Fair Use, Media Responsibility, and Digital Citizenship

Media Use Journal

1. Did your parents or guardians have any rules or restrictions on how you used media? At the time did you agree with their policies? Why or why not? Looking back, would you give your parents different advice regarding those policies or rules?

   I do not recall my parents or guardians having media restrictions. I remember finances being a barrier in the selection of books and entertainment we consumed. Television and movies were sparse. I do not recall being turned away from or not being allowed to view select items. Video games were nowhere near the complexity they are today and the internet was not created when I was a child. However, I do remember when the "Parental Advisory Explicit Content" labels were brought to the public by Tipper Gore and other DC politicians in 1985. In my opinion, this was the introduction of government-sanctioned censorship and was unequally applied to the media industry (The Culture Trip). This legislative forced labeling greatly influenced my parent's point of view on what music was appropriate or not. Interestingly, censored versions played on the airwaves and the edited versions were bad at best. It was easy to fill in the blanks and has become a pop-culture parody - fill-in-the bleeps. In the film, Other Peoples Footage, I thought it was interesting that in the "slipe and slide" example of Fair Use, the young people in the film were using derivative "curse" words - altered language implying the same use. So it's not that "explicit content" isn't widely known, it's that US mainstream culture finds comfort in masking its existence. Today, one parent sees this as government censorship and the other see's it all as a cultural moral failure... so not sure how to advise them.

2. Do you have/did you have any rules or restrictions for any young people in your life regarding their use of the media or electronics? Explain why or why not?

   I do not have rules or restrictions regarding the use of media or electronics for young people in my life. I think being open and honest with young people is most appropriate. Not being a parent, it's hard to say what rules or restrictions I would place on them. I would likely fall to the side of lead by example. In other words, if they have rules and restrictions then so would I.

3. Thinking about the students you teach or the target audience for your final project, what do you think is the hardest part of being a young person in today's media environment?

   My final project is targeting Adult Basic Educators, therefore Adults. Educators are diverse in age, but a challenge some face is not being digitally literate. Not knowing terms of technology or how to navigate the digital landscape. Students oftentimes have to assist educators in doing digital tasks - that's a problem. Then there is a group of educators who have to bridge two generations; those coming up under them, students, and those who proceeded them, colleagues. I suppose this would be a challenge for a young person in today's media environment, in that the older generation doesn't understand this media landscape but they have the authority to dictate its use. I suppose that is the way it's always been.

4. How do you think the landscape of the Internet will change in the next 10 years? Do you think it will change for the better? Why or why not?

   I currently see this as a "hot topic" of debate. What censorship, if any, should be applied to digital content. Who gets to be the censors? And how is censorship applied in a worldwide communication platform? Some countries are censoring their citizens from specific content and this is considered a rights violation by some. America is contemplating how to censor social media outlets - think fake news, misinformation, disinformation. Questions exist around digital copyrights in this highly malleable and shareable media. Over the next ten years, the digital landscape could go several ways. It could promote freedom and expression, move towards mass censorship and surveillance, or more likely, we will see new technology that meets both ends of the spectrum - VPN, Open Source Software, etc. I think the greater question is about how these diverging ideas will play out in society. Everyone has opinions and the internet is nothing more than a means to share information (media) but whose information will be valued and allowed to persist.