Week 1

This week has been extremely eye opening. I found an organization system that suits me well. I print my sources out and put them in my binder. Then I put my citation and annotation in noodle tools. Then I highlight and make notes on the sources and also type notes in Evernote. Then I do my micro-blogs also in evernote. Though it involves many different components, I think it is the best system that I can use. It suits all my needs (a combination of paper and electronic). I took notes on my first five sources. Also, I think I will have an advisor (Mr. Way) by sometime next week. Next week I want to work on creating weekly objectives and figuring more specific areas to research and figure out my subtopics. I think this will help direct my research. My first five sources were meant to be me familiar with the topic and issue, and now I am ready to move forward and start getting into more real research.

More topic ideas

– how does religion impact people’s decisions and actions in their everyday life
– how have people used religion to justify violence and discrimination?
– hows does the media impact the portrayal of terrorism? (media refusing to call a Christian’s actions terrorism)

Other random topic ideas

– what makes people develop their political beliefs? like being liberal or conservative?
– what makes people close minded: racist, sexist homophobic, xenophobic, transphobic, ect.?

Topic Ideas Part 23823580250

Thesis Topic Idea: Media’s Impact of Criminal Trials and Convictions
• https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/commercial-law/effect-of-trial-by-media-before-courts-law-essay.php
o Media as a “public court,” interfering with court proceedings
o Sequestering the jury?
o “Media does a separate investigation, builds a public opinion against the accused even before the court takes cognizance of the case”
• *PAM SMART: this is one of the arguments present about Pam Smart in the Captivated Documentary
o “Trial By Media is Contempt of Court and Needs to be punished”
• http://www.capitalpunishmentincontext.org/issues/media
o “Under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, every defendant is entitled to a trial by an impartial jury of his or her peers”
o “Due to extensive media coverage, jury selection in a high profile case can be extremely difficult. Jurors will likely have developed some biases about the case based on the media coverage to which they have been exposed”
o “Capital cases, in particular, often attract extensive, emotionally charged coverage. These cases also present greater difficulties than other cases because death-qualified jurors may be more susceptible to pre-trial publicity than other jurors”
o “Research indicates that judges are also susceptible to media coverage when making their rulings. A Stanford University study found “press coverage magnifies the influence of voters’ penal preferences on criminal sentencing decisions” of elected judges for severe violent crimes. (Lim, Snyder & Stromberg, 2010) When a case receives a large amount of media coverage, elected judges tend to sentence more punitively than if the case is less publicized”
o Little research has been done to date on the possible effects of social media on court cases. New media, such as blogs, facebook, or twitter, allow the public to share facts and opinions about court cases. These websites, as well as search engines like Google, present new challenges for defendants, attorneys, and judges. Information is more widely available than ever before, and potential jurors who may not come across a case in traditional media may be influenced by the reactions of others on social media sites”
• IS THIS AN AREA THAT THERE IS NOT A LOT OF RESEARCH YET? A PLACE FOR NEW IDEAS AND RESEARCH?
o “The problems caused by pre-trial publicity can be addressed by the court in a number of ways. Despite the biasing effect of pre-trial publicity, the Supreme Court has ruled that courts cannot stop the press from publicizing truthful information about criminal trials, as doing so would violate the First Amendment right to freedom of the press. Since pre-trial publicity cannot be prevented, courts must find ways to minimize its impact on the fairness of the trial”
o “The court may postpone trial proceedings in order to allow time for the initial publicity to dissipate. The judge can also modify jury instructions to specifically instruct jurors to ignore pre-trial publicity. However, these approaches may not be effective in eliminating juror bias”
o “If defense attorneys believe their client will be harmed by pre-trial publicity, they can request a change of venue, which moves the trial away from the jurisdiction where the crime occurred”
o Problems in Particularly High-Profile Cases
o Cameras in the Courtroom
o This website gave the following “Questions for Further Analysis”; could these be research questions?
• Take another high-publicity case (DC sniper John Muhammad, O.J. Simpson, Timothy McVeigh or any other that interests you), find examples of the pre-trial publicity in that case, and analyze its potential effects.
• With all of the extensive media coverage today, especially in high-publicity cases, how can the court system find jurors who are uninformed about the case? Should finding people with no knowledge of the case be the goal? What are the drawbacks of a jury composed of such people? Are there other ways to eliminate, or at least reduce, juror bias?
• What are the arguments for and against having high-publicity cases decided by judges instead of juries?
• Should movie and TV deals be prohibited until after the case has been tried?
• How may law enforcement officials be affected in carrying out their duties by media coverage of a major case?