Thoughts on the Course Review

            By far the toughest thing about writing the blog entries for this class was finding a way to start. It was tough to find a way to link the current events I found to the reading assigned and covered in lecture because it was never really expanded upon. The only thing that really made the writing structure of this class feasible was the group recitation that took place after the lecture. It served as an opportunity for all of us to bounce concepts off one another and get numerous angles from which to view our initial ideas. I think what we all agreed in class is true, that more discussion and guidance for the writing would make a great improvement to the class as a whole.

            I feel like the things I learned the most about were as a result of talking about them in the recitation. A lot of the information put forth by the book was kind of dry on its own, without relevant current events to act as examples and provide a realistic take on the media theory we were studying. And the content of the lecture didn’t really add much to what was immediately apparent from reading the book. On the other hand, it was really helpful to talk about things like that in the recitation portion of the course, and I was much more likely to remember the things we talked about there than the things that were talked about during lecture.

            I remember being much more interested in the discussions on the differences between the different types of media, like television, newspaper, and radio, when we compared them to one another, and much less interested in actual media events that seemed irrelevant when they were brought up in lecture. Often times, when the professor gave us examples of current events that we could write about, he didn’t draw any connections between the event and the course material, so it was difficult to write a blog entry on the topic because there wasn’t much to go on. Going to recitation afterwards helped considerably because it gave all of us the opportunity to figure it out by cooperating and pooling our ideas. Often times one person would have a vague idea of something and someone else would contribute their own vague concept and by putting them together we were able to come up with something we could work with. I guess in that way, we learned a bit about professional development by needing to cooperate to decipher what exactly it was that the professor actually wanted.

            Looking back on that now, it seems like I cultivated some fairly useful skills in group brainstorming and productive discussion, but at the time it was kind of annoying that we had so little input and direction as to what we were supposed to write. I really liked the idea that we came up with about submitting current events before the lecture, discussing how they relate to the reading in lecture, and then going into more depth in the smaller recitation groups. I feel like that would make the blogs much easier to write and would make the class as a whole much more constructive and productive. We would have more opportunity to talk to one another and the professor in a giant group to gain insight into what he expects of the whole class, and then still have the chance to dig deeper into the issues we discuss and think about what they mean to us personally and develop more-educated personal opinions. I greatly enjoyed talking about my personal beliefs and having them challenged by the points that other people brought up; I found it extremely valuable. This class was a great opportunity for this.

            Overall, it looks like what this course needs is more lecture discussion. If the rest of the class is going to stay the same, there should just be an increased amount of interactive participation in the lectures. More tie-ins from the reading and course content will significantly help everyone in the writing of their blogs, and make it easier to tell what they’re meant to contribute in the writing assignments. Discussion is the best aspect of this course and I think there should be more of it. I found the group talks to be extremely constructive and more communication across the professor, teaching assistants, and students would improve the quality of the course overall. 

            

Television

            Many political scientists have lately been questioning the potency of television. Because of the advent of the internet, it seems that more and more politically-interested citizens have been getting their news online instead of from television. Prime time audiences have been shrinking steadily for the past couple decades as people give up on time-dependent programming and turn instead to services like DVR, Netflix and Hulu, where the programs you want to watch are available to you at whatever time you choose to watch them. For these reasons, it seems that television is becoming obsolete. And yet, in this past campaign, Super PAC spending pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into television advertisements.

            It seems that the television ads didn’t really make as much of an impact as the PAC’s probably wanted them to, because of shrunken view audience. But some of the best (and worst) ads did make appearances on Youtube and other video sharing sites and various web forums and blogs. This is actually an example of the internet underlining and emphasizing pieces of televised media. So while there’s no doubt that television’s popularity and importance has been shrinking and making way for the internet to take over, they’re still capable of complementing one another.

            It’s also very easy to communicate with others about political happenings and public media through the internet’s many social channels. The political debates, for example, became like a sort of social gathering, with people making events on facebook, trying to get their friends to watch the debates as they happened live. Though they weren’t all watching through the same television set, sitting around and talking in person, a lot of people took advantage of instant messaging, blog posting, facebook chatting, and twitter updating while watching the debates. Although people weren’t encouraged to get off the internet and watch TV instead, they were encouraged to at least watch a live broadcast and then use the internet simultaneously to discuss it. Some could argue that this was immensely distracting, and that people shouldn’t be on their phones and laptops while trying to pay attention to a political debate, but it can also be argued that the people who did so gained valuable insight into what other people were thinking. They had their views challenged while they were watching and were forced to think about multiple different viewpoints as they watched. So while the internet is kind of stealing pertinence from television as a medium, it’s also enriching it’s social impact by providing a sort of hybrid medium of live broadcasts combined with live social interaction.

Article on “Why TV Still Matters.” http://entertainment.time.com/2012/11/08/dead-tree-alert-why-tv-still-matters-in-politics/

            There’s also a great number of people who use television programs to get most of their political news, but not in the form of news broadcasts. Not nearly as many people watch the nightly news as did twenty or thirty years ago, but political comedy shows are becoming increasingly popular. Shows like The Colbert Report and even Saturday Night Live frequently poke fun at the political atmosphere and sometimes even raise interesting points about controversial issues. Shows like these are a good way to get a more satirical, humorous view of everyone’s current political standing, and sometimes they’re even preferred as a news source. But while these shows are written, recorded, and basically designed for television, they’re not always viewed at the television-programmed time. You can watch episodes of The Colbert Report at his website, colbertnation.com, and most SNL skits are available on Hulu for free. So when someone on a blog you frequent draws your attention to a great political parody that you should really see, you go look it up online. You find that skit on Hulu, or the Colbert episode on its respective site. You can probably even find that hilarious political ad on Youtube for free, too. So while the internet can emphasize elements of television, it often takes them out of the environment they were originally designed for. A television clip will be viewed hundreds more times on the internet than it ever would have been viewed on television.

