Enemy of the People: The Ghost of the F.C.C. Fairness Doctrine in the Age of Alternative Facts

The FCC Fairness Doctrine required that all major broadcasting outlets spend equal time covering both sides of all controversial issues of national importance. The Fairness Doctrine remained the standard for decades before it stopped being enforced during the Reagan administration, and was removed from the Federal Register during the Obama administration. Since the Fairness Doctrine’s disappearance, the perception by conservatives and progressives alike has been that major media outlets display overt biases towards one political affiliation or the other. As it becomes harder to determine real news from “fake news,” Americans’ trust in media is at an all-time low. An appreciable number of people of various political affiliations now want the Fairness Doctrine to be reintroduced in some form. The purpose of this article is threefold: first, to examine the modern analogues to legal and Constitutional issues that the Fairness Doctrine overcame in its infancy, as Section II explains. Second, to explore modern problems vis-à-vis media distrust, bias, and reliability, as Section III discusses. Third, to explain why a “Fairness Doctrine 2.0” would go a long way towards curbing the biases in broadcast news media and restoring the American public’s trust in journalism, outlined in Section IV. Finally, Section V will offer alternative solutions to the modern issues of media bias, public distrust of media, and “fake news.

Discursive Mechanisms of News Media – Investigating Attribution and Attitudinal Positioning

The case of 17-year-old Afro-American Trayvon Martin shot dead in 2012 by white neighborhood watch George Zimmerman is generally reported as the first killing of what over the last few years seemed an epidemic of lethal violence committed on mostly unarmed afro-American civilians which ignited other waves of protests and rioting across the whole country. Immediately after Martin's fatal shooting the initial absence of charges against Mr. Zimmerman's conduct, owing to a controversial self-defense law, prompted nationwide protest and unrest. An online petition calling for a prosecution of Zimmerman garnered over two million signatures; a process against Zimmerman was then started, though in 2013 his acquittal gave birth to the international activist movement #BlackLivesMatter on social media. All these events have since then resonated in the sensationalized reports of the media which «employ textual strategies which foreground the speech act of offering values and beliefs» (Fowler 2013: 209). Within Martin & White's Appraisal Framework (2008) qualitative samples from the US print media coverage (The New York Times and Orlando Sentinel) of Trayvon Martin's story are investigated. More specifically, our focus is mainly on attribution and evidentiality, i.e. on the interplay of directly-quoted or indirectly-reported speech that journalistic writers use to attribute viewpoints and versions of events to a variety of external sources, especially potentially controversial meanings largely confined to material attributed to quoted sources. We aim at providing a socio-critical interpretation of how the supposedly unbiased media narratives of ethnic affairs contributed to inflame racial passions, and, by funneling audience attention toward certain topics, influenced public perceptions of important issues

2019 Program

University of Missouri-St. Louis Undergraduate Research Symposium Progra

Making International Health Regulations Work: Lessons from the 2014 Ebola Outbreak

Many legal scholars believe that the lack of enforcement mechanisms provided by the International Health Regulations (IHR) in part explains the slow containment of the deadly Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa in 2014. In contrast, some global health practitioners deem funding for global health emergencies as a key remedy to the ineffective international infectious disease control regime. Such belief underpinned the creation of the Pandemic Emergency Facility (PEF), the World Bank\u27s new financing initiative, aiming to finance global disaster response. Some commentators hope that the establishment of the PEF will resuscitate international interest in global health security and cooperation. Although current discussion touches upon how to integrate the PEF with the existing international infectious disease control regime, much remains unclear about how the PEF will relate to the IHR operationally and normatively. Relatedly, legal scholars and global health practitioners continue to talk about IHR enforcement and global health emergency funding as two different things, without exploring how the latter can incentivize the former. Starting from the IHR as a pillar of global health security, this Article focuses on strengthening the IHR enforcement mechanism--thus far overlooked in the current discussion--vis-a-vis the PEF. It also argues that such linkage is important in ensuring consistent, rapid global health emergency responses. Drawing on lessons from the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the Article demonstrates that the proposal is normatively desirable and politically feasible. The Article makes a timely intervention, as the PEF has tremendous potential in shaping the international infectious disease regime, creating new opportunities and anxiety simultaneously

