Category: Politics
2017 Law Promotes Media Literacy for students in WA Schools
On Thursday, April 20, our bill became a law! Governor Jay Inslee signed it with AME representatives Barbara Johnson, Nick Pernisco and Marilyn Cohen present. The law will go into effect on July 23.
This bill, ESSB 5449, is a follow up to SSB 6273. That bill made us the first state in the country to pass media literacy legislation, making Washington the model state. Read more about our success passing SSB 6273 here.
Now media literacy legislation has moved still another step forward in Washington with the passage of a second bill ESSB 5449 in 2017.
In speaking with the group, Governor Inslee noted how this bill was addressing an important subject.
Multiple news articles have come out to coverage the passing of this bill:
- King 5: New law promotes digital citizenship for students
- U.S. News: New Law Promotes Media Literacy, Internet Safety in Schools
- KEPR TV: New law promotes media literacy, internet safety in school curriculum
View images from the bill signing below.
2017 Law Promotes Media Literacy for students in WA Schools
On Thursday, April 20, our bill became a law! Governor Jay Inslee signed it with AME representatives Barbara Johnson, Nick Pernisco and Marilyn Cohen present. The law will go into effect on July 23.
This bill, ESSB 5449, is a follow up to SSB 6273. That bill made us the first state in the country to pass media literacy legislation, making Washington the model state. Read more about our success passing SSB 6273 here.
Now media literacy legislation has moved still another step forward in Washington with the passage of a second bill ESSB 5449 in 2017.
In speaking with the group, Governor Inslee noted how this bill was addressing an important subject.
Multiple news articles have come out to coverage the passing of this bill:
- King 5: New law promotes digital citizenship for students
- U.S. News: New Law Promotes Media Literacy, Internet Safety in Schools
- KEPR TV: New law promotes media literacy, internet safety in school curriculum
View images from the bill signing below.
Capitol dome
Pictured: Barbara Johnson, Action for Media Education and Marilyn Cohen, NW Center for Media Literacy, College of Education, UW
Pictured left to right: Dennis Small, Educational Technology Director, Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Sharyn Merrigan, Teacher-Librarian, Olympia School District, Jessica Vavrus, Washington State School Directors’ Association and Carolyn Logue, Washington State Library Association.
Pictured left to right: Evan Smith, Legislative Assistant, Curt Kohlwes, Executive Legislative Assistant and Sen. Marko Liias 21st District-Lynnwood.
Pictured left to right: Jessica Vavrus, Washington State School Directors’ Association, Carolyn Logue, Washington State Library Association, Sharyn Merrigan, Teacher-Librarian, Olympia School District, Dennis Small, Educational Technology Director, Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Nick Pernisco, Action for Media Education, Evan Smith, Legislative Assistant, Marilyn Cohen, NW Center for Media Literacy, College of Education, UW, Senator Marko Liias 21st District-Lynnwood and Curt Kohlwes, Executive Legislative Assistant.
ESSB 5449 Bill History
Marilyn Cohen shaking hands with Gov. Jay Inslee. Pictured left to right: Curt Kohlwes, Executive Legislative Assistant, Sen. Marko Liias 21st District-Lynnwood, Marilyn Cohen, NW Center for Media Literacy, College of Education, UW, Carolyn Logue, Washington State Library Association and Gov. Jay Inslee.
Pictured left to right: Gov. Jay Inslee, Dennis Small, Educational Technology Director, Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Marilyn Cohen, NW Center for Media Literacy, College of Education, UW and Barbara Johnson, Action for Media Education.
What is media literacy?
Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication. To be media literate, one must be aware of the influence media has on them and apply this knowledge by taking an active stance towards consuming and creating media.
About media literacy:
So is media literacy important when we talk about the social media?
Yes. An understanding of the Key Questions for Consumers and Producers can be an important starting point when trying to help young people make wise choices and engage more fully as online citizens.
Does media literacy include online safety?
Yes, media literacy is an umbrella term for teaching children the skills to be active and safe participants with media of all types. The critical thinking skills required to become media literate can be applied to any message from any medium. In other words, it does not make a difference if the message comes from social media, television, websites, videogames, radio, print or cell phone, the same skills are needed to interpret and make wise choices about what is seen and heard. Online safety is of particular concern which is why we advocate for media literacy education for all school children K-12.