            Even though the internet more or less depends on television for a lot of material it distributes, it kind of takes the credit away from the original source. If a tv clip like a political ad goes viral on the internet, chances are good that the original creator and publisher of the clip won’t get the reward that the internet receives. Television relies on its ratings to stay high in order to be able to continue to function, and when something becomes incredibly popular in another arena, it’s not quite fair, in a sense. Ratings are based on how many viewers a channel has, so when millions of people use the internet to watch something that was on a TV channel, it’s not carried over in the channel’s ratings. This makes for an awkward combination of healthy contribution and imbalanced viewership between television and internet. Obviously they’re both still valuable resources for political news and he like, but it’ll be very interesting to see how that awkward imbalance pans out for both of them. 

Additional Sources:

Bettina Fabos, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.

Radio

            For a long time, before the technological advent of television, radio was the best way for the American public to get their news. Now that most news is on television, or even the internet, fewer and fewer people rely on radio shows to find out what’s going on in their town or state or country. Most people now listen to the radio for music while they drive, but there are still a good number of insightful radio-based talk shows out there on the air. Hearing a story on a radio show is still vastly different from seeing one on a television show, and even more different still from reading a story on the internet.

            When you read a news article on the internet, it’s pretty isolated and impersonal. You’re alone when you read the story, it isn’t directly told to you by someone else, and it doesn’t necessarily have much of a good chance to stick in your mind afterward since usually you’re off clicking another link almost immediately. There are also numerous distractions from the story you’re reading, in the form of ads. Sites have to host ads from outside sources to pay for their website, and they also often advertise other affiliated sites and other articles within the same site. So while you’re reading about that woman who drove drunk, listened to her GPS too carefully, and drove into the sand trap at the local golf course, you’re also seeing an advertisement for Snickers bars, a middle-aged man telling you to shop at Home Depot, and six sidebar links to six other articles about politics, the latest football game, and Disney buying Lucasfilm. It’s difficult to be focused on that initial article, even if you sincerely care about the woman in the sand trap. In most cases, there are too many impersonal distractions for internet news to be very emotionally impacting.

            Television has similar issues, though not quite to the same degree as internet. There are advertisements, but they’re cordoned off into their own time slot. The ads don’t get aired alongside the news stories, but often they’re more colorful and attention-grabbing than the news show itself, so they still serve as more of a distraction than anything. Someone is as likely to remember the latest Geico commercial as they are to remember the pictures of a car driven through the bushes and into a sand trap. Advertisements aside, television is also fairly impersonal in the way it portrays its stories. A viewer will get a thirty-second or one-minute clip about the woman in the sand trap; they’ll mention the town she lives in, the town the golf course is in, the fact that she’s in custody for driving under the influence but more or less unharmed, show a couple pictures of cars and maybe some people putting on that golf course, and then move on to the next story. You don’t really feel anything much in particular for the woman in the sand trap. There’s just not enough time for you to let the story sink in and consider what it means before they’re on to the next information tidbit.

            With radio, though, news seems a lot more personal. Their ads, like television, are also cordoned off from the rest of the show, but usually don’t grab as much more of your attention, as is the case for TV. Radio ads are actually pretty easy to tune out for the most part. You get used to listening to the talk show host speaking in a conversational, moderated tone, so when the ads come along with some voice actor talking really fast about a car dealership right down the road, you can basically just put him on ignore and wait for the host to get back on the air. Ads are usually a good opportunity to think about the last story you just heard because they don’t demand all of your attention like television ads seem to do. Radio also spends more time telling a story than the television news shows do. Instead of talking for only a minute about that woman in the sand trap, they spend five or ten minutes on her story. The listener gets more involved in the event and can more easily imagine it happening to them or someone they know. Because they’re not distracted with images of the aftermath of the event, they can better imagine the event actually happening. It becomes easy to understand how embarrassed she must be now, and how chagrined the golf course owner must feel. Instead of seeing a fairly attractive person sitting at a desk talking about this story in a distant monotone, you only hear someone’s voice speaking personably to you. You imagine it happening to someone you don’t like and you laugh, or you imagine it happening to yourself and you don’t. Radio has the ability to be more personal because of the lack of distraction, and the presence of the type of sensory input that allows the listener to imagine what it all means in reference to himself or herself. It’s just like storytelling always has been for people since before written language.

            And because of this vast difference in medium, the same story can have completely different tones depending on where it’s broadcast. A couple of days ago, Mitt Romney gave his final GOP talk scheduled to happen before the election takes place. Many of the issues that were considered during the primaries weren’t addressed in his final radio talk; he avoided mentioning abortions and birth control. He mainly spent his air time bashing the economy and Obama and telling people to vote for him instead. The internet article gave a brief run-down of what Romney talked about, television coverage would have probably done about the same, and a radio show would probably have dwelled upon the ramifications of it for a few minutes and maybe taken some call-ins from listeners and made a discussion about it. So while radio can’t really broadcast as much news as television or internet, it seems that the news that comes from radio has more of a human quality to it. I definitely think that radio news and talk shows are a valuable form of communication that should be preserved in our culture.

The internet article on the radio broadcast: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/11/03/Romney-delivers-last-pre-election-GOP-talk/UPI-26751351978705/

Additional Sources:

Bettina Fabos, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.

