Free Speech In The United States

Electronic media content can be viewed differently according to personal opinions, but the First Amendment Rights of the United States Constitution lay the foundation for the legal system that is to be followed. These rights form a guide that help citizens have a stronger grasp on what is and isn’t acceptable within the eye of the law. Narrowing down to electronic media content, there has been a rise of tension involving first amendment rights of content regulations. The spectrum scarcity rationale has made it possible to control licensing schemes, along with direct content control to make sure rules are being followed according to the First Amendment. The differences between cable TV

A FOX-TV broadcast of car crashes and animal attacks attracted the network its highest viewer ratings. "Shock-jock," Howard Stern has taken his Saturday night television show on CBS and in most markets quadrupled the ratings in that time slot for the 18-34 year old male demographic. It should not be the responsibility or even the job of the FCC or any other wacky Right Wing philanthropist group to tell John Q. Public what he can see, hear, and

The issue of 1st amendment rights are critical subject in a Democracy such as America. For example, in the past countries like Nazi controlled Germany control media content to push out their extremist ideas and to squash any opposition content. That’s why government intervention is imperative to protect individual’s rights of free speech, freedom of press, and right to petition especially in relation to cable regulation. The best way to measure if government intervention in cable regulation is infringing upon citizens 1st amendment right is to focus on major consumer demands. The most appropriate goals to address the problem are to be able to please majority of consumers by implementing the perfect balance between autonomy and control when

Over the years, talk radio censorship has become a bigger issue. The FCC (The Federal Communications Commission) has become a large part in regulating the business of talk radio due to the fact that some people impose on some of the topics or language used during the broadcasts. Many people find them offensive and should not be allowed to be broadcasted without some type of notification that it is going on or is inappropriate for children or just in general. The censorship of talk radio has become a large issue with broadcasters having “special rights” during airing, “special rights” meaning broadcasting openly about any topic, and this could be solved by not giving people who broadcast stations this power.

In the early days, the radio industry was in chaos due to poor regulations and uncontrolled rapid growth. The Radio Act of 1912 was an unsuccessful attempt at regulation because it didn’t allow the government to deny radio broadcasting licenses [1]. In fact, the law did not even mention radio broadcasting since radio was not common when the law was made. Even though the law required that radio operators to be licensed, it did not allow the denial of radio licenses. Over the span of 21

: In 1992, the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act required cable companies to give a certain number of their channels to local broadcast programs. The Cable Act included several “must-carry” rules that limited the control of open channels by cable programmers and increased competition for the left over channels. Soon after the Act became law, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., the owner of several cable programming operations, brought this case against the FCC and challenged if the must-carry regulations were constitutional. A special three-judge U.S. District Court ruled in favor of Turner Broadcasting, granting the summary judgment that the requirements were consistent with the First Amendment and intermediate scrutiny

The FCC’s move will allow companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon to charge internet companies for speedier access to consumers and to block outside services they don’t like. The change also axes a host of consumer protections, including privacy requirements and rules barring unfair practices that gave consumers an avenue to pursue complaints about price gouging.

In order to understand why Federal Communication Commission has legal authority to regulate media ownership and should be allowed to continue to regulate media ownership, you must first know the statues that gave way to the regulation. The FCC was created by the Communications Act of 1934. The Communications Act of 1934 replaced the Radio Act of 1927, and the FCC superseded the FRC (Federal Radio Commission). This act “called for the government to regulate in the public interest and foreign communications by radio and wire.” The FCC can be traced back to the Wireless Ship Act of 1910. The Wireless Ship Act of 1910 “required large ships to have wireless equipment and radio operators on board…made it illegal not to retransmit or answer wireless transmissions from ships.” This law was the first U.S. regulation on devices that used electromagnetic spectrum. The Chain Broadcasting Rules, was the first national ownership limit passed by the FCC in 1941. These rules regulated major national radio networks, in relation to local stations. “These regulations also included a structural ownership rule limiting a radio network from owning more than one broadcast station within a market area, reflecting the Commission’s earlier presumption that a single entity holding more than one broadcast license in the same community contravened the public interest.” This idea was upheld in the Supreme Court

