas --> after 14 years, all these songs would've gone and lost copyright --> BUT, Copyright Extension Act of 1998 extended the copyright for songs written before 1978 for 95 years, and movies (like Mickey Mouse) for 120 years
The importance of distribution windows
-windows: the various exhibition points distributors use to generate revenues for a product--for example, a movie theater, a newspaper, or a cable network -more windows=more money -windows proceeded the rise of digital media
2 Categories of libel plaintiffs
1) Public figure: a person who is an elected or appointed official (a politician) or someone who has stepped (willingly or unwillingly) into a public role -it is much more difficult for a public figure to win a libel claim due to the Supreme Court decision "New York Times v. Sullivan" -ex: past and present government officials, political candidates, entertainers, and sports figures 2) Private person: an individual who may be well known in the community, but who has no authority nor responsibility for the conduct of government affairs and has not thrust himself or herself into the middle of an important public role
How Wi-Fi works
1) a router or antenna connected to the internet transmits a wireless signal over radio waves 2) the area over which the wireless signal is transmitted is called a hotspot 3) upon entering the hotspot, wireless receivers in electronic phones pick up the signal to connect you to the internet
3 Categories of governmental media regulation
1) regulation of content before it is distributed 2) regulation of content after it has been distributed 3) economic regulation
3 levels of ethical standards
1) the personal level 2) the professional level 3) the societal level
External pressures for self-regulation
1) the public: Consumer ideals - mother writing a letter to her local station to stop airing obscene material (**media companies might avoid these letters because the mother is not a part of the target audience**) 2) public advocacy organizations: collections of people who work to change the nature of certain kinds of mass media materials 3) advertisers: Family friendly programming forum
5 developments that have propelled media convergence
1) the spread of digital media 2) the importance of distribution windows 3) audience fragmentation and segmentation 4) globalization 5) conglomeration
Copyright prior restraint
Copyright: the legal protection of a creator's right to a work -Copyright Act of 1976: a law that recognizes the rights of an individual creator (in any medium) from the time he or she has created a work and that protects a creative work for the lifetime of that author plus 50 years, or 75 years for corporate authorship -according to the US Constitution, the purpose of copyright is "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts" -Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998: (also known as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act) extended the copyright 1976 act to be the author's life plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years since the date of creation or 95 years since its publication, whichever comes earlier -Fair Use -Parodies
NAACP vs. D.W. Griffith
EXAMPLE of external pressure -Mutual Film Corporation vs. Industrial Commission of Ohio had just been passed -Free speech does not extend to movies because it is a business -Films aren't protected under the First Amendment -Concerned with The Birth of a Nation movie (released in 1915) -NAACP had a problem with the movie (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) -There were stereotypes that were uncomfortable for contemporary viewers -NAACP, black newspapers, black magazines, private citizens, clergy, journalists, and politicians put pressures on the producers to make changes to the film or prevent it from being released -Demanded certain scenes be removed -Appeals to the National Board of Censorship of Motion Pictures -Appeals to local censorship boards - argues the movie's release could lead to racial violence -Rush on movie houses to buy all the tickets (in Boston) -President Wilson eventually retracted his support for the film
Questions that come with the First Amendment
First Amendment: "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 peaceable to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." 1) What does the First Amendment mean by "No Law", and Where Does It Apply? -does this apply to states? --> Yes, in the Supreme Court case "Gitlow v. New York", it was settled that the Constitution overrides any level of government 2) What does the First Amendment mean by "the Press"? -news AS WELL AS entertainment media 3) What does the First Amendment mean by "Abridging"? -"abridge" means "to cut short" -but there are still acceptable restrictions
First Party Actors vs. Third Party Actors
First Party Actors: Companies that you give your data to publishers; companies that are the publishers you go to (company that puts cookie on computer) Third Party Actors: Companies outside publishers; advertisers on the companies website that you go to (advertiser puts cookie on your computer) (advertising networks, databrokers) -Advertising Network -Advertising exchanges/real-time-bidding
Prior restraint and types of content for which the Supreme Court allows prior restraint
Government restriction of speech before it is made Types of content: -education -national security -clear and present danger to public safety -commercial speech -obscenity -military operations -copyright
National Security prior restraint
Information that if revealed would pose a clear and present danger to the ability of the United States to defend itself against enemies -ex: information on government plans during wartime -Note: Supreme Court has emphasized this prior restraint should be used rarely: "Paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die."
