Diffusion Theory: Brown v. Board of Education

In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that the segregation of schools was unconstitutional. This famous case is know as Brown v. Board of Education, it is considered a precedent setting case that changed history. 

Based on the Diffusion of Innovation Bell Curve the case of Brown v. Board of Education can go though this idea perfectly. The Pioneer of this idea would be Oliver Brown who filed a lawsuit against the board of education. 

This was after he took his daughter to an all white school and she was denied entry into the school. This was a huge issue in the black community because parents felt like their kids weren’t getting a good education at all black schools. 

This was Oliver Brown’s main reason for filing the lawsuit in the first place. He wanted a better education for his daughter and he didn’t want the color of their skin to get in the way of that. 

After the Supreme Court issues their ruling it caused an uproar in the school system. Some people were overjoyed at the decision while others were outraged. This not only meant a change in the legal system but it also meant a change in the social system in the south that was very much still “separate but equal”. 

One of the first early adopters of the Brown v. Board of education was Ruby Bridges. She was a little girl in Louisiana who was the first African American little girl to desegregate an elementary school in 1960. She attended William Frantz Elementary School which at the time was an all white school. 

She cased huge uproar in parents who didn’t want the school to be integrated. However, by her parents letting her go, she made history. Even in present times she still continues to be an activist. The school as also made a plaque that memorializes her bravery all those years ago. 

After Ruby Bridges, people began slowly integrating into schools. However it was dangerous because even though it may have been legal it was still dangerous because there were still racist ideals and views at the time. 

However in 1964 Congress passed a Civil Rights Act. This act encouraged integration as it made sure that colleges weren’t still trying to segregate schools. Universities like Florida State University felt his act as the act made it harder for schools to accept white student only. It made sure that every student had a fair shot at getting an education. 

More recently a school in Mississippi has been in the news for still not being desegregated. In 2016 the school was reported on because they still had a separate side of the school for white student and a separate part of the school for black students. The school had struggled with this for decades, an NPR article talks about the schools struggles to integrate.                                    Ruby Bridges Today vs. When She Was Little

They said “Just this week, a federal judge ordered a Mississippi school district to desegregate its schools.The case on which the judge was ruling was originally brought during the summer of 1965. The first named plaintiff, "Diane Cowan, minor," was a fourth-grader at the time. Now she's Diane Cowan White, a 57-year-old clerk with the U.S. Postal Service.”

In 2017 the school was reported on again as they try their best to integrate the students. The piece talks about the graduating student and their struggle with the issue. 

In today’s world some would argue that we are maybe the laggard bunch. For example most colleges struggle with diversity on campus. Especially with changing politics and different economic circumstances that effect some student.

The Diffusion Theory Bell Curve really allows you to dissect and look at the trends of many different issues. By looking at the Brown v. Board of Education decision though this lens it allows us to take a look at our world today and see where we fall in all of it. It also sheds light on the many ways in which we need to change as a society. 

From Motion Pictures To Steaming Services

Over the course of the years we have always been  a society that generally strives for bigger and better things. 

This is the same thing that has happened with the history and evolution of the motion picture. 

Because I did my story on motion pictures I felt that the best presentation was the one on Netflix.

Originally we started off with a rudimentary zoetrope which evolved into the Kinetoscope, which was the first time we see people paying to consume a mini movie. 

Lastly we had the Cinematographe, which was our first big step into the world of consuming movies. 

Since then we have only ever progressed as far as streaming services go. Now almost every movie and TV show can be accessed though our phones, laptops, and TV’s. 

When Netflix came out in 1998, it was the start of a new kind of media consumption. I found this super interesting because I remember when my mom and her friends would talk about their Netflix movies coming in the mail. 

With most of the technologies that the class discussed they were from a different time frame so I loved being able to have memories of Netflix slightly in its early stages. 

One of the most interesting things I learned from the Netflix presentation was that Netflix has a video game side to it as well. 

Because Netflix has an algorithm it tries it’s best to recommend content to you based on the things that you watch. 

Personally my Netflix recommendations are a mix of true crime stories and romantic comedies. 

Because of that I don’t get any recommendations of any gaming activities. 

So I found it really interesting  that Netflix even has that. It shows how companies like Netflix are able to supply media and entertainment  to many different types of customers. 

This also sets Netflix apart from other streamings services because they offer not only movies and TV shows but also not Video games. 

This shows how the entertainment industry will always continue to create and find new ways to satisfy the public. 

Anti- War Voices

 

As we have learned about Government powers though out the course we have discussed that whenever there are times of war, the government tends to have harder rules on anti-war voices. 

The importance of having anti-war voices is so that people are able to hear out many different opinions.

The main reason that voices are silenced during war times is because the government feels like it needs to have unity as a country. 

So having people protest against a war that the government feels is justified. 

A case that addresses this is Schenck v. United States, which states that they Government can restrict voices that “Would create clear and present danger that they bring about substantive evils that congress has a right to prevent”.  

