978-1319058517 Chapter 16 Part 2

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being pathetic in constantly seeking approval by collecting “Likes” for our pictures and posts? Is social

media use leaving us feeling more alienated, alone, and depressed?

Based on your critical research, consider what happens to people who use social media—do they

find positive social connections, do they feel like they are missing out, do they feel bullied, or does their

Step 5: Engagement

The fifth state of the critical process—engagement—encourages you to take action, adding your own

voice to the process of shaping our culture and environment.

Studies about happiness routinely conclude that the best path to subjective well-being (that is,

happiness) and life satisfaction is to have a community of close personal relationships. Social

psychologists Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener acknowledge that the high use of mobile phones, text

According to Diener and Biswas-Diener, “The close relationships that produce the most

happiness are those characterized by mutual understanding, caring, and validation of the other person as

worthwhile. People feel secure in these types of relationships, and are often able to share intimate aspects

Although acquaintances and casual friends can be fun, it is the supportive close relationships that are

essential to happiness.”7

One way to take action might be to think about how to use social media without creating FOMO

1. Lev Grossman and Matt Vella, “iNeed?,” Time, September 22, 2014, p. 44.

2. JWT, “Fear of Missing Out,” May 2011. 15 Feb. 2017. Internet Archive.

3. Andrew K. Przybylski et al., “Motivational, Emotional, and Behavioral Correlates of Fear of Missing

Out,” Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013): 1841–48.

5. Przybylski et al., “Motivational, Emotional, and Behavioral Correlates of Fear of Missing Out.”

7. Ibid., 51.

Extended Case Study: Patriot or Traitor? Unveiling Government

Surveillance of Us (9th Edition Update, 2015)

system administrator working for a government contractor and a former employee of the Central

Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA).

Americans are split on their opinions of Manning and Snowden—they are either great patriots or

horrible traitors. But it’s likely that most people aren’t certain of exactly what Manning and Snowden

leaked and the impact of what they leaked.

In this edition of Media & Culture, a new Extended Case Study (“Patriot or Traitor? Unveiling

central ethical dilemma: Is this case about a traitor undermining the state, or a whistleblower providing a

check on excessive and unaccountable state power?

Using the five stages of the critical process, students will evaluate the main articles revealing the

Snowden leaks written by Glenn Greenwald, then a columnist on civil liberties and U.S. national security

issues for The Guardian, a major newspaper in London; and Barton Gellman, a Pulitzer Prize–winning

Government Surveillance of Us” whenever you draw connections between news media, ethics, and the

relationship between the audience and media. You also may want to discuss journalism’s coverage of this

topic.

If you organize your course by industry, you may want to use the Extended Case Study to discuss

government surveillance either during your time with Chapter 2 (The Internet, Digital Media, and Media

Convergence), Chapter 8 (Newspapers), Chapter 14 (The Culture of Journalism), or Chapter 16 (Legal

Controls and Freedom of Expression).

Specific ideas

the textbook lists several of the essential articles written by Glenn Greenwald and Barton Gellman.

Below are a few suggestions of other sources they could look at:

• A Washington Post video interview with Barton Gellman, published on August 12, 2013. See

“Washington Post’s Barton Gellman on NSA Privacy Violations,” YouTube,

• A video interview Greenwald did with Snowden published on June 9, 2013, on YouTube is a good

place to get an overview of Snowden’s reasons for the leak. See Freedom of the Press Foundation,

“NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden: ‘I Don’t Want to Live in a Society That Does These Sort

of Things,’” YouTube, June 9, 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yB3n9fu-rM.

• For another good video insight, see Howard Kurtz’s interview with Greenwald on CNN’s Reliable

Sources, June 12, 2013, http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/12/opinion/kurtz-snowden-

greenwald/index.html.

• It might also be interesting to discuss how privacy and government surveillance are treated in other

recognize as a journalism enterprise covered by the First Amendment), an interesting related topic

is the new media organization being set up by billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. Because

of his “concern about press freedoms in the US and around the world,” Omidyar has committed

$250 million to the venture. Glenn Greenwald left The Guardian to join Omidyar’s start-up in

2013, and several other top journalists also joined later that year.

Venture,” Politico, November 13, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-calderone/eric-

bates-pierre-omidyar-glenn-greenwald_b_4267249.html.

• Glenn Greenwald’s reporting on the NSA and Snowden’s leaks heightened a debate over what is

the appropriate style of journalism—advocacy/adversarial style, or impartial/objective style? See

Greenwald addressing the need for advocacy journalism in his interview with David Folkenflik on

http://reliablesources.blogs.cnn.com/category/glenn-greenwald/.