4. Epidemics, Regulations, and Aristotle's Physics of Motion

The current polarization in public debate surrounding governmental regulatory responses to the Covid-19 pandemic is often portrayed as conflict between individual freedom and state control. A recurrent trope has been the likening of regulation in response to the Covid-19 pandemic to the condition described in Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, where citizens forego their individual freedom in exchange for protection by a mighty sovereign. In this sense, regulations introduced in response to the current pandemic have been viewed as threatening to expand state power and limit individual freedom. Whilst recognizing that epidemic-related regulations raise issues of state control and individual freedom, and hence resonate with Hobbes’s political theory, here I suggest that the polarization in this public debate also subtends epistemic uncertainty, and struggle over the locus of authority for knowledge and the relation of knowledge to action. In this respect, Hobbes is relevant to the current pandemic-debate also (and perhaps most significantly) for his reflection on human knowledge and action. Elements of Hobbes’s understanding of knowledge, as well as of the relation between knowledge and action, imply casting the human intellect in physical terms, and in particular in terms compatible with the Aristotelian physics of natural motion. I then bring this historical point to bear upon the current debate surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic, to suggest that the Hobbesian physics-inflected account of knowledge may offer a relevant—perhaps speculative, yet conceptually grounded and historically informed—perspective from which to reflect upon and responsibly assess, (dis)approve of, comply with, or challenge epidemic-related regulations. Keywords: Epidemic, Epidemic-related regulations, Hobbes, Bacon, Aristotle, Physic

Health Citizenship in the Forgotten District : Non-Profit Governance in the Ugandan Welfare State

The increasing presence of non-profit and non-governmental organizations as healthcare providers in Uganda has altered the role of the nation state in providing health services. This alteration is especially salient in Bududa district, located in a region of Uganda that has been labeled as “the forgotten district,” where traditional modes of the government oftentimes do not reach. Through three months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Bududa, this thesis attempts to address the ways in which individuals understand their relationship to the government vis à vis the health welfare system, and the ways in which the presence of the non-profit alters this understanding. I argue that the non-profit clinic changes the citizen-state relationship through its ability to provide the health services that the state cannot. Within this argument, I first establish that political forms of the state do not directly reach the rural district of Bududa. Rather, healthcare becomes the primary way through which individuals interact with the Ugandan government. I then argue that individuals measure the efficacy of this government service through the pharmaceuticals that they do or do not receive, as well as through their characterization of healthcare workers who distribute the pharmaceuticals as corrupt. Lastly, I demonstrate that these logics of pharmaceuticals as a measurement of adequate treatment qualify the non-profit as a more desirable site to receive care. In this process, the non-profit creates a form of governance that functions as an alternative to the state. I end by thinking through the implications of these multiple forms of governance on the current and future role of the Ugandan state in development of the country

Understanding the Socio-Economic, Health Systems & Policy Threats to Latino Health: Gaining New Perspectives for the Future

The emergence of the Latino population as the largest and diverse minority group in the U.S. presents challenges and opportunities for health practitioners, leaders and policy makers. Some evidence suggests that Latinos, and immigrants in particular, exhibit better health outcomes than would be expected given their average socio-economic status. Yet, overshadowing this positive health outlook are socio-economic, health system and policy barriers which disproportionately impact Latino health and well-being. This paper briefly discusses the Latino health paradox. It identifies the socio-economic, health systems barriers and public policies that threaten any potential health advantage. Finally, it suggests policy and prevention strategies for promoting the health of the largest emerging minority group in the U.S. Latinos

Health Inequalities in Europe: Setting the Stage for Progressive Policy Action

While the health of Europeans has improved over recent years, differences by gender, birthplace, and/or socioeconomic background persist. This report maps the extent of such health inequalities, its determinants, and costs to society. The findings indicate that differences in health between and within countries are attributable not only to social and health policies, but also depend on economic policy and the social determinants of health. Thus, holistic policy interventions are required to tackle health inequalities