Commercial speech prior restraint
Message designed to sell products or services -ex: a soup company's television commercial that uses marbles at the bottom of a soup bowl to make it look as if it contains big pieces of meat and vegetables -Note: Many public advocacy groups argue that the government should exercise prior restraint on commercials and product placements of high-calorie foods and drinks in TV programs with large audiences of children
Two types of privacy online
PII vs. Non-PII (PII = Personally Identifiable Information) -PII: the name, postal address, or any other information that allows tracking down the specific person who owns a device --> cookies do NOT allow a marketer to learn any of this kind of PII info --> but if you sign up for a website with your email, cookies can then get this kind of info -Non-PII: age, gender, country you live in, income, etc False distinction of PII vs Non PII -Gramm Leach Bliley Act- limits way financial information can be used -HIPPA: Medical information -Deceptive Marketing: Laws saying a company can't tell you their product works in a certain way when it just doesn't -COPPA: Children under age 13 can't be tracked and marketed to --> Can't collect any PII on them -"Not responsible for information you give to third parties"
Parodies
Parody: a work that imitates another work for laughs in a way that comments on the original work -fair use
Online research
People pay people to take surveys online -Problematic to do a survey of how people use the internet by asking the questions on the internet -Someone who is taking the survey online is likely to be a person who uses the computer a lot and is therefore comfortable with it - therefore they are likely to have different opinions regarding privacy versus people who don't go online a lot -People look at an audience in an unobtrusive way by watching them or listening to what they say or looking at what they like or don't like -Comcast pays people to remain online to monitor what people are saying and doing
Antitrust laws
Policies put in place to maintain competition in the US economy -worry over monopolies (control of the market by a single firm) and oligopolies (control of the market by a select few firms) -purpose is to prevent vertical integration -carried out in 3 ways: 1) through the passage of laws 2) through enforcement of the laws by the US Department of Justice and state attorneys general 3) through federal court decisions that determine how far the government ought to go in encouraging competition and forcing companies to break themselves into a number of smaller companies
Invasion of Privacy
Privacy: the right to be protected from unwanted intrusions or disclosures -We do not have a constitutional right for privacy that is articulated as explicitly as the First Amendment -First established in 1890: right to be left alone -only a person can claim a right of privacy; corporations, organizations, and other entities cannot -public figures have a limited right to privacy -4 areas of privacy that particularly affect how news organizations can go about doing their work: 1) False light 2) Appropriation 3) Intrusion 4) Public disclosure
Tier 1, 2, 3 Networks
Tier 1 Networks: -Completely connected to the internet -Can reach all links/nodes Tier 2 Networks -Less connected to the internet -Must pay tier 1 networks in order to reach links/nodes Tier 3 Networks -Must make deals with tier 2 networks in order to make a deal with a tier 1 network -IXP: Internet exchange points -Tier 2 networks connect to other tier 2, tier 1, or tier 3 networks through these IXPs
Obscenity cases
Roth vs. United States (1957) -First attempt to reform the legal definition of obscenity in the United States -Prior to this case, masterpieces such as James Joyce's Ulysses were considered bad for the minds of children -Roth was selling the book Aphrodite -Supreme court ruled against Roth, but set out a list of rules outlining what makes something obscene -Its "dominant theme taken as a whole appears to the prurient interest": Something is designed to appeal to the prurient interest if its job is to make you horny -...to the "average person, applying contemporary community standards" --> Who is the average person? --> What are contemporary community standards? - notion that law needs to change over time to accommodate the society it is dealing with -...and is "utterly without redeeming social importance." Jacobellis vs. Ohio (1964) -Popular in France, obscene in America -Court ruled that the movie was not obscene -"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within obscenity: and perhaps I could never succeed in doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." -You know something is obscene when you see it Miller vs. California (1973) -Miller mailed a pamphlet advertising the selling of pornographic movies and books -Court decided to get rid of the "know it when you see it" value -Miller tried to argue that the sale of obscene material is protected under the First Amendment (It still isn't) -The Supreme Court developed a three-prong standard for obscenity, known as the Miller test: 1) An average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interested 2) The work depicts in a patently offensive way sexual conduct or excretory functions, as defined by state law. 3) The work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary artistic, political, or scientific value -The Miller test is what stands as the definition of obscenity Cohen vs. California (1971) -Cohen wore shirt that said "**** the draft" -"One man's vulgarity is another's lyrics" FCC vs. Pacifica (1978) -Pointed out that there are seven extremely bad words that the court banned from television -George Carlan said them on television -Father listening to the radio with his child sued Carlan -Broadcast has fewer First Amendment protections than printed material because they are everywhere Reno vs. ACLU (1997) -Supreme Court said that the government can not reduce the adult population to only what is fit for children -It's not great for children to have access to porn, but that doesn't mean that adults shouldn't be able to -Can't shut down the porn, but you can protect kids from it using certain security programs
