Media Law & Literacy

The Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance of countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They have shared beliefs which allow them to maintain their trusting relationship. These beliefs are: democratic values, complimentary national interests, and similar cultures. Began during World War II, of meetings between the United States and the United Kingdom code breakers. It officially started on March the 5th of 1946 via the UKUSA Agreement; a multilateral agreement for joint efforts in signal intelligence. Canada joined in 1948. Australia and New Zealand in 1956. It wasn’t until 2005 that the agreement of alliance was even made public. It then took five additional years (2010) for the UKUSA Agreement to be released and recognized. This is what the treaty strives to achieve as written in 1946, " the parties agree to the exchange of the products of the following operations relating to foreign communications: collection of traffic, acquisition...

  Privacy. Something all humans value, yet we seem to give away without thinking about it. Something I’m guilty of doing too. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll clue you in. The internet. Social media.  Let me lay out the business model of Facebook. This was both discussed in various videos, (which can be found here ) and in class.  Contract of Adhesion - this is when you agree to terms & conditions on the internet or social media platforms. Basically, this is you and the provider entering a contract, where they hold all the power to negotiate.  Data Mining User-generated - you as a user’s info! Think about all the fields you have to complete in order to use or have a service, like Instagram or Gmail. Tracking malware - harmful to your devices.  Deep packet inspection - inspects your information and can potentially block, alert, re-route, or log it. Digital Dossier - a fancy way of saying your digital footprint.  Behavioral Marketing - a f...

  I decided to write about what I learned from my classmate, Olivia Moran’s EOTO presentation on DVDs.       For starters I didn’t even know what DVD stood for… It stands for Digital Videodisc. This is the type of video format that was a constant companion of my childhood. Yet, before the DVD, there was the LaserDisc. LaserDisc was invented in 1958 by David Paul and James Russell. This product was finally released in America in 1978. Much like a vinyl, if watching on a LaserDisc, you would have to flip the disc halfway through the movie.  DVDs were invented in 1995, released to the public a year later. With this new technology, it also meant a new technology to play it. Hence, DVD players, which also came out in 1996.  Having things in a compact and transportable disc changed our world. My classmate talked about how, this also allowed for gaming consoles like the Playstation was able to play movies. Other inventions that were loosely touched on, w...

  I have never heard of these websites ( ANTIWAR.COM and American Conservative ) before… I could think of a lot of reasons why I may have never come across these websites. However, my educated guess is that it has to do with agenda setting and media framing. Agenda setting is what the media thinks you need to think about. This factors in with the media agenda and public agenda, which is what the people think are the most important issues. Media framing is what the media includes and excludes about an issue.       The reason why you have to seek out obscure websites in order to hear strong anti-war voices is because anti-war campaigns do not align with the media’s narrative. Therefore, since it does not align with the media’s agenda, it cannot become the public’s agenda, and then it gets excluded from being an issue.  I think the reason why people may have to seek out obscure websites in order to hear strong anti-war voices is because of the above reasoni...

For a class project, we were divided into groups and each member had to choose a specific technology from a graphic. We then have to present a little crash course about our technology, in addition to writing a blog post about our research. I chose Hulu , so without further adieu.  Before Hulu was a massive streaming platform strictly for the United States, Hulu was first a website. It started in 2007, with shows and movies streaming on their website, using Adobe Systems Incorporated Flash Player for free with advertisements. Still only available in the US. Later on, in March of 2007, NBC Universal and News Corporation announced the beta version would be out in October of 2007. Hulu became open to the public in March of 2008. ( Britannica ) Hulu was invented/ founded by a group of business executives; “Bruce Campbell; Peter Chernin; JP Perrette; Michael Lang; Beth Comstock; and Jason Kilar.” Jason Kilar was named chief executive. Initial distribution partners, according to FOX News ...

Two speech theories resonate with me the most currently. These theories are: Individual Self-Fulfillment and Promote Tolerance. While all eight speech theories are important and I initially selected five to address, I narrowed it down to two speech theories for their current relationships they have today.       It’s hard to believe that our country supports the practice of free speech, even when that extends to hate speech. According to the Promote Tolerance speech theory , “the First Amendment protects hate speech because society learns valuable lessons from, including why it is hateful and worthy of condemnation.” While this is a tough pill to swallow, freedom of speech is one reason that sets America apart from others. Even when news and events get misconstrued on social media.  The example I’m referring to is the spreading of demonic conspiracy theories surrounding the Astroworld Festival events on TikTok . These conspiracy theories include anti-vaccine mi...

Hi guys, my name is Davis Ritenour, and I am from Wilkes County, North Carolina. I am currently studying Popular Culture and Media Production at High Point University. I am a High Point University Presidential Scholar, Siegfried Leadership Fellow, and member of Alpha Lambda Delta. Additionally, I am the social media manager for the American Sign Language Club. I am passionate about all things popular culture. My interests are widespread including, reading books, watching movies, listening to music, and writing. In my free time, I love to hang out with my family, friends, and dog. I also, enjoy making videos with my friends. It is because of these hobbies that I want to pursue a career in screenwriting and storytelling.  Over this past summer, I had the opportunity to do undergraduate research studying pedagogical oppression, hyperreality, and how the movie, Cabin in the Woods can be used as a metacognitive function to relate these. My mentor and I are currently co-authoring an aut...

I learned that the Supreme Court didn’t hear any cases during their first term in 1790. It was on August 3rd, 1791, that they gave their first decision for the case, West v. Barnes. This court consisted of, John Jay (the chief justice), John Rutledge, William Cushing, John Blair, Robert Harrison, and James Wilson.  The chief justice is the highest judicial officer in the United States. For the first Supreme Court, that was John Jay. The chief justice’s duties are presiding over the court and planning the weekly meetings of the justices. If they are apart of the majority opinion, they can decide who writes the court’s opinion. I, also, didn’t know that the chief justice must sit on the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution.  Another interesting tidbit is that the chief justice must be over the impeachment trials of the President of the USA. Presidents who were impeached are, Andrew Johnson , Bill Clinton , and Donald Trump . All of them were found not guilty.  T...