D. Translate the following text from Russian into English

1. In an important censorship case, the Nixon administration tried to restrain publication of _____.

a. qualified privilege b. copyright c. libel d. shield law

a. profanity in films b. transportation of boxing movies across state lines c. sacrilegious foreign films d. none of the above

4. The Supreme Court finally granted film the same speech protection as print and other forms of media after the New York Licensing Board banned the film _____.

a. Il Miracolo b. Gone with the Wind c. Gremlins d. none of the above

5. The _____ rating was appropriated as a promotional tool by the pornography industry.

a. X b. NC-17 c. R d. G

6. In which case did the Supreme Court argue that a newspaper had the right to publish what it chose?

a. Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo b. Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC c. WBAI v. FCC d. New York Times v. Red Lion Broadcasting

7. When commercial broadcasters asked the government for regulation of the airwaves, they were hoping to _____.

a. clear up technical problems b. get rid of amateur interference

8. In 1937, NBC was scolded by the FCC after broadcasting a comedy sketch featuring _____.

a. George Carlin b. Mae West c. Fred Cook d. Jack Valenti

9. _____ required stations to air controversial-issue programs and provide competing points of view.

a. the Communications Act of 1934 b. Section 315 c. the Fairness Doctrine d. all of the above

10. Which organization circulates material that has been banned or restricted in some countries over the Internet?

a. Google b. Digital Freedom Network c. Napster d. none of the above

11. _____ means that a reporter or editor knew a statement was false and printed it or broadcast it anyway.

a. Libel b. Actual malice c. Qualified privilege d. None of the above

12. Which court case set the contemporary definition of obscenity?

a. Miller v. California b. New York Times v. Sullivan c. Falwell v. Flynt d. Near v. Minnesota

13. What is the purpose of shield laws?

a. to prohibit the press from releasing information about important court cases b. to protect reporters from having to reveal their sources for controversial information c. to block controversial publications before they are distributed d. all of the above

14. During the late 1960s, Jack Valenti established _____.

a. the Motion Picture Production Code b. an industry board to rate movies c. the Mutual Film Company d. none of the above

15. Why did the government outlaw transportation of boxing movies across state lines?

a. because of the violence in these movies b. because of Johnson's race c. because of the Hollywood scandals d. all of the above

16. Which publication named performers, writers, and musicians who were sympathetic to communism?

a. the Miami Herald b. Red Channels c. the Moscow Times d. none of the above

17. In order to work in television or radio, blacklisted performers _____.

a. had to testify against other suspected communists b. needed the support of a sponsor c. took large pay cuts d. all of the above

18. In Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC, the Supreme Court sided with _____.

a. the FCC b. Red Lion Broadcasting c. the Miami Herald d. none of the above

19. According to a Supreme Court ruling, the FCC has the authority to stop broadcasters from airing adult content between _____ and _____.

a. 10 A.M./6 P.M. b. midnight/6 A.M. c. 3 P.M./6 P.M. d. 6 A.M./10 P. M.

20. What did antismoking activist John Banzhaf invoke to force cigarette advertising off television?

816. 
     Summary 1 Read the summary of the section of Chapter 16 titled "The origins of free expression and a free press" and answer the multiple choice questions that follow.
     

817. 
     The origins of free expression and a free press/Film and the First Amendment
     
818. 
     In the United States, we often take for granted our rights of free speech, even as in many countries throughout the world citizens are jailed or killed for speech "violations." In the past decade, more than fifty journalists a year died in the line of duty. And when Americans have been surveyed about the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the majority of respondents were unfamiliar with the amendment's wording and with the exact nature of the freedoms it grants. One key idea underlying the First Amendment stems from the essay Areopagitica by English poet John Milton, author of Paradise Lost. This essay opposed government licenses for printers — a standard practice used to control the circulation of ideas — and advocated a free press. Milton argued that all ideas, even false ones, should circulate freely in a democratic society. In 1695, England stopped licensing newspapers, and most of Europe followed.
     

