COMM 150: Cowboys cheerleader tackled on sidelines, again by management for posting to Twitter account

Discuss: How are social media (sometimes hyped as Internet 2.0) changing the face of American culture? You may consider entertainment, politics and/or government. COMM 150 paper assignment.

Technologies change. But some things never change, apparently. Jerks are jerks, and intellectual property law is intellectual property law.

Cheerleader Melissa Kellerman was knocked down twice, once during a game by Cowboys tight end Jason Witten ... and later by Cowboys management after she posted a couple of messages to Twitter about the incident. According to a story picked up by Chris Chase of Yahoo! Sports, CNBC's Darren Rovell reported Kellerman "was forced to delete her Twitter account after posting two messages on Friday morning about the incident."

Chase quoted her messages and said:

Those were pretty much the perfect tweets: Clever, self-deprecating and a bit funny. (We'll even ignore the winking emoticons.) Why did she have to delete her Twitter account? Do the Cowboys believe cheerleaders are only to be seen, not heard?

Hardly. The team allows cameras to record cheerleader auditions for a reality show on CMT. It's alright when the team controls the message but not when a cheerleader begins to get a following and has the stage to herself? This should have been a win-win for everyone involved. Witten looked chivalrous when he helped up Kellerman, she became endearing with her laughter and positive attitude. Both the franchise and the cheerleaders looked good after this. Now, only Kellerman does.

Remember this story, by the way, as we move into media law and ethics later this week.