EMST3010 Gilbert Final
Protected by Intellectual Property Law
"products of the mind," including copyrights, patents, open licenses, trademarks, trade secrets, URLs, domain names, and even components of televisionprograms
Representation matters
"to be seen on screen is to be validated"
Butt brush
(if a woman is looking at something and something brushes her butt she'll put it down)
McDonaldization
- concept is rooted in the process of rationalization, where four aspects of the business are taken to the extreme: efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. -enforces general standards and consistency throughout a global industry -culturally specific variations exist, any McDonald's in a particular area has basically the same menu as any other. In other words, wherever a consumer is likely to travel within a reasonable range, the menu options and the resulting product remain consistent -same concept can occur through media, where Western culture overshadows other cultures, and other cultures can backlash against this notion or adopt new ideas and create "hybrid cultures" like what India does with Bollywood (India's version of America's Hollywood)
Alfred Baum
-1st retail designer -Whole idea is to make malls look lavish, affluent, dreamlike, the embodiment of every wish and dream, no taboo (nothing is too irrational to buy)
Things not protected by copyright
-Ideas: if they were there would be almost nothing to create (think of all the movies involving a hero trying to win over a villain... that's an idea, and if only one person had the rights to that idea, then at least a thousand other movies wouldn't exist today) -Facts: not protected by copyright, but the EXPRESSION of those facts can be protected -Titles -Fictional Characters: depending on their levels of specificity, originality and expression, some characters can be copyright protected (like Mickie, James Bond, etc.)
Where did malls come from
-Moved from being a place where you could buy everything you NEED to everything you WANT -Began to focus on consumer's fantasy and wish fulfillment -Department stores grew up along with movie theaters (During Industrial Revolution in early 1900's to 1920's —> consumer society on the rise) -Post WW2 era = push for suburbanization → causes new problems (now getting from suburbs to town is more difficult, men leave suburbs to work which causes safety concerns, etc.)
Unprotected speech
-Obscenity -Libel -Sedition (actively trying to overthrow or defy the government) -threats to national security - threats to public safety (why you can't scream "fire!" in a theater) - Privacy invasion - threats to other rights
Things NOT COVERED by the first Amendment
-Private restriction -Unprotected speech -Consequences
Protected Speech
-Satire -Opinion: fact-oriented sources (like newspapers, magazines, news sources) have to have a clear distinction between their news and their editorial -Privilege speech: applies largely to judges and lawyers ■ absolute = lawyer is stating that a person committed a crime (even if it's not proved yet) ■ qualified = reporters can report what the lawyer said (so they can say, "Lawyer Johny claims that Suspect Jane is guilty of this" even if Jane hasn't been proven guilty yet or is never proven guilty
Gruen transfer
-shopping malls turn people from purposeful consumers to aimless, open-minded wanderers -Structure malls to be simultaneously familiar and disorderly, make use of all human senses and active and passive techniques (in order to convince people that the things they want can be achieved through purchasing)
Obscene material
1. causes the average person to have lustful or sexual thoughts; 2. depicts lawfully offensive sexual conduct; and 3. lacks literary, artistic, political, or scientific value -Material meeting all of these criteria is officially considered obscene and usually applies to hard-core pornography
Indecent material
1. contains graphic sexual or excretory depictions; 2. dwells at length on depictions of sexual or excretory organs; and 3. is used simply to shock or arouse an audience. -Material deemed indecent cannot be broadcast between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., to make it less likely that children will be exposed to it
Brandenburg vs. Ohio
1969, Ohio's state government tried to punish a member of the Ku Klux Klan for suggesting violence, but the Supreme Court ruled against it because they can only refuse to protect speech that is 1. Designed to incite imminent lawless action 2. Likely to produce imminent lawless action This is why violent movies can't legally be blamed for someone copying what they saw in the movie and murdering a bunch of people with a chainsaw
Media culture outside of film and television
> can include advertising (moms are shown in cleaning product commercials) (breakfast to sell sausages... mom and dad and 2.5 children) (words used in news stories to describe whoever is being described)... basically all the stereotypes you can think of
600 feet rule / line of sight
Anchor stores are about 600 feet apart and not within eyesight of one another (this maximize the space people are willing to walk without making them lose interest in where they are going but also get distracted by things along the way)
Conspicuous consumption
Concept that shows it's not enough to be able to buy things, provide for your family, or not worry about money... you have to be visibly rich in order to "know" that you're well off ● For ex. you don't just have a car, you have a NICE car (it's all about the SPECTACLE of purchasing)
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 peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Consequences
Congress won't make a law that restricts you from "doing it" but you could still get fined or go to jail for saying certain things... there are still consequences
Obscenity: Roth v. U.S.