All of the journals and papers are published by Organizations with an agenda. The FCC, EFF and the others are built on a platform and of course there is going to be some sort of bias. It proves to be a burden to carry and we see the information only representing one side of the notice, there are few disagreements with the policies. Hardly do we ever see the potential downfall of the policy mentioned in any of the journals. The Scope is adjusted to the internet regulations and the progression expands to the outer reaches of the economy. From what I can tell, all of the organizations are stationed in the District Columbia area. The review of the information is aligned with the demands of Obama and

While communications markets had been experimented with before, communication rules drastically changed after the Communications Act of 1934 (and the FCC that came out of it). Congress granted the FCC the ability to hand out licenses to companies they deemed served, “the public interest, convenience, and necessity” (2). In their 1928 report, the FCC stated, “the emphasis must be first and foremost on the interest, the convenience, and the necessity of the listening public, and not on the interest, convenience, or necessity of the individual broadcaster or the advertiser” (3). The FCC knew that, “it would not

The likely place to target to shut this thing down before it starts is the Communications and Technology Subcommittee in the House of Represntatives. Any changes to FCC consumer protection powers should start there.

“This is a little story about a big topic, freedom.” These are the first words uttered in the feature length documentary, “Pirate Radio USA.” We get an up-close look at the suppression of free speech by the FCC, which, at the time this documentary was shot, was shutting down micro broadcasts that broadcasted with less power than that used by an incandescent light bulb. Even to this day, the United States is largely unaware of what “Pirate Radio” stations are in general. The public is even less acute to the disputes that were being held across the country between local micro broadcasters and the FCC. From the perspective of the FCC, it was unlawful and potentially dangerous to have numerous unlicensed broadcasters, broadcasting locally unfiltered

Unfortunately, there has been an increase in violations over the past few semesters, despite Zina’s efforts to properly train her on air staff as thoroughly as possible, they continue to ignore these FCC

When the rise of cable television began there were many local broadcasters who were worried about what sort of financial state they would be left in once audiences decided to switch over to much larger networks. Time went on and many attempts at regulating cable companies became bigger and bigger issues. The larger networks could reach across the nation, and by doing so would have effectively rendered the local network useless. The people were growing weary of the services provided by the cable companies, as well as the price at which they had been charging for those services. Realizing that this could become a greater issue Congress endeavored to settle this debacle by making the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992. This law would require cable providers to set aside channels so that local or public broadcasters could take place in the vacant airwaves, which would effectively keep them all from going out of business under the pressure of larger cable networks. The Federal Communications Commission would be responsible for any sort of actions to be taken to ensure that the Act was properly set into place. For those who worked under local and public broadcasting this was the greatest kind of victory, but not everyone was happy about the decision to enact this law. The Act caused many dissenting opinions within the cable industry as they appealed to the courts with the intention of proving that a must-carry policy is unconstitutional. (Ugland,

In order to establish a group that censors televisions and movies, the Motion Picture Producers Association (MPAA) was created. Each rating category has a description of the appropriate age at which to view the film and whether or not a parent’s accompaniment is necessary. The Motion Picture Producers Association assesses a film and gives it a rating of G (general audiences), PG (parental guidance suggested), PG-13 (parents strongly cautioned), R (restricted), or NC-17 (no one under seventeen admitted). As the film industry has been changing over time, so have the ratings. More and more parents are having issues with the ratings that some films are issued. “The man behind the ratings, Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), says the system works just fine. ‘Parents use it and trust it, and that's why it's lasted for almost 35 years,’ Valenti says. ‘It warns parents in advance about what's in a particular movie, but ultimately, parents are responsible for the behavior and conduct of their children — not the ratings system’ (Hansen 273).”