Copyright or copy wrong?

Everywhere you look nowadays, it seems that things are starting to look more and more alike. "Original" things are hard to come across, and things that were once limited edition or one of a kind are being replicated left and right. From counterfeit items to copying of background music of songs, people are having to deal with the legality of these issues more and more frequently. After this reading, I have come to realize that there is a lot more that goes on with copyright laws than I thought!

Something that I want to look at in particular that I have noticed is that recently more and more music artists have been using the tracks from their past and reinventing them to create a new style of music for the new generations. Little do many of the listeners know, but one of Kanye West's first hits comes from Shirley Bassey's "Diamonds are Forever" and Britney Spears is not the original singer of "I Love Rock and Roll". As the years go on, it is hard for artists to create an original sound without looking to the greats of the past for inspiration. Sometimes this comes from developing a new song over an old track or using lyrics and recreating them, however the past is looked to for inspiration over and over. Although many people may say that artists are becoming less and less creative due to the fact that they have to use other artists' work, I feel like this is completely inaccurate. The fact that they are able to reinvent something that is dated and make it sound brand new is something that requires and extreme amount of talent, and I feel that they should be more appreciated for doing so.

Final Paper Topics

Something that I am really interested in doing for my final paper is researching a media conglomerate and finding out how they became such a force. I was really interested in this topic when we talked about it in class and I feel like I could do a lot with this.

Another topic that I really like came from our blog last week after viewing the different media websites was researching the decline of the different newspapers and media outlets. I think that it's crazy that so many newspapers that were successful for so long could suddenly just end!

I'm not sure what else I would want to do for my third topic. I really liked when we looked at the Daily Show versus Mad Money and talking about the different failures of large corporations. I think that maybe as a third topic I could analyze some of the major failures and show how the media has perceived them.

I am very open to other ideas :)
-Caitlyn

America has a new enemy

As many people probably know with the current economy in shambles, many may wonder how some companies are even surviving. So when AIG announced its $165 million dollars in executive bonuses, you can only imagine the shock that swept the nation. For those that don't know what AIG is, AIG sells insurance on people's lives, homes and mortgages. AIG also made a lot of money on complex deals between financial institutions.

The real underlying issue with AIG started late last year when Washington intervened, taking control of the company and injecting $170 billion into the company in order to meet its obligations. Although there are people that are getting laid off left and right from hundred of companies, AIG is somehow able to just hand out these millions of dollars as bonuses. What happened to needing help? To make matters worse, Obama acted as if he was totally shocked when AIG made this announcement, yet there was no reason for anyone in Washington to be surprised: AIG has been under government control for months and it announced the bonus payouts well in advance.

I think that in order to continue with his bailout plans, Obama needs to make sure that he has the confidence of the citizens. If he is already starting to play with the minds of Americans, they may not be as apt to follow future plans. I feel that Obama definitely has some great ideas to help move the country out of the deficit that we are currently facing, however he definitely has a long way to go, and AIG appears to be one of his speed bumps in the way.

Midterm

"Upper-Income Taxpayers Look for Ways to Sidestep Obama Tax-Hike Plan"

The article that I have chosen to analyze for the midterm is by Emily Friedman addressing Obama's plan for taxes.  In the article, the reader learns that those that have an annual family income of $250,000 or more are going to be taxed at a different level than those who do not make as much.  This issue, in particular, is causing a lot of commotion with those that are making that much money, because they feel that they are working hard to just give it back to those that aren't working as hard.  One of the upper middle class-ers actually said "The motivation for a lot of people like me...is that the more you work the more money you make.  But if I'm going to be working just to give it back to the government -- it's demotivating and demoralizing."  Although Obama's main intentions with the extra funds are to one day have a universal health plan, many people aren't seeing past the fact that they are being taxed right now and aren't very happy about this.  

The author for this article, Emily Friedman, appears to be a reliable source.  On the ABC News website, after typing in Emily Friedman the articles she has written go on for pages upon pages, with topics across the news spectrum.  It appears that she has also researched for the article pretty thoroughly, after finding people to interview from across the country - Louisiana, Colorado, and Maryland.  

Something else to take into consideration is this is a second version of the story because there wasn't enough of an analysis for those making $250k or more in the first version, so it appears that she definitely had to do more research and really understand the topic she was writing for.  When I went to Obama's site to see what his plans were for taxing the upper-income bracket,  I actually couldn't find much besides his plan to boost the middle class - from simplifying the tax filing system to providing a tax cut for "working families".   

Once I searched through the site more, I found where Obama addresses the increase in taxes, and he does so in a way that I find very political (in the right way).  "Families making more than $250,000 will pay either the same or lower tax rates than they paid in the 1990s.  Obama will ask the wealthiest 2% of families to give back a portion of tax cuts they have received over the past eight years to ensure we are restoring fairness and returning to fiscal responsibility.  But no family will pay higher tax rates than they would have paid in the 1990s.  In fact, dividends would be 39 percent lower than what President Bush proposed in his 2001 tax cut." (http://www.barackobama.com/taxes/)  I think that the way that this is worded is something that should have been reflected in the article.  I also can definitely find this source very reliable because it is coming "straight from the horse's mouth" - a.k.a. Barack Obama.  This is directly off his campaigning site and was clearly composed by someone that has talked to Obama and understands the ins and outs of his plan completely.  

