The RNC's ban further breaks down the intention of news media.

Yes, I know it's been a while since I posted on the blog. I'm guilty of being sucked into the work routine and becoming negligent of other responsibilities. However, I read something today that got me steamed enough to post. I'll try to keep it short and sweet.

I also want to note that I am posting on the Tau Beta blog as myself on my own Blogger account and my opinions do not reflect the opinions of other Tau Beta members; hence why I have not been posting as Tau Beta in many cases. 

On MSN, I saw an article about the Republican National Convention (RNC) banning CNN and NBC from covering their event in 2016, when there will be new presidential candidates again. Really.

Whatever happened to the Republican party's intent to "rebrand" itself? I suppose they are still opting to alienate everyone (aka, getting back to their old ways) in the hope to accentuate their extremism. I understand that the allegation that the "liberal media" is to blame for the many liberal-leaning population. What I do not understand is why they would pull this stunt. After all, Fox News as well as CNN and the like all reported on 2012's RNC, antics included. The conservative media can point fingers, but can't be good sports about receiving it back.

Eastwood talking to "President Obama."

If you've forgotten about the RNC last year, envision Clint Eastwood talking to a chair. This video is among the antics that went on that night.Was it the supposed "liberal media's" choice to hire Eastwood for entertainment? No. You couldn't have even edited that level of awkwardness. Whether on supposed "liberal" or "conservative" sources, the same events occurred in real time.

The Democrats are right in their response; by banning CNN and NBC from reporting on the next RNC, they are alienating more voters instead of drawing more near. Democrats also cite that Republicans are pushing away the valuable votes of women and minorities even further by banning news source coverage in general. Again, shortly after losing the presidential election, Republicans said they they need to find a way to draw on minority and women voters. Clearly, that has changed.

What's even more interesting is the balance these new sources have and how the GOP is trying to stagger the intention of new media. While the RNC refuses to have CNN and NBC air their next "event," they are doing so because the media are behaving as they should -- being neutral.

Reince Priebus.

RNC chairman Reince Priebus says that airing programs dealing with Hillary Clinton shows an unfair bias. Because these networks want to air Hillary Clinton programs, the GOP are opting to ban them from also airing conservative events (aka, being neutral by covering topics on both sides of American politics), as if they are "too good" to be on the same network as a female liberal presidential candidate.

Maybe the real problem isn't the '"liberal new media," but the conservative ones. It is hard to take them seriously when they ban news sources from coverage, as the public has a right to know what occurs on both sides of the political spectrum.

Granted, news media is owned by only six corporations...that cannot be denied and complicates matters. Still, the intention of news in general  (whether achieved or not) is to be open to the public, and by preventing the public from seeing a program, it is infringing on First Amendment rights. While the GOP can choose who hears their voice (their freedom of speech), it prevents others from hearing it (in theory if they only stick to one news source, which you shouldn't do) and therefore prevents others from being able to express their point of view based on the perceptions they get from the program.
 

From a corporate standpoint (if you lean towards this perspective more than philosophy), the GOP will not have as many "customers" exposed to the ads the RNC will bring in 2016, therefore, less attraction to advertisers. Not too smart for the party that (openly) endorses capitalism. Also, how can one organization prevent a corporation from reaching "customers" (i.e. viewers)?
All-in-all, while it irritates me in general based on my own political views, the intention of news media is infringed upon in this instance and therefore justifies my annoyance logically and financially (for the corporate folks). Has the GOP sunken themselves for 2016? We'll just have to see. This blog post is one record of their antics prior to the next election that can be used later as proof for something.

France has the right idea. RIP Trayvon

Is America too good for a law prohibiting racial hatred? Should the First Amendment be amended? Can social media transcend government action, such as court verdicts?

Reportedly, Twitter was demanded to hand over data linked to racist tweets last October by the French government. To my understanding, someone had posted anti-Semitic context on the site and the French government's law "prohibiting the incitement of racial hatred" was broken. When Twitter initially refused to hand over the data, five organizations got involved and forced the micro-blogging site to pass along the goods.