Internet and Political Censorship

     According to an article at GalesburgPlanet.com, the internet has gained the more traffic as a source of political news than any other category of mass media. Cable television is still the most prevalent, but the internet has grown the most in popularity, by a significant margin. A great majority of adult Americans has access to an internet connection in this day and age, so it makes a great deal of sense that it would become more convenient to get notified of political goings-on via internet. Indeed, there are a lot of subscription programs that an internet user can utilize to be notified of anything new that happens on a site they frequent. Content is available at any time you look for it, unlike cable television where a viewer is required to tune in at a certain time. The internet is capable of providing media of varying formats as well, from articles to videos, that pertain to a wider selection of topics than television is capable of portraying. For reasons like this, the internet is becoming a very attractive conquest for various political interest groups to target. Especially in this most recent presidential campaign, presidential candidates have been heavily using internet to get their points across, gain favor, and attempt to win more votes than the other guys. But also for reasons like this, politicians are having trouble with the lack of censorship on the internet. 

Media format article here: http://galesburgplanet.com/posts/19870

     One of the most striking examples of this was a campaign slogan Ron Paul ran under during the primaries this year. He had TV ads and banners and bumper stickers made that said "Google: Ron Paul." He recognized the fact that most of the modern political information available to the general public was available via the internet, and he wanted to get his name out there in people's minds. He knew that the easiest way to get the average person to learn more about him and his stances was to have them simply do a web search. And he was right. Most people spend more time on the internet daily, reading political articles, than they do channel surfing and looking for political news programs. And even if they do prefer to use television as a source of news, political news isn't constantly being aired. Usually, because there are multiple news blocks in a day, you can spend hours on end watching the news and get repeated stories. They often repeat the same popular story for each news block, because usually a person only watches one news block a day, if they watch any. In short, there's a very limited amount of political news one can gain from watching television, even if they spend a long time watching. Ron Paul made a pretty strategic move by turning the attention of his potential supporters to the internet. It made it easier for him to educate them about his actions and plans, and made it more convenient for them to educate themselves about it all. I can imagine how much more willing they were to get news this way, especially considering the fact that Ron Paul just told them to look at everything that existed about him, instead of directing their attention to certain chosen aspects through a televised speech or some other focused media outreach. I think it was a good move, even if it didn't exactly pan out for him. 

     The internet has also been a distinct target for the political interests that try to bring out younger voters, namely the Democratic Party. President Obama recently did an Ask Me Anything on the popular forum website, Reddit. Members of the forum could comment and ask him questions and he would answer them in subsequent posts. This was really the first political move of its kind, and it definitely brought Obama to the forefront of many internet-goers' attention. But as he found out the hard way, the internet isn't necessarily a gateway to popularity. Just like any other media outlet, it's subject to the judgement of the viewers. Admittedly, there are a great deal more viewers to be had on the internet than nearly anything else, and they have the opportunity to be interactive, unlike most other mediums, but most people were annoyed as a result of the AMA. They said that Obama dodged the questions that people most wanted answered, and planted questions that were convenient for him to talk about. So while it was a good way to get publicity, turning to the internet doesn't automatically result in good publicity. 

Reddit response article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/obama-reddit-ask-me-anything_n_1843568.html

     This, I think, is more related to censorship than the internet itself. While Ron Paul used the internet to share everything available about him and his stances, and received fairly positive feedback on this move, Obama tried a similar approach, but tweaked it to his own advantage. That goes so fundamentally against what everyone expects the internet to stand for that he was met with a pretty negative response. It's going to be interesting to see how politics continues to use the internet in future campaigns, because historically many aspects of politics have become a little less than truthful. It's common practice now for politicians to avoid topics that would make them unpopular and hype others far beyond where they need to be. The internet has come to be known as a frontier for uncensored information sharing. Any politician who tries to censor the information available on the internet is going to damage their popularity by doing so. It'll be interesting to see how they handle that fact in future.

Additional Sources:

Bettina Fabos, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.

Governmental Conglomeration

     In our day and age, most consumers are familiar with the concept of synergy, even if they don't know it by that name. They're used to popular books being made into movies and other related merchandise becoming available for them to purchase and add to their collections. It's commonplace for a major corporation like Disney to own a television studio, a publishing house, a series of theme parks, an airline, a cruise line, a car rental service, and countless clothing, game, and toy factories globally. As individual people are becoming more and more specialized, major corporations are growing larger and larger, and putting their hands and monetary interests into more and more industries where some argue they don't really belong. And as these big companies are continuing to grow and extend their reach, it seems that the American government is doing the same, following a very similar business model.
     Synergy refers to the sale and promotion of a certain media product across different mediums and usually from different subsidaries of the same media conglomerate. Harry Potter is a prime example. The books were published and became very popular so they were followed by a movie series. Numerous spin-off books were also published and sold by the same publishing company that the original books came from. Wizard Cards and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans and Chocolate Frogs became check-out line favors that any fan could purchase on their way out of Borders or Barnes and Noble. Warner Brothers, the company responsible for the movie series, put out Harry Potter editions of Clue, Monopoly, Scene-It, and other games like LEGO sets and jigsaw puzzles. There are Harry Potter themed chess sets and clothing and jewelry and figurines and stationery and mugs and stickers and iPhone cases and stuffed animals and any other kind of merchandise you can imagine, all from one series of books. In this case, Time Warner took that one popular series of books and made money off it through movies, games, and all the other merchandise formats I just listed and more. This is a prime example of synergy and it's very much in large companies' best interests for them to try this route and work as many angles as they can to make a profit.
     Unfortunately, though, this stifles competition. It's very difficult for more than one company to get their hands on the rights to anything Harry Potter-related. Only Time Warner can put out official Harry Potter merchandise because they're the only ones with the rights to it. If that weren't the case, numerous small businesses could benefit from a cultural phenomenon like Harry Potter and the merchandise that resulted would be of a better quality. If two candy companies both made Chocolate Frogs, people would buy the better ones and both companies would have to compete to make their product better. But as it is, the big corporation is the only one who can market Chocolate Frogs, so they have no motivation to make them good. They have no competition. This same sort of thing has been happening with a lot of government policies when the national government gets involved with something instead of leaving it to the states to work out.
     There are a lot of policies that I think should be left to individual states to decide for similar reasons that I think corporations shouldn't corner the market on things as much as they do. It stifles competition and diversity. If states have different policies that work for the majority of their residents, then the people who don't agree with a certain policy could move to a different state if it meant enough to them. Just like people can shop at different stores if they find one to be superior to another. Obviously moving to a different state is more significant than shopping at Target instead of WalMart, but it's the same principle of having the opportunity to choose something that suits you better. So, if a state has really high taxes and the residents don't think it's worth it to stay there, they'll go to a state that has a "better deal," so to speak. Then the first state will have to change its policies to make it more attractive for people to live there or they'll be in serious trouble.
     Leaving legislation largely up to state rule encourages the same sort of competition and motivation for improvement that you can see in the corporate world. And the same problems are posed when the federal government has its hands in something because they'll have no competition and won't be forced to make it worth the while of the country's residents. Most people find it much more difficult to move to a different country than to move to a different state, for obvious reasons. The federal government has no real competition as far as their business models go, like the states do. And the federal government has been steadily growing, much like the big corporations have. It seems natural because it's in the best interest of companies to grow like they've been growing, but that doesn't mean it's appropriate for national government. I think we should view the economical ramifications of giant corporations as a warning against what could happen if we let the government become the same way.