819. 
     Models for expression and speech
     
820. 
     In 2004, the human rights organization Freedom House reported that about 73 percent of the world's people live in countries with a less than free press, and that 66 nations had virtually no press freedom. Four models for speech and journalism have been used to categorize differing ideas underlying free expression. These models include the authoritarian, communist, libertarian, and social-responsibility concepts, and have been used since the mid-1950s to distinguish levels of freedom granted to citizens. Given the diversity among nations, the experimentation of journalists, and the collapse of many communist press systems, these categories may not be as relevant as they once were; however, they are still useful terms for discussing the press and democracy.
     
821. 
     The authoritarian model developed in sixteenth-century England around the same time as the printing press arrived, as the ruling class believed that the largely illiterate public needed guidance. Government criticism and public dissent were not tolerated and censorship was frequent. Printing licenses were issued primarily to publishers who were sympathetic to government and ruling-class agendas. There are many authoritarian systems operating today, especially in developing countries in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, where leaders believe that too much free speech could undermine the delicate stability of social and political infrastructures.
     

822. 
     The communist or state model puts press control solely in the hands of the government. State leaders believe that they are enlightened and that the press should serve the common goals of the state. Although the communist model was in decline throughout the 1990s, it was still operating in China, Cuba, and North Korea, among other countries.

     The libertarian model is the opposite of the state and authoritarian systems. Libertarians encourage government criticism and support the highest degree of freedom for individual speech and for the press. In North America and Europe, many political and alternative newspapers and magazines operate on such a model.

     
     
     The social-responsibility model is the most popular model of mainstream journalism in the United States. These types of presses are usually privately owned ‒ which keeps them independent of government ‒ but function as the Fourth Estate, or as an unofficial branch of government that monitors the legislative, judicial, and executive branches for abuses of power.
     

823. 
     Censorship as prior restraint
     
824. 
     The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has theoretically prohibited censorship, which the Supreme Court defines as prior restraint. Prior restraint means that courts and governments cannot block any publication or speech before it actually occurs on the principle that a law has not been broken until an illegal act has been committed. For example, in 1931 in Near v. Minnesota, the Supreme Court determined that a Minneapolis newspaper couldn't be stopped from publishing "scandalous and defamatory" material about police officials who were negligent in arresting local gangsters. The Court left open the idea that the media could be ordered to halt publication in exceptional cases, such as if an article threatened national security during a declared war.
     
825. 
     
     
826. 
     An important censorship case was decided in 1971 when, in a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court decided that the New York Times and the Washington Post had a right to publish articles based on a top-secret government study on U.S. involvement in Vietnam since World War II. The study, nicknamed the Pentagon Papers, was leaked in 1971 by Daniel Ellsberg, a former Defense Department employee, with the Vietnam War still in progress. The Nixon administration tried to restrain publication of the documents, arguing that they posed a "clear and present danger" to national security.
     

827. 
     A similar issue was involved in 1979 when the government sued the Progressive and asked a federal district court to block publication of a particular issue of the magazine. The Progressive, a national left-wing magazine, was planning to run an article called "The H-Bomb Secret: How We Got It, Why We're Telling It." The editor of the magazine sent a draft to the Department of Energy to verify technical portions of the article, and the Energy Department, believing the article contained data that might damage U.S. efforts to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons, asked the magazine not to publish it. Judge Robert Warren, in an unprecedented decision, sided with the government, deciding "a mistake in ruling against the United States could pave the way for thermonuclear annihilation for us all." Though the government eventually dropped the case, it was the first time in American history that a prior restraint order stopped the initial publication of a controversial news report.
     

828. 
     Unprotected forms of expression
     
829. 
     Early in our nation's history, the Federalist Party, which controlled Congress, passed the Sedition Act. Led by President John Adams, the Federalists believed that defamatory articles might stir up discontent against the government, and this act was intended to curb criticism of an anticipated war against France. Twenty-five people were arrested and ten were convicted under the act before it expired in 1801 during Thomas Jefferson's presidency. Jefferson, who had challenged the act's constitutionality from the outset, pardoned all defendants convicted under the Sedition Act.
     