•The initial exchange between Greenwald and Keller was in Bill Keller, “Is Glenn Greenwald the

Snowden’s revelations of the vast surveillance apparatus constructed by the National Security

Agency. He has also been an outspoken critic of the kind of journalism practiced at places like

The New York Times, and an advocate of a more activist, more partisan kind of journalism.

• Finally, perhaps the most important angle to discuss is what is the story—Edward Snowden, the

person who leaked the information, or undisclosed NSA surveillance, the content of the leaked

information? A July 2013 Washington Post story found that at that point, the story about Snowden

was getting far more news media attention than the NSA domestic surveillance he disclosed. Why

Story,” Washington Post, July 3, 2013,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/03/how-ed-snowden-became-a-

bigger-story-than-nsa-spying-in-two-charts/.

interpretation, evaluation, and engagement—which we touch on throughout Media & Culture.

The ‘Anonymous’ Hackers of the Internet” (pp. 56–57) are directly relevant to this Extended

Democracy” (pp. 308–309) is also relevant to the Extended Case Study.

• Chapter 14 includes the sections “Modern Journalism in the Information Age” (pp. 487–492),

“Ethics and the News Media” (pp. 493–496), “Resolving Ethical Problems” (pp. 496–497), and

“Reporting Rituals and the Legacy of Print Journalism” (pp. 498–503). All three sections have

ideas relevant to the Extended Case Study. The feature “Examining Ethics: WikiLeaks, Secret

Documents, and Good Journalism?” (p. 514) discusses the WikiLeaks release of classified

547–560), provides the legal framework for discussing the Extended Case Study. Also, the

government leaks could be a good discussion starter on the section “Models of Expression” (pp.

548–549).

The full text of the Extended Case Study begins on the following page.

Extended Case Study: Patriot or Traitor? Unveiling Government

Surveillance of Us (Full Text) (9th Edition Update, 2015)

In the past few years, there have been two extraordinary cases in which employees of the U.S. federal

government have leaked classified information to the public.

In the first case, Pvt. Bradley Manning,1 an army intelligence analyst assigned to a unit based in

Baghdad, Iraq, was arrested in 2010 for transmitting classified information (including U.S. airstrike

videos, more than 500,000 army reports, and more than 250,000 diplomatic cables) to WikiLeaks and a

few news organizations. In 2013, Manning, age twenty-five, was sentenced to up to thirty-five years in

prison for offenses that included violations of the Espionage Act.

In the second case, Edward Snowden, a twenty-nine-year-old computer system administrator

working for government contractor Booz Hamilton and a former employee of the Central Intelligence

Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA), leaked details of U.S. and British government

domestic surveillance programs, including Internet surveillance and collection of supposedly private data,

to the news media in May 2013. By the next month, the U.S. government had charged Snowden with

violations of the Espionage Act and theft of government property. Snowden fled to Hong Kong, and as of

this writing had found temporary asylum in Russia.

army colonel and a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, suggests that the

interests of the federal government and its institutional authority aren’t always aligned with the interests

of the American people. He asks, “To whom do Army privates and intelligence contractors owe their

agenda [and] stealthily but inexorably accumulates power, privilege and prerogatives”?

For this case study, we will look at one of these complicated cases—the case of Edward Snowden

and the NSA’s surveillance programs—to critically analyze the heart of the ethical dilemma: Is this case

about a traitor undermining the state, or a whistleblower providing a check on excessive and

unaccountable state power?

As developed in Chapter 1, a media-literate perspective involves mastering five overlapping

critical stages that build on each other: (1) description: paying close attention, taking notes, and

and “So what?” questions about your findings; (4) evaluation: arriving at a judgment about whether

something is good, bad, poor, or mediocre, which involves subordinating one’s personal views to the

critical assessment resulting from the first three stages; and (5) engagement: taking some action that

connects our critical interpretations and evaluations with our responsibility as citizens.

Step 1: Description

For the description phase, you will need to research and take notes on some of the major news stories and

recorded interviews resulting from this case.4

The main articles revealing the Snowden leaks were written by Glenn Greenwald, a columnist on

civil liberties and U.S. national security issues for the Guardian, a major newspaper in London, and

Barton Gellman, a Pulitzer Prize–winning writer and contributor to the Washington Post who writes about

administration-nsa-verizon-records.

• Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill, “NSA Prism Program Taps in to User Data of Apple,

Google and Others,” Guardian, June 6, 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-

tech-giants-nsa-data.

• Snowden’s rationale for the leaks is in an interview Greenwald conducted with Snowden,

published on June 9, 2013, on YouTube. See Freedom of the Press Foundation, “NSA Whistleblower

Edward Snowden: ‘I Don’t Want to Live in a Society That Does These Sort of Things,’” YouTube,

June 9, 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yB3n9fu-rM.