Mid 1950's first long term obscenity legislation that affects media ■ How do you decide whether something is obscene —> the boundaries are: an average person applying contemporary standards takes a work as a whole that it is understood to be lacking in any redeeming social value
Copyright protection works for
ORIGINAL works of authorship fixed in any TANGIBLE MEDIUM of EXPRESSION -IDEAS are NOT protected -"Original" means author doesn't copy work from any other source and must come from his imagination (and be at least a little creative) -"Tangible medium of expression" means the work must be written down or recorded on some tangible object like paper or a DVD -"Expression" means the further, more complex and intricate development of an idea
Indecency: FCC v. Pacifica Foundation
Pacifica Foundation radio company aired a routine (with George Carlin) and FCC reprimanded Pacifica for airing it (because it was full of profanity), then Pacifica sued FCC —> ■ Outcome: indecency applies only to television and radio because of the notion of ubiquity (which means when you turn it on you hear it immediately). . cable and internet DON'T have ubiquity ■ This is why later shows (like 10 o'clock p.m.) have different content then earlier shows, because children usually go to bed before ten so they don't have as much a chance of turning on the TV or radio and hearing profanity or adult content
Cathedrals of consumption
Physical spaces designed architecturally, structurally, and aesthetically in order to guide us towards certain economic practices (these are known as coercive spaces) ■ They are meant to make you think that "buying" is always the answer
NAACP and NCLR
Pressured into action the executives from the major networks to add racial minorities to their prime-time shows, not only among actors, but also among producers, writers, and directors ● Four of the networks—ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox—added a vice president of diversity position to help oversee the networks' progress toward creating more diverse programming
Indecency: Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson (Miracle case)
Sacrilegious short film from Italy was made and distributed in U.S. along with another feature length... Burstyn was the distributor (who was known for bringing in foreign films and distributing them into arthouse and independent theaters in the U.S.) (ALso "Il Morocco" is a film about Catholicism and is a tale about the impregnation of Mary)... Burstyn was told that he couldn't distribute it (because it was a very profane and rough movie) so he sued and said it was a violation of free speech ■ Outcome: Censorship and prior restraint —> a form of censorship that says you cannot print or say or show a certain thing ● In U.S. we can only tell you what the consequences are, but we can't tell you ahead of time to not do anything ● This case is why films are given more freedom (they're not a ubiquitous medium) and why we have the NPAA —> responsible for ratings
Sedition: Schenck v. U.S.