830. 
     
     
831. 
     The federal government has created other laws like the Sedition Act, especially during times of war. For example, the Espionage Acts of 1917 and 1918 made it a federal crime to disrupt the nation's war efforts and were enforced during World Wars I and II. Additionally, over the years the courts have determined that some kinds of expression, such as false or misleading advertising and expressions that intentionally threaten public safety, do not merit protection as speech under the constitution.
     

832. 
     In Schenck v. United States, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Socialist Party leader, Charles T. Schenck, for distributing leaflets during World War I that urged American men to protest the draft. This violation of the Espionage Act prompted Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes to interpret the First Amendment in this way: "The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent." By establishing the "clear and present danger" criterion, the Supreme Court demonstrated the limits of the First Amendment. Several other kinds of expression are exceptions to the First Amendment, including copyright infringement, libel, invasion of privacy, and obscenity.
     

833. 
     A copyright legally protects the rights of authors and producers to their published or unpublished writing, music, lyrics, TV programs, movies, or graphic art designs. Recently, file swapping on the Internet raised a new set of copyright concerns. These concerns were addressed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which outlaws technology or actions that circumvent copyright protection systems.
     
     Libel, or the defamation of character in written or broadcast expression, is another form of expression that is not protected as speech under the First Amendment. It is generally defined as a false statement that holds a person up to public ridicule, contempt, or hatred, or injures a person's business or occupation. The 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan case set the standard for libel law. It stemmed from a full-page advertisement placed in the New York Times by the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King Jr. and the Struggle for Freedom in the South, which criticized the law-enforcement tactics of southern cities, including Montgomery, Alabama. The city commissioner of Montgomery, L. B. Sullivan, sued the Times for libel, claiming the ad defamed him indirectly. Alabama courts awarded Sullivan $500,000, but their decision was unanimously reversed by the Supreme Court, which held that Alabama libel law violated the Times's First Amendment rights.
     
834. 
     
     
835. 
     In the Sullivan decision, the Supreme Court established the difference between public officials (in later cases, public figures were added) and private individuals. Public officials are people with substantial responsibilities in conducting government affairs, such as senators, mayors, police detectives, and city managers. While private individuals have to prove that the statement made about them was false, that damages or injury occurred, and that the publisher or broadcaster was negligent, public officials must prove all of those things plus actual malice on the part of the news medium. Actual malice means that the reporter or editor knew the statement was false and printed or broadcast it anyway, or acted with a reckless disregard for the truth. Because actual malice is hard to prove, it remains difficult for public figures to win libel suits. The Supreme Court has distinguished two categories of public figures: 1) public celebrities or people who "occupy positions of such pervasive power and influence that they are deemed public figures for all purposes," and 2) individuals who have thrown themselves into the middle of "a significant public controversy."
     
836. 
     
     
837. 
     The best defense against libel in U.S. civil court has been the truth. If libel defendants can demonstrate that they printed or broadcast true statements, it usually bars plaintiffs from recovering damages. Another defense against libel is qualified privilege. Qualified privilege is an extension of the absolute privilege prosecutors receive in a court of law when they make potentially damaging statements about a defendant's reputation. For example, when prosecutor Marcia Clark accused O. J. Simpson of being a murderer and he was later acquitted, she was protected from libel by absolute privilege. Similarly, the reporters who printed or broadcast her statement were protected from libel. Reporters are allowed to report judicial or legislative proceedings even though the statements being reported may be libelous. Yet another defense against libel is opinion and fair comment. Generally, libel applies only to misstatements of facts, and not opinion. However, as some cases can turn on the hazy line between fact and opinion, lawyers often advise journalists to first set forth the facts on which a viewpoint is based and then state their opinion based on those facts. One of the most famous cases of opinion and fair comment was Falwell v. Flynt, when conservative religious leader Jerry Falwell sued Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt for libel after the November 1983 issue of Hustler spoofed Falwell in a parody of a Campari vermouth ad. Though the jury rejected the $45 million libel suit, they did award Falwell $200,000 for emotional distress in an unprecedented verdict. The ruling was unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court in 1988. The Court suggested that even though the parody might have caused emotional pain, denying the right to publish it would be a violation of the First Amendment.

