The relationship between political science and news media coverage

Political Science

The United States Congress is the U.S. Government's Legislative Branch and is responsible for passing laws that affect Americans. Interest groups such as the U.S. movie industry try to influence Congress to pass laws that will be the best for their industry. In order to influence Congress, special interest groups use lobbyists to deal directly with Congressmen and persuade them. At the same time, other interest groups have lobbyists trying to convince Congressmen to do the opposite. The interest groups push and pull Congressmen and sometimes one interest group gets enough influence in Congress to get laws passed. The President, who is the head of the Executive Branch of United States government, is also watching the situation. If the President does not like the law about to be passed, he will speak out about it, to influence the public and Congressmen. The article "White House airs objections to SOPA, PIPA anti-piracy bills" shows this process in action.

Article and Discussion

The article "White House airs objections to SOPA, PIPA anti-piracy bills" is online at http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2012/01/white-house-sopa-pipa.html. The article says that Congress is getting ready to pass laws to help the movie industry stop people from "pirating" their movies on the internet. This type of "pirating" means stealing movies and other products that are sold on the internet. The "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA) and the "Protect Intellectual Property Act" (PIPA). The movie industry's lobby that supports these laws is "The Motion Picture Association of America." If the laws pass, the U.S. Justice Department will be able to "to obtain court orders requiring internet search engines and payment processors to block access to websites involved in piracy." There are also interest groups trying to stop the laws. Two of the interest groups that are against the laws are Facebook and Google. Facebook and Google are against the laws because they will reduce the freedom of the internet and will give too much power to the U.S. Justice Department. It looks like Congress might pass the laws. The President is worried that the laws will reduce the freedom of the internet, so he is speaking out against the laws. The President is trying to influence the public about the importance of internet freedom and about where he stands when it comes to freedom. The President is also trying to influence Congressmen to either not pass the laws at all or to change the laws before they are passed so the laws will not reduce the freedom of the internet too much.

The article shows that Congress passes laws and that the interest group of the movie industry wants Congress to pass laws to help stop the pirating of movies, which means that copies of movies are stolen and the movie industry loses the money it would make from selling those copies. The movie industry used its lobby of "The Motion Picture Association of America" to convince Congress to pass two laws -- SOPA and PIPA -- to help stop this piracy. Meanwhile, interest groups like Facebook and Google try to keep the internet as free as possible and do not want the U.S. Justice Department to be able to get court orders and control internet search engines and payment processors. It looks like the two laws might be passed by Congress, although the President is worried about the laws. The President spoke out in this article to warn about his worries about the laws before they are passed. This will let the public know what the President thinks, influence the public, and maybe influence Congress to stop the laws or change the laws before they are passed so the freedom of the internet will not be reduced too much.