Schenck was handing out pamphlets encouraging people to defy the WW1 draft (he was also part of the socialist political party) —> arrested for handing out the pamphlets but he claimed this violated his free speech ■ Outcome: Schenck lost case because America was currently at war (thus at the time what he was doing was presenting a clear and present danger to the country) ■ Concept of "Clear and present danger" ■ If you were to go now and hand out things against the draft it wouldn't be considered sedition (as long as it's not presenting a clear and present danger... it's not about what you say but when you say it and in what context you are saying it)
Mass customization
This has to do with the idea that from all options of cars you can choose you can pick any one of them but you have no say in creating the actual car ■ Difference between consumer choice —> make decision from options ■ and consumer control —> having a say in what options are available in general
Institutional copyright
Time = 95 years (so even if the company dissolves are continues on after 95 years, their ownership of a certain peice of content isn't theirs after 95 years)
Work for hire
Whoever pays owns the copyright (so if studio pays a writer to write a script, the studio owns that script even though the studio didn't technically write it)
Fair Use
VERY IMPORTANT term that means sometimes people can infringe on copyright with impunity... in other words, if four of the following factors are considered and the work fits them, the work hasn't infringed on copyright 1. Purpose and character of use (is it for nonprofit educational purposes?) 2. Nature of copyrighted work (if something is more creative or more practical.. If it's more practical and factual then it'll probably fall under fair use) 3. Substantiality of portion used (if you use a small clip of a performance in your documentary, it'll probably fall under fair use) 4. Effect on Market Value (if it harms the the value of copyrighted work, it probably won't fall under fair use)
Youtube (Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA)
Viacom sued this company because users were uploading infringed content all the time and a lot of "unfair" advertising dollars were being sent to them because of this -used a part of DMCA to form an argument: the section used protects web businesses from liability if they institute a mechanism for people to register a copyright complaint and then witness the removal of offending material from the website -because videos come in such large quantities, can't self-police these videos for copyright. They can only allow people to file complaints about copyright and then respond to those individual complaints
Traditional media
a encompasses all the means of communication that existed before the Internet and new media technology, including printed materials (books, magazines, and newspapers), broadcast communications (TV and radio), film, and music
False Light
a lot like defamation because it has to be a false statement, but it doesn't have to harm someone's reputation- it only has to cause emotional distress and be highly offensive
Stereotyping
a system of identically duplicating an image of an "other." -—become a form of social control, shaping collective perceptions and individual identities. In American mass media, the White man is still shown as the standard: the central figure of TV narratives and the dominant perspective on everything from trends, to current events, to politics. White maleness becomes an invisible category because it gives the impression of being the norm
economies of scale
achieve much larger profit margins by using digital technology to sell information instantly over a global market -Think of TITANIC movie that did exceptionally well overseas
print law
addresses publications such as books, newspapers, and magazines
Decompression zone
amount of space it takes for people to walk and then wander around (aka browsing space)
Victor Gruen
architect of early shopping malls (based his ideas on sociology and zoology (how animals behave in cages)
Authenticity
are shows obligated to cast people to identify the same as the characters? -is it problematic that lead character of transparent is in real life a heterosexual cisgender male? -Superstore character —> example: someone plays a role in a wheelchair but is not crippled in real life
conventions
are something that is frequently done (a norm is stronger)
Grokster
basically the same as Napster EXCEPT they didn't have control of their servers (so they couldn't see people copying and sharing music)... Also claimed its site had "substantial non-infringing use" so they won the case
Book: Miller v. California
case created the still currently used "Miller" Test that consists of three ideas to consider in order to determine if something is obscene -community standards -place to place -patently negative
Public vs. private figures
it's harder for public figures to prove something is libel
Ethics
collective considerations about what is RIGHT or WRONG ■ There is a shared code of ethics (for ex. if you're writing for NYT you have to follow their ethical standards) ■ "Just because you CAN show something, does it mean you SHOULD show it?" ■ Ethics is about MORALITY and not legality ■ Most importantly, ethics involves considering by what measure are you a good media citizen? ● (there's not code of ethics in entertainment media)... should we have a code of ethics though? ● One way to approach ethical boundaries is to figure out if there's a loophole regarding libel (like tabloids —> even if it's legal, is it ethically right?)