     Although the right of privacy protects an individual's peace of mind and personal feelings, in general the news media have been granted protections under the First Amendment to subject public figures to the spotlight. Some public figures have been able to legally seek relief. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, for example, successfully sought court orders to keep photographers at a minimum distance. Generally, however, the names and pictures of private individuals and public figures can usually be used without their consent in most news stories. Courts have even ruled that accurate reports of criminal and court records, including the identification of rape victims, do not normally constitute privacy invasion (though most newspapers and broadcast stations follow ethical codes that protect victims and defendants, especially in cases of rape or child abuse).

     
     
838. 
     
     
839. 
     Invasion of privacy addresses a person's right to be left alone, without his or her name, image, or daily activities becoming public property. The most common types of invasion of privacy are: 1) intrusion ‒ the use of unauthorized tape recorders, wiretaps, microphones, or other surveillance equipment to secretly record a person's private affairs; 2) the publication of private matters - unauthorized disclosure of private statements about a person's health, sexual activities, or economic status; and 3) the unauthorized appropriation of a person's name or image for advertising or other commercial benefit.

     While privacy and libel issues are part of civil law, obscenity issues are often prosecuted as criminal offenses. The problem with obscenity law is that it is hard to come to agreement on how to define an obscene work. In the 1860s, a court could judge an entire book obscene if it contained a single passage believed capable of corrupting a person. This changed in the 1930s because of the novel Ulysses by James Joyce. The book was originally banned from publication in the United States, as it contained four-letter words and was considered an obscene work. However, in 1933 a U.S. judge ruled that it was an important literary work and Random House agreed to publish it.

     
     
840. 
     
     
841. 
     Several important court cases have tried to define obscenity. In the 1957 landmark case Roth v. United States, the Supreme Court offered this test for obscenity: if to an "average person," applying "contemporary standards," the thrust or theme of the material, "taken as a whole," was intended to "incite lust." The Roth definition was further refined during the 1973 Miller v. California case, which involved sanctions for using the mail to promote or send pornography. After this case, the Supreme Court argued that an obscene work had to meet three criteria: 1) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find the material as a whole appeals to prurient interest; 2) the material depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and 3) the material, as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. This refinement contained two important ideas: 1) it acknowledged that different communities and regions of the country have different values and standards, and 2) it required that work be judged as a whole ‒ that publishers couldn't insert a political essay or literary poem to demonstrate that their publications contained redeeming features.
     
842. 
     
     First Amendment vs. Sixth Amendment
     
843. 
     Over the years, First Amendment protections of speech and the press have often clashed with the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury. For example, in the 1954 case of Sam Sheppard, a prominent osteopath who was accused of murdering his wife, the Supreme Court overturned his conviction on the basis that Sheppard had not received a fair trial because of prejudicial publicity. The Cleveland press had editorialized in favor of Sheppard's quick arrest and printed lurid details about the murder, and some papers even pronounced him guilty. After the reversal, the Supreme Court suggested safeguards that judges could employ to ensure a fair trial in heavily publicized cases, including sequestering juries, moving cases to other jurisdictions, limiting the number of reporters, seating reporters in a particular place in courtrooms, and placing restrictions, or gag orders, on lawyers and witnesses. Gag orders have been issued to prohibit the press from releasing information that might prejudice jury selection; however, most gag rules have been struck down as a violation of the First Amendment.
     
844. 
     
