When I first signed up for this class, I thought that I would be learning about things like copyright, intellectual property, and such. But having been in the class for 3 weeks, I see that the first amendment is one of the most important aspects when it comes to media law. Without it, you would not be able to go on air and say what you believe, even if it is harmful to some extent. It protects us from the monster that can be the government. It is quite scary to know that without these checks, the government could just get rid of you, take your money, your property, everything else that is yours. The Marketplace of Ideas is an interesting concept. It means that no matter what happens, the truth will eventually come out which is pretty true with our government (some more Martin Luther King docs getting declassified within the next 5 years which should be interesting).
I think the theory I resonate with the most is a tie between Marketplace of Ideas and Protect Dissent. I think the marketplace is a great theory as truth will always beat out lies told to stray us from the facts. Protect Dissent is something I very much agree with. I think the government needs to be called out by its citizens when it messes up. Which unfortunately happens far too often. Being a kid is idolizing Barack Obama for being the first black president. Becoming an adult is realizing that bombing a wedding is not going to leave you with a good mark in the history books. I think the blind idolatry of our elected officials really hurts the people more than they would like to admit. With that in mind, being able to tell the government it is doing a bad job governing is something most people take for granted. For example, my mom got a new job in Abu Dhabi, which lies in the United Arab Emirates, this year. I told her about their numerous human rights violations when it came to their workers. She retorts with “well the United States has the same issue”. I remind her that yes that is true but at least here in the United State, we are free to do that. In the UAE, you run the risk of disappearing. Even more so if she was still in Saudi Arabia. So I think being able to dissent is good for any democracy.
When I asked the guy I sat next to about what thought about all these theories, he just told me he did not get democracy. He was talking about how it just leads to the majority in control of everything if they decide to vote one way while the minority gets shafted and left out if they vote another way. I did not know how to properly respond because it just did not make any sense to me what he said. I think democracy is a pretty simple thing to grasp. You get to participate in government which is something a good number of countries might kill you for trying to get a say in.