Slander
Spoken communication that is considered harmful to a person's reputation
Direct Regulation by Government Agencies
The 2 most important federal agencies involved in regulating mass media: 1) Federal Trade Commission (FTC) 2) Federal Communications Commission (FCC) -they both work to inform and educate the public
Education prior restraint
The right of primary and secondary school administrators to dictate school- newspaper policy and refuse to allow articles to appear -ex: a school principal's objection to publishing a story about a pregnant student -Note: the Supreme Court held that when the school newspaper is part of the school's educational mission, it is not entitled to First Amendment protections "even though the government could not censor similar speech outside the school." -Grayer areas is when you get to large universities -Varies on how independent the paper is from the school (can be independently funded and printed)
The Web (World Wide Web-WWW)
The web is the core of the business - the web is NOT the internet, it is a graphical way to use the internet (created in the 80s) -before the web, it was hard to get files from other comps -Producers: Advertisers; Examples Fox, NBC, CBS, CW, etc -Distributors: Example Hulu -Exhibitors: Internet service provider -Support: Need support because this can get pretty expensive -Download speed is quicker than upload speed -Net neutrality
Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
a federal agency specifically mandated by Congress to govern interstate and international communication by television, radio, wire, satellite, and cable -Directed by five commissioners appointed by the president -Promoting competition -Protecting consumers --> Makes sure that broadcasters (NOT CABLE) use their spectrum in the public interest --> Ensures there are 3 hours of educational TV programs for children that would serve their intellectual, cognitive, social, and emotional needs -Creates technical order --> Giving licenses to radio stations that allow them to broadcast on specific wavelengths --> Allocating the frequency spectrum among different technologies --> Determines which companies can afford to be a part of a spectrum -->Affects the number of companies that consumers can choose from and they prices they have to pay Janet versus Miley: - Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction in 2004: 500,000 complaints to the FCC and a congressional hearing; FCC fined CBS $550,000 dollars but CBS never paid -Miley Cyrus' twerking: 161 complaints to the FCC under "indecency"; FCC didn't fine MTV -Difference: CBS is a broadcast channel while MTV is a cable channel - FCC doesn't have the jurisdiction to make MTV either show or not show something -Indecency according to the FCC: Language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities --> Courts have held that indecent material is protected by the First Amendment and cannot be banned entirely - obscenity IS NOT protected by the First Amendment and can be banned --> It may be restricted in order to avoid its broadcast during times of the day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience
Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
a federal agency whose mission is to ensure that the nation's markets function competitively; its coverage can include any mass media--print or electronic--as long as the issue involved is related to the smooth functioning of the marketplace and consumer protection in that sphere -Promoting competition: --> enforces federal antitrust laws --> challenges anticompetitive mergers and business practices that could harm consumers by resulting in higher prices, lower quality, fewer choices, or reduced rates of innovation -Protecting consumers --> Stops unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent practices in the marketplace by conducting investigations, suing violators of the law, developing rules to maintain a fair marketplace, educating consumers and businesses about their rights and responsibilities --> Example: Shape-ups were said to help people lose weight and ton their butt - Skechers was banned from making any future adds about bodily influence unless there were scientific claims -Protecting children (on the web) --> Enforces COPPA Rule - goal is to protect the personal information of kids who are under 13 --> COPPA: Websites should have clear and comprehensive online policy and notices that detail out the kinds of information the site collects from children, what it might do with the information, and parent's rights to exercise control (including to stop future collection and delete information already collected) --> COPPA states that sites must notify parents to give consent and lets them decide how much information to give --> Definition of personal information clearly includes: name, address, phone number, email, IP address, geolocation, photos, and videos
