By Gayle Golden
A lot has happened in journalism and communications in 2017.
You might say it's been huge.
So for a final blog post this semester, I asked a few HSJMC faculty members to help us navigate by reflecting on the year's events and offering thoughts on an issue in journalism or communications from 2017 that would make good fodder for class discussions -- especially during this final week of the semester.
The responses were varied and intriguing, as one would expect from a faculty with the same qualities. We've seen issues about entrapping journalists to net neutrality to big data to corporate activism, chat apps and social media diplomacy. You'll find all their thoughts here. We've also included resources you can use if you want to move any of this into the classroom.
Project Veritas' Hoax Attempt on WaPo
Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law Jane
Kirtley said she would pick the recent Project Veritas' attempt to hoax the Washington Post into believing a woman's false claim she was a childhood victim of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore -- and why the hoax failed.
"It's a
rich, rich topic ranging from deception in the course of 'news gathering' by so-called journalists who are really working for advocacy groups, to how news organizations fact-check, to whether there are appropriate legal sanctions -- the New York Attorney General is talking about
suspending Project Veritas' license to do fundraising in the state -- to altering videos to FAKE NEWS," Kirtley says. "It's a textbook example of how journalists should (and do) practice what Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel call the "journalism of verification." But it also could be used to discuss whether undercover techniques are
ever justified -- when and why and under what conditions. Even the issue raised by Marty Baron about why the Washington Post did not feel bound by its reporter's promise of anonymity is good fodder for discussion."
What's your trustworthiness score?
"It is an important topic about big data, distributed trust, and
international contexts." Belair-Gagnon says. "The connection with my new media and culture
course is obvious, but from a journalistic standpoint, it is a story that shows
how the technological materiality and the application of
technology, as well as the agency of users, leads to different
contexts or even forms of reporting, which I think is relevant to teach to our
journalism students who will go on reporting with these tools."
Tweets and pizza dances
For Associate Professor Giovanna Dell'Orto, two things come to mind. The first one? "President Trump's
use of tweets for major policy statements (and everything else, too)," she says. "Scholars
have debated for a while what social media would do to diplomacy, but this is a
whole new level. The North Korea case is a good example."
The second example, she says, doesn't really involve history or international affairs, which are her areas of specialization. "A student brought up one other issue in
my class that I thought it raised all sorts of good questions straddling journalism
and strategic communications: the whole NFL anthem protests/PapaJohn's
controversy, specifically the social media frenzy after the pizza mogul blamed
the protests for a drop in sales, and then (and this is the crucial part for
our purposes) tried to dig itself out of the hole by tweeting: "We will
work with the players and league to find a positive way forward. Open to ideas
from all. Except neo-nazis — those guys." In class we had just discussed
the concepts of freedom of expression and whether any limits apply, and that's
why the student brought up the tweet."
Science, politics and the public
Assistant Professor Rebekah Nagler offers some broad considerations for how this year has challenged how we think and discuss scientific evidence. "In my context courses, I
underscore how important it is for us not only to understand scientific
evidence, but to appreciate that, for a multitude of reasons, science and
health (and the very notion of evidence) are increasingly becoming
politicized. We talk about the origins of and explanations for
this phenomenon -- discussions of biased processing (in other words, motivated
reasoning) are central to this conversation -- as well as potential
solutions/interventions. A few readings that might be of interest, though there
are many more: on effectively communicating a research agenda, on education around climate change and on the public perception of science.
Corporate conscience?
Assistant Professor Amy O'Connor is struck by the number of corporations who have taken public stands on controversial social issues.
"It's interesting because a number
of the companies are not known for being social issue advocates." O'Connor says. "Notable was Lumber 84 ads during the Super Bowl regarding the company's
opposition to the border wall. More recently, Patagonia and REI have made public statements about their opposition to the Trump
administration's take back of public lands. Other companies have equivocated
(e.g., Keurig and their rebuke of Sean Hannity.)"
Why is this big? "Corporations commonly reserve their opinions
for non-controversial issues. I think we are seeing a new era when corporations
are willing to enter into public discussion about issues that are
controversial. This could be a big game changer in terms of
influencing public opinion, challenging different public policies, and
re-orienting what corporate social responsibility means."
More on corporate activism
Steve Wehrenberg, a teaching professor of
strategic communication, sees the same trend among corporate action on social
issues as a great a discussion topic. That proved true this fall when he introduced
the topic of corporate brand activism while substituting in the Professional
M.A. course Factors
in Strategic Communication. “We brought in one of our alumni, Maggie
Collette, who wrote her Capstone paper on the topic. And we also brought
in Jim Scott, whose agency Mono, has done that type of advertising for Walmart,”
Wehrenberg says.
