Freedom of speech is the right, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to express beliefs and ideas without unwarranted government restriction. Freedom of Speech. (2010). In D. Batten (Ed.), Gale Encyclopedia of American Law (3rd ed., Vol. 4, pp. 543-550). Detroit: Gale. Retrieved from https://go.galegroup.com.proxy1.clpccd.cc.ca.us
Freedom of the press is the right, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to gather, publish, and distribute information and ideas without government restriction; this right encompasses freedom from prior restraints on publication and freedom from censorship.Freedom of The Press. (2010). In D. Batten (Ed.), Gale Encyclopedia of American Law (3rd ed., Vol. 4, pp. 550-553). Detroit: Gale. Retrieved from https://go.galegroup.com.proxy1.clpccd.cc.ca.us
Censorship is the act or process of inspecting expressive content, such as books, movies, recorded music, or Web pages, and deleting or restricting access to material deemed offensive by the person or organization doing the inspection.
The First Amendment protects against censorship by the government and not ordinarily against censorship by private parties; state action, rather than private action, is the target of the Amendment.Censorship. (2014). In A. Schwabach, Internet and the Law (2nd ed., pp. 26-29). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Retrieved from https://go.galegroup.com.proxy1.clpccd.cc.ca.us
Given the heat of the argument surrounding this issue, no definition of media bias will be completely satisfactory to all parties. For the present purposes, it is useful to think of media bias as a sort of systematic distortion in the news media's portrayal of social reality. In other words, a person forming a judgment about society or an impression of social conditions, based on mediated accounts of the real world, is likely to be mistaken to a significant degree. A person trying to form a reasoned policy position will not be able to obtain information of sufficient quality. In addition, when news content tends to favor certain positions, perspectives, or political or economic interests over others, the quality of discussion of important social issues is damaged.
Cooper, S. D. (2013). Media Bias. In J. Ciment (Ed.), Social Issues in America (pp. 1315-1325). Armonk, NY: Sharpe Reference. Retrieved from https://go.galegroup.com.proxy1.clpccd.cc.ca.us
Social media is user-generated content that is shared via the Internet. Social media reflects a shift in communication patterns from face-to-face, two-way interaction to wide-spread communication with a broader audience. In the past, the creation and distribution of video, audio, or text content was limited to organizations or individuals who had access to production facilities. Anthony Mayfield gives the following example in his e-book, What Is Social Media? “If you were a newspaper, you hired a team of reporters and editors, designers, typesetters, printers and delivery men, and had deals with a network of newsagents for them to sell your product to your audience.” Producing and broadcasting video and audio also required resources beyond what a layman had access to. All of that changed in the 2000s, when digital technology became less expensive and more widely available to the general public. Low-cost computers, digital cameras, gaming devices, software, and high-speed Internet enabled people to create their own blogs and Web sites and connect with the world like never before.Social Media. (2012). In L. J. Fundukian (Ed.), Gale Encyclopedia of E-Commerce (2nd ed., Vol. 2, pp. 680-683). Detroit: Gale. Retrieved from https://go.galegroup.com.proxy1.clpccd.cc.ca.us
Political blogs play a variety of roles in contemporary politics. Blogs adopt a variety of forms— from low-traffic, pseudonymous, single-author sites to heavily trafficked, multiauthor sites featuring blog content by political elites. Given the wide variation in blog architecture and niches, it is perhaps unsurprising that the role of blogs in politics is both complicated and variable. Some blogs serve as virtual megaphones for individual citizens to voice their political opinions. Other blogs are the functional equivalent of advocacy groups, mobilizing large communities of interest to take collective action around elections and policy issues. Still others act to support existing institutions—both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party include blogs on their Web sites, as do most major news organizations. Then, there are blogs like the Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo, which have grown into full-fledged news organizations in their own right, creating more competition within the news environment. Karpf, D. A. (2014). Blogs, Role in Politics. In K. Harvey (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Social Media and Politics (Vol. 1, pp. 130-133). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Reference. Retrieved from https://go.galegroup.com.proxy1.clpccd.cc.ca.us