The internet
a global system of interconnected private, public, academic, business, and government computer networks that use a standard set of commands to link billions of users worldwide -consists of packets -later invented hyperlinks -HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
Wi-Fi
a radio technology (called IEEE 802.11) that engineers designed in the late 1990s to provide secure, reliable, fast wireless connectivity -four types of WiFi: a, b, g, and n; each provides faster connection to the web router -WiFi frequencies don't travel more than a few hundred yards, so it takes many transmitters to cover an area as large as a college campus
Social search
a search that is carried out to find what people in a person's social circle say about an item -ex: looking up a movie review
Ethics
a system of principles about what is right that guides a person's actions
Synergy
a term similar to horizontal integration, a situation in which the whole is greater than the sums of its parts; the abilities of mass media organizations to channel content into a wide variety of mass media on a global scale through control over production, distribution, and exhibition in as many of those media as possible
Joint ventures
alliances formed between a large media firm and one or more of the thousands of smaller firms that are eager to extend their niches in the global media environment; the companies either work together or share investments
Public disclosure
an invasion of privacy that occurs when truthful information concerning the private life of a person (that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person and is not of legitimate public concern) is revealed by a media source -ex: a newspaper reveals private, sensational facts about a person's sexual activity and economic status -Note: First Amendment considerations have tended to grant media businesses the right to reveal information about individuals. how the information was obtained and its newsworthiness often determine liability in cases of public disclosure. if a journalistic organization obtains information is unlawfully--whether or not the information is truthful--the organization may be held liable for invasion of privacy under the rules of public disclosure.
Appropriation
an invasion of privacy that takes place via the unauthorized use of a person's name or likeness in an advertisement, poster, public relations promotion, or other commercial context -ex: a magazine publishes photographs of living cancer survivors without their permission -Note: judges have allowed the use of such images without permission for newsworthy purposes--that is, for stories tied to a timely event. But when the story stops being "news," the photo's subject can claim appropriation
Intrusion
an invasion of privacy that takes place when a person or organization intentionally invades a person's solitude, private space, or affairs -ex: a reporter records a phone conversation with a subject in a state where permission is required to record -Note: the intrusion can be physical (ex: sneaking in a person's office) or nonphysical (ex: putting an electronic listening device outside the office but in a position to hear what is going on inside
Social media site (social networking site or SNS)
an online location where people can interact with other around information, entertainment, and news of their own choosing and, often, making
Self-regulation regimes
codes and agreements among companies in an industry to ensure that employees carry out their work in what industry officials agree is an ethical manner -Purpose is to avoid interference in order to do business smoothly without having to comply with outside government pressures
Clickstream
computer jargon used to describe user movement through websites -the cookie identifies you by a number and allows the company to record your mouse clicks, or clickstream
Mobile application (mobile app)
computer software designed to help the user of a mobile device perform specific tasks
Profiling
creating a description of someone based on collected data 3 methods for profiling: 1) straightforward: a site will have you register to get access to the site 2) asking people what topics they want to learn about through the site -ex: NY Times allows you to choose news and entertainment categories as guides to the material it sends you 3) cookies
User-generated content (UGC)
creative products, such as videos and music, generated by people who visit websites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram -UGC is a part of the production aspect of the internet
Advertising exchanges/real-time bidding
electronic auctions in which various publishers and ad networks offer advertisers the ability to reach specific types of people, often at exactly the moment those people are entering certain sites -A way that publishers can come to advertisers and have them bid on specific cookies/impressions; done in "real time," which means you can reach 2,000 women looking for lingerie right now as we speak
Hyperlinks
highlighted words or pictures on the internet that, when clicked, will connect the user to a particular file, even to a specific relevant part of a document -allows for large groups of people to access and work on the same files -Google Scholar uses hyperlinks in order to allow you to search any book/quote and it will take you to that particular place -Index (lists where you can find certain subjects within a book) can never do this because they are frozen in time and can never change or add information
