Week 10: Media Ethics/Media Law

A 2009 Copyright case involved Disney and the character Winnie the Pooh. Apparently, the case has been ongoing for 18 years. Disney fought for 18 years to keep their copyright rights of Winnie the Pooh and all of his friend in the hundred acre woods. Stephen Slesinger is the British creator of the comic book character of Winnie the Pooh and his family gave up rights to the character and his friends of the Hundred Acre Wood after he passed away. However, in 1991, they decided that they got the short end of the stick and wanted to sue Disney for copyright. However, Disney finally won the case this year, 2009, of all copyright rights of Winnie the Pooh and all of his friends of the Hundred Acre Woods.

You can read the entire story about it here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/sep/30/winnie-the-pooh-disney-law-suit

Week 9: Propaganda in Advertising/PR

I propose a PR campaign called "Remain Abstinent." I would use virtue words such as wise to lure the younger generation into agreeing that it was smart to remain abstinent. I would also stereotype those who have sex at a young age by saying they are all trashy and stupid, so it wouldn't appeal to people. I would use repetition and keep repeating the words abstinent as often as i could. I would make an appeal to fear and scare the young people so they won't want to have sex by telling them things like how many people die from STD's and how many people have babies even if they do wear condoms and are on birth control. Some of this would have to be "half-truths" as well.

Week 8: Electronic News

I watched Kron 4 news for about a half hour. There were stories on the Oprah Winfrey show going off air in 2011, a gang-rape at a highschool that happened weeks ago, and some short coverage on the controversial idea of a movie being made about the girl who was kidnapped and raised by a crazy man. Every 8 minutes, there was a weather and traffic report that last about 3 minutes so the actual news only got about 12 minutes of time on the air. Advertisements came on every couple of minutes and lasted about a minute or two. There wasn't much sports on the news, but there was some "happy talk" going on between the anchors that was not valuable to viewers. The lead story was about the Oprah show going off air in 2011 and I think it was the lead story because she had been around for so many years and the show is the most popular show of the 20th century. The show has feautured every well-known guest that has had an interesting story and has adressed a broad range of issues. The anchors talked about the closing of the show in a very monotone voice but the words were sad.

Week 7: Internet

I found 11,731 results for social working websites on wikipedia.org. I have only heard of facebook, myspace, friendster, linkedin and twitter. They were all listed here. I had never heard of LiveJournal because I have never blogged before now. It is a social website where you can keep a blog, or journal online and share it with whoever you want to. I use these websites to keep in touch with my friends and family by writing to them and sharing pictures with them. I use facebook very often and myspace sometimes. One time, I did not have my phone at home with me and I do not keep a record of friend's and family's phone numbers, so I couldn't call my friend to tell him that I had left my phone in his car. Then, I went on facebook, and his number was on his profile page so I used my house phone to call him and he dropped my phone off to me. This is when facebook really helped me!