SOPA’s Sphere
In the game of “telephone”, a message is passed secretly between a number of people, and at the end the same message is presented again as the last person heard it. If you’ve ever played this game before, you know how fast a message can be communicated across a group of people, and how that message can be skewed to the point where the original point no longer remains, and is instead transformed into a message perceived by the next deliverer. And even though “telephone” is just a kid’s game, it shares some eerie similarities to the spreading of actual news around a populace. Some call this spreading of news across multiple sources a “news sphere”, a term coined by Jeff Jarvis. This “press sphere” defines the multiple sources that we get our news from nowadays. When fifty years ago the main source of our news was the press, now we have blogs and social networking sites to keep us informed. These multiple sources offer different takes on the news, giving us a more dynamic view of a story. One prime example of where news has been caught right in the middle of this system is with the “Stop Online Piracy Act”, or SOPA. From blogs to Internet “memes”, this bill had the Internet exploding with articles about the subject. And like in the press sphere, the press was no longer our only source of this information. It in fact played a fairly small role, replaced by the overwhelming amount of sources presented by the Internet.
For all those not familiar with the SOPA bill, it was written by congressman Lamar Smith, and essentially threatened to shut down any website containing copyrighted or pirated material. While the goal was just to stop piracy on the Internet, some consequences that resulted from the poor structure of the bill involved the shutting down of sites like Wikipedia, YouTube, and multiple blogs, which have become staples in our current generations lives. With the intrusiveness of such a bill, how could you not expect for the Internet to be in uproar? And with most of our news coming from the Internet these days, you couldn’t even open your favorite browser without seeing something about SOPA. This bill spread like wildfire across the Internet, and the “press sphere”, began to take form. Blogs, tweets, and even sources like Facebook had things to say about the bill, and needless to say, positive feedback was extremely scarce. All of these sources intertwined to give us as a populace a diverse yet mostly negative look at the bill, forming a perfect example of the press sphere.
Even though the press’ role in the publication of news about SOPA was a very small fraction of the total accumulation of the Internet’s vast well of information about the subject, it was by no means an insignificant source. Articles about SOPA made the front page of every popular news website. Sites for the NY Times and CNN took an expected professional approach, and for the most part pointed out the bad and the good of the bill (although there wasn’t much going for SOPA, to be honest). As CNN columnist Julianne Pepitone stated, “the way SOPA is written effectively promotes censorship and is rife with the potential for unintended consequences.” This was the common theme for most news columns about the bill; Good intentions, horrible presentation. The press used their credibility as a professional source of information (ethos), and their professional understanding and evaluation for the bill (logos) to effectively present their information. And while the opposition of the bill was mostly unanimous, Cary H. Sherman, a columnist from the NY Times, argued against the opposition. He asked, “Since when is it censorship to shut down an operation that an American court, upon a thorough review of evidence, has determined to be illegal?” His article brought up some good points, and demonstrated the impartial view that the press needs to have in order to remain professional. This kind of outlook was expected from the press, and gave the public a much-needed professional and fairly unbiased review about the bill. This reporting of the bill allowed viewers to form their own opinions about SOPA, but in my opinion did not stress the danger of this bill highly enough. The press stated the facts, yet did not stress the effects.