Is Digital Citizenship the same as Media Literacy?
The term Digital Citizenship is often used interchangeably with media literacy, and indeed, media literacy skills are necessary for being a responsible online citizen. Media Literacy, however, is larger than the internet — it involves a new way to see and interpret the world through all forms of media. The critical thinking skills of media literacy are applicable to all aspects of life, and media literacy is an established academic discipline internationally, with a pedagogy and structure necessary for teaching and transferring knowledge and skills.
Is there a difference between media literacy and media education?
Yes. Media literacy refers to a set of skills whereas media education involves the process through which one learns these skills. There is no limit to how “media literate” one can become!
Local librarians, key partners in media literacy instruction, need your help
URGENT: Educators are fighting to protect their library programs, and none more so than those in Seattle Public Schools. While WA State recently increased its education budget, it also restricted the levy funds local districts can raise. This means that Seattle cannot fully collect the funds it has already approved! The result is a $39M budget deficit in Seattle Schools, with over $12M of the deficit directed at school budgets. Librarians, nurses, and counselors bear the brunt of the cuts.
How can you help? Spread the word among friends, family, colleagues.
5 MINUTES: Write or call WA State legislator Reuven Carlyle or other members of the Ways and Means Committee to support SB 5313, allowing for levy flexibility.
Contact the legislature TODAY!
Leave your comments on SB 5313
Contact SPS school board members, advocating for no cuts to library budgets.
10 MINUTES: Learn more. Read Keith Curry Lance and Debra Kachel’s article detailing research that correlates high quality school library programs and student achievement.
Why school librarians matter: What years of research tell us
5 HOURS: Head to Olympia on April 2 to join SPS librarians to rally and lobby for levy flexibility. #SPSLibrarians
By Kathryn Egawa, Action for Media Education Board Member
Net Neutrality: Back in the news
Net Neutrality’s Title I vs. Title II
Digital Divide Remains
Despite bipartisan talk, consensus on legislative solution continues to elude legislators
The new Democratic-led House Communications Subcommittee weighed back into the still legally muddy net neutrality waters Thursday (Feb. 7), led by chairman Mike Doyle, who led the unsuccessful House effort to follow the Senate and nullify the net neutrality reg rollback under current Republican chairman Ajit Pai.
The main takeaway from the hearing was that both sides of the aisle sounded like they were looking for a way to “yes” on bipartisan legislation to restore FCC rules against blocking, throttling and (anti-competitive) paid prioritization as a way to provide certainty for consumers and broadband investment, but that the Title II vs. Title I digital divide appeared to be as wide as ever, threatening that bipartisan spirit.
Republicans talked up at least three legislative proposals that would restore the rules, but not under Title II, including legislative proffers from Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio), ranking member of the subcommittee, and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-Wash.), that would restore rules under a non-Title II framework.
Net neutrality activists monitoring the hearing quickly fired off e-mails shooting them down as fake bills backed by “telecom shillls.”
Read more at Broadcasting & Cable
By John Eggerton
It’s Time for the Press to Evolve
The current political climate we find ourselves in could hardly be more divisive and confounding. One of the challenges for students and teachers in media literacy education is to evaluate this question: Has the media responded appropriately to the challenges of the Trump era? What do you think?
George Lakoff, a cognitive linguist and philosopher, is a leading expert on the framing of political ideas. In this article he offers concrete tools for the press to “evolve” in response to tactics that are being widely used.
His article from O Society:
Attacks on the free press, and constant lying by political leaders, aren’t just happening here in the United States. These tactics are also being used by authoritarian leaders in other countries who are taking power using the same tactics as Trump.
These leaders understand how the press works, and they use its own tendencies against it in their efforts to erode democracy and freedom. They lie, knowing the press will repeat the lies. They create distractions because they know the press will chase the distractions. They release bad news when they think no one is paying attention. Too often, these tactics succeed.
It’s time for the press to evolve. The press needs new rules, practices and guidelines to respond to the threat posed by lying authoritarians with no respect for truth, freedom, or democracy. These types of leaders attack the press because they see the truth as a threat. And it’s the job of the press to report the truth.