Even though the United States Government is a lateral system It is also in a way a business. 

What I mean by this is that through we have a Government that is able to make life altering laws, they still have to take into account things like good and bad press. 

Imagine for a moment that you worked for a huge company that the world generally relied on, say a water company that supplied 50% of the worlds clean water.

 Let’s also say that in this scenario the people who partake in their water have to pay for it for their homes using their own money. 

If you as an employee discover that said water company was using its resources which were funded by the money of its customers; to make a terrible economic deal with another company that could possibly jeopardize the safety of the water everyone consumes, you may feel a need to say something. 

However since you work for the company they may try an silence you even though you feel what you have to say is valid and could be helpful.

This is the same ideology behind why the government shouldn’t silence legitimate anti-war voices. In order to have a democracy you have to be open to hearing different ideas, it is a hard truth but still the truth.

 However, there is an emphasis on hearing different ideas. The thoughts and ideas of anti war voices don’t have to be enforced. 

The general public just wants the option to hear out these opposing opinions. This is the same thing we do everyday in a court room. 

If someone is on trial for murder, you get to have a defense and a prosecution both on opposing sides both fighting for a different outcome. 

All the jury has to do is listen and asses which argument they deem to have more validity. So if we as a people do this in courtrooms why would we not not do it on the internet?

The reason majority of the voices on the anti war website have predominantly never been hears is most likely because of the way news coverage works. Certain news outlets tend to lean on one side of the political poll. 

So if certain voices are threatening the core ideas of a news outlet, they will definitely be less inclined to publish it. 

Overall, I think this is a great example of the real world censorship that a lot of people face in America. We are always taught as a society  to be approachable and make out topics palatable. 

However, that is not always the case sometimes you have to have the hard conversations. With as uncomfortable as it may be, nothing has ever been changed in the comfort zone. 

Motion Pictures: The Evolution of Film

 

The invention of the motion picture has shaped the entertainment business in every way. The simple illusion that was once a simple parlor trick has turned tin to a billion dollar industry that allows viewers to be fully emerged in the the experience that is film. 

In 1834 William Horner invented the Zoetrope. Similar to a lazy-Susan it is a round devices that sits on a start and spins. 
On the inner walls a person can paste different pictures in succession of an object or a person in motion. 
Then by turning the object it creates the illusion that the image is moving.

This idea is what started people thinking about the possibility of a Motion Picture. 
As simple as it sounds, this was actually a difficult think to figure out. Cameras were still new and back then you had to stand still in order to get a really good picture. 

So to be able to capture things in motion and then go on to make them look like they were actually moving was a huge idea for the time. 

The first official Motion Picture was created by Eadweard Muybridge. He was hired by a group of friends who were looking to settle a bet. 

After a horse race, they wanted to know if at any point all four legs of the horse were all on the ground. 

So Muybridge took photos and was able to help them settle it once and for all. 

In 1891 Thomas Edison and William Dickson invented the Kenetoscope. This was a took that you could put a long trip of film on a rotator belt. 

If you looked though a small hole the stops would more at about fourth frames per second and it would look like a mini movie was playing.

 This was the start to people paying for a movie if you will, customers would insert change into the machine and then the brief movie would play. 

 

It wasn’t until 1895 just a few years later that we got the first official Motion picture projected movie. William Friese-Greene invented the Cinematographe. It was a machine that played film and was able to project it onto a screen. 

The lummiere brothers created the first movie using one of these. Since then our participation in the film industry has only progressed . 

Today we have millions of movies that are made all over the world. As well as many movie theaters all over the world.

 However in recent decades, people have been able to enjoy movies from the comfort of their homes. 

As viewers motion pictures are in basically everything we do. In school you can watch clips from the deep depths of the ocean to better understand it. At work people present PowerPoints for an upcoming project.

 Even on our phones people scroll for hours watch short clips, not unlike ones shown on the kinetoscope in 1891. 

Motion picture technology has changed our history forever. And it will continue to be a mainstream source of entertainment for all. 

Tolerance Theory: How High Is Too High?

When it comes to the way we as a society consume media we have a tendency to be a lot more tolerant of certain things that might not normally be in our day to day lives. 

Things in the news and in the media that we consume regularly such as social media, movies, TV Shows and music have slowly made us tolerate of a lot of things. 

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Specifically, talk and displays of violence, news outlets especially have been known to glamorize vicious killers though out the years. 

In relation to Lee Bollinger’s theory on us as a Tolerant Society, I believe the media has a lot to do with the things we tolerate today. 

The news is something that nearly everyone in the world has access too in some form. Which means many people are seeing and consume it some form of news daily. 

So when we see flashy headlines of crimes such as school shootings, people being accused of using derogatory language or slurs, or mugshots of convicted killers it normalizes these things. 

In Criminal Justice there is a theory on crime that is called the ‘Wedding Cake Model’. This model pretty much breaks down the different levels and systems of crime. 