In this case, media could not transcend the nation-state despite debates on the power of media internationally and its transcendence of borders, also noted by rhetoric surrounding the Arab Spring. Since the Trayvon Martin case has made international news, it is important to explore government and the limits of hatred (offline as well as on). Is social media more powerful than the government?

With the Trayvon Martin verdict of George Zimmerman being found as not guilty (I won't link a news source, because most people are aware of the case), I wonder what it would be like if America had such a law like France that did not tolerate hatred. It seems that this French law extends to the <international> Internet as well, considering their demands for data and the power behind the law in having the corporation provide the data. It kind of tickles me pink that a government would actively pursue such wrongdoers.

However, if this kind of law were enacted in America today, people would be breaking it constantly, from the KKK to the Westboro Baptist Church, to everyday people online and offline. There is rhetoric in America about whether racism is dead, and with the Trayvon case, it shows it clearly is not. This may be due to the First Amendment inherently protecting the speech that we hate as a means to have a public forum of ideas, as it was originally intended.

In America, we have freedom of speech, which to a certain extent extends to the Internet. However, freedom of speech can collide with some people's actions, as the case with shooting a black teen. No, shooting Trayvon had nothing to do with freedom of speech, but again, consider if America had a law prohibiting actions that incite hatred in all respects. As an offline and extremely relevant example, Zimmerman would have been found guilty, if so.

Is it also true that your freedoms truly stop when it begins to infringe on others' freedoms? That is the philosophical question here, and the First Amendment is broken each day in thinking about hurtful speech. Its intentions contradict itself.

President Obama asked Americans today to reflect on the Trayvon Marting case and push for stopping gun violence. He must know that social media is fired up about the verdict, since many, even in my own social network, are extending their right to express their thoughts on the outcome. Thankfully, we have social media to express our feelings and even alter events. Maybe something may come out of the verdict because we all have a voice on social media...but as with Twitter and France, it can also be negative and a breeding ground for hate.

Still, one commonality remains: Both the U.S. and France must be mindful of social media, because of such voices. Voices which condemn others have a space on social media, but the handling of hatred varies by country. The U.S. has freedom of speech which protects hate language, while France fiercely goes after those with such vitriolic words. So who is right? I'm not sure. All I know is there needs to be more rhetoric AND action around hate, and hopefully social media can become a platform for good in this respect.

Putting the social in social media ad placement.

It's a great day when you go on BBC News and see that Facebook will be more responsible with ads --even moreso when you see the line "Earlier this month, Facebook was forced to act against misogynist content on its site after protests from women's groups led some advertisers to suspend campaigns."

Social media is working to be a voice despite controversy of whether social media actually is a vehicle for social movement.

Facebook is placing restrictions on where ads can be placed rather than their normal ad randomization. They are removing advertising from many pages since some ads can show up oddly on certain pages. On example the BBC notes is that a recent M&S (who has suspended ads on Facebook until further notice) ad with a woman and her shadow appeared on a "cute and gay boys" page. Overall, Facebook now vows to watch out for ad placement so it does not appear in controversial places.

Facebook is also reportedly under fire for sexism as well, which may or may not have to do with such ads.

I am thankful they they will be more thoughtful with ads. While an ad-free world would be great, I realize that advertising needs to occur for the world to make money. I'm a realist but also can't stand seeing women in abusive or submissive positions in ads. It's unnecessary. If people are going to see the ad one way or another, why should it be demeaning? To me, that's not gonna make money.

And don't get me started on Papa John's. They can give away free pizza but can't afford to pay benefits and a decent wage to their workers? #notbuyingit.

Anyway, bravo for more thoughtful ad placement. Let's hope that the ads can be cleaned up, too.

What Fox News and CBS now have in common

Not since Janet Jackson's nip-slip has there been a major network accidentally airing something explicit. While it's great that "truly live" is still around, that is not the case for Fox News and the Romero-Rodriguez family.

Reportedly, Fox News is being sued by JoDon Romero's family members after accidentally airing his suicide on live TV back in September. The network failed to delay the footage and therefore shows a man killing himself on TV. We often hear about murders in the news, but to see it? Devastating. It could have been avoided.

JoDon Romero and his last minutes.

