Ethical Law

1-2 Journal Assignment: Civil Law vs. Criminal Law

Confusion

Law is a vast subject-matter full of confusing jargon and wording that can bewilder the common individual who reads any written laws. “The confusion over civil law arises from the fact that legal actions in our common law system can be either civil or criminal.” (Moore and Murray, 2012). What I noticed is there are a multitude of conflicts between one set of laws and others.

Civil Law

The text of our reading summarized, states that civil law is when there are damages being sought between an individual or an entity and another party. The fact that some criminal law also seeks damages may confuse people or the fact that state rules versus federal rules can differ. “The vast majority of court cases are civil, although criminal cases tend to attract the most attention in the media.” (Moore and Murray, 2012). Apparently, the government can be either the plaintiff or the defendant in civil cases. In civil court an individual can only be incarcerated for civil contempt. In civil law you cannot assert your “5th Amendment Rights.”

Criminal Law

The risk of incarceration is the most distinguishable trait that identifies criminal law from civil law. It is apparently very rare that civil court threatens incarceration. In criminal law one can assert their “5th Amendment,” the right to remain silent, whereas in civil court one can only assert this right if it would incriminate them in an open criminal trial such as the O.J. Simpson Trial.

The reading while clarifying the differences and commonalities of the two different types of law can still be confusing. The example that the reading covered was in regards to O.J. Simpson. He had a criminal case and civil case where the outcomes conflicted. When we see one type of law that allows us our rights such as the “5th Amendment” and another type that does not we identify a problem—a conflict that we need to address in our legal system. Where we are innocent until proven guilty by a court of law in criminal cases, it seems that the rules can be manipulated based on our resources as proven a multitude of times. In retrospect, I think these obvious issues are why we see so many television dramas using law and their subject-matter to present dramatic stories.

2-2 Journal Assignment: Law V. Ethics

Prompt

In your own words, write a journal assignment articulating the differences between laws and ethics as they apply to digital communication. Make sure to include examples of both and explain why they are both important for media professionals to understand. How can both law and ethics guide the behavior of professionals across media fields?

Law

Law is defined as, “a binding custom or practice of a community: a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority,” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2018).Law has a Judicial Process that is followed between the plaintiff and the defendant.Laws govern us as a people in accordance to confusingly-worded and long-winded written laws by our governed authority figures that regulate law.

Ethics

Ethics is defined as, “the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation,” (Merriam-Webster, 2018). Ethics is more of a general practice while most commonly enforced in the corporate sectors of businesses, media does not always abide by this code because ethics unlike law are not regulated by an authority figure unless they fall within a current written law.

Journal Entry

There are laws created to protect our freedoms of the press, copyright our material, protect our brands, etc. I have read a few articles where cases of “slander” have not been won do to the lack of proof of damages. Issues like these, I feel is where ethics aids us. Whether we can see the “proof” of damages or not, we do see the proof od slander or defamation of character. Ethics would lead us to find that some of these cases should be won in favor of the plaintiffs. The differences between laws and ethics with regards to digital media are that laws are there to enforce and ethics are more like a set of guidelines to follow in order to prevent violating not only laws, but unforeseen issues that are otherwise preventable. Ethics in short is “right” vs. “wrong.” In order to discern right or wrong, research must be done because it is not always “black and white” or “cut and dry,” as they might say. There are always variables to consider. As I read in Media Ethics, Issues and Cases, you should not print a story full of quotes, just because the are spoken. The example was when a politician spoke ill of another politician or business man and the journalist submitted the story as such without researching what the politician said to be fact and thus became printed slander which would need to be retracted. This is where ethics would have prevailed, because the laws imply printing this story is okay, while the unforeseen damages are prevented by the ethical practices that for example, the Associated Press utilizes for their journalists.

References

Law. (n.d.). Retrieved April 29, 2018, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/law

Ethics. (n.d.). Retrieved April 29, 2018, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethics

News Values and Principles | AP. (2017, November 30). Retrieved January 5, 2019, from https://www.ap.org/about/news-values-and-principles/

Patterson, P., Wilkins, L., & Painter, C. (2019). Media ethics: Issues and cases (9th ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Journal 6-2: The Evolution of Obscenity

What is Obscene?

Obscenity is defined as, “the state or quality of being obscene; obscene behavior, language, or images,” (Oxford University, 2019). So, the meaning of obscenity is not defined unless we examine the synonyms. When we examine each of the synonyms from “indecency” to “immorality,” we can see that it is all a matter of opinion and perspective. Just as we see occur in “Roth v. U.S. and Alberts v. California (1957): A New Obscenity Standard,” (Moore & Murray, 2012), the Supreme Court shows us that there is a difference when discussing the medium of the material. If it is art or medical reference, then it is not deemed as obscene. These cases helped define the meaning of obscenity.

It seems that the Supreme Court avoided the topic of obscenity for three years. In the case of Miller v. California (1973) we see another change due to the ideals and beliefs of the party majority changing from Liberal to Conservative. No matter what political party you support, we can all agree that this is a topic of great human interest.

It is good to have a standard to protect the youth from learning or practicing otherwise, unsafe or illegal activities. Oregon State Law states, “(a) An act of sexual intercourse;

(b) An act of oral or anal sexual intercourse; or

(c) An act of exposing the genitals of the person with the intent of arousing the sexual desire of the person or another person,” are acts of Public Indecency. Standards set from the case studies in our source books help the public set a standard to prevent any local laws from being violated. (Committee, 2018).

References

Committee, L. C. (2018). 2017 ORS 163.465¹ . Retrieved from OregonLaws.org: https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/163.465

Moore, R. L., & Murray, M. D. (2012). Meia Law and Ethics. New York: Routledge.

Oxford University. (2019). Oxford Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.