Other Groups' final presentations

I found other groups' presentations to be extremely interesting. I think they did some great jobs in tying together the points of this semester into key concise subject matters. I like how the first group touched upon total information awareness and propaganda. In today's society we are fed illusory information that almost tends to brainwash us. If you go home and turn on the news there is nothing but the same thing on TV every single day. The government feeds us propaganda all the time. There is no progress in the government but all that we hear is the Russia Collusion story. That's not news but just information meant to persuade our opinion about our leaders in a very bias manner and is shoved in our face every day.

Other groups went on to speak about the mainstream media and channel news classifications. I found this to be very interesting because it just emphasized my above point about how news channels are supposed to be unbiased but rather lately have been very picky in choosing a side that financially betters their station. I remember a day when you could turn on the news and hear about things going on around the world but lately its just been a ton of garbage. I like how the team listed out a ton of right and left classifications of the news stations because there was not one channel for the most part that is mainstream media that was in the middle (as all should be).

Nevertheless I can only hope that one day news channels revert the way that they used to be and tell factual stories that vary that pique my interest. All the news is doing now is brainwashing the public and just rotting our brains, plain and simple.

Group Presentation on Policy

Our group presented upon the matter of policy. We decided to touch upon the Sherman Antitrust Act, Media Consolidation, Vertical Integration, Net Neutrality, News Deserts, and Cord Cutting.

The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was the first measure passed by Congress to prohibit trusts and used the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. Trusts dominated a number of major industries and destroyed competition since a company can then start to function as a monopoly. The act also authorized the government to start proceedings against trusts in order to dissolve them and any declaration to form a trust was deemed illegal. Penalties were a $5,000 fine and a possible year in jail. The goal of this act was to restore competition among firms.

News Deserts are a community with limited access to the sort of credible news information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level. This tends to be poor, older, and less educated communities that include very vulnerable citizens.

Media Consolidation is a process where fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media and where small firms dominate the media industry. These firms have complete control of information going out to media sources that plays to the interests of people in power rather than the general public.

Net Neutrality is what keeps the internet free and open to everybody and is the result of keeping private companies from regulating what is seen/heard on the internet.

Cord Cutting is a term for people cancelling their subscription for cable service. Streaming services are coming out and people are starting to lean that way and push older companies out of business. Cord Cutting is occurring in 20% of American homes and will increase to 30% by 2024.

Vertical integration is a supply chain owned by the company where the company is able to control all parts of the supply chain process rather than just one. This allows companies to create their own products entirely and make sure everything goes logistically smooth but reduces competition greatly as a downside in the market.

Overall, these different ideas and acts all contribute to the policy of our nation and the trends in which society and individuals are turning in the future.

Religious Advertisements and the 1rst Amendment

A relative sized Arizona town had placed limits on the sizes of church signs that were being put up. It brought about mild but short controversy whether or not this violated the 1st amendment. The case is titled reed vs. town of Gilbert. It concerned an ordinance that had "restrictions on political, ideological, and directional signs".
It then went to the Supreme Court. In all, the supreme court justices decided favorably in a 9-0 vote that it was in direct violation of the constitution and the first amendment but they disagreed in the fact that six of the justices argued that they agreed upon the bottom line but not the rationale of the decision, which is an extremely counterintuitive thought.

Essentially, the argument is about the freedom of speech for the right to choose a religion. Normal signs, in the town, were acceptable all the way up to 32 square feet. However, when dealing with any sign that were church related, the sign was unable to surpass 6 square feet. As a result, it is obvious that the first amendment does not tolerate this unequal sort of treatment. However, what is still being discussed is the amount of signs on one road pertaining to the same topic for advertisement purposes but also if they pass content-based laws which arises another whole level of issues/topics.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/us/major-supreme-court-cases-in-2015.html?_r=0