“Mono had quickly produced a TV spot for their client at the
CEO's behest right after the Charlottesville incidents and Trump's response to
them. Walmart's CEO had resigned from Trump's CEO council and wanted to
make a statement. Maggie's research, however, showed that a lot of consumers
think it's weird for a brand to take a stand on political issues, even when
they agree with it. We had a pretty robust and fun discussion about the topic,
which is evolving pretty fast. To me this is a great issue for us to explore in
courses like Campaigns and Account Planning.”
Chatty sources
The continued growth of chat apps is on the mind of Assistant Professor Colin Agur. In particular, he is thinking and writing a great deal about the challenges reporters face when chat apps become an important source of information -- for example, when reporting on political unrest.
"In the coming years, journalists will make more extensive use of mobile chat apps for sourcing and news gathering, and the features and culture of existing and yet-to-be-created chat apps will create new challenges for reporting " Agur says in an upcoming book based on interviews with reporters covering political unrest in Hong Kong and China.
Among those challenges: The apps will become more hybrid, more multifaceted, more closed and harder to access. Content will disappear by design, as it does with Snapchat. "And due to the popularity and convenience of chat apps, they will be the preferred sites for protest organizers and for dissemination of protest-related content. More and more critical discussions (protest planning and coordination) will take place on chat apps." As a result, he writes, "these spaces will be of greater significance to reporters."
Sexual harassment ethics
The growing number of sexual harassment allegations in entertainment, politics, media and elsewhere presents ethical and reporting challenges, says Teaching Associate
Professor Chris Ison.
"My reporting class has discussed how to cover sexual harassment allegations and whether to report them. We talked about how to negotiate the pressure to believe
women when they come forward against best practices in reporting, which requires us to question those
who come forward and ensure we have appropriate evidence before publishing.
It's one of those cases when sound ethics requires sound reporting, and vice
versa."
Net Neutrality Lost?
Net neutrality was the biggest communication news of 2017 for Assistant Professor Chris Terry – specifically, the November announcement by the Federal Communication Commission to repeal net neutrality
rules that required broadband providers to give consumers equal access to internet
content. That FCC decision
to repeal a 2015 Title II order, once it's implemented and past judicial review, "will
fundamentally alter the internet as we know it today,” Terry says. “Content
production, distribution and the ability and methods used to access content
online are all about to undergo a radical transformation.”
It's an important issue that will face a vote Dec. 14. So if you want the lowdown from Terry, here are a few questions with
his answers about the key issues:
Why is the FCC doing this?
“The
action to repeal the order is being done now to stay ahead of the appeal of US
Telecom v FCC to the Supreme Court. The courts have upheld the 2015 decision by
the agency twice on appeal. If the U.S. Supreme Court were to do the same, revoking that
order would be problematic for the agency. This is not being discussed openly
in much of the media on the topic.”
Why will this fundamentally alter the internet
as we know it today?
“Everyone is used to the idea that they can simply access
whatever content they desire at any time using a relatively stable process. If
the provisions of the draft order become the regulatory approach of the FCC,
that will no longer be the case. Comcast has a documented history of blocking
certain content and applications, and Verizon said it would already be doing
so if it were not for the various (net neutrality) regulations that have been in place between
2005 and 2017.
So I guess this means costs will go up, right? Can you explain?
“There are
three sets of players in the internet environment. End users: the consumers,
you and me. Providers: The ISPs (Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, etc) and "edge providers" (websites not owned or operated by an ISP). Currently the ISP connects the end
user to the edge provider and makes no choices about that connection. In other
words, the user (you or I) is in charge. But after the Title II rules go away,
the ISP will be able to dictate which edge providers are available, what speed you
can access those sites at, and whether you can access them at all. Since in
many areas ISPs are left over monopolies of the local cable franchises, you'll
have little opportunity to find another, competitive provider. If Netflix or something similar doesn't pay the tax for a
fast lane, it will become unusable (as it did in 2014). That means an increase
in cost to a consumer, both for the tax Netflix has to pay to the ISPs, and
from the ISPs who will able to charge the consumer more to use a service like
Netflix that competes with a service the ISP owns as part of its integrated
structure.”
Aside from cost, is there a more fundamental concern?
“This is fundamentally a debate between who gets to choose the
content. In the current neutral model, the consumer has the ability to decide
what content or applications to access. In the proposed model, your ISP will be
able to make that decision for you as long as it explains to you that it is
doing so. Problematically, ISPs are not state actors, so the First Amendment
would not protect either people who wish to speak nor people who choose to
receive speech/content. In practical terms, that means your ISP becomes its own
board of censorship, and consumers have little to no ability to challenge the
decisions made by the ISP on what content is available.”
On that note, from all of us at HSJMC, we wish
you a very happy and peaceful holiday with family and friends. Thank you for all the hard work you've done with our students. We'll see you in the spring.
The university is switching its online course management system from Moodle to Canvas, which is really pretty easy once you get the hang of it. To make change easier, IT staff is holding an online training session on Jan. 4 from noon to 1:30 p.m. on the basics of using Canvas. I urge all adjuncts to register for it at Discover Canvas: Basics Workshop.