Additional Sources:

Bettina Fabos, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.

Public Relations

     It's very difficult to draw a line between public relations and advertisement, especially where politics is concerned. It seems that every piece of news you find is slanted favorably in the direction of one of the two main candidates and against the other. It's all basically advertisement, telling the masses to vote for this person and not that one, and often for similar reasons that you should buy a certain product in favor of another. It'll cost you less money, they say, and it'l make your life better if you vote for this guy and not that one. But in a way, this can be considered public relations as well. Even though it's not coming straight from the organization that's being promoted, it still promotes the organization fairly effectively. Perhaps it's even more effective on the grounds that it doesn't come straight from the benefiting organization (assuming that whoever wrote the article wasn't actually directly paid by said benefiting organization.) People see it and think, "oh, someone else besides Obama wants Obama in office," and are curious as to why. So they read the articles about racist Pro-Romney shirts and Sensata scandals and are greeted by a bunch of emotional appeals and very little actual fact and analysis into the potential ramifications. That sure sounds like public relations to me.
     This first article caught my eye because of the picture at the top. I was interested to see what this writer would say about the guy wearing the slogan "Put the White Back In the White House." I wanted to see what it would say about the potential social ramifications of the Presidential race coming down to actual Presidential race. I wanted to read about how our modern society would be subtly affected if racial discrimination reared its ugly head yet again. But instead, I ended up reading a very heartfelt article about how depressing it was for the writer to see this shirt. Because race was being dragged back into things while everything nowadays is trying to stop race from being a contributing factor to all things social? Actually, no, that wasn't his point. He was depressed because Romney seemed to be trying the "good old days" comfort plea, portraying himself as a reasonable, middle-aged white man with a political history, exactly the type of person an American President should look like. The writer didn't want people to be taken in by this facade. It's a very interesting point, but he also didn't back it up with very much fact. He presented his own version of what he thinks Obama should say and use as a defensive stance, and it was very nicely said, but there was little substance to it. It was still an appeal to the emotions of the reader. It said "look at how much we owe Obama, don't you think we should continue to trust him?" It said "don't be taken in by Romney and his acting, because he'll let us down." The internet is chock full of articles like these, full of fancy fluff words and very little fact. A man wore a shirt. Feel obligated to vote Obama back into the Presidency and don't believe Romney's lies because my 72-year-old mother is wonderful.    
     Here's a link to that article: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/12/1143940/--Put-the-White-back-in-the-White-House
     This second article caught my interest because I saw a tabloid in Price Chopper last night about some outsourcing scandal that Romney was involved in and decided to do a bit more research. Apparently the asset management firm he co-founded, Bain Capital, has decided to outsource a company they recently bought out, Sensata Tech, to China. I was expecting an article discrediting this choice and raising lots of issues about how we, the American people, don't want all our business and manufacturing to be outsourced. I wanted to hear about the economical ramifications of not making anything on home turf, and how we could expect the government to conduct itself on these matters if Romney was voted in as President. Instead, the article raised a bunch of points that I feel are completely unnecessary. They brought in Chinese workers to be trained before the outsourcing. So what? That makes sense from a business standpoint if you're planning to outsource a company. They put up a Chinese flag at the plant in Illinois. That has nothing to do with our economy whatsoever, it's just a cause for affront to those who feel personally offended by the situation. The company is set to close one day before the election. Again, this has nothing to do with the political or economical ramifications of this event. It's just a chance for the writer to be scathing and sarcastic. I thought the whole article was scathing and sarcastic and too short to impart much information at all. Though, I'm not confident it would have been very much more informative had it been longer, anyway. It just seemed like a chance for someone to rail on Romney's personal business decisions because of the effect they'll have on the nation as a whole, without explaining the connection they saw. I do think there's a connection, which is why I was disappointed this article didn't expand upon it, and only provided a few shallow talking points for anyone who's already against Romney to utilize in their next argument. It was all fluff words with very little fact.
     Here's a link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/13/1143996/-The-Sansata-Story-Could-Destroy-Romney
The writer was kind enough to include some source articles where it's possible to find actual information and news, though. Those are worth looking through.
     Needless to say, I won't be getting my political news from the Daily Kos any time soon. It's one of those sites that acts very much like a forum, though, and makes it very easy to share your opinions with others and read up on what people think. For that reason, it's pretty popular among bloggers and redditers who love the discussions that are available. Unfortunately, because of the form these articles take, they end up arguing over emotionally-based points and not factually-based opinions, so the discussions aren't worth very much. People frequently talk about how bad something is without digging very deep to figure out why. It's all a battle of public relations.

