TEST 3 - MUST KNOW INFO Flashcards
3 types of media regulation?
free market “regulation”; gov’t regulation; self-regulation
What is free market “regulation”?
the forces of supply and demand, as well as “grass-root movement”-type groups, help resolve problems within the marketplace of mass media
What is government regulation?
regulation via government agencies, Congress enforcing laws and regs.
What is self-regulation?
regulation done by the media industry itself, via establishing ethical guidelines and sanctions
Types of citizen groups that play a role in free market?
religious associations; parent associations; fact-checking websites/organizations
What are 2 examples of supply and demand working to ‘regulate’ media?
- advertisers pulling support for shows whose message they disagree with; in cases like Duck Dynasty, that show eventually gets cancelled
- over-saturation of a particular genre; vampire movies back in the early 2010s, and nowadays, not seen as much
What are the 5 freedoms granted by the First Amendment?
- freedom to exercise religion
- freedom of speech
- freedom of the press
- right to peaceably assemble
- right to petition for redress of grievances
What did “no law” mean, up until 1925?
meant that the federal branches of the gov’t could not make laws abridging press freedoms
Gitlow v. New York
1925 SCOTUS case in which the court ruled that the phrase “Congress shall make no law” shall be interpreted as the gov’t and its agencies can’t make laws abridging press freedoms (agencies = state levels)
What is included in today’s view of “the press”?
factually truthful advertising; entertainment forms, including film, TV, and radio; traditional forms of print media
Importance of classes of speech?
courts have outlined that some types of speech (higher value speech) deserve more protection than other types of speech, like those involving obscenity and incitement
Examples of high value speech?
political speech or debate; political exuberance allows candidates and politicians to lie in speeches w/o punishment
Examples of intermediate value speech?
advertising
Examples of low value speech?
obscenity, incitement
4 criteria that allows SCOTUS to approve gov’t restrictions on speech/press?
- laws that are applicable to everyone
- laws that are w/o political bias
- laws that serve a significant gov’t interest
- laws that leave ample alternative ways for comm. to take place
prior restraint
government restriction of speech before it is made; aka “censorship”; preventing someone IN ADVANCE from saying/showing/’publishing’ something
What did SCOTUS Justice Potter Stewart say regarding obscene material?
“But I know it when I see it…”
Miller v. California
1973 SCOTUS case that defined what constituted as obscene material with the “Miller test”
Miller test states that material is obscene if what?
“The average person applying contemporary community standards would find the work, taken as a whole, to be of prurient interest, patently offensive, and lacking serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value…”
Miller v. California: Who is “the average person”?
someone who is not a child; an adult who is neither highly sensitive nor with a really thick skin; neither overly educated no uneducated; a person who does NOT have strange or perverted tastes
“contemporary community standards”
depends on the case! these can change because of time and location; some communities are more tolerant than others
Venue shopping example?
if I decide to put on a controversial musical, my first run of the show will most likely not be in rural, ultra-conservative Utah b/c doesn’t fit that community’s standards; so I will have to shop around, see which place is more tolerant of the musical’s content
“prurient interest”
having a morbid, shameful, or perverted interest in sex is NOT OK and would be considered obscene
“patently offensive”
excessive in regards to sexual detail to the point where the act itself is the topic of the work
“social value”
if the content has none of this, that means it lacks serious literary, political, scientific, or artistic value
“taken as a whole”
one scene doesn’t make a work obscene; must be the entire work
indecency
sexually oriented material that does NOT meet Miller v. California definition of obscenity
The issue of indecency matters where?
ONLY model one aka broadcasting! NOT an issue for cable, pay TV, print!
What was George Carlin’s logic in his “Seven Dirty Words” broadcast?
those 7 words are bad words that CAN NOT have a double meaning! they are bad words that mean one thing only!
Indecency rulings for the Internet?
regulating indecency on the Internet has failed in courts
FCC v. Pacifica Foundation
1978 SCOTUS case that ruled the FCC’s powers in punishing indecent material and introduced the idea of “safe harbors”
According to FCC v. Pacifica, what can the FCC do?
they can punish broadcast stations that air indecent content during times of the day when children are most likely to be in the audience, impose fines
safe harbors?
10 PM to 6 AM
copyright
the legal protection of a creator’s right to a work
Copyright Act of 1976
act stating a work is protected from the time of creation up to 70 years after the creator’s death; different protection timelines for corporations
“public domain”
a work is in this realm once a copyright expires
Copyright restrictions prior to 1976?
1909 act let films fall in public domain if no copyright notice in the credits
fair use regulations
provisions under which a person or company may use small portions of copyrighted work without asking permission
4 factors considered in fair use cases?
- purpose + character of your use
- nature of copyrighted work
- amount of the portion taken
- effect of your use upon potential market
Examples of fair use cases to know?
1984 Betamax case; Stephanie Lenz v. Universal Music Corporation
1984 Betamax case
SCOTUS case that says it’s ok for consumers to record copyrighted material for their own personal use of watching it later in their own home; what allows DVRs to exist
parody
a work that imitates another work for laughs in a way that comments on the original work; a literary/musical work in which style or work is CLOSELY IMITATED for comedic effect
Hustler Magazine v. Falwell
1988 SCOTUS case that helped define the extent to which parody is legal
Why did the Supreme Court rule in favor of Hustler?
the item may have been ‘malicious’, but Court said any reader would know the speech was a deliberate parody of the Brooke Shields perfume ad, and therefore was not true. Also, the damage wasn’t enough b/c Falwell was a public figure.
defamation
highly disreputable or false statement about a person or organization that injuries the reputation held for that person or entity
What are the two types of defamation?
slander and libel
slander
spoken communication considered harmful to a person’s reputation