     
845. 
     Shield laws, in opposition to gag rules, protect the First Amendment rights of reporters by protecting them from having to reveal their sources for controversial information used in news stories. By 2000, thirty states had enacted some type of shield law, though in a few states, these laws do not protect reporters who have been subpoenaed in grand-jury investigations.
     
846. 
     Another recent legal issue is the presence of cameras in the courtroom. By the mid-1990s, TV cameras had become central to public discussion of our legal system, and many judges and lawyers believed that the presence of cameras made the judicial system more accountable and helped the public learn how U.S. law operated. In the early 1980s, the Supreme Court ruled that TV equipment in the courtroom did not make it impossible for a fair trial to occur and left the matter up to the states to decide. In 1991, U.S. federal courts began allowing limited coverage of trials, though the Supreme Court still bans TV from its proceedings. Court TV, a cable channel anchored by experienced legal reporters, debuted in 1991, carrying live and taped coverage of trials from around the United States. The channel was selected to provide the one "pool" camera allowed at the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, though Judge Lance Ito threatened to pull the plug on at least two occasions ‒ when the camera briefly panned across an alternate juror and when he thought the camera had zoomed in too tightly on the defendant taking notes.
     
847. 
     
     
848. 
     Televising the criminal trial of O.J. Simpson contributed to the democratic process in at least two important ways. First, it gave many people a sustained glimpse into the strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. legal system. Second, the TV trial focused national attention on the problems of spousal abuse, racial tension, and the need for judicial reform.
     

849. 
     Film and the first amendment
     
850. 
     When the First Amendment was ratified in 1791, our nation's leaders could not have predicted the advent of film and television, so new technologies have not always received the same kind of protection as those granted to speech, pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, and books. For example, movies did not earn speech protection under the law until a 1952 Supreme Court decision.
     
851. 
     
     

852. 
     Social and political pressure on the movies
     
853. 
     The rising popularity of movies spurred the formation of censorship groups, which believed that movies would threaten children, incite violence, and undermine morality. Concern about movies stemmed from both conservatives, who saw movies as a potential threat to the authority of traditional institutions, and progressives, who worried that children and adults were more attracted to movie houses than to social organizations and urban education centers. Civic leaders in many locations organized review boards that screened movies for their communities, and by 1920 more than ninety cities in the United States had some type of movie-censorship board made up of vice-squad officers, politicians, or citizen groups. Support mounted for a federal censorship bill after Jack Johnson became the first black boxing heavyweight champion in 1908. In 1912, the government outlawed transportation of boxing movies across state lines. This law had more to do with Johnson's race than with violence in movies.

     The first Supreme Court decision regarding film's protection under the First Amendment was handed down in 1915 in the Mutual v. Ohio case. The Mutual Film Company of Detroit sued the state of Ohio, whose review board had censored a number of the distributor's films. The Supreme Court ruled that film was not a form of speech, but a "business pure and simple."

     
     
854. 
     
     
855. 
     As the film industry began to grow after World War I, the pressure of review boards began to concern studio executives who wanted to ensure control over their economic well-being. In response to a series of scandals that rocked Hollywood in the early 1920s, the movie industry formed the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) and hired former postmaster general and Republican National Committee chair Will Hays as its president. Nicknamed the Hays Office, the MPPDA attempted to smooth out problems between the public and the industry.
     

856. 
     The Motion Picture Production Code
     
857. 
     In the early 1930s, faced with scrutiny by conservative and religious groups as well as deteriorating economic conditions during the Great Depression, the Hays Office established the Motion Picture Production Code in an attempt to tighten self-regulation and keep harmful public pressure at bay. The code stipulated that "No picture shall be produced which will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of crime, wrong-doing, evil, or sin." In addition, the code included a section on profanity, outlawing a long list of phrases and topics. For example, producers of Gone with the Wind had to seek a special dispensation so that actor Clark Gable could say "damn." The code was adopted by 95 percent of the industry, and it influenced nearly every movie made between the mid-1930s and the early 1950s. However, when television arrived, movie producers were forced to compete by exploring more adult subjects.