Here are some suggestions members of the press can follow to ProtectTheTruth:
— Ban the lie from the headline/tweet/chyron. Repeating lies only spreads them, and spreading lies is a disservice to the truth. It’s possible to write engaging headlines without serving the lie. Always start with the truth, and always repeat the truth more than the lie.
— Use Truth Sandwiches. When writing about lies, always start with the truth first. Then explain the lie. Then return to the truth. Sequence and repetition matter! Truth first! Always.
— Separate News from Distractions. George Orwell said it best: “Journalism is printing what someone else doesn’t want printed. Everything else is public relations.” Trump’s tweets have become a constant obsession for reporters. But his Twitter dramas generally just distract from the important news stories crucial to democracy. He issues crazy tweets, calls people names, and includes silly typos because he WANTS people to talk about his tweet. And those who give him what he wants need to remember Orwell’s quote. What was the big story in the news before the Twitter drama started? Keep a steely focus on things that matter.
— Limit Trump photos. Images are crucial. Today, it seems like nearly every news story features a large photo of Trump. It’s all Trump, all the time. It’s a Trump overload. Editors need to be aware of the overall effect and make an effort to use a range of images to tell the story of our times. Politics is not just about the actors. It’s about the millions of people who are affected by those actions.
— Outsmart the “Friday Dump.” Politicians and corporations tend to release bad or unflattering news late Fridays, and especially on three-day weekends. This is because people pay less attention to the news at this time. So, the use of the “Friday Dump” is a tactic for hiding the truth from people. Imagine if anyone who tried this was instead greeted with a big Sunday or Monday story that also told people they were trying to hide the truth by dumping it on Friday.
by George Lakoff Dec 19, 2018
Read more here
Podcast: FrameLab: How To Protect the Truth
How does news work on social media?
Media Literacy Week, 2018
How do social media algorithms determine what you see? How do people try to game the system? Cory Zanoni discusses.
from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, published October 18, 2018
Lies, lies and more lies. Out of an old Tacoma house, fact-checking site Snopes uncovers them
Snopes CEO David Mikkelson says the fact-checking website really took off after Sept. 11. “Conspiracy theories were running rampant.” (Greg Gilbert / The Seattle Times)
Snopes, the country’s most popular hoax-debunking site, is run by its founder out of a 97-year-old house in Tacoma. And is it ever busy, with 47 of its “Hot 50” posts having something to do with politics.
Here, in a 97-year-old frame house in the city’s North End, is the headquarters of America’s most popular hoax-debunking website.
The command center for Snopes.com is an upstairs bedroom with shelving and a laptop placed atop some books and a cardboard box.
These are busy times.
Is This a Photograph of Christine Blasey Ford with Bill Clinton? False.
Did Protesters Vandalize Brett Kavanaugh’s House? False.
Is This a Photograph of a Wasted Brett Kavanaugh? False.
Is This a Photograph of Christine Blasey Ford Partying? False.
All those viral hoaxes, spread by social media, have created a market for fact-checking sites, with Snopes, started in 1994, being the champ.
It gets 32 million visits a month on desktop and mobile, according to Similar.Web.com, an industry site that measures web traffic. Its closest competitors are The Straight Dope (4 million monthly visits) and FactCheck (3 million).
From his bedroom office, David Mikkelson, Snopes publisher and CEO, runs a site employing 16 people across the country, half of them fact-checkers and the rest on the business and web side.
Read more at The Seattle Times
By Eric Lacitis, Seattle Times staff reporter Oct. 10, 2018
UW Lecture Series on Media Literacy
The University of Washington public lecture series, BUNK: The Information Series, brings an impressive lineup of speakers to Seattle.
- Author and political scientist Cornell Clayton will speak October 9, “Off the Rails: Populism and Paranoia in American Politics.”
- Renee Hobbs, a leader in the field of media literacy education, will speak November 28, “Mind Over Media: Teaching About Propaganda.”
The lectures are free and open to the public, but reservations are required and you must act quickly to reserve a seat.
See the full schedule of speakers.
Media Literacy Week, November 5-9, 2018 — It’s less than a month away!
Media Literacy Week activities and events raise awareness about the importance of media literacy education for today’s students, and showcase the amazing work of educators, students, and organizations across the US. Now in its fourth year, Media Literacy Week is sponsored by the National Association of Media Literacy Education (NAMLE).