What interests me, though, is why Fox News was following this story. With the recent uproar of taking another look at Patriot-Act "rights," you would think the network would have "better" things to do than focus on a police chase...after all, they are usually outspoken about everything the president does, hence making them the least reputable source for news, since news is supposed to be as neutral as possible (Disclaimer: I know that the gatekeeping task that is inherent in news media automatically exposes it to some bias whether or not this bias is apparent).

But I digress. With the general conservative view on immigration and minorities (the car chase was in Arizona, too), I am not surprised that Fox News was following this police chase. However, I am surprised at Fox's arrogance to think that their candidness would not lead to something terrible one day. If this was a white man, would they have followed this story over other national news? I think not.

I hope the family will be able to get over this grief. While there is the stereotype that some people may sue for attention and the money (you could argue in this case that there was a suspicious several month delay in the decision to sue), in this case, it is justified. The family did not have control over what the network was airing, and upon viewing it, whether on TV or YouTube, it would make anyone cringe.

May 2011 statistic. Reportedly, Fox's ratings are still declining.

Sure, the event happened last year, but the repercussions of seeing one's father committing suicide on the news will haunt the family forever and the news now is that they are suing the network. I'm not surprised that is happened to Fox News, not only for my hatred for the network, but also because their leanings and framing were bound to get them in trouble at some point. Again, if this were a white man in a 1 hour police chase, would they have covered it over more Obama-bashing? Probably not...but after all, they must perpetuate the stereotype of minorities as criminals or else their fan demographic would get bored and drive away advertising.

I'm not denying that Romero was violent, since he reportedly had a violent record, but I am sure there are other violent offenders in this world who are white and not being displayed as vividly as on Fox News.

It's just a case of censorship debates and conservatism mixed with Mean World Syndrome. And of all things involved in this scandal, I don't hear any opposition to gun ownership. It's a shame.

Memoir of my fast food desires.

As much as I like the Food Network show, Unwrapped, it saddens me because it glorifies mass production, which I just realized. In the past I've watched it and for some reason enjoyed it and yet felt uneasy, but couldn't put my finger on why. Now I realize that is the reason why.

The episode I'm watching now is "Happy Birthday," talking about Dominos, Swiss Colony cakes, and M&Ms as examples of mass-produced birthday treats.While there are some benefits to mass-production, I kind of miss my mom baking me a birthday cake for my birthday. Even though Wegman's mass-produces great cakes, and I mean GREAT, it is impersonal.

Cake "baked" in a sheet at Swiss Colony.

 

The cake is then "cut" by a high-powered water blast. Yum.

But coming back to the Unwrapped episode --Dominos and many pizza chains in 2013 glorify the personalization of every pizza in their advertising. While this episode of Unwrapped was created in 2010, I find it hard to believe that they have truly changed their ways. In a nutshell, the advertising is meant to mislead the consumer to believe they are getting back to their roots --a three-shop local franchise in Ypsilanti, MI area-- with meticulously preparing every pizza for their consumer. This cannot be the case today. I'm sure they still ship frozen dough balls across the country (courtesy of Unwrapped unwrapping their process) instead of preparing the dough in-store.

This all shows how advertising is used to sugar-coat reality, and in this case, mass production. Shows like Unwrapped, which has been running since 2001, glorify mass production. Even though cooking shows that make up a majority of Food Network's focus on small batches and home cooking, Unwrapped wouldn't still be popular if there wasn't an audience for people wanting to watch that grotesque, empirical process of making popular foods.

Maybe I should ask for a homemade cake for my birthday this year. Though admittedly, that raspberry-filled chocolate cake from Wegman's is also tempting. Why do I feel this is better than homemade? Media may play a role in my perceptions. Years of exposure to Unwrapped and ads that focus on speed of pizza delivery as a kid (though they are now changing their tune to compete with the "Buy Local" bandwagon) may influence me to see someone else making food fast to be supreme over a beef dinner at my grandparents' house. If you have to pay for it, it must be better.

As a kid, I didn't eat out as often as I used to think. Due to certain circumstances, my mom would make a home-cooked dinner every weekday night at my grandparents' house and that would be my fare after school. It was truly a family-around-the-dinner-table setting and even though the veggies were often canned, the potatoes were mashed fresh and the meat was grilled or baked that day.

