COMM371/Week3

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Contents 1 To do 2 Takeaways 2.1 Reno 2.2 Schenk, Brandenberg 3 Reno 3.1 Internet, personal computing context (Kevin) (20min) 3.2 Socratic (Julien) 3.3 Discussion 4 Schenk, 1919 (~45min) 4.1 Historical context (Kevin) (15) 4.2 Socratic (Julien) 5 Brandenburg, 1969 (~45min) 5.1 Historical context 5.2 Socratic (Julien) 5.3 Applying the rule 5.4 Open discussion

To do

• Portable mic
• EMail students to sit in front row
• Attendance form

Takeaways

Reno

• Chilling effects
• Lessig code/law
  • How is "cyberspace" different from other media technologies?
  • Is "cyberspace" unregulable?
• Only address obscenity if it comes up in discussion

Schenk, Brandenberg

• Schenk test: "clear and present danger"
  • Holmes' quote
• Brandenburg test: "imminent lawless action"
• Application of these tests
• Ability to think through contemporary questions
  • Patriot act
  • "Incitement", threats during campaign

Reno

Internet, personal computing context (Kevin) (20min)

• On one hand, the internet is experienced in fashion that reveals its apparatus
  • Opportunity for critical inquiry
  • But very few people DO or COULD take this approach
  • SCOTUS thinks critically, does its homework
• Protocol, software
  • Narrative of home internet use in 1996
  • Compare to internet use in 2010 (esp. mobile, laptop, wifi, browser, broadband)
  • Meaning of "protocol", (Galloway)
    • e.g. http://
  • What are other uses of the term "protocol"?
  • Term "handshake" used in data transfer protocols
• Lessig code is law/ model
  • Understands the technology
  • This video up to "Why do we need the EFF?": http://www.lessig.org/content/av/1-day1-larry-1of4-sm.mov
• For our project: Must a judge achieve a certain level of expertise before working on cases concerning media technology?
  • Is it enough to speak to experts?

Socratic (Julien)

Conclude with Julien 10 minute monologue about Reno

• A lens for all the issues we're going look at through the course
• Court methodology
• How do these issues play out when we change the tech

Discussion

• Pacifica, persuasion
• Trade-offs, do we trade information about breast cancer w/

Schenk, 1919 (~45min)

Historical context (Kevin) (15)

Media artifacts

• "So they tell me", humor, animation, 1916, http://www.archive.org/details/SoTheyTe1916
• IWW poster soliticing draftees:
• Air war, http://www.gwpda.org/photos/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=5&pos=5
• Trench war, http://www.gwpda.org/photos/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=13&pos=136
• Radio, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RadioPreparation1918.gif

Globalization anxieties

• U.S. identity in flux
  • Immigration from Europe and Asia
    • Religious differences: Catholics, Jews
    • Pseudo-science asserting fundamental differences among these people
  • Migration from east to west
  • Communication technologies changing notions of regionalism
    • Telegraphy, telephony
    • Railroad, automobile
    • Wireless radio
    • Cinema
• Labor response to industrial revolution
  • Specifically syndicalist organizations like the IWW
• U.S. involvement in WWI
  • "America Goes Over", 1918, http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=mediatype%3Amovies%20AND%20collection%3Aprelinger%20AND%20subject%3A%22World%20War%20I%22
  • How many people were going? What was it like back home?
  • Widespread hysteria
  • Fear of, discrimination against Germans
  • Lewis: Burning German language textbooks in a high school
• Espionage Act 1917, Sedition Act 1918
  • Federal law inspired by a Montana state law
  • Montana law used to arrest all sorts of people complaining, jawing, some of them drunk in bars!

Socratic (Julien)

• Evaluating the Espionage Act
• "Schenk test"
  • Free Speech cannot protect "shouting fire in a theatre" and "causing a panic"
    • Creating a "clear and present danger" that "Congress has a right to prevent"
• Restate in terms of methodology

Brandenburg, 1969 (~45min)

Historical context

• Berkeley in the 60s
  • What happened between 1918 and 1960?

• No specific military conflict
• Yet pervasive fear of Communism
  • Speech is being "chilled" by the lingering Schenk test

• What is House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)?
  • Hollywood blacklists, 1947
  • Decline after the radicalizing "riot" in Berkeley, 1960

1960s

• Social movements
  • Civil rights movement
  • Free speech movmement
  • Anti-war movement

• New SCOTUS
  • SCOTUS overturns the Schenk test

Socratic (Julien)

• KKK leader arrested because someone makes horrible statements during a rally
• SCOTUS reverses the "clear and present danger" test
  • Would the speech inspire "imminent lawless action"
• "Brandenburg test", can protect hate speech
  • Can say: "All blue-eyed people suck"
  • Can't say: "Go get THAT blue-eyed person"

Applying the rule

GWAR video

• Apply Brandenberg: is this incitement?

Palin effigy

• Apply Brandenberg: is this incitement?

Open discussion

Consider post-9/11 hysteria

• Media stops showing caskets
  • Socratic/Julien: Was it legal to show caskets under Schenk?
  • Brandenberg?
  • Discussion on the caskets
    • Responsibility of the media?
    • Fearful culture?
    • Why would the media make this decision?
• Can students think of situations in which speech was limited?