NAMLE has named Ethan Delavan, Action for Media Education (AME) board member, as Washington’s Media Literacy Week chair. AME is a NAMLE partner in this annual event.
For updates on Media Literacy Week in Washington, check the AME blog, Facebook, or Twitter.
Great TEDx talk: How teachers can help kids find their political voices
Social justice belongs in our schools, says educator Sydney Chaffee. In a bold talk, she shows how teaching students to engage in activism helps them build important academic and life skills — and asks us to rethink how we can use education to help kids find their voices. “Teaching will always be a political act,” Chaffee says. “We can’t be afraid of our students’ power. Their power will help them make tomorrow better.”
Read more about this TEDx Talk here.
Media Literacy Project: Why should we trust journalists?
Professional journalists face more scrutiny in today’s crowded information marketplace because readers confuse them with bloggers and a cadre of online opinion scribes.
Journalism’s essence is a “discipline of verification,” according to Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel of the American Press Institute. This means that journalists pursue verification of facts as the first order of business. If the journalists do not follow these standards, their careers and reputations are on the line.
Readers should understand there are important differences between professional journalists and everyday bloggers. Journalists are held to higher standards. They are required to get specific training through journalism degrees and are held to employment standards that ensure they serve their audiences by providing relevant and reliable stories that matter to their communities.
Read more at The Free Press
By Kevin Krohn and Austin Moorhouse July 14, 2017
Information, propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation: A guide to evaluating information
What’s the difference between propaganda and disinformation? Why is misinformation different from disinformation? Not completely sure?
Parents, teachers, and anyone interested in media literacy can sort out what’s coming at us in today’s news cycle with the help of this website from the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries.
Two short videos, Evaluating Sources for Credibility, and Quick Check for your Sources: The TRAPP Method are a good place to start, and could generate lively classroom discussions.
Is someone trying to provoke you to a desired response, using information based in fact? Or is the information just wrong or mistaken? What if it’s a calculated, deliberate lie?
Find out now! Check out the guide from Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries
New WordPress policy allows it to shut down blogs of Sandy Hook deniers
The crackdown on hate speech continues:
WordPress has taken down a handful alt-right blogs, according to several complaints from affected blog owners and readers who claim the sites were removed from WordPress.com, despite not being in violation of the company’s Terms of Service. Some site owners also said they were not notified of the shutdown in advance and have lost their work. The removals, we’ve learned, are in part due to a new policy WordPress has rolled out that now prohibits blogs from the “malicious publication of unauthorized, identifying images of minors.”
Yes, that’s right: the company has created a new rule to specifically handle the Sandy Hook conspiracists, and boot them from WordPress.com.
While some of the affected sites had already been flagged for other violations, many were hosting Sandy Hook conspiracy theories and other “false flag” content.
Read more at TechCrunch
By Sarah Perez August 16, 2018
Tom Steyer plans to register 100,000 millennials to vote
Tom Steyer’s NextGen America organization is working to register 100,000 students in one month at college campuses across 11 states as part of its “Welcome Week” program launching this week.
Why it matters: This is the group’s biggest voter registration effort yet, focused specifically on the most crucial bloc of non-voters, and it’s happening just three months before the 2018 midterm election.
From Axios
By Alexi McCammond August 14, 2018 Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
FCC’s net neutrality DDoS claims debunked. Here’s what you need to know.
We finally have some answers on the alleged DDoS attack on the FCC’s commenting system
Net neutrality may be dead, but questions remain about how seriously the Federal Communications Commission considered comments from the public. The FCC’s system for submitting those comments was a hot mess.
Two million of the 22 million comments submitted used stolen identities, some for people who were dead, including actress Patty Duke, who died in 2016. Nearly 8 million comments used email domains associated with FakeMailGenerator.com. About half a million were sent from Russian email addresses. And of the emails that came from legitimate email addresses, the vast majority were form letters originating from the same pro- and anti-net neutrality groups.
Then there was the controversy over a supposed cyberattack on the comment system that temporarily shut down the platform on exactly the same day thousands of net neutrality supporters responded to comedian John Oliver’s call to flood the agency with comments.