After reading the article, I feel like Friedman is almost trying to sympathize with those that are making over the American average, when there are people that are getting laid off day after day due to our economy.  The author doesn't point out the many good points that are planned to come with this new plan, and I think that this is a clear bias.  It actually makes me a little mad that people are complaining about being taxed more and are contemplating taking a pay cut.  One of the women interviewed says "We are going to try to figure out how to make our income $249,999.00."  I know that millions of people would be happy to make over $250k and I'm almost positive would take a tax cut.  I'm not sure if Friedman was trying to cater to the demand for more analysis for the families making $250,000 or more, or if she really feels like this plan is unfair.  Either way, the information appears to be correct and the author seems to be reliable, although it does seem that there is some bias to the story.  

All for now.

-Caitlyn 

Just so you know, we're ashamed too, Natalie.

Every day, people around the world think to themselves how great the life of a celebrity must be. From getting pampered from head to toe, to award shows, it seems like their lives aren't that difficult. But when Natalie Maines said one little thing about how she felt about the current president, her "perfect life" took an unexpected detour. Fans became outraged and the Chicks were now perceived negatively in many adoring fans eyes. In fact, in an article on CNN.com, after the statement was made by Maines, many country radio stations decided to stop playing the girls songs. The article states "One station in Kansas City, Missouri held a Dixie "chicken toss" party Friday morning, where Chick critics were encouraged to dump the group's tapes, CDs and concert tickets into trash cans." (http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Music/03/14/dixie.chicks.reut/)

In reality, because of their celebrity status, the girls had to take responsibility for actions that occur on a regular basis to the average citizen. While Bush was still president, I can vividly recall t-shirts that stated negativity towards Bush, and even bumper stickers that read "01.20.09 Bush's Last Day." These people weren't required to defend their actions or statements. Even though their lives seem like a dreamland, celebrities definitely have to censor everything they do, and because of one little slip that Maines had, she took a big fall for her group. However, sometimes the country needs someone like Maines to take the leap for us to show that even though we are given the rights, there are limitations to everything we do. So thank you, Natalie Maines, and we're just as ashamed you had to take this kind of fall for us.

All for now,
- Caitlyn

What is really public space?

When my brother and I were younger, we were constantly playing outside. Whether it was basketball, street hockey, or just riding our bikes around, we had our own neighborhood gang and would stay outside from breakfast until dinner. Like most neighborhoods, there is always that one cranky older neighbor that always tries to ruin your fun. One day when my brother and I were playing basketball, a police officer drove down the street and asked to talk to our parents. Completely confused, I went inside to get my mom and told her that there was an officer outside that wanted to talk to her. Come to find out, my cranky old neighbor actually called the police on us for a violation of playing in the street!! After my mom researched further, we found out that us playing basketball in the street, using our skateboards and scooters, and other activities that we always took place in were actually not allowed in our city! Playing in the public street on a very un-busy road wasn't allowed, but who knew that there was control over this public place.

With the reading, the issue of what exactly is a public space is developed. They discuss how what is believed to be an area availble to public masses is actually limited to only certain people, but those areas that are truly public attract large amounts of people for different causes. The public space is defined and is brought to a real life situation with the park in California, where Mitchell's article really made me think about the ultimate goal of a public space and who really owns the public space.

All for now.
-Caitlyn

Say what you mean to say.

"Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal. Only Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter. The most centrist outlet proved to be the "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." CNN's "NewsNight With Aaron Brown" and ABC's "Good Morning America" were a close second and third." (Media Bias is Real)

After reading Media and Democracy by Curran, I decided to search online to find if there were any articles about media bias. I was not very surprised when I found a bunch, and "Media Bias is Real" caught my eye in particular (http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx). The article describes how a political scientist at UCLA studied different media outlets to see whether they were remaining neutral or were headed to the left or right. The results were derived from analyzing media outlets over the past 10 years.

Overall I feel that from each article, the same general idea is stated - in most of our media sources that we have access to, there is some sort of bias. I feel that this is not really that big of a surprise to me, since everybody has something to say, and I feel that the career of a journalist is one of the prime opportunities to do this. No matter how neutral a person tries to stay, sometimes it is near impossible for them to not put some of their own feelings or ideas into their writing. In fact, some people present their ideas so well, they get more responses than those that just appear to tiptoe down the middle.

The following is a list of the major key words that I took out of the article and what I generally believe they mean:

• Liberal - free markets or unregulated free enterprise
• Free market - markets that are freed from government interventions
• Watchdog - protector against illegal practices
• Role of media - act as a check on the state
• Public media - journalists are not controlled about what to say
• Private media - journalists are required to report

Finally, I feel that the major concepts of the article were:

1. Media is no longer just concerned with presenting news to people, but is also concerned about making a profit!
2. Defining media as a place to inform people about different topics, as well as enable people to bring up their own discussions
3. Defining what a watchdog is and it's role in media

That's all for now, more discussion tomorrow in class :)
-Caitlyn