analyzing media messages
consider the message's author, format, audience, content, and purpose
licenses
copyright owners can sell these to certain aspects of the copyright (so you could give a publishing house this to reproduce your copyright-protected novel, but give a different company this to sell your novel)
Obscenity: Miller v. California
current rule for obscenity (only modifies Roth v. U.S.) —> ○ only difference is contemporary standards also has community standards ■ so consider something in the context of from "time to time" but now also from "PLACE TO PLACE" (what may not be offensive in one community could be offensive in a different community) ... ■ also has to be patently offensive (so can't just be a "not positive" but "genuinely negative") ■ NOTE: What constitutes obscenity changes over time
Representation
it's not just "good" or "bad" —> it's more complicated... representation strives for mediocrity (one figure doesn't have to hold the weight of an entire identity)
Passive coercion
don't necessarily make people behave in a certain way, they just slightly influence what they're already doing (instead of leading a horse to water, spike the water they're already drinking)
The Fairness Doctrine (1949)
enacted in 1949, when applications for radio broadcast licenses outpaced the number of available frequencies. At the time, concerns that broadcasters might use their stations to promote a particular perspective encouraged the creation
Aspiration
ex) a black woman played the role of communication engineer in space (from early Star Trek) —> only colored woman in a role like this in the 1960's —> gives other black women the idea that they can be that too (see possibilities)
Misappropriation of Someone's Name or Likeness
example: someone snaps someone else's picture without them knowing and uses it in an advertisement or some other commercial reason... this is why movies have release forms that get signatures from every single face filmed in the movie (especially the background people)
tabloid reporters
face a lot of controversy regarding whether they justly exercise the freedom of the press or if they are just ethicless invaders of privacy
Statute of Anne
first law giving authors ownership of copyright of what they wrote for 14 years (author also had right to decide who could publish their work)
Ambient strategy
for example Cinnabon filters exhaust back inside to make it smell homey and good and comfortable... like cookies! Which in turn makes you want a cookie
Private Restriction
for example Instagram can choose what speech is deemed "illegal" on the app
Coercion
for example use different things to make someone feel a certain way → citrus makes you wake up, pine and woods makes you relax, cinnabon increases compliance and consent)
Plagiarism
growing concern because of the ease of copying and pasting texts from online sources into computer documents.
Libel
has to be a false statement made publicly and is defamatory, which means it causes some kind of harm To prove libel you have to: ◆ prove there was publication ◆ That there were at least three people in a party ◆ that the untrue statement was stated as fact ◆ That is was defamatory ◆ It has to be of or concerning the plaintiff (you have to prove it was about you) ◆ It has to be fault of defendant ◆ ALL of this has to be proven in order for something to be considered libel
Acculturation
if you see something on screen it becomes part of your memory (becomes part of who you are and what you consider to be important) content on screen has huge effects on the different perceptions of different groups and classes of society -Cosby Show: normalized the notion of a non-threatening, middle-class African American family "just like you" -Modern Family: legalization of gay marriage, gay couple star on show because gay couples actually happen in real life
New media
includes electronic video games and entertainment, and the Internet and social media. ○ New media frequently trumps traditional media for three main reasons: It is more immediate, it is often free, and it can reach a wider number of people
Canted angle
instead of shooting an image dead on at 90 degrees, it's somewhat tilted... what it means is that you've literally tilted your camera ■ Common in horror movies and psychological thrillers... meant to tell us that reality has been distorted and things are not okay (shows destabilization of the "everyday")
Parody
legal (making use of aesthetic conventions / stylistic elements in order to say your piece) —> like Weird Al Yankovic (only way you understand Weird Al is if you understand what the original music is... thus it's not copyright)
Protected by Copyright
literary works; musical works; dramatic works; pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works; motion pictures and other audiovisual works; sound recordings; and even architectural works ● NOTE: facts are NOT protected
Unprotected Speech
meaning that there are certain kinds of speech where if they're legally determined to be one of those kinds of speech than it's not protected by the amendment
Transformational purpose
means that the work was used for a different purpose (for instance, satire comedians might show a real news clip, but the news clip was originally shown to report facts, however in a satire that newsclip is being shown to make fun of the accurateness or lack there of in the news media)
Foreign markets
offer excellent profit potential as they contribute to media companies' economies of scale. The addition of new audiences and consumer markets may help a company build a global following in the long run
Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association
outcome is that VIDEO GAMES are considered "speech" and are therefore protected, thus getting rid of video game censorship
USA PATRIOT Act
passed after the September 11, 2001, attacks, has broadened the federal government's rights to access individuals' personal records -Civil liberties organizations are concerned about clauses of the Patriot Act, such as the one that stipulates that the government can wiretap Internet communications as long as intelligence gathering is a significant purpose of the investigation
STANDPOINT THEORY