Funding Online Content
how companies make money on the web 1) sites involved in image-making: these sites to produce direct revenue, instead they cultivate a positive image about the company -ex: Kraft or Jell-O websites that have recipes and videos on how to make these recipes; creates a family-friendly image 2) sites selling products or services: there are both online-only shopping websites (Amazon, Zappos) and also brick-and-mortar stores that have online websites -click-and-mortar companies 3) content sites selling subscriptions -ex: Netflix, Lexis -these haven't done very well overall because people expect these services to be free or of very low cost, leading to competition among sites 4) selling advertisements -keyword advertising -contextual advertising -profiling
Cookie
information that a website puts on your computer's hard drive so that it can remember something about you at a later time; more technically, it is information for future use that is stored by the server on the client side of a client/server communication -Simply knows what pages you visited when - they don't know exactly who you are -Harmless - its what uses them that could be problematic -Session cookie: allows a company to know what you're doing only during the time you are on the site - it goes away once you leave - allows you to buy two things at once -Persistent cookie: cookie that says "you've been here before" - doesn't end when you close your web browser - and could be quite useful for you because it might already know what you're looking for and get you there faster -Tracking Pixels: One by one pixels on a page that can look at what you're doing on a page
False light
invading a person's privacy by implying something untrue about him or her; publishing material that falsely suggests an individual is involved in an illegal or unethical situation -ex: to illustrate the idea that "average" citizens are increasingly involved in using heroin, a TV news producer tapes footage of people walking down the streets of the city. You happen to be one of them when the narrator states that average citizens are hooked on heroin -Note: courts do not particularly favor false light cases because very often they conflict with freedom of speech. a plaintiff is required to prove "by clear and convincing evidence" that the defendant knew of the statement's falsity or acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity. in this case, the producer could argue viewers would understand the crowd scene was used to make a broad point and not to focus on any individual in it
Simple negligence
lack of reasonable care -ex: if you were to sue the media outlet for libel, you would have to prove that neither the columnist nor the paper's editors tried to check the column's "facts" with your employer and that the columnist didn't camouflage your identity well in the piece
Databases and Privacy Concerns
media firms and marketers collecting information about people in order to reach target audiences: is this an invasion of privacy? -Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA): stops health providers from sharing your personal medical info with marketers -Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA): requires online publishers and advertisers to get parents' permission if they want to collect information from children younger than 13 years of age --> critics say that there are plenty of ways to find out health, financial, and family info without breaking these laws (ex: what you look at when you are on a medical website isn't protected by HIPAA) Snapchat -Originally used for sexting -Shows that certain type of information should go away/self-destruct -Snapchats go through servers and softwares that Snapchat control before getting to the person that you send them to -Snapchat says that they can't guarantee that they will delete your pictures WHILE also gathering your name and phone number -Snapchat said that they will willingly work with law enforcement people and provide them with your pictures or data upon being asked - but shouldn't these pictures be deleted? -There is also the risk of being hacked - Snapchat has recently been hacked
Ideals
notions of excellence or goals that are thought to bring about greater harmony to ourselves and to others -ex: American culture respects ideals such as tolerance, compassion, loyalty, forgiveness, peace, justice, fairness, and respect for persons -institutional or organizational ideals: profit, efficiency, productivity, quality, and stability
Web crawlers (web spiders)
programs used by search engines that search the internet to retrieve and catalog the content of websites -parts of the web that are not searched are called "dark web"
Fair use
provisions under which a person or company may use small portions of copyrighted work without asking permission -important considerations for fair use: 1) using content for critical analysis 2) commercial damage that copying may cause to the copyright material: the less potential damage, the greater change it will be considered fair use 3) transformative: when use of copyrighted material presents the work in a way that adds interpretation to it so that some people might see it in a new light -exception to fair use: viewers may record copyrighted tv shows for their personal, noncommercial use, because they used the tapes for "time shifting"--that is, taping for later viewing what they would have watched anyway --> this causes "headaches" for advertisers because people skip over ads
Economic regulation