Though admittedly (and embarrassingly), I used to always look forward to Saturday when my mom, aunt, and I would get to go out to eat for lunch at the Olive Garden. I looked forward to it and even would dress up to go out to eat at this chain restaurant. It's strange to think back on how excited I used to get for someone else making food we had to pay for, plus Toni, the waitress we would usually have.

As bad as it sounds, now I crave "gourmet" fast food over home-cooked food even though a majority of my life consisted of home-cooking. As I sit here, I'm debating about leaving the house to go buy a hoagie somewhere (even though I had Subway yesterday). Could this be because of advertising? I wouldn't doubt it. Perhaps it started as a kid when I would get excited to go out to eat and be thankful for every Burger King cheeseburger I got when my mom didn't feel like cooking.

Advertising, man.

Powered by Stomach Acid! And Corporations...

This is crazy! I try not to take pills unless I have to, but if I am prone to forgetting passwords in a technological environment, does that qualify as a need?

Motorola (FYI -->owned by Google) launched memory-saving gadgets at the D11 technology conference for ways to get people to remember passwords, or perhaps, have devices identify you so you'll never have to remember passwords again! Once swallowed, the pill would "transmit a signal to devices outside the body" so that you would not need to type a password.

Another piece of technology Motorola launched is the "electronic tattoo" that can be stuck to your skin, another way for gadgets to identify you. Nokia is also reportedly developing similar "tattoo" technology for phones that will vibrate on the skin, in case you cannot feel your phone vibrate in your purse or pocket.

Seems like the barcode tattoo is becoming outdated. Pretty soon, typing may be obsolete too!

It amazing me the lengths people will go to to be more efficient. In 100 years, will we be that much closer to being robots with technology now being implanted or attached to us? Reminds me of Brave New World in a way. I personally would like to stay human.

I don't mind clicking links online to request a password reset. I'm not a smartphone owner and am not sure of how to reset passwords on those devices, but I'm sure it isn't as empirical as putting science on your skin. I don't mind even calling someone to talk to them about resetting passwords or asking for technology help in general. By giving people such pills and stick-on tattoos, we are distancing ourselves from our fellow humans. Soon, we may only need to walk by a door to gain access to a high-security area because the door scans us, which is different than going through security today and requesting temporary access permission.

Considering how Google already affects our lives (Imagine doing research through books at the library, or looking at large paper maps again. Or even using a normal phone that only allows you to talk to someone.), what power would Google have over us once we have their property imbedded inside (or outside) of us? If we fail to pay our phone bill, will Google send signals (radiowaves? x-rays?) to our bodies to disable our password until our bill is paid?

How much would you be willing to pay for such a pill or patch? Who has rights to the technology once the pill technology is implanted inside of our own body? What happens if the tattoo gets wet? These are questions of a new era that we may not be ready to consider yet, but we can start now with considering the control media corporations have over us.

So, whose fiction is it?

In what appears to be a lucrative move, Amazon is allowing fan fiction of Pretty Little Liars, Gossip Girls[sic], and The Vampire Diaries to be sold on their website. Kindle Worlds will be the fan fiction platform where authors can upload their stories for sale, and this space will only be piloted in America to start. However, there is no set date as of now for when fanfiction will be made available for purchase.

It's great to give writers a chance at making money doing something they love. In this case, writing stories that can actually give make them a profit for a series they already enjoy is phenomenal.

... But it is important to recognize that authors will only get 20-35% of royalties and Amazon Publishing will own international publication rights to these works. So, is this a good deal?

Perhaps if we consider that the characters belong to another author's handiwork, it does. After all, the fanfic authors are applying those characters to their own themes and one could argue that they are lucky to get any profit at all. Still, the fanfic authors' creative extension of a storyline should also be recognized, hence why they receive a portion of the royalties, but not all. Considering that Amazon is looking to test the popularity of fanfic sales under its own name and is willing to even create a separate space for these tales, fanfiction itself must be an intriguing underground "industry" at this point in time. And here, I always thought it was silly. I must be mistaken!

Overall, the main concern here is who holds intellectual property rights, which with the Internet has gained a more visibility than in the past. If Kindle worlds ever launches, we will see the repercussions and intellectual property debates once again.