     In 1952, film was finally granted the same protections as print media and other forms of speech. When the New York Film Licensing Board banned Roberto Rossellini's film Il Miracolo (The Miracle) because some New York City religious and political leaders considered the film sacrilegious, the distributor sued, arguing that censoring the film constituted illegal prior restraint because such an action could not be imposed on a print version of the story. The Supreme Court agreed, declaring movies "a significant medium for the communication of ideas."

     
     
858. 
     
     
859. 
     Rating movie content
     
860. 
     The current movie rating system developed in the late 1960s, when the industry hired Jack Valenti to run the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America, formerly the MPPDA). In 1968 he established an industry board to rate movies, and G, PG, R, and X ratings emerged as guideposts for the suitability of films for various age groups. In 1984, PG-13 was added between PG and R to distinguish slightly higher levels of violence or adult themes in movies that might otherwise be PG. The X rating was gradually appropriated as a promotional tool by the pornography industry, and the MPAA stopped issuing it. In 1990, the industry added the NC-17 rating for films with adult sexual themes that they did not consider pornography, though films with this rating have yet to become commercially viable.

     1. In 2004, about _____ percent of the world's people live in countries with a less than free press.

     
     
861. 
     
     
862. 
     a. 66 b. 73 c. 20 d. 40
     

863. 
     2. The Near v. Minnesota case is an example of _____.
     

864. 
     a. obscenity law b. libel c. prior restraint d. copyright law

     3. The _____ made it a federal crime to disrupt the nation's war efforts.

     
     

865. 
     a. Sedition Act b. Espionage Acts c. First Amendment d. none of the above
     

866. 
     4. In response to a series of Hollywood scandals in the early 1920s, the industry formed the _____.
     

867. 
     a. New York Film Licensing Board b. Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America c. Supreme Court d. Mutual Film Company

     5. The Motion Picture Production Code was adopted by _____ of the industry.

     
     

868. 
     a. 15 percent b. 50 percent c. 95 percent d. 75 percent
     

869. 
     Summary 2 Read the summaries of the sections of Chapter 16 titled "Expression over the airwaves" and "The Internet, expression, and democracy" and answer the multiple choice questions that follow.
     

870. 
     Expression over the airwaves/The Internet, expression, and democracy
     During the Cold War, Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin, tried to rid government and the media of communist subversives. In 1950, a publication inspired by McCarthy's crusade, called Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television, named 151 performers, writers, and musicians who were "sympathetic" to communist causes, including Leonard Bernstein, Lillian Hellman, Arthur Miller, Lena Horne, Dorothy Parker, and Pete Seeger. For a time, all were banned from working in television and radio ‒ even though no one on the list was charged with a crime ‒ because network executives sympathized with the anticommunist movement or feared losing ad revenue. Blacklisted performers required the support of a sponsor in order to work. For example, Phillip Morris's sponsorship allowed Lucille Ball to continue working on her popular program I Love Lucy even though she had registered to vote as a communist in the 1930s.
     

871. 
     The blacklisting demonstrated key differences between print and broadcast protection under the First Amendment. While licenses for printers and publishers have been outlawed since the eighteenth century, commercial broadcasters actually asked for government regulation of the airwaves, as they wanted the government to clear up technical problems, channel noise, noncommercial competition, and amateur interference. Ever since, broadcasters have been trying to free themselves from government intrusion.
     
872. 
     
     
873. 
     FCC rules, broadcasting, and indecency
     
874. 
     Two cases further demonstrate the legal differences between print and broadcast journalism ‒ Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC (1969) and Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo (1974). In the Red Lion case, operators of a small-town station in Red Lion, Pennsylvania, refused to give airtime to an author who had been criticized by a conservative radio preacher. The author, Fred Cook, asked for response time to refute the criticism, and the Red Lion station offered only to sell him the time. Cook appealed to the FCC, which ordered the station to give Cook the free time; however, the station refused on the basis that its First Amendment rights granted it control over program content. The Supreme Court sided with the FCC, deciding that whenever a broadcaster's rights conflict with the public interest, it is the public interest that is paramount. This reaffirmed that broadcasters' responsibilities to program in the public interest can outweigh their rights to program whatever they want.