perspectives are individual, non-essentialized, shaped by social, cultural, political experiences... whatever your standpoint is will shape whatever you consider to be valuable -(your perspective shapes what is heard, relevant, important, and believed)... This theory helps explain how we talk about media (think of Selma... about American history...interesting standpoint.. Selma was written by a white man but directed by a blackwoman... the white man character was portrayed as 1-dimensional, which is something we're not used to)... The director's perspective was indeed different from the writer's -Think of "the Help" ... it makes you think black people need to be saved by white woman (based on a novel by a white woman and directed by a southern white man)
Hegemony
political, social, and or cultural dominance ● Gramshi wrote a paper about what hegemony is with a notion that a fascist style government has a small amount of leaders ruling a large amount of people, but why don't all those people try to take over that small amount of leaders? ■ The point of his paper was to explain how power can be so normalized that it almost stands in place of consent... those that are ruled are implicitly giving their consent to being ruled over
Misrepresentation of sex in media
problem is not that sex now appears more often, but that it is almost always portrayed unrealistically in American mass media - Rarely do these media point out the potential emotional and physical consequences of sexual behavior
Privacy Act
protects records that can be retrieved by personalidentifiers such as a name, social security number, or other identifying number or symbol and regulates how agencies can collect, store, and use information and requires agencies to tell individuals when they are collecting information about them
Public Disclosure of Private Facts
publicly disclosing private facts about someone (usually concerns info that can be highly embarrassing, such as exposing someone's personal sex tapes or something like that)
Narrative norm
raises expectations for what SHOULD happen (such as running through an airport to show someone you love them)... expectations exist in such a way that if it doesn't happen it feels wrong to you
ESSENTIALIZING
reduction of a person's complexities to their core identity
Book: HEGEMONY
refers to the power of the dominant culture to overshadow and even overtake local cultures
telecommunications law
regulates radio and television broadcasts
Access
requires court to determine if supposed copier had the opportunity to view the underlying work (so if you "copy" something that another person had already written but that person had the work unpublished and hidden in a drawer half way across the world, you likely didn't even have access to it so how could you have copied it?)
The Equal Time Rule (1927)
requires radio and television stations to give equal opportunity for airtime to all candidates. ■ Essentially, Section 315 ensures that TV and radio stations cannot favor any one political candidate over another
OTHERING
separate from "the norm"... there is a central point of positionality and then anything other than that becomes centered in relation to that point (think of solar system...everything that's not the sun is still technically situated based on the sun) -"Others" get made 2-dimensional (get lumped together)
New York Times vs. Sullivan
series of articles published in 60's about civil rights movement... some people thought NYT was depicting the law enforcement in a bad way.. In 1964 a distinction between public and private figures started: ◆ If you're a public figure you have to prove there was deliberate, actual malice in order to prove libel
Napster
site that consisted of peer-to-peer file-sharing technology (in other words people could share music files on the same software, which obviously led to copyright issues) ● went to court and the case was similar to BETAMAX but in their case they lost because they KNEW that its users were copying music (they controlled everything on their servers) while Sony couldn't control what people did with their tape recorders in the privacy of their own homes. ● = contributory infringement
Cultural imperialism (coca-colonization)
soft control (engineering consent on a global scale), or when cultural norms are disproportionality influenced and CONTROLLED by media ● Rihanna's "Umbrella" → You can travel all around the world and no matter how foreign the country seems to be, Rihanna could be playing on the radio. That's because U.S. is very culturally dominant
Ideology
system of ideals and beliefs that structure a culture (notion that the way things are is the way things are "supposed to be" and that people are in power for a "reason"... so why should we overthrow them? Normalization = ideological system of hegemony -broad systems (like communism, capitalism, religions like Christianity or Buddhist ideologies)... also includes ideals, values, beliefs and significance - powerful because they don't give us rules, they give us values and tell us what's important and how we go about showing things that are important (implicit instructions that tell you how to be happy... think of the LEGO movie)
INTERSECTIONALITY
the experience of othering as a bonding experience rather than a separating experience... the argument of a total de-centering
Book: Burstyn v. Wilson
the outcome of this case is basically that movies are considered "speech" and are therefore protected, because 1. They're similar to other protected works like books, newspapers and magazines and 2. They are a significant medium for the communication of ideas
POSITIONALITY
the place from which you stand according to how you identify... where you position your identity
Media literacy
the skill of being able to decode and process the messages and symbols transmitted via media -a person who is media literate can access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate information
Right of Publicity
this protects the hard-earned value of a person's name or likeness (also this right survives death... so even if a famous person dies, their family can still have rights to their name)... this is why famous people can charge a high price for their names to be used to promote a product
Follow shot
type of tracking shot where camera is following behind whoever it's tracking... it's acting as an accompaniment... popular in Black Swan (we assume that someone is being followed or not alone)... common in horror movies
Symbolic Annihilation
under-representation and misrepresentation (TV from 1950's... no African Americans, no queers, if minority was shown they were black, not Hispanic or anything else.... obviously not the correct dynamics of the 50's... all those people did in fact exist, just not on the screens... notion of not mattering)
1956 Minnesota
very first mall in U.S.