If you looked deep enough into an average blog post about SOPA, you could probably find the theme that was common with the press’ outlook on the bill. However, free from the censorship of editors and the professional cap that is put on the press’ authors, the nation of bloggers were able to voice their uncensored opinions, and essentially ripped the bill apart. Because SOPA would effectively hinder blogging to the point where it’s benefits were no longer worth the trouble of actual writing, bloggers had no problem with writing stating their opinions, one way or another. Some attacked Lamar personally, some aided in the protest of the bill formed by Wikipedia and other sites, and others just pointed out the incompetence of the bill as a whole. As Chris Heald, an essential blogger for the Internet weblog mashable.com, said, “these bills are written in an attempt to obscure the truth.” Being among the more mild blogs that I saw, he looked at the bill through an active Internet users eyes. Another blogger, Brian Barrett, stated, “SOPA is, objectively, an unfeasible trainwreck of a bill, one that willfully misunderstands the nature of the Internet and portends huge financial and cultural losses”. While his article was much less mild-mannered, his points ran parallel with Heald’s. Where the press could not go with their articles, the bloggers of the Internet went. This statement, as harsh as it seems, was by far not the meanest out there. Bloggers protected their domain as a mother bear protects her cubs, and through this the public as a whole began understanding the source of hatred for this bill, and gained insight to an extremely biased look at SOPA. This passionate emotion to protect the place that their writing called home was a great way of persuading readers to side with them, and presented a great example of the application of pathos in their writing. Although their credibility was lacking, some of the blogs I read had great logic backing of their arguments, (logos), while others threw caution to wind the wind and blatantly attacked all things SOPA. From the model of a press sphere, it was evident within the first few weeks of a bill such as this that a large majority of the information obtained by viewers would be through blogs.
When word of SOPA got out, people wanted to voice their opinion however they could, to as many people as they could. The best way this could be achieved would be through some sort of medium that would allow you to communicate with anyone you know, in an instant. You’ve probably guessed it: FaceBook. During the whole SOPA ordeal, it was impossible to go onto FaceBook without seeing something about the bill. Links were posted, forwarding blogs and other links to their own groups of friends, news feeds were filled with petitions to protest, and then there was the majority that vehemently and quite obscenely voiced their opinions about the bill. But what else could have been expected? If you try to take away something that is basically vital to our generation, there is no question that you will be met with resistance. Use of pathos was heavy, yet the use of logos and ethos lacked fairly severely. Comments were passionate, and urged people to protest the bill if they didn’t want their whole world to collapse. Singular credibility was not that great, but when put side by side with hundreds of arguments about the same things, their credibility was increased substantially. This type of exposure about the bill was extremely influential with our generation, as when your news feed was covered with these types of posts you were inclined to jump on the bandwagon and learn about SOPA yourself. Although not very logical, this source of information was by far the largest that I experienced, and linked me to multiple different articles that let me gain even more insight about it.
Through all of these sources, a press sphere that exposed me to the far extremes of the bill, as well as its mediums, surrounded me. I myself sought an end to the bill, feeling the threat of the termination to essentially the center of my life. As stated before, the main source of my information came from FaceBook, yet I didn’t stop there, as the credibility of my friends is always questionable. Instead, I sought more information and followed the links I was given to different articles, which gave me a more credible look at the bill. Then there was the press, which presented me with the facts, and not much else. The actual bill was of not much use to me, but seeing the actual source of all the chaos after reading into it and forming my own opinions based on the news I gathered from my own press sphere was really interesting.
The press sphere affects me everyday. I most often don’t get my news from the actual press, and instead obtain it in a roundabout way through word of mouth and blogs. The credibility of this type of obtainment is always questionable, but I always try to find the original source and form my own opinion about the subject. I thought the case of the SOPA bill was a perfect example of the press sphere, especially since the Internet was targeted, and thus bringing in a lot of opinion from outside sources.
Works Cited
Jarvis, Jeff. "The Press Becomes the Press-sphere « BuzzMachine." BuzzMachine. 14 Apr. 2008. Web. Feb. 2012.
Barrett, Brian. "What Is SOPA?" Gizmodo. Web. 05 Mar. 2012.
Pepitone, Julianne. "SOPA Explained: What It Is and Why It Matters." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 17 Jan. 2012. Web. 05 Mar. 2012.
Heald, Chris. "Featured in Social Media." Mashable. Web. 05 Mar. 2012.
Smith, Lamar. "SOPA Bill Text." Bill Text - 112th Congress. Web. 05 Mar. 2012.
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