Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: T.H. Marshall famously conceived of citizenship as containing political, social and civil rights. Often forgotten is that Marshall’s “civil rights” not only includes freedom of speech, of the press, etc., but also equal access to the legal system. My paper explores this understudied connection between legal access and social rights in a particular policy area—bankruptcy filing. Filing for bankruptcy is an important avenue of relief for Americans in financial trouble, yet it is not equally accessible in part because it requires access to a lawyer. Using data from the Administrative Office of the Courts, the Legal Services Corporation, and the GSS, I construct a measure of legal access and assign a legal access score to all bankruptcy districts. First, I hypothesize that consumer bankruptcy filings will be higher in those districts with a higher legal access score. Second, I expect states with high levels of legal access to also have high levels of social rights. Third, I expect the ratio of Ch. 7 to Ch. 13 bankruptcy filings to be higher in areas with high levels of social rights. The analysis contributes not only to knowledge about bankruptcy but also emphasizes the important role of legal access in certain social policy areas.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The present study marks the first time that the day-to-day practices of citizen reporters are examined in an in-depth manner, to include the ways in which they avail themselves of sources and produce original news items. Moreover, the paper compares the methods and means of citizen reporters with those of their counterparts from the mainstream press. Data was gleaned from a series of reconstruction interviews in which reporters from Israeli citizen and mainstream news websites explained how they formulated their sampled items. The paper suggests a round-about version of the �news access� theory, whereby citizen journalists are hindered by their inferior access to news sources, unlike mainstream journalism, where the problem is the superior access of some of their sources to extensive and favored coverage. There are several symptoms for citizen reporters� limited news access: their modest use of human sources; the high proportion of one-source items; their reluctance to interactively negotiate versions with sources; and the absence of established relations with most of their sources. Therefore, citizen reporters� associations with sources tend to be ad hoc exchanges, rather than long-term role relationships. On the other hand, citizen reporters have adopted several mechanisms that help them make up for their comparably limited access. For example, they are much more likely to pursue stories at their own initiative. In addition, they tend to predicate their stories on firsthand witnessing, technical sources (mainly internet), personal acquaintances, and on their own experience.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: When the issue of speakers' rights of access arises in media regulation and policy contexts, the focus typically is on the concept of speakers' rights of access "to the media," or "to the press." This right typically is premised on the audience's need for access to diverse sources and content. In contrast, in many non-mediated contexts, the concept of speakers' rights of access frequently is defined in terms of the speaker's own First Amendment right of access to audiences. This paper explores the distinctions between these differing interpretations of a speaker's access rights and argues that the concept of a speaker's right of access to audiences merits a more prominent position in media regulation and policy. This paper then explores the implications of such a shift in perspective for media regulation and policy-making.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper compares the way in which the Australian and U.S. Courts have balanced the privacy exemptions in their respective freedom of information acts with the right of the citizen to access information. The paper is aimed at determining a path for Jamaican courts and in interpreting the privacy exemption in its 2002 statute.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study examines how media access of an organizational source reflects two sets of influences�its public relations expertise and legitimacy. A context of stem cell and the cloning debate is used to test the relationships. Two surveys and a content analysis show that the legitimacy of sources perceived by journalists has an impact on the regularity and valence of those sources� media coverage, whereas public relations expertise of sources does not have an impact on any of the media access indicators. Public relations expertise, however, shows some impact on legitimacy of sources as perceived by journalists, indicating that legitimacy operates as an intervening variable between public relations expertise and media access of sources.