**This resource is published by Common Sense Education.News and Media Literacy Resource Center is a curated collection of free quality teaching resources that cover news literacy, media literacy and social/cultural literacy.
Communication Law Syllabus
J 385: Communication Law
Legal aspects of the media: constitutional freedom of expression, news gathering, access to public records, libel, privacy, copyright, advertising, electronic media regulation, and antitrust.
It is important for all journalism and communication students to develop discerning knowledge of the legal protections and restraints placed upon freedom of the press in the United States.
The (aspiring) journalism and communication practitioner should also be aware that far from being static, the law is an evolving set of formal principles, always subject to interpretation and application by the courts. Both statutory and judge-made law, federal and state, involving American media will be the primary focus of the course. In addition, given that U.S. communication law carries global implications, this course will examine press freedom issues from an international and comparative perspective. The comparative look at press freedom will lead you to think critically about U.S. communication law.
The course will address the question of freedom of the press on three levels: (1) What are the legal limits on expression and how does a journalism practitioner avoid legal problems? (2) Why have courts, legislatures, and administrative agencies established the existing limits? (3) How does U.S. communication law interact with the laws of other countries in the unfolding era of global media?
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes journalist James Fallows for a discussion of his career, the ideas and events that shaped his thinking, and his perspective on his craft as a writer and author.
In this edition, broadcast journalist and UC Berkeley faculty member Lowell Bergman talks about his intellectual journey, investigative reporting and his years as a producer at 60 Minutes. (56 min)
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes writer/critic Mark Steyn, the 2007 Nimitz Lecturer at Berkeley. Focusing on his new book, "America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It," they discuss Europe and America's relations with the Islamic world. In the interview, their conversation also focuses on the craft of writing in a multi media globalized world. (55 minutes)
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Pakistani Journalist Ahmed Rashid for a discussion of United States foreign policy and the failure of nation building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. (59 minutes)
Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, discusses his experiences covering Middle East wars for the last 30 thirty years. (58 minutes)
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief of the Economist. They discuss the challenges of editing the leading global news magazine. They explore the implications of globalization in a post 911 world. Micklethwait also reflects on the enduring features of the conservative movement and its consequences for the global role of the United States. (51 minutes)
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Washington Post columnist Michael Kinsley for a discussion of how technology and markets are transforming journalism. Kinsley reflects on his career in journalism including his role as the founding editor of Slate and his recent job as editor of the LA Times editorial pages. (53)
UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler in conversation with Norman Podhoretz, whose 35 years as an author, literary critic and editor of Commentary magazine has had a profound influence on the ideas that have shaped public debate in the United States. (53 min)
Conversations host Harry Kreisler speaks with William A. Rusher, former publisher of the "National Review" about the conservative movement. (54 min)
In this 1983 interview, Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes one of America's most distinguished journalists Tom Wicker for a discussion of the Presidency and the media at the height of the Cold War. (58 min)
When you combine the sheer scale and range of digital information now available with a journalist’s "nose for news" and her ability to tell a compelling story, a new world of possibility opens up. With The Data Journalism Handbook, you’ll explore the potential, limits, and applied uses of this new and fascinating field.
This valuable handbook has attracted scores of contributors since the European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation launched the project at MozFest 2011. Through a collection of tips and techniques from leading journalists, professors, software developers, and data analysts, you’ll learn how data can be either the source of data journalism or a tool with which the story is told—or both.
In this standalone learning module, we will dive deep into the realm of intuition and explore techniques to develop and enhance this innate gift.
In this unit students will reflect on their own media environment, understand how cognitive bias and social media algorithms influence that environment, and learn how to investigate new sources and claims online. These activities culminate in a student-led "social science fair" MisinfoNight event where they present their new skills and knowledge to family members to help them become more savvy information consumers.
The information revolution of the 21st century is as significant and transformative as the industrial revolution of the 19th century. In this unit, students – and by proxy their families – will learn about the challenges of our current information landscape and how to navigate them. This unit is split into four modules. These modules can be done sequentially or stand on their own, depending on students’ needs and teachers’ timeframes. In this module (1 of 4), students analyze their own use of online social media platforms and learn how filter bubbles and confirmation bias shape the content of their media environment.
This lesson plan is geared for social studies, but can also be used in other content areas.
Media is a powerful agent in informing us and influencing social norms in our society. In this lesson plan, students learn about how to critically consume daily information and entertainment by listening to experts in media literacy. This lesson covers concepts like media ownership, framing and spin, source, agenda, bias, contextually misleading content and misinformation and disinformation.
Students also explore how media can affect livelihoods. They’ll study how Japanese American communities all along the west coast including in Washington state were impacted by media coverage leading into Japanese American incarceration in the 1940s and through redress and reparations in the early 1980s.
Designed for a large urban high school’s upperclassmen in a Journalism class, the unit’s central thematic focus is the causes and effects of economic inequality on the middle class. In this country, we believe that everyone has a chance for prosperity, or at least a comforting sense of security: being able to pay our bills, send our children to college, succeed if we try hard enough, being able to afford health care. Taken together, we call this being middle class. Put another way, we call this The American Dream. Some of us aspire to great wealth, a mansion in the Hamptons. For the vast majority of Americans, making it is a simpler aspiration: doing better than our parents, living longer than our parents, being more educated than our parents. My topic is “The Shrinking Middle Class?” Within this topic are various subtopics/questions: 1) What is an accurate definition of “Middle Class?” (Is it defined by an income range or by a state of mind?) 2) What are the effects of periodic economic downturns on ordinary Americans? (confidence, conformity, fear of failure, mental health), 3) What effects do increases in the minimum wage have on the middle class? (decreased poverty, overall confidence in the future, the effect on the overall economy?) My own students are urban and many do not consider themselves, and are not, among the middle class. The topic should resonate.
Last week I did a reading comprehension (author's purpose) using short passages. The students loved it and were very engaged. When I saw the above advertisment, Electrifying Your Home Now, I thought I would mix it into the gallery walk as an example of persuasion. I will look for other primary sources for informing and entertainment/express.
Students will practice authenticating online source material as well as strategies for determining the reliability of information. This lesson is part of a media unit curated at our Digital Citizenship website "Who Am I Online?"