Media Law Blog

Everyone has their favorite social media. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and countless other sites and apps give us our daily dose of news, entertainment, and updates on the lives of our friends and families. One site I have come to use quite often is the site Reddit. Reddit claims itself to be the "front page of the internet" and does a pretty good job holding that title up in my opinion. When you open Reddit for the first time you are greeted with posts and articles from every corner of the internet and every interest imaginable. You can subscribe to "subreddits" which are concentrated on specific topics and serve to bring all the news regarding these topics into one location. Subreddits range from normal things like sports, politics, and finance to the downright weird ones like r/WtWFotMJaJtRAtCaB which is a subreddit dedicated to pictures of water flowing over a milk jug and creating a bubble, hence the name "When the Water Flows over the Milk J...

There is no system of justice in place anywhere in the world quite like the Supreme Court of the United States. Nine justices sit together and make decisions that change the landscape of our country and the world on a daily basis. The justices are appointed by the President, but there is not always a seat available. If a justice passes away or retires from the bench the current president is in charge of choosing a replacement. This could give rise to a shift in the political ideology of the Court as whether there are more Democrats or Republicans can dictate how the Court votes. Having the chance to nominate a justice is a time where the President has a lot of power. The nomination is not a guarantee though. The nominee must pass through a confirmation process by the Senate. Occasionally controversies will arise as well that delay the confirmation. Most recently President Donald Trump's nomination for an open seat was put through a lengthy investigation to de...

The technology world is always being defined with new innovations and new concepts. Things ranging from radio to television have come to define our world countless different times over our existence. The mobile phone is one of the most recent (relatively speaking) innovations and every year dozens of new software and hardware updates are made to cell phones to compete in an ever-changing environment. Some of the biggest changes that seem to happen quite consistently is the sizing down of the phone. Yes, there is always the "Max" version of a phone or the one that is bigger than a standard model but as a whole, the cell phone has been getting thinner if nothing else. Some company, however, is looking to change that up in 2019. Samsung has been the biggest household name to have released models for folding smartphones with more reportedly on the way. The hype around the folding smartphone comes in the accessibility of the device. You could go from a regular sized ...

Video games and gaming have been a huge industry almost from the very start. Since 2000 the industry has only seemed to grow exponentially. With updated graphics, new hardware, new software, and many more innovations the potential for video gaming can only go up. One particular area that has seen a massive rise has been in streaming. To someone like my parents, the concept doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Effectively people will watch streamers play video games and even donate real money to them. Top streamers like Tyler Blevins, better known as Ninja, reportedly make 6 figures a month from subscriptions, sponsorship, and donations. Not every streamer will have this success but it's certainly more achievable to the average person than something like the NFL may be. I never understood the huge craze behind streaming. I would see highlights on social media and pondered why people would pay to watch something they can find for free. Then I sat back and thought about ESPN+, the s...

Imagine a world where the phenom that became Kobe Bryant was already a household name even before the NBA Draft. Well, Kobe isn't the player but we are living that world here and now. The introduction of sites like HoopMixtape, Ballislife, and other basketball highlight sites have kids as young as 12 making a name for themselves on social media and the internet. In the 80s and 90s, you started to see some broadcasts of high school basketball like the McDonald's All-American Game, which gives a glimpse of who the future stars could be but there still wasn't a lot of publicity around players unless they were a top college player. Nowadays players like Zion Williamson already had thousands of followers and social media views from his high-flying dunks and blocks that he did in high school as a sophomore. The culture around basketball and basketball recruiting has changed drastically in the modern era. No longer are players first mentioned in national sports coverage as "t...

The prevalence of social media and countless other online sites in the black hole that is the internet gives readers an endless number of new choices for where to get their daily news. While more traditional news methods like newspaper and broadcast are still very useful many people enjoy the always-ready content news sites offer. Today I am presenting my personal top five sites for where I get my news. These selections are in no particular order. 1. Twitter Most of the time if you were to mention Twitter people would consider it a more social oriented site than a news-oriented site. While this can be true based on your personal preference of accounts and tweeters that you follow the same can be said for news. Twitter is easily my most used social media outlet and might be one of my most used apps on my phone and because of my constant use, I have found a good balance on my Twitter feed between news and leisure. Most of my sports news comes from Twitter as well as a fair amou...