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75 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
The world is experiencing a transformation in the ways people make and exchange information through electronic communications. In information societies, many workers are involved in creating and managing information rather than engaging in hard physical labor, which is increasingly automated.
Information Society
Text on a computer screen that corresponds exactly to the print-out: What you see is what you get.
WYSIWGY
Systems that involve two-way communication. The information receivers act as senders and visa versa.
Interactive
A small computer using a microprocessor as its central processor.
Microcomputer
A measure of memory size equal to 1,024 bytes.
Kilobyte
Software that is designed for use by individuals who are not familiar with complex computer languages.
User-friendly
A program that tells the computer how to behave. DOS and Windows, produced by Microsoft, dominate the world market for operating systems. The Macintosh operating system is second, used by about 1/10 as many machines as the Microsoft systems.
Operating System
Software that allows for organization and tabulation of financial data; commonly used in planning budgets.
Spreadsheet
Software for recording data. Data can be sorted into categories and reports printed in carious forms. Used by businesses that need to sort customers by zip code, for example
Database
Arrangement on the screen imitates a desktop.
Graphical User Interface (GUI)
The computer has paved the way for the development of the information-based economy in which a large portion of the national product is accounted for through production of information for entertainment, investing, and economic decision making.
Information-based Society
Computers that are connected by communications lines. The computers may be connected within a restricted geographic area, such as a laboratory in a mass communication program. This network is a local area network (LAN). The internet networks millions of computers worldwide through telephone and fiber-optic lines.
Network
Only some people - for example, those with higher incomes, education levels, or connections to institutions - will have access to digitized information as is found through computer networking.
Digital Divide
Programming code that is freely available to anyone to use and manipulate.
Open Source Code
A period of inflated expansion of new internet business in the late 1990's.
dot.com bubble
Device used to connect computers to the internet and other online services that operate through cable, rather than telephone lines.
Cable Modem
Telephone lines that foster extremely fast connection to the internet and other online services.
DSL
Software programs accessed over the internet. SaaS providers make money either through usage fees or advertising.
Software as a Service
Courts have ruled people have a right to privacy, but sometimes that right conflicts with the need to find those who abuse access to free communication over the Internet.
Privacy and Anonymity
In the early days of the internet, regulation was compared to law in the Wild West - there wasn't much. As more people used the internet, pressures to make money increase, the issues of security evolve, and regulation has grow. However, the extent and nature of the internet regulation continues to be an issue in courts and legislatures and will be for years to come.
Regulation in the Information Age
Shopping online is a growing trend that may change the retail industry worldwide.
e-commerce
In the early 2000's, new internet companies and new Web applications emphasize greater interactivity and user contributions to content. Web 2.0 companies began to amass important databases of information.
Web 2.0
A data file that notifies users of updates to webpage contents.
RSS
A method for users to label the content they create with identifying words and phrases.
Folksonomy
Portable digital devices have freed users from fixed computers. with nomadic computing they can use mobile devices to access computer networks form almost anywhere.
Nomadic Computing
Some computer scientists envision a world in which the environment is saturated with computer chips. Pervasive computing, also called ubiquitous computing, refers to the integration of chips and other digital technologies into ordinary objects.
Pervasive Computing
Making ethical decisions has been a concern of journalists since at least the early twentieth century, when many reporters wanted to be among the emerging groups of professionals. However, attempts to determine exactly what standards of conduct and moral judgment constitute ethical behavior have resulted in a continuing debate rather that absolute standards.
Ethical Decision Making
Pattern of behavior for disseminating information as news; incorporates values such as objectivity over partisanship.
Information Model
The wide variety of the theoretical approaches to ethical decision making indicates how hard it is to create ethical standards that apply to all situations. Some theorists argue that this is impossible, that decisions must be made within a specific context. Other suggest that overarching rules can provide contexts within which specific circumstances can be evaluated.
Theoretical Approaches to Ethics
A code of ethics that allows no deviation from its rules.
Absolute Ethics
A measurement of how well a journalist or media organization is trusted. If a high percentage of the public perceives a journalist as truthful, that person has credibility.
Credibility
Credibility, or a measurement of how trustworthy a journalist or media organization is considered to be, is not just an ethical issue but also an economic one. Some critics believe that for a news organization to remain profitable over time, the public must view it as credible.
Credibility as an Economic Incentive for Ethics
Although most individuals and groups agree on a few fundamental ethical standards, they often disagree about specifics and about whether fundamental standards are met. The commonly agreed-on standards are accuracy, fairness, balance, accurate representation, and truth.
Fundamental Ethical Standards
The recording, selecting, and weighing of facts to provide a truthful account.
Accuracy
Reporting facts without bias or prejudice, including a deliberate attempt to avoid interpretation.
Objectivity
Providing equal or nearly equal coverage of various points of view in a controversy.
Journalistic Balance
Posing that which is false to be true.
Fakery
Along with government officials and others in positions of responsibility, journalists are under pressure to avoid allowing personal activities or interests to interfere with their professional responsibilities. Journalists have an obligation to strive for unbiased coverage of an event or situation.
Conflict of Interest
Many media organizations establish a code of ethics to standardize their employees' behavior in response to events and to safeguard themselves against increased government regulation. Guidelines remind employees that ethical standards are considered important to credibility, profit, and the good society.
Code of Ethics
A media message that offers consumer information.
Infomercial
A person within an organization who represents customers and investigates potentially unethical conduct of the organization and people within it.
Ombudsman
Media ethicists have developed various moral reasoning processes that communication professionals can use to help them make ethical decisions from a principled basis rather than by reacting intuitively.
Moral Reasoning Process
A committee that reviews potentially unethical activities of news organizations.
News Council
Short for perquisite, or payment for something in addition to salary.
Perk
Paying subjects or witnesses for information or interviews.
