Woodrow Wilson School 334
Media and Public Policy
Professor Paul Starr
Spring 2017. Tuesdays, 1:30-4:20 p.m..
Professor Paul StarrSpring 2017. Tuesdays, 1:30-4:20 p.m..
Where to find the readings:
= Available for purchase at Labyrinth Books and for free at Stokes Library
= World Wide Web. (Click on the link on the reading list.) 
= Electronic Reserve/Blackboard course documents/Lexis February 7. Journalism: crisis and opportunity
Walter Lippmann, Liberty and the News (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe,1920, 3-17 ("Journalism and the Higher Law").
Jay Rosen, "Winter is Coming: Prospects for the American Press under Trump," Pressthink, December 28, 2016. Continue on to Part II.
Listen to Planet Money Podcast,
"Finding the Fake News King," National Public Radio, Dec. 2, 2016.
Pro Publica, "Doing Journalism Differently: What's Next For ProPublica's Engagement Reporting Team," January 4, 2017.
Amy Mitchell and Jesse Holcomb (Pew Research Center), "The State of the News Media: 2016." Read the Overview and one chapter on a specific industry you'll be assigned to report on briefly.
February 14. The constitutional foundations and limits of press freedom
Paul Starr, The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications
(New York: Basic Books, 2004), Introduction, Chs. 1-3, 8. Randall Bezanson, How Free Can the Press Be?
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 5-57 (New York Times v. United States [1971; "Pentagon Papers" case]).Kent Middleton et al., The Law of Public Communication, 9th ed. 2016 Update
(Boston: Pearson, 2016), Ch. 2 (The First Amendment). Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919). Abrams et al. v. United States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919). Near v. Minnesota 283 U.S. 697 (1931).
February 21. Intellectual property and cultural freedom
Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture (Penguin, 2004), preface, Chs. 1-5, 7-10, afterword.
Watch Lessig's crash course in the "read-write" internet (9:24), YouTube. Patrick Ross, "Artists and Culture: Empowering
the Former to Foster the Latter," Progress and Freedom Foundation, Release 13.6 (February 2006).Universal City Studios, Inc. et al. v. Sony Corporation of America Inc. ["Betamax Case"] 464 US 417 (1984). Eldred v. Ashcroft 537 U.S. 186 (2003). MGM Studio v. Grokster 545 US(2005).
February 28. Democracy, diversity, and power in the mass media
Starr, The Creation of the Media, Chs. 9-12. Bezanson, How Free Can the Press Be?, 58-82 (Miami Herald v. Tornillo [1971]). Newton N. Minow and Craig L. Lamay, Abandoned in the Wasteland: Children, Television,
and the First Amendment (Hill and Wang, 1995), Introduction, Ch. 1.
Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC , 395 U.S. 367 (1969). Miller v. California 413 U.S. 15(1973). FCC v. Pacifica Foundation [George Carlin case] 438 U.S. 726 (1978).
March 7. Economics, technology, and the reshaping of the media
James Hamilton, All the News That's Fit to Sell (Princeton University Press, 2004),
1-36.
Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (Yale University Press, 2006), 1-28 [skim], 29-90, 176-272.
Yochai Benkler, "Degrees of Freedom, Dimensions of Power," Daedalus (2016), 145: 18-32.
March 14. Social media and journalism
Limor Shifman, "Meme," in Benjamin Peters, ed., Digital Keywords: A Vocabulary of Information Society and Culture (Princeton University Press, 2016), 197-205.Jeffrey Gottlieb and Elisa Shearer,
"News Use Across Social Media Platforms," Pew Research Center, May 26, 2016. Jon Ronson,
"How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco's Life," New York Times Magazine, February 12, 2015.
Mike Isaac,
"Facebook Mounts Effort to Limit Tide of Fake News," New York Times, December 15, 2016.
Emerson Brooking and P. W. Singer,
"War Goes Viral: How Social Media Is Being Weaponized Across the World," The Atlantic, November 2016.
March 28. New Media, New Choices
Eli Pariser, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You (New York: Penguin Press, 2011), Introduction (1-20), Ch. 2 (47-76). Lawrence Lessig,
Code Version 2.0, Chs. 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 12. Also available in printed form:(New York: Basic Books, 2006).
Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844 (1997).
ACLU v Mukasey (2008)
[originally ACLU v. Gonzales].
April 4. Libel and privacy
Emily Bazelon,
"Billionaires vs. the Press in the Age of Trump," New York Times Magazine, November 22, 2016.Kent Middleton et al., The Law of Public Communication, Ch. 4 (Libel).James Whitman, "The Two Western Cultures of Privacy: Dignity Versus Liberty," Yale Law Journal 113 (2004), 1151-1221.
Sullivan v. New York Times376 U.S. 254 (1964). [For background, read Anthony Lewis, Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment (Vintage, 1992).]
Howard v. Des Moines Register & Tribune Co. 283 N.W.2d 289 (1979). [See chapter in Bezanson, How Free Can the Press Be?, 209-29.]
Bartnicki v. Vopper 532 U.S. 514 (2001). [See chapter in Bezanson, How Free Can the Press Be?, 163-208.]
April 11. News and communities
Steven Waldman et al., "How Big is the Local Reporting Gap and Who Will Fill It?" in The Information Needs of Communities: The Changing Media Landscape in a Broadband Age (Washington: Federal Communications Commission, 2011), 262-273.Michael Barthel et al., "Civic Engagement Strongly Tied to Local News Habits," Pew Research Center, November 3, 2016. Marjorie Heins and Mark N. Cooper, "The Legal and Social Bases of Localism are Stronger than Ever," in
Mark N. Cooper, ed.,
The Case Against Media Consolidation: Evidence on Concentration, Localism, and Diversity, 31-38. Daron Lee,
"What a Kansas Professor Learned After Interviewing a 'Lost Generation' of Journalists," Columbia Journalism Review, September 7, 2016. Jed Gottlieb, "Curtain Falls on Arts Critics at Newspapers," Columbia Journalism Review, January 6, 2017.
Project for Excellence in Journalism,
"How News Happens: A Study of the Ecosystem of One American City [Baltimore]" January 11, 2010.
April 18. Media freedom and globalization
Tyler Cowen, Creative Destruction: How Globalization is Changing the World's Cultures (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), Chs. 1, 4, and 6. Paul Starr, "
An Unexpected Crisis: The News Media in Post-Industrial Democracies" in John Lloyd and Janice Winter (eds.), Media, Politics
and the Public (Stockholm: Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation, 2011), 21-29. Lee C. Bollinger, Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open: A Free Press for a New Century (Oxford University Press, 2010), 87-106.
Ronald J. Krotoszynski, Jr. The First Amendment in Cross-Cultural Perspective: A Comparative Legal Analysis of the Freedom of Speech
(New York : New York University Press, 2006), Ch. 4 [Germany].Krotoszynski, The First Amendment in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Ch. 5 [Japan].
April 25. Press privilege and responsibility
Jonathan Peters, "Shield Laws and Journalist's Privilege: The Basics Every Reporter Should Know," Columbia Journalism Review, August 22, 2016. Helen Lewis, "When Is It Ethical to Publish Stolen Data?" Nieman Reports, June 1, 2015.
Second half of class: Student paper presentations
May 2.