Month: December 2021

BY LARA GUVELIOGLU

Merriam-Webster’s legal dictionary defines the age of majority as “the age at which a person is granted by law the rights (as ability to sue) and responsibilities (as liability under contract) of an adult.” Also known as the legal age, age of majority is set at 18 for most of the states in the U.S.. Unless granted emancipation, minors rely on their parents to provide them with basic needs, and protect their social and legal wellbeing. When these rights are threatened, however, it is the most natural thing for parents to advocate for what’s best for their children.

Such is the battle many celebrity parents are fighting today, and have been for the past few years. Halle Berry, Jennifer Garner, Kristen Bell, Dax Shepard, John Krasinski, Blake Lively, Gigi Hadid to name a few of many, these high profile parents are growing more concerned each day with protecting their children’s privacy in the face of this exploitative world of tabloid journalism and the ever growing demand for a closer look into celebrities’ lives prompted by the ease of social media.

As I’ve mentioned in my earlier blog post, Reaching the Golden Mean in Tabloid Journalism: How do we shift “Celebrities vs. Paparazzi” to “Celebrities & Paparazzi”?, there is a certain level of transparency and sacrificing privacy that comes with being a public figure. While most celebrities try to put on a polite face when faced with the consequences of this unspoken social contract, offer a professional smile, a quick wave, or a short Q&A session at abruptly being confronted by paparazzi during the simplest of days, one milestone changes the rules of the game: having children.

Historically, members of the tabloid journalism community have been criticized by celebrities and the public for their tendency to fail to practice ethical journalism in obtaining their content. In most cases, however, these actions are often justified by the rhetoric that celebrities signed up for this position, it comes with the profession, and that they are more than fairly compensated for the invasion of their privacy. Some might even argue that celebrities’ kids are celebrities by association and therefore the same rules apply. Unlike their parents who have willingly accepted a life in front of the public eye, however, celebrities’ children don’t have the legal or social standing to make an informed decision on giving consent or legally fighting for their privacy. Their legal status combined with their parents’ cries for privacy, the tabloids’ continued disregard for journalism ethics, especially when children are involved, is quite concerning.

Now you might be thinking, “Well that must be illegal! Children should be protected by the law!” Unfortunately, the only state that has laws protecting celebrities’ children against paparazzi is the state of California which passed a bill in the fall of 2013 “that restricts photographers’ right to photograph the children of celebrities” as well as any kid targeted/ taunted by photographers, a movement led by Sen. Kevin de Leon, Halle Berry and Jennifer Garner, and supported by many others.

While this bill, SB 606, was a big win for the celebrity families of California, and created national legal precedence in this battle for ethical preservation of minors’ privacy regardless of who their parents are, it’s far from victory: celebrities who reside in any of the other 49 states continue to struggle with the issue.

So what’s the solution? A common dilemma in the world of communication, media and ethics is that not everything that is legal is ethical, and not everything ethical is legal. I believe to eliminate the gray area in this specific situation is to enact federal laws that clearly state the limits when it comes to the exploitation of children. Of course there are certain cases where celebrity parents consent to having their children included such as when they agree to take their kids to red carpet events or other instances where they are aware there will be paparazzi presence. While these controlled environments where everything is monitored, and necessary precautions are taken, offer a positive experience for everyone involved; paparazzi hiding in bushes, stalking children, causing physical disturbances just for a photo opportunity is dangerous, and, in my opinion, requires clear legal guidelines to eliminate the gray space between ethical and legal to protect children who depend on adults to advocate for them.

Millennials and cancel culture have found their next target, and it may be one that most people would never think of. The ’90s hit sitcom Friends has come under scrutiny of late for some of the show’s storylines. The star-studded cast consisted of David Schwimmer, who played “Ross Geller”, Courtney Cox as “Monica Geller” (the sister of Schwimmer on the show), Lisa Kudrow as “Phoebe Buffay”, superstar Jennifer Aniston as “Rachel Green”, Matt LeBlanc as “Joey Tribbiani”, and Matthew Perry as “Chandler Bing”. Friends is a show that many reminisce about and tended to binge on Netflix before moving to HBO Max, where it is still highly watched and rated. Many think of Friends as a comfort show and one that they can relate to their everyday lives.

However, as millennials have been re-watching the show, more are noticing problematic storylines that are occurring such as how they portrayed specific situations. One example is that nowadays, some millennials found the LGBT plot points in the show left them feeling “uncomfortable”. An example of this was when Perry’s character was paranoid about being perceived as gay. According to Jukes, “over 70 countries continue to criminalize homosexual activities, and five of these countries carry the death penalty” (2016). Along the lines of Perry’s character, many millennials did not appreciate the mean-spirited jokes Chandler made about his father on the show, who was essentially a drag queen, which creates a second “uncomfortable” issue facing the show as of today. This portrayal was okay in the ’90s due to a different time with a different level of awareness of these problematic issues. Given the standards of today, I think people would find these jokes tasteless, but the audience in the ’90s was different; many issues portrayed in this show may not have been aired had the show premiered in the mid-2000s or later.

Another issue that millennials are picking out of Friends in this day and age is that Monica played by Cox was constantly reminded of how she was at one point in her life extremely obese. Cox’s character was never allowed to forget about this as it was always brought up between the friends on the show. At one point, Joey, played by LeBlanc, when first seeing how obese Cox’s character was, yells, “Some girl ate Monica!” I do not think this would be able to fly today with a lot of talk around eating disorders and the big push to end obesity in the United States. However, I think that in the ’90s it was all in good fun, and many issues were not as publicized as they are today. For instance, both transphobia and fat-phobia were still around and it affected those who identified that way the same way it does today, but more allies have become available as more people have become vocal about these issues.

