Media and Technology Stats and Studies – June 10, 2013

Northwestern University released a study of how parents of children ages 0-8 perceive and use media in childrearing. Among the report’s findings, just 19% of low-income households earning less than $25,000 annually have a tablet, compared to 65% of households earning $100,000 or more per year. However, more than half of low-income parents (54%) were likely to turn on the TV for educational purposes, compared to 31% of higher income parents. Just 31% of all parents were concerned about their children’s media use, behind health and safety (45%), fitness and nutrition (41%), social and emotional skills (39%), behavior (38%), school performance (33%), and literacy skills (32%).

Pew released a study showing 56% of American adults now own smartphones. Sixty-four percent of African Americans and 60% of Hispanics now own a smartphone, compared to 53% of whites. A very wide gap in smartphone ownership between upper income and low-income households persists, with 78% percent of persons living in households with incomes of $75,000 or more owning smartphones, compared to 43% of persons living in households earning less than $30,000 per year. A separate Experian study showed Americans spend an average of nearly an hour per day using their smartphones.

Nielsen released its U.S. Entertainment Consumer Report, analyzing all Internet users ages 18 and over. According to the report, African-Americans are 2% more likely to buy physical CDs. Asian and Hispanic music buyers are respectively 8% and 5% more likely to purchase digital music. Among online music streamers, 75% are white, 13.7% are Hispanic, 12.1% are African American, and 4.2% are Asian; these demographics are similar to those of the United States population. African Americans are 14% less likely to stream movies and TV shows online, while Asians and Hispanics are 73% and 28% more likely to do so. All consumers were overall more likely to buy print books, but Hispanics were particularly less likely (22%) to purchase e-books. African Americans and whites are respectively 5% less and 2% more likely to buy either print or ebooks.

Driven by two new series written by Tyler Perry, OWN is close to surpassing BET among African American women ages 25-54, according to Nielsen. OWN’s ratings grew to 1.82 million viewers during Tuesday night’s The Haves and the Have Nots, up from 1.77 million viewers during the show’s debut the week before. On Wednesday, OWN’s Love Thy Neighbor attracted 1.8 million viewers, compared to 1.5 million viewers during its debut the previous week. OWN ranked number 2 among African American women ages 25-54, behind only TNT, which was broadcasting the NBA playoffs and not regular programming. BET ranked third in the relevant timeslots.

General Mills disabled comments on a 30-second YouTube ad for Cheerios that features an interracial family, after the ad’s comment section became inundated with hate speech by angry viewers. As of the writing of this newsletter, the video has received more than 3 million views, with 42,576 ‘thumbs up’ and 2,052 ‘thumbs down.’  However, a Rasmussen poll of 1,000 adults found just 31% of Americans favor a ban on hate speech.

PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts increased adoption of tablets and smartphones in Brazil, China and India will lead to a 43% increase in worldwide entertainment spending, from $1.6 trillion in 2012 to $2.2 trillion in 2017. PwC also predicts the market for ebooks will be larger than that of print books by 2017. The report also predicts combined wired and wireless Internet spending to grow by 68%, from $91 billion in 2012 to $153.3 billion in 2017. Most of the growth is expected to come from wireless.

The National Security Agency and FBI made public their years-long effort to collect phone records and tap into the servers of nine Internet companies including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple, to access meta data to assist the U.S. in its fight against terrorism. The Internet program, known as PRISM, is the first known program of its kind to directly access the servers of Internet companies without a warrant.

In its quarterly threat report, McAfee warned that hackers are increasingly targeting Android phones. Malware attacks on Android phones increased by 40% in the 1st quarter of 2013, according to the company.

Google released its economic impact data showing its “search and advertising tools helped provide $94 billion of economic activity for 1.9 million businesses, website publishers and nonprofits across the U.S.“

The Annals of Internet Medicine reported that fewer than 10% of doctors use electronic health records in compliance with U.S. standards.

DePaul University released a study showing 105 million hours of worker productivity are lost due to the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) ban on the use of electronic devices during takeoffs and landings.

ESPN, Freedom of Speech, and Jeremy Lin

by Joseph Miller, Esq

When ESPN suspended Max Bretos and fired Anthony Federico for using the phrase “chink in the armor” in their coverage of Jeremy Lin and the New York Knicks’ loss to the New Orleans Hornets last Friday, righteous indignation about the dwindling First Amendment ensued.  That predictable response is a symptom of the low standard that is set for hosts and pundits.  But the First Amendment has nothing to do with this.  ESPN’s decision was more likely motivated by the fact that it wanted to avoid an employment discrimination charge by its Asian-American employees.

Kevin Ota, ESPN Digital’s Director of Communications said as much:

“We again apologize, especially to Mr. Lin. His accomplishments are a source of great pride to the Asian-American community, including the Asian-American employees at ESPN.” [emphasis added]

Incendiary talk show host Glenn Beck, who left Fox News after his primetime show lost 400 advertisers and suffered a nearly 40 percent ratings decline  following efforts to boycott the show, took to his internet tv station, Glenn Beck TV (GBTV), to defend Mr. Bretos and Mr. Federico.

“Freedom of speech … What they do is they slowly but surely take away … they make you afraid to say something,” Mr. Beck said about “the left.”

“Freedom of speech is in danger here more than anyplace in the world.”

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination against employees on the basis of “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” with respect to their “terms, conditions, or privileges of employment.”  When Congress proscribed discrimination with respect to the “terms, conditions or privileges of employment,” it intended to prevent all forms of workplace discrimination, including discrimination creating a hostile or abusive working environment (Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson).  A workplace “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult” that is “sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive working environment” creates a hostile or abusive working environment and thus violates Title VII.  However, there is no requirement that the discrimination lead to serious physical or psychological harm to the employee (Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc.).  Whether a working environment is indeed hostile or abusive is determined from the perspective of a reasonable person (i.e. a jury).  The same standard applies in the context of race (National R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan).

Eighteen eighty-four in Tennessee—during the Jim Crow era—that’s the earliest case I could find saying that employers, as long as they don’t break the law, can fire employees for any reason (Payne v. The Western & Atlantic Railroad Company).  That far predates the start of Mr. Beck’s vast, left-wing conspiracy, which he usually says came about around the time of Hitler.

ESPN was enforcing the law.  Employers are not subject to the free speech provisions of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from abridging the freedom of speech.  ESPN was free to interpret the law in any way it thought prudent to prevent the creation of a hostile work environment that would lead to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charge.  For example, if ESPN had taken no action, it ran the risk that supervisors would have felt emboldened to harass their Asian-American employees. In that case, ESPN would have done nothing to prevent creating a hostile and abusive work environment and would therefore have exposed itself to vicarious liability for the subsequent acts of the supervisor.

ESPN was following the letter of the law and the EEOC’s guidelines for Title VII compliance.  After the Supreme Court’s decision in the now infamous Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in which it rejected corporate spending limits in political campaigns, its tolerance for hate speech (Snyder v. Phelps), and the fact that Mr. Beck lasted at Fox News as long as he did, it is doubtful that Mr. Beck is really concerned about the United States’ place in the world when it comes to free speech.  Perhaps it was Emancipation that Mr. Beck and others think was the catalyst of the vast plot they can’t seem to define.

Joseph Miller, Esq. is Deputy Director and Senior Policy Director of the Media and Technology Institute of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, DC.  More information on Joseph Miller and his work can be found at the Joint Center website.