PART I – ESSAY ASSIGNMENT
The attachment to this email describes the fact pattern you should address in your written essay, an important part of the final graded assignment assigned to you in this course. Remember that I expect a minimum of 5 pages covering all points raised in the attachment.
Different assignments have been distributed among your classmates. Please prepare your essay without sharing responsibility for same with any classmates, but feel free to talk over the issues in your assignment with others when organizing your thoughts. Remember that I expect all subjects to be analyzed in your papers with discussions about applicable ethical/moral considerations and duties; and also any applicable legal requirements controlling the behaviors and decisions in the facts you are assigned. Mention the federal and state laws and requirements we covered in your reading assignments using their correct names or abbreviations (Examples, Civil Rights Act of 1964; OSHA, FDA, The Fair Wage Standards Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA, etc.). Mere references to the US Constitution or the Bill of Rights are considered inadequate legal descriptions of the laws involved.
The paper should follow the APA style guide, should include a cover sheet, content section and a reference section with reference materials set forth in the format required under the APA requirements, so your instructor can find the particular sections and pages relevant to your essay when looking at your references. Therefore, give page numbers and chapter references, particularly for books and publications, not just a reference to an article or publication, unless the referenced material is so brief that no other information is required. The full webpage designation for online references should be included so that the source material can be found by inserting the reference into a web browser window.
If the assignment does not suggest a particular fictional recipient of business Committee/Officer as the recipient of your essay, write your essay as if it was to be a personal memo for your own recollection and analysis, for your use in future business meetings with employers, attorneys, advisors, etc.
FINAL ESSAY SCENARIO – ONLINE STATION MANAGER
Your employer, W123.COM, is located in New York City.
It has hired you to supervise the staff of its English language online news and public interest internet station. This media provider obtains its revenue from advertising and sponsorship of a streaming video website which offers both live streaming and video formatted materials to its viewers. Your audience is primarily online viewers in the United States.
The station depends on its successfully attracting viewers.
It uses its online viewership claims to justify how much it charges advertisers for ad placements during differing hourly segments of the day and differing marketing projections based upon the reported locations of the electronic devices receiving its programming measured by internet data services. It can also target advertising based on gender, age, purchase histories, subject interest, income range, educational level, musical tastes, probable political affiliation and ethnicity of its audience; all estimated by the data services it contracts with using data generated by their sorting of available electronic data using algorithms. It also provides advertisers placements online based on generic total viewership totals during time segments if they request non-targeted advertising, usually selling it at lower rates ads that appear in all broadcast streams not sold to more targeted viewers.
Your sales department has recently been hired by a chain of medical offices located in New York and the greater Washington, D.C. areas, to advertise their services to viewers who are probable cancer patients based upon their internet search and viewing histories. That customer has now requested that you expand the filtered audience for its advertisements by requesting your IT department to run a customized algorithm which it stated will bypass standard internet privacy protection software and obtain the internet addresses and in some cases the names of medical patients setting appointments and communicating on line with cancer treatment medical centers and physicians, permitting ads designed to be personalized and recommending appointments be set by clicking on the ad and speaking to a representative who may have important information about their “present health needs.” You suspect that some of your audience may interpret this to be a communication sent by their own physician or hospital.
Another major advertiser is spending large sums advertising a “100% natural” drink, Dyna-Wham,” containing vitamins and other health extracts which it advertises to be more potent than Viagra and equally effective in raising the libidos of men and women who consume it for at least 30 days. It is sold, without prescription, online. The advertiser is being investigated by the FTC for making false representations about the effectiveness and results usually obtained from its product’s use as directed. There were news stories suggesting this product may cause high blood pressure in users and that it is suspected to be the cause of several recent heart attacks and deaths; but no court cases have yet been lost by the advertiser.
You have also recently read an industry article stating that young and comely female video stream newscasters tend to retain online attention of viewers for longer intervals than male newscasters adjusting for all other relevant factors. If correct this could have important effect upon station income, and it would be an easy matter for you to instruct your station to replace all male newscasters with young attractive females.
An advertising firm representing multiple political candidates facing primary elections also has inquired about purchasing advertising targeted only to audience members generated by a custom algorithm designed to identify those likely to vole in primaries in which its clients have qualified to run. It also wishes to leave “cookies” on the devices where its advertisements are seen. Your salesman has told you these cookies will also communicate any social media postings and passwords enabling the advertiser to track particular issues of interest so that future advertising can be designed to address those issues, and be personalized to request campaign contributions from potentially interested voters, noting that the station’s future advertising revenue will in part come from any such contributions.
Finally, your station is advertising for student volunteers to work for you as unpaid interns. The unpaid interns will assist the staff in producing video productions and operating streaming program lighting, cameras and sound equipment. Your top announcer also plans to invite the intern staff to visit her home to help erect a brick backyard barbeque which will then be used to prepare a meal at company expense for all interns and other staffers the following weekend, which construction and meal will be disclosed at hiring to weed out any applicants uninterested in hard work. All interns will be eligible for course credit in their broadcasting curriculums. The interns’ assistance on the station’s video stages will allow you to move some of the present stagehands to help clerical staff with a paperwork filing backlog and scanning projects that are overdue in your accounting and sales departments.
Prepare a summary of your thoughts on these subjects to be presented to the station’s corporate owner’s management and directors; which you will later use when making an in person presentation and answer any questions. Be sure your paper addresses all legal and ethical considerations about these various campaigns and explains your reasoning for planned and/or recommended courses of action as to each of these matters