Additional Sources:

Bettina Fabos, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.

   

*Absence Make-up*

     This blog entry is to make up for the recitation I missed on September 26th, so I'm going to talk about a recent Supreme Court case I find interesting.
     There's one case this year that hasn't gotten much attention when compared to many other Supreme Court cases, about how to treat used goods. There was an appellate court ruling that the Supreme Court may uphold, and if they do, it might become illegal to sell something that was manufactured overseas. The ruling would make it mandatory to get permission from the copyright holder of the goods you wanted to sell in order to be able to sell them. If you own a Mazda and want to sell it to your nephew when he graduates college so you can make a down payment on a new car for yourself, you'd need permission from Mazda to do so. You may even be required to pay a cut of the sale back to Mazda in royalties, even though you paid royalties the first time you bought the car. I don't like the idea that selling something you own is copyright infringement.
     Upholding the appellate court ruling and passing legislation to make permission mandatory to sell a used item would completely destroy the used goods market. Websites like Craig's List and Ebay would die out. Every thrift store across the country would shut down and close. People wouldn't be able to hold neighborhood yard sales or flea markets. It would be virtually impossible to find anything vintage without paying through the nose and antique dealers would probably riot in the streets. Not that rioting across the nation's antique-dealing community is the biggest concern I have with this topic, but I agree with them that it's fundamentally wrong. I don't want to be forced to buy something new every time I want to make a purchase. If someone wants to part with something they no longer need, and I'm in the market for whatever that thing may be, whether it's a second-hand couch for my college apartment, or a tv series on DVD that they don't actually manufacture anymore, I want to be able to buy it from them as much as they want to be able to sell it to me. It's killing two birds with one stone. But I'm sure the manufacturers of the chair would much rather me find it far too inconvenient to buy one used and go directly to them to buy a new one. I live in a country with a "free market," right? I should be able to sell something I directly own and have paid for the first time around to anyone I want to at whatever price we've agreed upon.
     I also don't think the copyright holders should have the right to make money on a single product more than once. You shouldn't have to pay a cut of the second-hand sale back to the company that made the item if you've already paid it to them once. You bought the item, now it's yours, you can do what you want with it. The company you bought it from owns the rights to the concept behind the item, but they don't still own the item itself. If that were the case, then you paid full price for a cellphone or a book just to rent it. As far as I know, that's not what a purchase is. If you bought a DVD and started making copies to sell to people, that's a different matter. Then the rights owners would be totally within their rights to demand a cut of those sales (or throw you in prison) because you're making new iterations of the product they copyrighted. But I don't think they should have a right to a portion of the sale you make when selling that first copy of the DVD.
     This whole concept also feels kind of backwards when you consider the way the entertainment industry has been going. If you buy a DVD, often times it comes with a BluRay copy, too. And a digital copy that you can use on your computer and upload to your tablet and phone. The fact that you own a copy can be noted in an online account, and you can log into XBox Live and watch your movie through your gaming console. Once you buy a copy of the movie, it's yours to watch, in any way you want, on basically any digital device you own. If you buy a subscription to Netflix or Hulu, you can log into your account on your laptop and watch movies and shows. You can also log in on your tablet, phone, gaming console, and, again, any internet-capable device you have. It's the same way when you buy digital copies of books or music. Once you own it, it belongs to you in quite a few different ways. Not only would it be extremely difficult to monitor the selling of pre-owned goods like these, the digital kind that prove virtually impossible to track, but even making the attempt goes completely against the ideal behind this sort of progression. If you buy something and can then access it from anything else you also already own, then it belongs to you pretty completely. Why should you be required to check in with anyone, or pay them a direct cut, if you want to sell it to someone else? I don't think you should.
     There have been internet rumors that President Obama has declared himself in favor of the Supreme Court upholding the appellate ruling that would make all our upstanding antique dealers riot in the streets, but I haven't been able to find any articles about that, unfortunately. It could just be a rumor.
     This is the best article I've found on the actual court case, though: http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-10-04/finance/34240922_1_copyright-iphone-john-wiley-sons/2
   