• Barton Gellman, “U.S. Surveillance Architecture Includes Collection of Revealing Internet,

Phone Metadata,” Washington Post, June 15, 2013,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-surveillance-architecture-includes-collection-of-

revealing-internet-phone-metadata/2013/06/15/e9bf004a-d511-11e2-b05f-3ea3f0e7bb5a_story.html.

http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Facts%20on%20the%20Collection%20of%20Intelligence%20P

ursuant%20to%20Section%20702.pdf. (This fact sheet was issued by the U.S. government in light of

news reports based on Snowden’s leaks.)

A helpful time line was prepared by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which is

sympathetic toward Snowden’s cause:

Step 2: Analysis

In the second stage of the critical process, analysis, you will isolate patterns that emerged from the

interviews and stories that call for closer attention. For example:

if anything, before Snowden’s leaks?

• What communications of yours (e.g., Google, Apple, Facebook, mobile phone) could have been

potentially swept up in the data-collection programs?

• Was there sufficient oversight (e.g., by Congress) of these data-collection programs?

• Was anyone put at risk because of Snowden’s leaks? Explain.

• Is it possible to verify that the various secret data-collection programs made U.S. citizens safer?

Step 3: Interpretation

In the interpretation stage, you will determine the larger meanings of the patterns you have analyzed. The

surveillance programs operating under the explicit approval of Congress, with congressional oversight?

Or, looking at the historical time line of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is the history of federal

government surveillance activity one of constantly trying to find a way around the law?

Should the user data of Google, Apple, Facebook, and major mobile phone providers be tapped

by government surveillance projects without our knowledge? Should the companies submit to do

whatever the government asks?

Is there partisan support for or against these surveillance programs as a political issue, or does

for leaking to the press? Why did Snowden feel compelled to flee the United States? Is there a reason for

the government to discourage would-be whistleblowers of any kind?

Are the leaks merely embarrassing to the federal government, or do they truly hamper important

Consider the intent of Edward Snowden in leaking information of government surveillance

programs to the U.S. public. Consider the value of the NSA surveillance programs to the American

people—and the value of potential data privacy that American people may assume they have. Are the

NSA surveillance programs good, bad, or something else? Are people like Snowden patriots who should

be praised for their whistleblowing or traitors to their country who should be charged under the Espionage

Act?

The fifth stage of the critical process—engagement—encourages you to take action, adding your own

voice to the process of shaping our culture and environment.

Andrew J. Bacevich argues that the ultimate legacy of people like Manning and Snowden is how

we respond to the information:

Manning and Snowden . . . threaten the power the state had carefully accrued amid recurring

wars and the incessant preparation for war. In effect, they place in jeopardy the state’s very

In the eyes of the state, Manning and Snowden—and others who may carry on their

work—can never be other than traitors. Whether the country eventually views them as

of Manning and Snowden, or you can support efforts against them.

At a higher level, consider corresponding with your members of Congress—your local U.S.

representative and your two U.S. senators—about your views on U.S. surveillance programs.

ENDNOTES

1. The day after his sentencing in July 2013, Manning said in a statement that he would henceforth be

living as a female and would like to be known as Chelsea Manning.

2. John Cassidy, “Demonizing Edward Snowden: Which Side Are You On?” New Yorker, June 24, 2013,

3. Andrew J. Bacevich, “Are Manning and Snowden Patriots? That Depends on What We Do Next,”

4. For more articles on this case, see special Web pages for the two newspapers: “The NSA Files,”

Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-nsa-files; and “Edward Snowden and the National

5. Bacevich, “Are Manning and Snowden Patriots?”

Extended Case Study: Our Digital World and the Self-Invasion of

Privacy (9th Edition, 2014)

As we learn more and more about what kind of data media technology (and other) companies are

collecting on us and how they are using that data, it is becoming increasingly clear that the issue of online

privacy is a significant one. But how prepared are we to fight against the sophisticated tactics,

mathematical algorithms, and intentionally obtuse online privacy agreements that we agree to in order to

access “free” online content and services, like Facebook and Google, that we are increasingly dependent

on? To what extent do we consent to our self-invasion of privacy? In the ninth edition of Media &

Culture, an Extended Case Study asks students to critically analyze two or three different privacy

statements from a list of popular companies (which tend to be dry, legalistic, and hard to read): Google,

Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Facebook, Hulu, Microsoft, Netflix, Pandora, Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter,

digital ecosystem outweighs the increasing invasion of our privacy. Then the exercise asks students to

“act” on their evaluations.

How can you teach the Extended Case Study?

topic.