rules set by the government about how firms are allowed to compete with one another -economic regulation of media organizations greatly affects the ways in which those organizations finance, produce, distribute, and exhibit their products -2 types of media economic regulation: 1) Antitrust laws 2) Direct regulation by government agencies
Packets
segments of messages that contain digital instructions that allow them to reassemble properly at the same time at the destination -allows for a transmission line to carry more than one data "conversation" at a time Packet switching -Cutting up a message into parts and sending them separately with messages on them that say where they are going to go and how they are going to connect to one another -Sending the messages into bundles that travel through networks depending on the easiest way to go - they all go in different ways -Messages get to the destination at the same time and know how to reconnect -IP Address: Messages know where their final destination is because of their IP address -When you call, your voice gets chopped up into different segments and they're sent around the internet and then connect back together at the end --> go to their place due to the instructions that the packets give
Applications (apps)
software that uses the internet, but not the web system, to bring material to audiences
Conglomeration
the activities involved in becoming and acting like a company's becoming a mass media conglomerate -mass media conglomerate: a company that holds several mass media firms in different media industries under its corporate umbrella -these are not new, what is new is the approach that their leaders are taking --> they used to not make the companies work together, now they have horizontal integration/synergy -joint ventures
Net neutrality controversy
the desire by websites and advocates to make sure that ISPs do not charge sites for transmission -Net neutrality refers to the idea that ISPs will not restrict people's access to any specific website. Some companies and libraries will block certain sites that would waste time or embarrass employees. -The net neutrality controversy comes up with ISPs claim that they want to charge some sites for exhibition due to their heavy bandwidth, but many argue that such a practice would impact society in negative ways
Globalization
the movement of media content around the world -increases audience -coproduction: a deal between two firms for the funding of media material
Horizontal integration
the ownership of production facilities, distribution channels, and/or exhibition outlets in a number of media industries and the integration of those elements so that each can profit from the expertise of the others -ex: Walt Disney Company owns ABC tv, Disney theme parks, Hyperion Books, Walt Disney Studios, and (80% of) ESPN
Behavioral targeting
the process of following people's behavior and then sending them material tailored to what was learned about them -after following your clickstream (behavior), the company can target you and send you messages-->behavioral targeting
Data mining
the process of gathering and storing information about many individuals--often millions--to be used in audience profiling and interactive marketing -data miners try to find offline information about individuals (drivers' license records, mortgage information, and credit ratings) -data mining helps websites get advertisers
Publishers part in the mobile industry
they are often both content creators and distributors of the content to the point of its public exhibition
Principles
those guidelines we derive from values and ideals that are precursors to codified rules -usually stated in positive (prescriptive) or negative (proscriptive) terms -ex of prescriptive: "never corrupt the integrity of media channels" -ex of proscriptive: "always maximize profit"
Values
those things that reflect our presuppositions about social life and human nature -aesthetic values (how harmonious or pleasing something is) -professional values (innovation and promptness) -logical values (consistency and competency) -sociocultural values (thrift and hard work) -moral values (honesty and nonviolence)
Search engine
websites that allow users to find sites relevant to topics of interest to them -they work by using web crawlers/web spiders -and the "secret sauce" of search engines are algorithms -search engines results are called natural or organic search results -Search Engine Optimization: making your ad appear higher than others --> Companies buy out thousands of words in order to appear higher on search results
Natural or organic search results
websites that come up based on a search engine's algorithm without any influence from advertisers
Editorial Standards
written statements of policy and conduct established by media organizations as a form of self-regulation -Policy books: guidelines for fairness, accuracy, and appropriateness of station content and the like, adopted by media organizations in the interest of self-regulation -Operating policies: policies, most often used by print media organizations, that spell out guidelines for everyday operations, such as conflicts of interest, acceptable advertising content, boundaries of deceptive information-gathering practices, payment to sources for news stories, and so on -Editorial policies: policies, most often used by print media organizations, that identify company positions on specific issues, such as which presidential candidate the paper supports and whether the paper is in support of certain governmental policies