Even though it was all fun and games in the ’90s, the times have changed, and many shows have updated their constructs. According to Petrucci, “no one wants to admit that some of their favorite old sitcoms were problematic or offensive … TV from 10 and 20 years ago made a lot more insensitive jokes…” (2021).  These are only a few instances that make today’s generation “uncomfortable” while watching the show as there were many problematic themes spread throughout the 10-year series.

Written by Cara Cahill

By Max Newton

The National Football League (NFL) has a history of protecting its own. Time and time again they have been pushing certain issues with players or team personnel under the rug in hopes of not tarnishing their reputation. There is a sense that the NFL is an old boys club and with that, they will do what they have to in order to protect their own no matter the situation at hand.

This type of culture was once again brought to the forefront when 15 former female employees of the Washington Football Team came forward accusing team staff of sexual harassment and verbal abuse. After both an internal investigation and an external investigation done by the NFL, commissioner Roger Goodell decided that a 10 million dollar fine was to be assessed to team owner Dan Snyder, the fine was stated as being “unprecedented” by Roger Goodell but is $10 million really that substantial to someone worth 4 billion? I would say not really.

There are plenty of issues that could be discussed on how this whole process was handled. Personally, the biggest issue is how the media team working with the NFL handled the outcome. The NFL has not released any of their findings from the investigation and there is a major push for that information to be released and rightfully so. As of right now, there are only rumors of what happened, especially surrounding the owner Dan Snyder and his major role in the creation of this toxic culture and how he has failed to hold his employees and himself accountable. Not releasing the investigation that was conducted, allows for this type of culture to be continued not only in this specific organization but the sports world as a whole. This was a giant missed opportunity for the NFL and the media to show that they are taking a stance on this unacceptable behavior and provide examples (anonymously) of the specific behavior that needs to be completely eliminated from this industry.

By not releasing the report, or at the very least, explaining the nature of the issue and giving the public more of an explanation the NFL basically protected their own and let them off the hook with a slap of the wrist. Was there a possibility for the NFL to use this poor decision making by one organization as an example for the rest of the sports world by releasing their findings to the public, allowing their media team to share this information, knowing it will be a black eye on the league but in the long run it will allow for growth because the media can raise awareness by being able to speak about the issue? Absolutely there was. The PR team that is involved with the NFL, along with the NFL executives were clouded in their judgment and focused on protecting their own instead of using this incredibly disappointing situation for a chance to change the culture that has been created through sports by entrusting the media and their team to pass along crucial information. To further show this, business academic Paul Nutt’s was quoted as saying “the NFL executives are checking every box in Nutt’s analysis of “debacles” and “blunders””

The NFL and the sports industry as a whole have primarily worried about protecting their own, while there has been a slow change in the sports industry in terms of accountability in recent years, there is still plenty of room to grow. This situation specifically presented the NFL an opportunity for growth in terms of the culture but was missed because of their lack of awareness on how media could properly address the issue at hand. Using a negative situation and finding ways to ensure it never happens again should be at the forefront of NFL executives anytime a situation like this arises, hopefully, that is the case in the future.

Meghan Barrasso

With the growth of social media platforms, comes the growth of companies aiming to influence users through these platforms in hopes of creating lifetime users. Facebook, now known as Meta, is one of the biggest social media platforms along with Instagram. The company was created back in 2004 long long ago when social media wasn’t the household term that it is today. 

No one ever imagined that social media would flourish into the pivotal instrument that it is in today’s world. The convenience of cell phones and social media apps has basically exposed us to be influenced right in the palm of our hands.

When reading Facebook’s “About” page, the minimum age to sign up for a Facebook and Instagram account in the United States is 13 years old. Seems young right? Well, not really. According to a CNN article discussing a Media Census Report, 56% of children between the ages of 8 and 18 have a social media account; with the average age of signing up for an account being 12.6 years old. So in actuality, children seem to be the majority of those who are on social media, which makes them susceptible to be easily persuaded by whatever is being published through these means.

With companies having such direct access to consumers, especially young children, comes a number of ethical issues.

Recently, Facebook has been under fire for hiring a new department of employees to create products that target an “untapped audience” of children under the age of 13. Back in 2018, a “confidential” document revealed Facebook’s plans to create a new social media platform exclusively for children under the age of 13, broken down into different age groups.

This idea was in the process of being developed even though recent research showed that social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, have negative effects on users’ mental health. 

So why would such a large influential company do such a thing? For the profit of course.

Phones, iPads, and tablets are largely used products by young children, so the exposure and influence are at an all time high. This is where the ethical issue comes into play: taking advantage of an easily persuaded audience. 

CEO of Common Sense Media, James Steyer said in an interview with NBC: “They [Facebook] need to focus on cleaning up their existing platforms instead of trying to hook more children to their addictive platforms at younger and younger ages.”

Facebook responded to this backlash by essentially stating that since the industry they’re in is so competitive and other companies would do the same thing, they stand by their decision to pursue this platform.

Companies have every right to get to know and target their customers, but if they are identified as too young to even use the platforms, they should not have specific services geared toward them. Instead of working to create a new platform for younger children in hopes of creating lifetime users, social media platforms like Facebook need to gear their focus toward creating safer platform for teenagers and young adults to use.