Political Consumerism

     Americans these days are busy. Most Americans spend more time at work than they do at home, not counting time spent sleeping. Most Americans don't have nearly enough time on their hands to look into their political options and make well-informed decisions, and media bias takes advantage of that fact. It's too time-consuming and too much of a hassle to look past what's presented to you directly, and the easiest way to get news on current events is to sit in front of the television and simply watch.
     It's easy to get home from a busy day of work, grab some dinner from the kitchen in one form or another, and plop onto the couch to eat, flipping on a news station as you do so, in order to stay current and politically aware. And campaign offices know this; they know how many of their voting citizens do this at the end of every day. That's why there are so many television ads promoting political candidates that show up between news programs and even regular shows. They want to take advantage of your undivided attention while they have it, and they're pretty successful. Here are a couple campaign promotion ads that have been airing recently:
          Pro Obama: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bZxs09eV-Vc
          Pro Romney: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3rJO4JuYd8
They're short and to the point, if a little bit silly, matching the standard length of the average business or product advertisement. And I think that it's largely because American society has become so consumer-based that people accept these ads without questioning them and don't place any more import upon them than they do upon an ad for a new car or a different restaurant.
     The Presidential elections become a spectacle to behold every four years when they take place. It seems more like a spectator sport than anything else; the media treats it like they would treat two rival teams trying to win a championship of some sort. And to everyone else it seems like some sort of game, rigged like professional wrestling. It's not portrayed as maturely as it should be, because most of the media coverage goes to publicizing the drama of it all instead of the direct truth of events. If you watched the debates last weekend, you saw everything each of the candidates said in response to the questions given by the moderator. If you missed the airing and don't have the time to watch a replay of it, most of the articles you'll find on the internet are about how much time Obama spend snoozing, or the number of times Romney interrupted the moderator. The information presented at the forefront of the news coverage isn't very helpful if you want to choose a candidate for reasons with actual substance.
     Because of this, picking a President doesn't seem like much more than a game to most. It feels more like choosing between two warring brands of toilet paper or rooting for your football team to win and grind the other guys into the dust. It's more about who wins than the consequences of a particular party controlling the position of President. This mentality has become pretty second-nature to many modern Americans because of how rooted our society is in consumerism. There's a strong "Keep Up With the Jones's" instinct in most middle-to-higher class people. If a neighbor has a nicer car than you, you feel the need or desire to outdo them and get a newer, sleeker, more-powerful car. If your kid comes home from school complaining that every other kid but him or her has an iPhone, you feel it necessary that your kid have an iPhone, too. Not all people feel this way, but it's a fairly common mentality. They don't really care whether they need a new car, or whether their child will get any practical use out of an iPhone, but they'd fall behind in the race if they didn't purchase them. This is what the Presidential campaign feels like to me. The Democrats express how important it is for them to win because if they don't win, Romney will be President and that's bad. The Republicans insist that they should win because if they don't, Obama will be President and THAT'S bad. Neither side talks nearly enough about what they actually plan to do as President, and most Americans will still vote for one of the two of them.
     The common convenience store chain, 7-Eleven has recently implemented a sales promotion to sell lattes. When you buy coffee at any participating 7-Eleven, you get your choice of two cups. You can pick a red cup with Romney's name all over it or you can pick a blue cup with Obama's name all over it. On their site, they're keeping count of who's in the lead as far as their coffee ticker goes: http://www.7-eleven.com/7-Election/   It's very reminiscent of how it feels to cast a vote for American Idol. All of the advertisements involved with the Presidential Elections are giving it an insubstantial, routine feel when it should be one of the most seriously considered choices a citizen has to make. It's definitely the biggest choice in American politics. American consumerism is causing it to feel like just another consumer's decision, like which take-out to get on your drive down the turnpike, and I find this fact fairly discomforting.

Additional Sources:
Fabos, Bettina, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.

Socially Responsible Media

As much as the general public complains about the bias in their media outlets, the United States should count itself as lucky in comparison to other countries around the world. The US follows what can be considered the “social responsibility model” when it comes to media outlets, meaning society is responsible for the media that becomes available. News providers try to make news pieces on topics that they think will be popular, topics that will sell papers or hike up the station ratings. In a lot of countries around the world, most notably in Asia and Africa, media outlets follow a “state” or “authoritarian model.” In a state model, the government directly controls what media is released and in an authoritarian model, the organizations in control of the media omit and slant information to achieve a certain end. (Cambell, Martin, Fabos. 480) Sometimes these ends can be benevolent, but sometimes they’re not. I think that we’re fortunate to have a system of media that focuses around free speech and the First Amendment, but there are obviously several distinct drawbacks, as there are with anything.

            Perhaps the most obvious shortcoming of the United States’ socially responsible mass media is how often personal opinion creeps into stories. When you read a newspaper article, you can tell whether it’s an account of an event or an opinion or editorial piece based on where in the paper it’s located. Television is much more difficult to distinguish because they don’t usually preface an opinion with something that tells you outright that you’re hearing an opinion. Television talk shows and news interviews aren’t scripted and edited like a newspaper is, so where a reporter has a chance to try to make his article sound more objective, an interviewer on television doesn’t have the time to take that sort of care. There’s also a very fine line between direct quotes and libel.

            News providers are always careful not to broadcast or publish or post anything that could be considered libelous, because that’s where their rights as news providers end. Libel is a form of expression that’s not protected by the First Amendment as free speech. So news companies can effectively be sued by someone who feels they were offensively and falsely portrayed by one of their articles or broadcasts. This, I think, works as a good incentive to keep reporters of all kinds a little more neutral than they may otherwise be. It doesn’t, however, stop them from quoting two opposing sides to try to get the story across. There are numerous articles on sites like the Huffington Post and NYTimes that are full of slander and mudslinging, but are presented with impartiality. In cases like these, it’s easier to figure out who stands where in relation to certain issues, because the reporter is simply telling the reader straight out. A lot of times, though, article writers use direct quotes as a way to get their own opinions across. This online article from Salon’s politics directory, for example, is full of name calling and spitting contests, but mainly in the form of direct quotes. [ http://www.salon.com/2012/10/01/the_billionaire_obama_hate_club/ ] But still, the writing that ties them together into a story is anything but impartial. So, although the threat of prosecution for libel stops news providers from creating their own slander, it doesn’t stop them from using pre-made slander to tell their stories, for better or worse.