Specific ideas

the FTC, which aims to protect children from online privacy incursions, and media technology

companies:

• “U.S. Is Tightening Web Privacy Rule to Shield Young,”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/technology/ftc-moves-to-tighten-online-privacy-protections-for-

children.html

• “A Trail of Clicks, Accumulating in Conflict,”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/technology/silicon-valley-objects-to-online-privacy-rule-

proposals-for-children.html?pagewanted=all

• “Your Online Attention, Bought in an Instant,”

advertisers.html

• An eye-opening New York Times Magazine investigative feature story, “How Companies Learn

Your Secrets” by Charles Duhigg, also from 2012, outlines how companies (not just media

technology companies) use mathematical algorithms to find out all sorts of personal data about

people—including whether a woman is two weeks pregnant and may not even know it yet (see

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/feb/28/the-end-of-online-privacy.

• “Users Getting Smarter About Online Privacy,” the Washington Post,

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-02-24/business/35442522_1_social-media-users-privacy–

controls-social-networks.

• “Online Privacy Bill Introduced in House of Representatives,” Huffington Post,

http://online.wsj.com/public/page/what-they-know-digital-privacy.html, along with this interactive

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/04/technology/internet/20100304-facebook-ads–

interactive.html.

• NPR’s Fresh Air interview with Julia Angwin, who writes the column “The Decoder” for the

Wall Street Journal: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129298003.

• Resources such as the Berkeley Law Web Privacy Census, which consistently measures

Internet tracking and puts the whole topic of online privacy under a critical lens:

• For some satire, here’s an online video from the Onion critiquing Facebook and parental

surveillance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu4zMvE6FH4.

Make connections between the text and the Extended Case Study

The following sections in the book lend themselves well to an examination of the Extended Case Study:

• Chapter 1 outlines the five-step critical process (pp. 32–33)—description, analysis,

the media.

• In Chapter 2, the section “The Economics and Issues of the Internet” (pp. 57–68) is directly

relevant to this Extended Case Study, especially the material under the heading, “Targeted

Advertising and Data Mining” (pp. 60–64).

and social game advertising, which works to collect data on often unsuspecting players—directly

connecting into the Extended Case Study.

• Chapter 4 talks about the economics of the music industry in the section “Making, Selling, and

Profiting from Music” (pp. 139–143). It also details various music download and other subscription

streaming services (including Apple’s iTunes store) that capture immeasurable amounts of data

from their users, as well as social media sites, such as Facebook and YouTube, and cloud services,

such as iCloud.

• The “Economics of Broadcast Radio” section in Chapter 5 (pp. 178–182) and the “The

Economics and Ownership of Television and Cable” section in Chapter 6 (pp. 216–225) of the

main text are good places to revisit the notion that commercial media entertainment is never “free.”

In commercial radio and broadcast/cable television, the channels we watch are littered with paid

advertising messages and product placement; on the Internet sites we frequent, we put up with

commercial messages, but we also give up our personal data to access “free” content.

Case Study, a good question to ask as you introduce these chapters is: How can media industries

money in the media in a number of key places:

• The section “Collecting Revenue” (p. 446), distinguishes between direct and indirect payments

for media projects (self-disclosing one’s personal data being a form of indirect payment).

• The section “The Rise of the New Digital Media Conglomerates” (pp. 460–462) details the rise of

Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google, all of which figure greatly into the discussion of online

privacy, as one of their key business strategies is data mining, which enables highly targeted

advertising.

The full text of the case study begins on the next page.

Extended Case Study: Our Digital World and the Self-Invasion of

Privacy (Full Text) (9th Edition, 2014)

A principle narrative of recent media history is the digital turn—how digital media corporations have

begun to transform the way traditional mass media businesses interact with consumers. To get this

unprecedented access to digital media content, we have handed over our credit card numbers, allowed our

browsing and buying habits to be tracked, and freely shared personal photos, stories, tweets, and status

information. All of this raises an important question: Is the convenience of our digital ecosystem worth

the increasing invasion of our privacy?

In 1969, when the Internet was just a U.S. Department of Defense project and the Web had yet to

be invented, media philosopher Marshall McLuhan wrote, “Publication is a self-invasion of privacy.”1

That is, when we write something for publication, we consent to have our personal thoughts and ideas

mean instant global distribution and perpetual existence. (See the cases of former U.S. representatives

Anthony Weiner and Chris Lee about how embarrassing photos of oneself can be globally distributed and

endure forever.)

Twitter asks us to self-disclose in 140 characters or less. Facebook encourages us to post status

updates, photos, and other personal information like our birthday, relationships, and political views.

Elsewhere, we upload audio and video, post comments to Web sites, and send frequent text messages.

• Twitter users send 340 million tweets each day.3

• More than 6 billion text messages are sent each day (more than 2 trillion per year).4

• Every day 144.8 billion e-mails are sent.5