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At the top of the cake which is also the smallest part of the cake is celebrated cases. This means stories about Ted Bundy, The Unabomber, Son of Sam etc. 

The model explains that though this is a very small part of the crime world, stories like these get the most publicity and thus formulate public opinion on what crime is like in the world. 

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This also means that the world mostly has an incorrect idea of what majority of crime looks like as well as what majority of criminals look like. 

George Gerber, a former Journalist who studied the link between the media and crime coined the phrase “Mean World Syndrome”. 

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This theory supports what the ‘Wedding Cake Model’ tried to explain. 

The “Mean World Syndrome” is the idea that the world’s outlook on crime is not proportional to the actual rates of crime that we face in America. 

Through his research he found that one of the main reasons for this disparity was because of the media’s portrayal of crime. 

It also says that a main reason for this thought is because of our extended exposure to violence in movies, video games, and music. 

Our high tolerance of violent images, hate speech and derogatory language mades it easier for us to brush off things that aren’t as ‘extreme’. 

 This could be things that aren’t necessarily illegal but things that could be immoral or seen as implicit biases such as hate speech; which is protected by the first amendment. 

After studying both theories and recounting my teaching thus far in my journalism class I understand how the media at times plays up certain stories. 

At the end of the day however, news outlets rely heavily on views so it makes sense that the stories and the titles would be punchy and attention grabbing. 

However, I can understand how the media can over hype different aspects of stories. For example, I had a teacher who gave us a perfect example of this in class. 

On a slideshow she had multiple images of normal looking people, some pictures were old and some were more recent. 

She asked us if we recognized any of the people, I recognized three of the people but not the rest of them. 

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Then she switched to the next slide and it had mugshots of infamous killers and I could recognize almost every person on that list. 

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The pervious slide had been the victims of said killers which no one recognized. 

She explains how the media has a role to play in this because when bad things happen there is always more coverage of the perpetrator or the thing that caused the incident, than there is of the people and the things effected by it.

Although that’s was an extreme example, it does explain a possible reason for our high exposure to violence on TV.  

Though in the media’s defense It also isn’t very tasteful to splash a victims photo all over the headlines to allow for their privacy.  

At the end of the day the world is always evolving and with evolution comes problems as we as a society navigate though everything.

 I agree that our tolerance for certain things in the media has became extremely high, however though my research I was able to lean about some reasons as to why. 

It also helped me get a clearer view about how many different topics can overlap and help paint a full picture. 

Supreme Court Decisions: Miranda Rights

 

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The Supreme Court has always had a daunting job as they bridge the gap between the the voice of the people and the law itself.

The American people give the Supreme Court power by sending in petitions on their most pressing issues in hopes that the Supreme Court will decide to try the case, and at best case set a presadent.  

However because the high influx of petitions on social issues and possible right violations the Supreme Court can’t possibly try every single one of them. Additionally, this is before you even factor in all the cases that have made it though the Appellate Court of convicted people who are fighting to have their case decisions changed. 

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The video was able to shed light on a more insider perspective of what goes on in the Supreme Court. By getting to hear from a few of the justices themselves it allowed for a new perspective on certain issues. 

For instance a common thought among the people is that if a petition is sent to the Supreme Court and they decide not to hear the case that it means that they don’t agree or support the cause. 

However, the justices mentioned that that is not often the case, they have so many cases to try in such a short amount of time so there is no possible way that they can review every case that comes across their desk. 

So truthfully by them not taking a case that means that they have made no decisions for or against the case it just simply won’t be heard. 

 

However, through hearing about the supreme courts procedures that they follow though out their day it really gives the impression that they try above all else to maintain a certain level of respect for one another. During the video one of the justices spoke about the importance of giving every justice a handshake before they begin. 

Such a simple act at first appears to have no bearing on your felling towards someone while you’re  debating over extremely important subject matter. However, it allows the justices to take a moment and humanize each of their colleagues. 

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Now knowing a lot more about the way that the supreme court works  and the way that they decide to handle cases it make me think a lot more about some of their past cases. One in particular being Miranda vs. Arizona in 1966 which is a case that still effects our legal system today. 

The case highlights the importance of the offender’s rights which is something that is often not thought about. In March of 1963 Ernesto Miranda was arrested for the Kidnapping and Rape of a young woman  who was able to identify him in a line up.

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 Although he ended up confessing after being interrogated for quite a bit of time something that would later be called into question. However he was unaware of an offenders right to remain silent. 

He ended up being convicted of the crime in June of 1963, but shortly afterwards he appealed the decision in 1965 due to his ignorance of the fifth and sixth amendment. So this is what started the case being sent all the way up to the Supreme Court. 

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The Supreme Court ended up siding with Ernesto Miranda in 1966 stating that his sixth amendment rights had been violated.  

Because of this case police officers now have to Mirandize people before they put them under arrest which informs the person of their fifth and sixth amendment rights. 

So in cases where a person is not read their Miranda Rights the person may have a case to get their charges dropped since it is now a part of police procedure. 

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