     Five years later, the Supreme Court sided with a newspaper in a case with a very similar issue. A political candidate, Pat Tornillo Jr., requested space in the Miami Herald to reply to an editorial opposing his candidacy. Florida had a right-to-reply law, which permitted a candidate to respond in print to editorial criticisms from newspapers. However, in this case the Court struck down the Florida law as unconstitutional, arguing that mandating that a newspaper give a candidate space to reply violated the paper's First Amendment rights to publish what it chose to publish.

     
     
875. 
     
     
876. 
     Although today it would be considered tame, topless radio in the 1960s featured deejays and callers discussing intimate sexual subjects in the middle of the afternoon. The government curbed this in 1973, as the chairman of the FCC denounced topless radio as a "new breed of air pollution." Topless radio came back in the 1980s with doctors and therapists offering intimate counsel. In theory, communication law should prevent this kind of government censorship, as the government cannot engage in prior restraint, though it may punish broadcasters after the fact.
     

877. 
     Concerns over indecent radio broadcasts date from 1937, when NBC was scolded by the FCC after a racy sketch featured Mae West. The current precedent for regulating radio indecency stems from a complaint to the FCC in 1973 about the WBAI (New York) broadcast of George Carlin's famous comedy album about the seven dirty words that could not be uttered by broadcasters. The FCC sent WBAI a reprimand, and the station appealed on principle and won its court case. The FCC appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Court upheld the agency's authority to require broadcasters to air adult programming at later times (broadcasters could not air adult content between 6 A.M. and 10 P.M.). In 1990, the FCC tried to ban adult programming entirely, but a federal court ruled this move unconstitutional, though the court did uphold the time restrictions.
     
     Political broadcasts and equal opportunity
     
878. 
     Yet another law that affects broadcast but not print media is Section 315 of the 1934 Communications Act, which mandates that during elections, broadcasters must provide equal opportunities and response time for qualified political candidates. Supporters of this law argue that it provides a forum for lesser-known candidates and that it is one of the few ways for alternative candidates to circulate their messages. Broadcasters have fought this law because it often requires them to include poorly funded third-party candidates in political discussions, and because of this rule many stations avoid political programming altogether. TV networks managed to get the law amended in 1959 to exempt newscasts, press conferences, and other events that qualify as news.
     
879. 
     
     
880. 
     The demise of the Fairness Doctrine
     
881. 
     The Fairness Doctrine, an FCC rule that was introduced in 1949, required stations 1) to air and engage in controversial-issue programs that affected their communities, and 2) when offering such programming, to provide competing points of view. For example, antismoking activist John Banzhaf invoked the Fairness Doctrine to force cigarette advertising off television in 1971. The FCC decided that smoking commercials were "controversial" and mandated antismoking public-service announcements. Tobacco companies accepted a ban on commercials rather than tolerate a flood of antismoking spots.
     
882. 
     
     
883. 
     In 1987, a federal court ruled that the Fairness Doctrine was merely a regulation rather than an extension of Section 315. Broadcasters argued that presenting opposing views every time a program covered a controversial issue was a burden not required of the print media. By the mid-1990s, broadcasters were increasingly demanding the same First Amendment rights as the print media, and this pressure, combined with a belief that a free market can solve most economic problems, allowed a relaxing of the rules governing broadcasting and cable.
     
884. 
     
     
885. 
     If this deregulation accelerates, public and noncommercial broadcast outlets could be in trouble. Public broadcasting faced severe cutbacks in the mid-1990s. Although Congress in 1996 mandated that broadcast networks carry three hours of educational programs a week, public radio and television still carry the bulk of this type of programming.
     
