E-Communication Rights: A Compendium of Research
Introduction
Over seventy percent of Americans are now online for an average of eleven hours a week1, forming a massively efficient and pervasive communications network. The presence of such an awesome mass of users has forced individuals, corporations, and governments to attempt to control the Internet to best fit their interests. Whether through online moderation discussion boards, filtering software, surveillance tools, or intellectual property laws, artificial restrictions on online communication are widespread. Whether or not and to what extent such limits are beneficial to society is an open question ripe for research.
About Our Group
Our group was formed in Stanford's E-Rhetoric class on technology and society. All of us have spent a significant amount of time researching specific parts of the e-communication rights question. Below, we present our research in a series of research hypertexts.
Our Research
An ever-increasing number of people frequent political forums online. While the new medium allows a large amount of citizens to voice their ideas, it also has unique drawbacks that inhibit meaningful social intercourse. In Political Discussions Online, Jeremy Hoffman analyzes these issues and offers some potential improvements to online political discussions. Through examining several forums, he shows which types of moderating styles generate the most fruitful discourse.
Ben Nham takes a critical look at intellectual property law in Copyright in the Digital Era. Through economic and legal theory and several case studies, he shows that although copyright was originally created to help promote creativity, current laws are so restrictive that they actualy hinder innovation. In order to capitalize on the ability of the Internet to freely efficiently disseminate speech and ideas, copyright law must be drastically reformed.
Millions of people have committed the crime of downloading copyrighted music online. Cindy Wang examines why this practice continues despite its illegality in her Digital Music research. Focusing on the legal, economic, and social issues surrounding the digital music phenomenon, Cindy shows how the difference in perspective between media companies and individuals can be profitably resolved.
From pornography and graphically explicit images to online terrorist networks, the Internet is a powerful medium in which data can be exchanged both discreetly and overtly. In light of this, Nam Bui shows how the government should manage controversial content in his research on Free Speech and Censorship.
While the Internet may bring citizens an unparalleled ability to freely distribute ideas, it may also provide the government an unparalleled ability to track its citizens without their consent. Ethan Yang surveys government surveillance initiatives in his project, Internet Surveillance. He explains that although catching criminals and terrorists is important, current flawed surveillance implementations only serve to take away our fundamental right to privacy.
References
1. See pg. 17 of the 2002 UCLA Internet Report
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