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

Freedom of speech has its costs...

What does it take for a person to really have freedom in their lives? We're a country that's always noting that we have so many advantages as citizens yet I've never really taken the time to think about what is done to give me these rights. After reading this chapter, many different thoughts have been brought to my atention that I never really would have thought about otherwise. The fact that we are granted the abilities to own multiple guns if we wanted to and can make a blog about nearly anything is really something that can't be done throughout the world.

Of course there are certain events that occur that enable us to have these freedoms, including the fact that we are governed by an elected leader. If we were really "free" and didn't have to answer to anybody, the country would be in complete chaos. Because we are required to answer to somebody, they are able to establish rules that make the liberties we're granted so great. Sometimes people complain that they're not able to always say what they want or do what they want; however they are actually unaware what goes on to grant them these rights. Although we have limitations to our freedoms, it is because of these restrictions that our country is free, and I am thankful more and more each day because of them.

So, am I in the sphere or not?

After last class, it was brought up that there was some confusion with the article. Although after we discussed the article I had a somewhat better understand of the subject, we were assigned to re-read the article and bring up questions that we had. I still have some confusion with the following issues:

1. My first major issue was just the way that Fraser worded everything. I would like to think that an author would WANT people to be able to understand everything that they're writing, yet with this everything is so much more wordy than necessary!!! Because the author wrote in such a way, I lost interest at multiple points, and it took me about four times as long to read the article because I just was not interested. I did survive though, clearly because I'm writing this now!

2. I'm somewhat confused with her statements about the first major point - being that people from different social classes are equal to talk. Sometimes I think that Fraser is saying that the discussion that Habermas wants to occur can happen, and other times I think that she says it cannot. Which side does she actually believe?

3. At first I didn't understand what exactly were considered private issues. Is it people's personal lives? Or is it things such as sexual abuse? I think that I've come to understand that "private" has to deal with private property in a market economy and people's literal sex lives. I'm not sure if this is exactly correct however.

4. In class on Monday, someone asked exactly what "democractic" meant. I always thought I had a general idea what it meant, and we even came up with some definitions - like being more democratic means being more for ALL the people, with the majority interests. However, I feel like in the context of having one public as more democratic is still somewhat confusing, and I hope maybe tomorrow we can go into more detail with this!

That's all for now - I hope that everybody else had more success with the re-reading :)
-Caitlyn

"Who's in your circle?"

Since we were younger, we have always been defined through the people we associate ourselves with. Usually these people listen to the same type of music as you, have similar religious beliefs, or maybe just all shop at the same three stores. Jurgen Habermas defines a public sphere as a thing where a public opinion can be formed, with media forms including newspapers, radio, and television. These forms of media still remain relevant for the new public spheres that have developed, but also have branched out to include things such as the Internet, blogging, podcasts, and so many more!

While people are within their group, they form opinions about other groups that are established and some type of leader shines through. The position of a leader within a group is present no matter what - from small groups, like a clique at school, to large groups, like political parties. People also gain confidence within their group and aren't as afraid to voice their opinions. A major problem with the public sphere is that sometimes groups don't always feel the same as the majority - which leads to issues with freedom of speech or conflicting interests between parties involved.

One of the most amazing forms of media to me is the Internet. The fact that mass amounts of information can be publicized to such an array of people is astonishing. It's also an amazing source because it doesn't just have one type of person following it. EVERYBODY uses the Internet - from mothers looking up a new recipe for dinner to grandparents receiving e-mails of pictures of their first grandchild. Sure, different sites cater to different followings of people, however the Internet as a whole is not targeted to one particular public sphere. And because of this, we are able to bypass ignorance and sometimes even bring together unexpected groups of beliefs, or merge public spheres to one large ball!

To vote, or to rationally vote, that is the question?

"What did a vote express? Not a strong conviction that the party offered public policies; parties tended to be more devoted to distributing offices than to advocating policies. Party was related more to comradeship than to policy: it was more an attachment than a choice, something like a contemporary loyalty to a high school or college and its teams. Voting was not a matter of assent but a statement of affiliation. Drink, dollars, and drama brought people to the polls, and more than that, social connection, rarely anything more elevated." (Click Here for Democracy, Michael Schudson) It's funny to think that not until the beginning of the 20th century did our country have leaders chosen by an educated and rational voter. When voting first began, citizens would just merely approach the sheriff of the town and state their vote, with the two candidates on each side of them. As the years continued, things began to somewhat change, where the election day became a social gathering. "They viewed elections as affairs in which local citizens would vote for esteemed leaders of sound character and good family, deferring to a candidate's social pedigree more than siding with his policy preferences."

As the years pass on, the issue of bringing citizens to the voting booths still becomes an issue. Do people vote just because they're of age, or do they truly feel strongly about an issue? Is the candidate really the ideal person for the job, or do they just seem like a "cool guy"? Because of the media, sometimes our candidates are only viewed on the surface and young adults don't take the actual time to analyze just who they're voting to put in office. Schudson's article also brings up how the Internet has brought the world to our fingers, especially when it comes to politics. "The Internet does not erase existing structures of politics. If it gives to ordinary citizens new tools for gathering information and expressing views, think of how much more it offers to political professionals who spend forty to eighty hours a week on politics, not four to eight minutes."

We can see that over the past decade, more and more young adults are coming to the voting booths. We'd like to think that it has been because of encouragement at school, or through celebrity endorsements like with "Rock the Vote!" (http://www.rockthevote.com/), a site that uses music, popular culture and new technologies to engage and incite young people to register and vote in every election, however we can never be sure. We can only hope that the process of educating our future voters continues more and more, as we've seen in the growth of knowledge in our voters over the past centuries.

United Stubborn States of America

"There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation’s population is illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this image-based existence. A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the families in the United States last year did not buy a book." (America the Illiterate, Chris Hedges) After reading this article, it baffles me to think that the people in our country won't take the time to try and educate themselves; however, I do understand that sometimes they are embarrassed to speak up about their inabilities. I remember when I was in the second grade, my friend Brian would always get the lowest grades on our spelling tests and would never want to read out loud. One day, my teacher pulled me aside and asked if I would mind helping Brian during our reading time. Each day I worked with him on practicing his pronunciation and reading, reading books like Danny the Dinosaur. It's not that Brian wasn't intelligent, it's just that he never was really taught how to read. The problem with the schooling in U.S. is that some students are not given as many opportunities or the chances to develop their reading skills. I feel that if people took the time to make sure that all students were on the same level, the statistics that are seen above would not be such an issue.

This past fall semester I studied in Florence, Italy, where I studied marketing and Italian. I was really nervous about the language barrier since I had no prior experience with Italian and didn't want to feel out of place; however, I learned very quickly that I in fact would feel out of place, but not because I didn't speak Italian. In every country I went, from Greece to Germany, everybody had some knowledge of English. Whether they were seven or seventy, nearly everybody I came across was able to communicate with me in some form. I was amazed - how is it possible that they can understand multiple languages while people in America, whose native tongue is English, have trouble with just one?

"For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act -- not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do." (Barack Obama, inaugural speech) Although they don't have the same exact message in the article by Hedges and Obama's speech, I feel that the same general outcome is wanted. Hedges' article really makes people think about the fact that not everybody is at the same level of education, and I feel that a goal of Obama's speech is to show that he wants there to be a change for the school systems as well.