That supposed cyberattack, after more than a year of speculation, has been confirmed to be false, as a statement from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai revealed on Monday.…
FCC officials declined to comment for this story.
So what does it mean for the controversial repeal of net neutrality? Could the tainted public record on net neutrality help in efforts to restore the rules? To help you understand what really happened and what it all means, CNET has put together this FAQ.
By Marguerite Reardon First published June 29, 2018 Update, Aug. 6, 2018
Teens are debating the news on Instagram
More teenagers are getting their information from so-called flop accounts.
…Luna, a 15-year-old admin on @Flops.R.us, said that she and other teens use flop accounts as a space, away from parents, teachers, or people who don’t take them seriously, to discuss issues and formulate ideas. “Flop accounts are your place where you can get your or other people’s opinions out,” she said.
“Teenagers want an outlet to express their opinions with the same kind of conviction that they generally might not be able to express at home or other parts of their life,” said Hal, a 17-year-old admin on @toomanyflops_.
“Liberal flop accounts point out problematic behavior or spread liberal opinions,” said Bea, a 16-year-old in Maryland who founded the account @hackflops. “Conservative accounts post about feminism and whether the movement is good or bad, whether you can be conservative and LGBT, or Black Lives Matter and whether it’s better or worse than All Lives Matter … I’ve formed my opinions largely based upon what I see in the flop community…
Siva Vaidhyanathan, a media-studies professor at the University of Virginia, said he thinks flop accounts are a good thing. “You have people engaging directly with claims about the world and arguing about truthfulness and relevance in the comments. It’s good that that’s happening,” he said. “If young people are getting more politically engaged because of it, all the better.”
By Taylor Lorenz, July 26, 2018 Read more at The Atlantic
Image courtesy of INSTAGRAM / THANH DO / THE ATLANTIC
The death of truth: how we gave up on facts and ended up with Trump
Media literacy education teaches us how to evaluate sources and understand how information can be manipulated. This excellent article from The Guardian is well worth reading.
For decades now, objectivity – or even the idea that people can aspire toward ascertaining the best available truth – has been falling out of favour. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s well-known observation that “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts” is more timely than ever: polarisation has grown so extreme that voters have a hard time even agreeing on the same facts. This has been exponentially accelerated by social media, which connects users with like-minded members and supplies them with customised news feeds that reinforce their preconceptions, allowing them to live in ever narrower silos.
Take action: Opportunity to make Media Literacy a budget priority
Dear Media Literacy Advocates, Friends and Supporters,
Now is the time for us to take action! Washington State Superintendent Chris Reykdal is asking for your opinion about new priorities for school funding. This is an opportunity to influence funding for years to come!
Superintendent Reykdal wants to hear from us — teachers, students, parents and interested taxpayers.
- The online survey asks you to rank budget priorities that OSPI should put forward to the Legislature for 2019.
- Media literacy is not listed on the survey; you can use the write-in section.
- The more times we can get media literacy mentioned in this survey, the better chance we have to ensure the funding of media literacy education.
To take the survey, please visit the State of Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction website below:
You can take the survey here on the State of Washington OSPI website.
The survey is open now through Friday, June 8.
It is available in nine languages in addition to English: Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, Somali, Traditional Chinese, Khmer, Korean, Punjabi, and Tagalog. It takes just five minutes to complete and is completely anonymous.
Let’s make sure Superintendent Reykdal knows that media literacy education must be included in his list of priorities!
Teachers are marching ahead of their unions, from Oklahoma to Arizona
“I’m 54 years old and my paycheck is $1,980 [a month]. I can’t afford f****** health insurance.”
That’s one of the first things Larry Cagle says on the phone. He is spitting nails. The Tulsa English teacher is one of the leaders of a grassroots organizing group, Oklahoma Teachers United, that they say represents thousands of public school teachers around the state. His group, and both of Oklahoma’s teachers unions, support the walkout and rally happening across the state Monday in support of higher wages and more state revenue.
Teachers are striking even though state legislators passed a pay raise of about $6,000 last week. That vote followed earlier walkouts. The bill, if signed, would bring Oklahoma’s teacher salaries from among the lowest in the nation, to the middle of the pack.
The Oklahoma teachers are not the only ones unhappy.
