MCOM 4003-Sydney Wader

Early in the semester around February I did a blog on plagiarism in the fashion industry and decided that it was one of the projects that caught my eye. I covered fashion 'crimes' around the globe some dealing with the infamous Kim Kardashian and the other dealing with a wedding fashion designer named Sadaf Fawad Khan .  After covering just a few of these copy cats I decided I wanted to do a deeper dive into the world of plagiarism in the world of fashion. Google defines plagiarism as "The practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own." Like I stated in my last blog when we think of plagiarism we normally think of papers, books, etc but don't always associate fashion with the issue. Recently the Daily Inquirer in the Philippines covered a fashion scandal as an Italian fashion design company called Max Mara is under heavy fire for copying an ethnic minority group. The Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre also kno...

America home of the free and the brave, here in the United States of America we have a lot more freedom than other countries in the press, social media, etc. The Freedom of Information Act is a piece of legislation that grants public access to documents or other data in the possession of the government agency or public authority. Unless the information falls into a category that specifically excluded from the terms of legislation. A story involving this act hit the presses and is bringing in a lot of attention. A former police officer for the Bakersfield Police Department in California has recently had claims filed against him for sending explicit images and messages to a 911 caller. The woman has also filed a claim against the police department as a whole for not properly training Officer Enrique Mosqueda or supervising him while on duty. The young woman whose name is being withheld by the media made a 911 call saying she believed her ex boyfriend was outside her home vandalizin...

Here in the United States we have pretty much total freedom on our social media accounts and whatever we want to view.  In June of 2017 Mexico had around 85 million social media user and has grown by 27% throughout the years. Internet users in Mexico on average are spending about 3.5 hour a day on their social media. They are also Facebook's 5th largest market in the entire world. With that being said I wanted to look into Mexico's overall freedom on social media where their status was marked as 'partly free' as they still face limits on their content.  Now even though they are considered to be partly free they do not have freedom of press and bloggers are arrested and even given jail time for their opinions posted online. Over the years their freedom on social media has steadily increased but began to backtrack in 2017 when government spyware became a large concern. With this spyware the internet and social media became a rather scary place to be voicing your opi...

We are always on the internet and we heavily rely on it to give us information. Everyone always cracks jokes like "Well if you read it on the internet it must me true." because obviously there are some liars on the web. Now fact checking is when you investigate an issue in order to verify the facts.   Along with fact checking we can look at misinformation which is false or inaccurate information, especially that which is deliberately intended to deceive. Now who is the king of misinformation and gets fact checked on the hour? The one and only President Donald Trump the leader of the United States seems to have a bit of a fibbing problem. CNN did study on Trump for National Fact Checking Day and found that he has made 9,451 false or misleading claims in his 802 days in office. We all know that our President has been less then truthful on multiple occasions. The Washington Post Fact Checker has recently proved just how much he stretches the truth. Trump is averaging 2...

First I want to start of explaining what exactly exploitation is and how it works. Exploitation is when someone uses a story of their own or a public story for their own personal gain. We see different cases of exploitation in the media every week and it's not always the same topic either. The sad part is people will use sad stories to scam money out of people. I was browsing Facebook late the other night and came across a story that just didn't sit right with me.  A four year old boy Nolan Scully was diagnosed with terminal cancer and recently passed away in February. After the young boy fought for his life for a year sadly like I said before lost his life a year after being diagnosed. The mother was very active in sharing Nolan's story on social media. Constantly sharing updates and photos about her little boys battle with cancer. Now here is where I got interested, in 2017 someone set up a donation page using pictures of Nolan and his story to make money for them...

Have you ever listened to a song and suddenly you think i've heard this before? You're not the only one, the world is full of copy cats that try to sneak around the rules. Copy right is defined as "the exclusive legal right, given to an originator or an assignee to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material, and to authorize others to do the same." Now when we think about copyright we have to take into account what fair use is and how it works. Fair Use is defined as "The doctrine that brief excerpts of copyright material may, under certain circumstances, be quoted verbatim for purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching, and research, without the need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder." Music has always played a big role in my life the old and the new. A classic song from the 80's called I Want a New Drug written by Huey Lewis is a song I wasn't quite familiar with. However, ...