The BETAMAX case (Sony Corp vs. Universal City Studios)
videotape recorders (made by Sony) were introduced to the marketplace → they could allow users to tape a program from their television set even if they weren't watching it (so they could watch it later).... was this copyright infringement? -Yes, it is... but technically Sony wasn't copying anything... Sony simply made the machines that were capable of doing so. It was the people using the machines that were doing the copying. ● However, the Supreme Court reasoned that the betamax machines could be capable of a "substantial non-infringing use" meaning that it could be used for a different primary reason other than copying shows... ○ That different reason was: it allowed users to "time-shift" their shows so the question was then "does time-shifting for the user's convenience fall under Fair Use?" ○ In the end, the court ruled that Sony was off the hook because: ■ 1. The nature of the use was primarily non-commercial and ■ 2. The use didn't injure the value of the underlying copyright
Hays Code
voluntary code film producers used to "self-monitor" their movies in order to keep Hollywood from catching the government's attention... if a movie didn't follow these "rules" it wouldn't get the Hays Stamp and the chances of the theatre houses buying the film was close to zero
socialization agents
ways that people learn about the norms, expectations, and values of their society -mass media is an important one
Invariant right
we tend to turn right if we don't have a specific direction in mind
Frequency
what identifiers we see most often (almost everyone we see on television is middle to upper class, narrow standard of body types, beauty standards, ages = homogeneity. It's when the homogeneity gets broken up that we notice things)
Low angle
when camera is looking up... meant to give the subjective camera less power and give more power to whoever (or whatever) it's shooting (lower the camera is = more power given to what's being shot) ■ This portrays the theme of "with great power comes great responsibility" ■ Common in Spiderman... also think of Citizen King (which subverts convention)
Intrusion
when people (in search of information) physically violate a person's reasonable zone of privacy
norm
when something becomes implicitly codified enough until that's just the way it's done
Public domain
when something goes out of copyright... you don't have to pay anybody to use it, so now it's part of the public domain
COLORBLINDNESS
you are going to cast in respective of race... whoever is the best one for the role will get it... creates problems however because colorblind casting doesn't take into account systematic issues and can have backfires
Visibility
you don't always know what religion a character is... shows often make something invisible visible but not central to the concept of identity
Individual copyright
→ Time = life of author plus seven years (so the content is owned by the author for their whole life and seven years after they die)
Freedom of Information Act (1966)
○ By requiring full or partial disclosure of U.S. government information and documents, the act "helps the public keep track of its government's actions, from the campaign expenditures of city commission candidates to federal agencies' management of billions of dollars in tax revenues ○ Because it allows everyone access to federal documents and information that otherwise would go unreleased, FOIA is particularly important for those working in the news media.
Dimensions of difference
○race ○ ethnicity ○ gender ○ sexuality ○ creed (religion or what you believe in) ○ class (socioeconomics) ○ abledness (differing degrees of mental illness)
Rights of copyright owners
● Right to reproduce (like make copies of a book) ● Right to prepare derivative works (like movie sequels) ● Right to distribute copies (rent, sell, lease the copies) ● Right to perform publicly (like screen a movie in a theater)