Continue reading “Teachers are marching ahead of their unions, from Oklahoma to Arizona”
Facebook gave data about 57bn friendships
Before Facebook suspended Aleksandr Kogan from its platform for the data harvesting “scam” at the centre of the unfolding Cambridge Analytica scandal, the social media company enjoyed a close enough relationship with the researcher that it provided him with an anonymised, aggregate dataset of 57bn Facebook friendships.
Facebook provided the dataset of “every friendship formed in 2011 in every country in the world at the national aggregate level” to Kogan’s University of Cambridge laboratory for a study on international friendships published in Personality and Individual Differences in 2015. Two Facebook employees were named as co-authors of the study, alongside researchers from Cambridge, Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley. Kogan was publishing under the name Aleksandr Spectre at the time.
Read more from The Guardian. Image courtesy of The Guardian.
FCC plans December vote to kill Net Neutrality rules
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission next month is planning a vote to kill Obama-era rules demanding fair treatment of web traffic and may decide to vacate the regulations altogether, according to people familiar with the plans.
The move would reignite a years-long debate that has seen Republicans and broadband providers seeking to eliminate the rules, while Democrats and technology companies support them. The regulations passed in 2015 bar broadband providers such as AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp. from interfering with web traffic sent by Google, Facebook Inc.and others.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, chosen by President Donald Trump, in April proposed gutting the rules and asked for public reaction. The agency has taken in more than 22 million comments on the matter.
Pai plans to seek a vote in December, said two people who asked not to be identified because the matter hasn’t been made public. As the head of a Republican majority, he is likely to win a vote on whatever he proposes.
Video courtesy of Bloomberg.
Success! Mattel announced that they were canceling the release of Aristotle
From Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood:
On October 4, Mattel announced that they were canceling the release of Aristotle. Thank you to the thousands of parents, caregivers, and experts who spoke out in support of kids’ privacy and well-being! We commend Mattel for doing the right thing and putting kids first.
Mattel announced on Wednesday that it was canceling plans to bring to market a smart device called Aristotle, which was aimed at children from infancy to adolescence and was set to hit stores in 2018. The decision came after child advocacy groups, lawmakers and parents raised concerns about the impact the artificial intelligence device could have had on children’s privacy, development and well-being.
A petition asking Mattel not to release Aristotle, started in May by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Story of Stuff Project, garnered more than 15,000 signatures and argued that babies and older children shouldn’t be encouraged to form bonds with data-collecting devices.
Mobile app gives felons a fresh start
Junior Castañeda spent most of the past decade addicted to methamphetamines and suffering through stints of homelessness. After racking up five misdemeanors, including three DUIs, he cleaned up a couple of years ago and entered community college with dreams of attaining an advanced degree in business.
To finance his education, Castañeda sought part-time employment this spring as a ticket-taker for the Oakland A’s. He thought the job interview went well, but a few weeks later Castañeda received a rejection letter denying him employment based on his prior criminal convictions.
Then, in March, Castañeda found out about a mobile app called Clear My Record. The platform helps people reduce or dismiss nonviolent convictions by submitting crime information to public defenders, streamlining a process that can take months and multiple visits to a county courthouse.
“All these companies have you run a background check,” said Castañeda. “Well, I’ve changed. I’ve reformed from my old life and I can be a productive member of society. I can be an asset to any company.”
Advertisers, afraid to offend, weigh in on Shakespeare and Megyn Kelly
Delta Air Lines and Bank of America drew headlines this week for pulling their support from New York’s Public Theater in response to criticism about its production of “Julius Caesar,” in which the titular character — made up to look like Mr. Trump — is assassinated. Then, on Monday, JPMorgan Chase temporarily halted its ads on NBC News because of Megyn Kelly’s coming interview with Alex Jones, who operates the far-right site Infowars and has become more prominent because of his relationship with Mr. Trump. In both cases, the advertisers’ decisions were cheered by some and deplored as censorship by others.
“A lot of sponsorships that wouldn’t have garnered a lot of attention a year ago are now coming under greater scrutiny because people are wondering what that says about a business’s political stance,” said Kara Alaimo, who teaches public relations at Hofstra University. “Brands are going to be asking a lot more questions moving forward about the content of theatrical productions and potentially even of news outlets, which is sort of the more frightening prospect to me.”