Checkbook Journalism
In the 1980s, many media companies went public (offered sale of their stocks to the public) and became vulnerable to stockholders' demands for continuous high profits. They found that talk shows featuring sensational topics could be produced inexpensively and garner high profits. Other sensational content also seems to attract viewers and readers. However, media companies are also under pressure to balance the need for profit against social responsibility and a high degree of journalistic integrity.
Sensationalism
An ethical and legal area of decision making. The right to be protected from unwaranted intrusion by the government, media, or other institutions or individuals.
Right of Privacy
Regulation is designed to maintain a balance between the needs and rights of the society as a whole and the needs and rights of individuals. Therefore, government legitimately may regulate mass media to ensure that their behavior does not have an impact on society that outweighs their contributions to society.
Regulatory Concept
An economy in which the interaction of supply and demand determines the prices of goods and services and the levels of production. In a non market economy, government determines prices and production.
Market Economy
This landmark legislation represented the first major revamping of federal telecommunications legislation since the Federal Communications Act was passed in the 1934. An attempt to increase competition through deregulation, the act included provisions that applied to radio, broadcast and cable television, the internet, and telecommunications equipment manufacturing.
1996 Telecommunications Act
Restriction of access t information; deletion of information from a story; or refusal to let a correspondent mail, broadcast, or otherwise transmit a story.
Censorship
A small group of reporters selected to gather information and pass it on to the lager group of press people. Used when the number of reporters gathering in one spot is problematic.
Press Pool
Freedom of expression is not granted to the press or to broadcasters alone. Rather, it is a fundamental right based on society's need for basic civil liberties. The authors of the Bill of Rights, believing that governments should be prohibited from exercising arbitrary power, granted to individuals rights such as freedom to speak and write, freedom to bear arms, and freedom from unreasonable police search and seizure.
Freedom of Expression
The Supreme Court, as well as the Congress, adheres to a balancing theory, which expresses the need for balance between individual rights and the rights of society as a whole. This balance is essential to a democratic government.
Balancing Theory
Government regulation of economic affairs of media companies is based on the assumption that competition is good because it provides a better product to consumers for less cost. Therefore, government regulates media through antitrust laws to ensure competition.
Competition Benefits Consumers
Since the early stages of broadcasting, government regulated broadcast in more direct ways than it did print media. Supporters of government regulation argued that the airwaves, which are limited in quantity, belong to the people, not to the broadcasters, and that station owners should be responsive to the community and work in its best interest. This is ofter referred to as the trusteeship model or the scarcity doctrine.
Direct Telecommunications Regulations
The collection of FCC rules that was first passed in the 1940s required broadcast stations to air competing views on controversial issues, although earlier regulations had prohibited such debate. The FCC no long enforces the rules, and some critics claim that the result has been a watering down of public debate.
Fairness Doctrine
Organizations that are involved in electronic media such as broadcast television, cable, radio, and telephone, or the transmission of information over wires and with satellites.
Telecommunications industry
Mass media outlets are usually owned by large corporations. As big business, media owners are required to adhere to labor laws, environmental regulations, and such standards as postal law. In many cases, media owners have protested having to abide by these laws, arguing that the laws infringe on their First Amendment rights.
Business Regulation
The regulation of subject matter and actual words in a broadcast or print message has been the most controversial area of regulation because open and robust discussion of considered essential to a democratic society.
Content Regulation
Whether to protect obscene speech and how to define it have been enduring issues for the public, Congress, and the Supreme Court. The evolution of new technologies such as color photo printing and new media such as the internet create issues that generate further discussions about the problems surrounding obscenity and indecency.
Controlling Obscenity and Indecency.
Advocates of absolute free expression argue that most regulations have a chilling effect on the media; the regulations may prevent reporters from going after tough stories because they fear being sued. If lawsuits become too oppressive, they affect how information is disseminated and debated in the marketplace of ideas.
Chilling effect
Techniques for controlling media content during wartime include censorship and restriction of access. The overriding question is whether the distribution of material will harm the war effort or endanger national security, or whether censorship will restrict information the public has a legitimate right to know so as to make political decisions.
Control of Media Content During War
The presidents right to withhold information if disclosure might harm the executive branch's functions and decision making process.
Executive Privilege
Laws requiring that meetings of federal or state administrative agencies be open to the public.
Sunshine Laws
Libel, the written defamation of a private individual, and slander, spoken defamation, have always been considered beyond the bounds of free expression. A more complicated issue is the libel of a public figure. In 1964, the Supreme Court ruled in New York Times v. Sullivan that a reporter had to show disregard for the truth or falsify a report to be convicted of libeling a public official.
Libel and Slander
Use of a small portion of a copyrighted work by scholars, teachers, or reporters to further enlightened the public.
Fair Use
To misconstrue facts or misrepresent a person in such a way as to lower the individual in the estimation of others.
Defamation
Speech that is not widely disseminated.
Limited Speech
The rating systems that are used in the motion picture industry and in television programming were designed to quiet public clamoring about entertainment content rather that to offer a useful system for self-regulation. Broadcasters and movie producers try to avoid government regulation by seeming to address issues, but they rarely solve the problems effectively.
Voluntary Rating System
An electronic device in a television set that blocks certain television programs.
V-chip
Rule of law allowing journalists to withhold the identification of confidential sources.
Evidentiary Privilege
Using material without securing appropriate copyright authorization.
Piracy
Mass communication researchers have developed a systematic study of media technology and content, the forces that shape their creation, how and why people use media, and the impact of media institutions on individuals and society.
Mass Communication Research
Mass communication research involves both practical and basic research. Practical research aims to help media organizations increase their audiences. Basic research aims to create a more theoretical understanding of human communication using mass media.
Basic and Practical Mass Communication Research