Hello Charles, For an easier/shorter/supplemental read, I would suggest chapter 8 out of Kimmel’s “Guyland” (Kimmel, M. S. (2008). Guyland: the perilous world where boys become men. New York: Harper.). He does a good job of setting up pornography consumption as a performance of masculinity for (white, college educated) 18-24 year olds. Softcore/lad magazines (Maxim, Sports Illustrated) become a form of reassurance, violent pornography becomes a form of compensation/revenge fantasy in the wake of civil rights movements. More generally, he notes the ways in which different demographic groups consume pornography for different, and culturally situated reasons. Has sparked a number of uncomfortable and interesting discussion in my undergraduate courses. -Nate Fisk On Aug 7, 2014, at 6:00 PM, air-l-request@listserv.aoir.org wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. request for suggestions - Internet regulation vis-a-vis pornography / privacy etc. (Charles Ess)
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Message: 1 Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 12:49:04 +0200 From: Charles Ess <charles.ess@gmail.com> To: Air list <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Subject: [Air-L] request for suggestions - Internet regulation vis-a-vis pornography / privacy etc. Message-ID: <D0092640.9F36A%charles.ess@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Dear all,
I teach a MA course titled "Pornography, Protection, Power" which is centrally focused on questions of who / what _should_/_could_ (both huge questions, of course) attempt to regulate Internet-facilitated communication vis-a-vis _possible_ limits to free expression, e.g., pornography, libel, "clear and present danger" tests in the U.S. (especially since 9/11), and so on (and, rest assured, with a thousand historical / cultural / political caveats).
As I've come to structure the course, I focus on the theme of emancipation as a core norm - one that underlies primary justifications of democratic polity and correlative norms of equality, privacy, and freedom of expression (among others). The course includes:
A) a good dose of readings on pornography - as a "classical" limit on freedom of expression - including diverse cultural and historical observations, with a particular focus on the now long debate over porn as legitimately protected either free expression and/or as emancipatory in its own right;
B) a good dose of readings on democratic polity, with specific attention to the central importance of freedom of expression for both individual self-development and democratic debate and processes more broadly; a particular focus here is on the rights of children in all of this, as brilliantly exposited by my colleague Elisabeth Staksrud in her _Children in the Online World: Risk, Regulation, Rights_ (2013);
C) a very strong dose of readings (primarily from Mansell and Raboy, The Handbook of Global Media and Communication Policy) on the history of efforts (initially in "Western" countries) to regulate communication media, beginning with print - and highlighting the contrasts between such efforts as new media technologies emerge, beginning with the telegraph and telephone / broadcast media / and then the rise of the Internet as challenging / blurring earlier definitions and regimes;
D) a large theme here is the broad shift, starting ca. 1970s away from national-state centered support and control of broadcast media (especially in the European and Scandinavian contexts with their strong traditions of public service broadcasting) towards neo-liberal de/re-regulation of media - leading to an ever increasing ownership and control of media by private companies and multinational corporations, with Google, Apple, Facebook, and others as the primary / usual suspects;
E) some readings on copyright, copying, and creativity (where efforts to define and protect patents and copyright inspire [largely futile] efforts to regulate / control file-sharing, etc.); and
F) a small unit on "liberation technology," as reflected in contemporary work on circumventing state censorship of the Internet in any number of countries (using Walid Al-Saqaf's _alkasir_ software as a primary example from the Arabic-speaking world).
WHAT I'M ASKING HELP WITH ... 1) any additional readings that you might suggest, as either primary or optional? For example, in the direction of policy readings, I've been working through Sandra Braman's _Change of State: Information, Policy, and Power_ (MIT: 2012), which is just terrific, especially for articulating the U.S. side of things, and will add some selections to supplant the current readings as more E.U./Scandinavian-oriented. But I'm sure more good material is "out there" to be considered
2) suggestions for case-studies, especially suited for in-class debate? For example, I am thinking of beginning with Facebook - both the recent study on 600,000+ users, coupled with the upcoming class-action lawsuit spearheaded by the Austrian law student Max Schrems. The idea is to call attention to a current, real-world conflict between (perceived) users' rights (as articulated and, ideally, defended by liberal-democratic regimes) and corporately-owned Internet-based communication venues. So specific resources here would be helpful - As would suggestions for other case-studies that would be suited especially for in-class analysis, discussion, and debate. Edward Snowden's case is an obvious candidate, along with Wiki-leaks - again, useful resources would be appreciated - But I'm sure there are other, more country-specific cases that would be very pertinent and lively for the students.
With a thousand thanks in advance for reading this far and for any suggestions you may have to offer -
- charles ess Professor in Media Studies Department of Media and Communication Director, Centre for Research on Media Innovations <http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/research/center/media-innovations/> Editor, The Journal of Media Innovations <https://www.journals.uio.no/index.php/TJMI/>
My latest book, Digital Media Ethics, is now available from Polity: http://www.politybooks.com/book.asp?ref=0745656056
University of Oslo P.O. Box 1093 Blindern NO-0317 Oslo Norway email: charles.ess@media.uio.no
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End of Air-L Digest, Vol 121, Issue 8 *************************************