            The one place where reporters really don’t have to worry about libel regulations is the internet. It’s very easy to maintain and write under a penname, thereby avoiding any ramifications on personal reputation that would be associated with unpopular inappropriate reporting. Because of this, it’s virtually impossible to sue an internet reporter for an offensive or unfavorable article. So there’s nothing to regulate the news that’s published on the web because there’s no threat of real consequences for writing a piece that’s full of libel. Just this week, legislature was passed in the Philippines in an effort to hold internet publications to the same standard as printed and broadcast media. Section 4 of the new law “criminalizes libel, not only on the internet, but on any other similar means which may be devised in the future.” [http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/10/02/12/anti-cybercrime-law-takes-effect ] This makes me wonder how long it’ll take for other nations to attempt something of this sort, or if they’ll even try. In a country like the US, where media is a direct product of the many people living here who feel they have news to share, I wonder if it would even be possible.

            And even with the insane amount of information out there and the high ratio of it that’s made up primarily of opinions, it’s still preferable to media that’s directly regulated by government. American media has more of an opportunity to regulate government by making media consumers aware of political events. Its greatest merit is that it comes directly from society to inform society. We have democracy of media, and for that I’m personally grateful.

Additional Sources:
Fabos, Bettina, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.

Choose Your Candidate

     Though most people who follow politics these days don't use actual television broadcasts to stay up on current events, the biggest news companies still control most of the other outlets. When you access news stories and videos through the internet or a smartphone app, it's probably through NBC, CNN, or Fox News. Most people use only one of these three big ones, get attached to certain reporters whose writing style they like, and consider this news provider to be more reliable than the others. But if that's the case, are voting citizens actually choosing who they want to vote for, or are they choosing the candidate their news broadcaster has chosen for them?
     Often times, when people read news articles, they pick the ones that further support the beliefs they already hold. They don't usually read something that challenges their current views and makes them reconsider whether they're actually correct in what they think about a topic. It's much more comforting to be told by a professional media specialist that what they've always thought was true is actually true. This is one of the main reasons why people who lean towards the liberal end of the scale prefer to take their news from media outlets like ABC, NBC, CNN or the New York Times, which also usually lean towards the liberal. Those who lean in the conservative direction will prefer Fox News for its more conservatively-inclined news. Many mass media outlets in the United States are also owned by conservative companies like Disney, TimeWarner, and the CBS Corporation. In the face of all of this media bias, it's pretty difficult to figure out which of the many available candidates actually appeals to you.
     It's especially difficult when many of the big media outlets ignore all candidates but the big two, the Democratic candidate and the Republican candidate. A CNN news special might show a documentary on the history of Obama as our President and all the wonderful things he's done, while drawing attention to Romney's stint as Governor and all of the things he did to ruin Massachusetts. On the other hand, Fox News may broadcast its own news special documenting how fantastic Romney was as Governor of Massachusetts and how much Obama failed to accomplish while in office. Someone who favors Obama will tune in to CNN's special while someone who favors Romney will watch Fox's. Rarely, if ever, will there be a publicized news special about one of the candidates running as an Independent. You can find a lot of people having political discussions on the internet, through blogs and news stories, who say "I like Romney's stance in this, but he's too extreme for me..." or "I like what Obama says about that, but I don't like the way he views something else.." It's very possible that people with these views will find a candidate more compatible with their government expectations if they look past the big two who get all the publicity. But the media makes it very difficult to find anyone else to vote for when they only grant their coverage to the Democratic and Republican parties.
     It's also difficult to find a candidate's stance on a topic if that topic isn't already part of the candidate's agenda. If you, for instance care a lot about animal rights, and neither of the two main candidates addresses animal rights, you won't know what to expect from either if you vote for them. And even if you're invested in one of the two main candidates and want to pick between the two of them, it's difficult to get both sides of an issue. Recently, the Democratic party has been talking a lot about gay rights and abortion and social issues like that. But the Republican party has been talking most about the economy. It's not easy to figure out what sort of action the Democratic candidate will take concerning the economy, should he be elected, and it's not easy to figure out what the Republican candidate will do about gay rights and abortion. You don't get both sides of either issue. Really, the only way to hear two opposing parties argue the same issue is to watch a debate where both candidates answer the same questions. But even then, if the question doesn't touch on the candidate's agenda, he'll usually evade the question and the opposing candidate focus on that instead of answering the question himself. So even in public debates, it's difficult to get enough information to really understand what action each candidate will take in reference to an issue that isn't covered by both their agendas already.
     Between competing agendas, selective news coverage, and broadcaster favoritism, it seems unlikely that the average voting citizen fully understands what they're getting when they vote for a candidate. They're not really choosing a candidate based on his stance on issues that are important to them, they're choosing the candidate that their favorite media outlet has chosen for them. In order to get a more complete picture of the possibilities available to them, people should get their news from multiple outlets of different stances. It would also behoove them to get news from less-mainstream sources that mention other candidates. It definitely takes additional digging, but doing so is an invaluable way to get a better idea of what the next four years will be like when you cast your vote.
   
Additional Sources:
Bettina Fabos, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.

