MC 4163 — FIRST EXAM STUDY GUIDE:
First Amendment Models for Print, Broadcast, Cable & Internet
For the cases, know the facts of each one and the rules that emerged from them. What rationales or reasoning led to those rules? Be able to correctly recognize and apply those rationales and rules in hypothetical situations.
- What are the different levels of First Amendment protection afforded to print, broadcast, cable and the Internet? Why do those different levels exist? In other words, how do the different mediums differ?
- Lovell v. Griffin (1938) (not in Pember)
- Miami Herald v. Tornillo (1974)
- What rule did the court establish?
- Which First Amendment theory did the court reject?
- Understand the four reasons the court used to come to its conclusion.
- Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC (1969)
- How did the U.S. Supreme Court reach seemingly conflicting decisions in the Red Lion and Miami Herald cases? In other words, how did the U.S. Supreme Court justify allowing the government to regulate broadcasting in ways that it said would violate the First Amendment rights of publishers?
- What are the three rationales for broadcast regulation?
- What led to the enactment of the Radio Act of 1927? Why did the Radio Act of 1927 seemingly violate the First Amendment?
- Cable:
- How does cable differ from broadcasting and from newspapers under the First Amendment and why?
- Is the Internet publishing? Is the Internet broadcasting? Do the three rationales that justify broadcast regulations also justify regulating the Internet?
- ACLU v. Reno, 929 F. Supp. 824 (E.D. PA 1996)
- Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844 (U.S. 1997)
- Explain whether the U.S. Supreme Court seemed to leave open the door to lessening the Internet's First Amendment protection.
- What is the importance of this ruling?
- What does "net neutrality" mean?
- What important First Amendment issues are raised by "net neutrality"?
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