History and context of journalism lecture/reading one:

This lecture was rather interesting and reenforced the main points of the set reading (Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy), as well as allowing my to get a clear understanding of the text. The progression of Greek civilization seems to be based around, knowledge, science, ideas of religion and speculation of the ways of the world.
The lecture highlighted the regression of civilization in the west after the development of Greece and during the uprising of the roman during the dark age (which does sound pretty dark, no books, no art, whats the world without creativity?) this was really interesting and showed me that there was a point to what I had been reading and not just Russell telling me about some dead Greek guys. Instead I became aware of how the western world lost all recollection of any of the advanced Greek thought and ideas, for example, the make up of the cosmos or the existence of atoms, and started from scratch with lack of logic and dependence of religion. The cause; the obsession that the Romans had with power which was influenced by their exploitation of slaves and the closing of schools of philosophy and creating what they called the 'God' king. This contrasts greatly with the cultural and philosophical ideals/ways of the Greeks previous.
In the Romans decline and into the middle ages christianity was adopted and the idea of one God, differing, again, to previous trails of thought which accepted numerous gods and suggests that all people are for the same, creating a sense of great unity.

A few Greek philosophers that stood out in the hwp reading, were Heraclitus and Parmenides. Heraclitus believed that unity is formed by a combination of opposites, believed strongly in the element of fire, in that fire does not destroy is simply transmutes (strengthening his arguments for things ever changing, he said that one cannot walk in the same river twice), rejected the punishments of cosmic justice and believed permanent are seen to be a refuge from danger.
Parmenides is in opposition to Heraclitus and believes that things do not change and was greatly influenced by Pythagoras and invented metaphysics based on logic.

Chapter one/lecture one: An Introduction to Law

Todays law lecture was pretty interesting, from the set reading and having been a politics A-Level student bits were already known to me but one thing I learned and found quite interesting was that the press is described as the 'fourth estate' which scrutinizes the activity of the branches of government (executive, legislature and judiciary). Its a nice point to back up arguments on the existence of external restraints, as well as strong checks and balances in the public eye, on the government as there is very little separation of powers between the three branches (despite the concept of the three chambers separating power to control corruption).

The introduction to law (chapter one) highlights the importance of the concept of freedom of expression in a democratic society (thought it can be argued that the limitations of the human rights act and the laws of the European Convention make freedom of expression unachievable and a highly desirable reality). The UK's constitution is of an unwritten nature, and so the human rights act was introduced to safeguard the rights of the individual so that one can benefit form freedom of expression, rather than use it to discriminate against of harm others.  In the absence of a written constitution, two constitutional bulwarks have been relied on to allow freedom of expression: jury trail and the rule against prior restraint. There are two important articles in the law which are used as a balancing tool to give people, particularly journalists, the right to freedom of expression and also the right to privacy.

This chapter also highlights divisions in the law, first being criminal law; offenses which appear to cause harm to the whole of a community or and act against the sovereign, and second civil law; organises financial matters and entitlements, as well as disputes between people, eg. divorce settlement. Both types of law can overlap.