According to Google reporter's privilege is "reporter's protection under constitutional or statutory law, from being compelled to testify about confidential information or sources." Now reporter's privilege is always popping up in our news and I've never really understood it until now. Buzzfeed was in court this past week in Florida when a judge was questioning who the confidential source was for the Trump Dossier. Buzzfeed stated that they should not have to release who the reporter was that worked on the controversial story. Now the big problem Buzzfeed is facing is the law suit from Russian tech creator Aleksej Gurbarev suing for defamation . The Trump Dossier had Gurbarev and his company named in the documents that discussed Trump's deep ties with Russia. Now the problem is with this lawsuit the court is demanding the name of a confidential source to be released which legally they do not have to. Buzzfeed is also boosting stories about sexual a...

  Copy cats are everywhere these days in fashion, school, and work. Plagiarism is defined by Google as "The practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own." Something we don't really think about is how plagiarism is appearing in the fashion industry every week. Hot on the press recently was Janelle Monáe's Grammy performance outfit. Nange Magro a designer for Dead Lotus Couture has accused Monáe of plagiarism for her outfit worn during her performance. Along with copying this outfit Monáe has previously modeled for the fashion brand and there are even pictures of her wearing the designs on their website. Nange posted about performance congratulating her on the performance but quickly dug into the blatant plagiarism stating that "I'm deeply DISAPPOINTED, though, that their outfits look so much like one of Dead Lotus Couture's 2015 classic designs. I could've made it for them if they contacted me....

  These days advertisers will do just about anything to convince you to buy a product. Everyday we see products being pushed with a little extra boost to sell you. Kellogg's is one of these companies that has done some fibbing to get more attention. Kellogg's headquarters is located in Battle Creek, Michigan and has been around since 1906. The company that has been running for over 112 years tried to push the envelope on one of their cereal classics.  In 2010,  Kellogg's famous Rice Krispies cereal claimed that if there children ate the cereal that it would boost their child's immune system. The statement on the box was "25% Daily Value of Antioxidents and Nutrients. Vitamins A, B, C, and E" and obvioulsy that wasn't the truth.    The case was settled a year later with a $2.5 million pay off to affected customers and then had to give another $2.5 million worth of products to charity. A few short years later in 2013 Kellogg's Mini-Whea...

When I was little I remember staring at the tabloid sections in the checkout line with my mom. As a little girl I always wanted to pick them up and read them, now when I see them all I do is laugh because I know that information is anything but true. OK! originally was a British tabloid that was released weekly and the first release was in 1993. However, American Media Incorporation bought out the magazine in 2011 when the editor stepped down and was replaced by James Robertson. The AMI has other major tabloid they publish like Life&Style, Global Inquirer, Star, US Weekly, etc. According to their site OK! is ranked #1 in reaching women ages 18 to 49. Their social media has over 3.1 million fans on their multiple profiles and the prints weekly median age is 37. Now OK! may have some truth in their magazine but you will have to give it a hard look. OK! is very well known for their coverage of weddings and everything surrounding the event. They even do marriage special magazin...

Today a common topic on cable news is President Trump's current decisions in office whether it deal with the building of the border walls, his presidential ratings while in office, etc. So when we look at bias in cable news we have to look at the two different spectrums of the bias. If a network is considered left biased means they take a more liberal approach to news coverage whereas being right biased is taking a more conservative approach. Networks like Fox are known for leaning towards the right when covering news stories. When covering topics like the President we only see positive takeaway like in recent coverage of the Fox News Poll discussing Trump's rating after two years in office. They pulled responses like " Voters feel better about the economy than they did two years ago. " In the recent poll they took 41% of voters gave a positive response to the change in the economy during Trump's presidency. Then we can take a look at a cable news networ...