     The Internet, expression, and democracy
     
886. 
     Critics of U.S. tolerance of speech and expression charge that these freedoms favor corporate interests and media industries. For example, it is much easier for large corporations like Disney or General Motors to buy commercial speech than it is for smaller grassroots organizations.
     
     Communication policy on the Internet
     
887. 
     Current global expansion of the Internet is comparable to the early days of broadcasting ‒ economic and technological growth are outstripping law and regulation. In much the same way as in early broadcasting, "amateurs," students, and various interest groups have extended the communication possibilities of the Internet, and now commercial vendors are racing to get involved. Unlike the last serious public debate on mass-media ownership (during the early 1930s), public conversations about the Internet have not been about ownership questions but have instead focused on First Amendment issues such as civility and pornography on the Internet. The scrutiny of the Internet is mainly about harmful images and information, not about who controls it and for what purposes.
     
888. 
     
     
889. 
     As the Internet expands, the question that confronts us is "Will the Internet continue to develop democratically rather than hierarchically, evading government or corporate plans to contain it, change it, and closely monitor who has access?" Such serious questions of ownership may be ignored by the news media, as it is not in their economic interest to organize or lead such a debate because most major print and broadcast owners are heavily invested in the Internet. Critics hope that a vigorous debate will develop beyond First Amendment issues. And actually, the promise of the Internet as a democratic forum has been realized by many regional, national, and global interest groups. The Digital Freedom Network, for example, circulates material that has been banned or restricted in certain countries, and the Network also sends e-mail notices to members and helps them easily send letters of protest to international officials.
     
890. 
     
     Watchdog citizens
     
891. 
     For most of our nation's history, citizens have counted on journalism to monitor abuses in government and business. However, stories on business issues today are usually reduced to consumer-affairs reporting. Discussions about media ownership or labor-management ethics are not usually part of the news because journalists have been compromised by the ongoing frenzy of media mergers among newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, and Internet corporations. Taking this into consideration, it becomes even more important that the role of civic watchdog be played by citizens as well as journalists. We need to stay engaged in spirited public debates about media ownership and control, about the differences between commercial speech and free expression, and about who is included and excluded from shaping our cultural landscape.

     1. Whose crusade against communism inspired the publication of Red Channels?

     
     
892. 
     
     
893. 
     a. Lillian Hellman b. Fred Cook c. Joseph McCarthy d. George Carlin
     

894. 
     2. In the 1960s, the type of radio show that featured deejays and callers discussing intimate sexual subjects was called _____.
     

895. 
     a. indecent radio b. topless radio c. air pollution d. none of the above
     
896. 
     3. Section 315 of the 1934 Communications Act mandates that _____.
     

897. 
     a. during elections broadcasters must provide equal opportunities for qualified candidates b. broadcasters must air adult programming at later times c. stations must air and engage in controversial-issue programs in their community d. all of the above
     

898. 
     4. In 1996, Congress mandated that broadcast networks must carry _____ hours of educational programming a week.
     

899. 
     a. 1 b. 10 c. 5 d. 3
     

900. 
     5. Public debate about the Internet has focused on _____.
     

901. 
     a. ownership issues b. First Amendment issues c. commercial opportunities d. none of the above
     

902. 
     (http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/mediaculture/pages/bcs-main.asp ?v =chapter&s =16000&n=00030&i=16030.01&o=|00020|0003 0|)
     

903. 
     III. Text reviewing
     
904. 
     
     
905. 
     Review the sections "The origins of free expression and a free press", "Expression over the airwaves" and "The Internet, expression, and democracy" in your textbook. When you are ready, write a brief paragraph-length response to each of the questions that follow.
     

1. 
   Name and describe the four models that characterize speech and journalism.
   
2. 
   How did the Motion Picture Production Code affect the movies?
   
3. 
   Describe and give an example of the Fairness Doctrine.
   
4. 
   Describe the ways in which the Digital Freedom Network utilizes the Internet as a democratic forum.
   

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