WikiJournalism

     Since the middle of June, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been trying to avoid extradition to Sweden by holing up in London's Equadorian Embassy. He's afraid that if he gets sent to Sweden, he'll get handed over to the United States and possibly face the death penalty. This, to me, seems like a reasonable fear to have, because I, having grown up in the United States, could definitely see enough powerful people being angry enough to want him dead. But as far as the masses go, Assange has quite a few supporters among the common folk. Many average paper-reading, news-watching people admire him for what he started. Take a look at some of the first few pictures in the slideshow at the end of this Huffington Post article. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/18/julian-assange-talks-britain-ecuador_n_1893147.html#slide=1387072 It seems that the only people who want to arrest him are the police, following the government's orders.
     Of course, these are British citizens who admire WikiLeaks for making a hefty stack of private government information suddenly public. I can certainly see how that's an attractive concept, but I can also see how many Americans feel completely violated that someone from Australia made American information available on the global internet. Obviously, it can prove seriously dangerous to have national information available internationally. However, there's no denying how attractive a concept it is to have access to information about everything the government is working on. After all, they do use our money and resources to do it, right? But nobody has the time to do their own digging, even if all possible information was available. So, isn't that what our professional reporters are for?
     It's their job to spend their work week finding information and piecing it together into coherent representations of events while everyone else is absorbed with their own work week. They're supposed to provide us with the information we need to make the necessary choices that come with living in a democracy. They talk to the officials and politicians when we obviously can't, and they snoop around behind the scenes to find the context in which to place these conversations. Then they relate all of this to us, the general public. But recently, there's been a noticeable decline in the snooping aspect, and reporting has taken a turn towards stenography. And based on their response to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, it seems that the general public isn't quite satisfied with this.
     Newspaper companies walk a very fine line as they try to stay in business. They need to publish articles that are popular enough to sell, while also maintaining enough of an air of impartiality to keep their credibility as a reliable source of news. The reporters need to pique the interest of their readers, but also stay in the good graces of those they write about, for fear of losing favor and subsequently their jobs. When a reporter has an appointment to speak with a government official who's been in the recent news, he has to ask questions the public wants answers to. But when he reports on it, it's in his best interest to portray this official in a positive light or chances are good he probably won't be invited back for a second chat. Chances are also good that this official's colleagues, and even opponents, will note that this reporter is one to watch out for, again jeopardizing his opportunities to find something juicy to report on. In order for the news to keep coming, it has to be softened. It's understandable that a good number of people viewed WikiLeaks in a positive light, as a new way of reporting. But should a massive data dump really be considered actual reporting?
     Some critics argue that it's not responsible reporting to just dump a large quantity of private information on the internet for all to see because there's no story behind it. Or rather, there's no story that has been stitched together to make sense of all the information suddenly made available. Others argue that this form of "news sharing" is more responsible than the traditional method, also because there's no story. Because it's just the raw information that's been made available, it's up to the user to put it into context himself, cutting out the ulterior motives and story slants that may go along with the stories that are usually provided with modern news pieces. And if enough people feel that way about modern journalism, organizations like WikiLeaks may become more of the norm for news communication.
     Indeed, it seems that governments are largely trying to suppress and discourage Wikileaks and prevent it from becoming a trend. The site as a whole has been overtly banned in The People's Republic of China since 2007, and was also banned in Thailand in 2010 because of "political instabilities." The United States, too, is doing its utmost to discourage people from following in Assange's footsteps, but it seems that their efforts may be having the opposite effect. Julian Assange is garnering a great deal of sympathy from people who previously thought the governments of the world had overstepped their boundaries, and are now convinced that something should be done. I wonder how much more support he would have from U.S. citizens if he had only picked a different country to lay bare. I'm also interested to see if others try similar things in the near future. WikiLeaks may be expanded upon, or become a rallying point for those in favor of free information and government transparency. It'll be very interesting to see.


Additional Sources:
Bettina Fabos, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.

Evolution of Communication

     It's no secret that methods of communication have been evolving at a rapid clip in recent times, especially when compared to how long it took humanity to get the printing press figured out. With the advent of the electronic and digital ages, it's gotten much easier to send, receive, share, and find information. Many people are accustomed to schlepping through a quagmire of undesired details and facts and figures and opinions to get to the information they actually want, but quite a few others hate it. Those of us who weren't born at roughly the same time as the internet, or born into the current state of affairs, would probably greatly prefer to go back to the old days of print newspaper, radio talk shows, and televised informational specials.
     My dad always complains about the sheer amount of information on the internet. He watches the nightly news on cable tv, but he also gets bored at work and reads a lot of news articles online. He's used to watching the news, getting a few stories, and going to work and talking to people about them. But with the influx of news articles being shifted from television to web, he says that the personal-face-to-face communication is being lost. Instead, people talk to absolute strangers about their life views and beliefs in the comment threads on the same page as the articles. So I tell him to ignore those people, read his articles, and then go talk to people at work about them, but he replies that there are so many articles out there that it's virtually impossible to have read the same one as someone else in his workplace. He's right about that, but my response is usually something along the lines of "so what?" He just values face-to-face discussion with familiar people more than I do, and that's a result of what we're used to.
     Almost every aspect of humanity has been evolving steadily, even if genetic evolution has (debatably) ground to a halt, and culture is possibly the fastest-changing aspect out there. There are certain things that stick around for the long haul, like Shakespeare and Mozart, because they're respected and appreciated as "classics," and recognized as things what will actually stick around for the long haul. But culture that's currently developing is vastly different. This is sometimes represented in the "skyscraper model" where "higher" levels of culture are those long haul elements, and "lower" levels are the more current things that haven't had a chance to stand the test of time yet. I prefer to view culture in terms of old and new, because the only real advantage that Shakespeare has over Harry Potter is the fact that his plays have earned respect through simply being around for practically forever. The Harry Potter franchise simply hasn't had a chance to yet. But even though Shakespeare has the general respect of most of the rest of current culture, much more time is spent per day or week or month experiencing current culture than is spent experiencing Shakespeare. It's classic, it's valued, but it's not how the average person spends most of their time. And it's the same basic principle with communication.
     More people get their news from television than get it from a newspaper delivered to the front door, and still more people get their news from the internet than from television. It's just the current trend. One consistent thing about humans that will probably never change, though, is the need to communicate and seek feedback. When people would once read a book or newspaper and talk face-to-face about it, they now read something electronically and talk about it on the internet. But they're still seeking input and then discussing it. As much of a big deal as this dynamic change is to some people, I just don't see it. I set out to write this post and take a stance on one side, for or against change, but it sure seems that there's very little actual change going on. It's really just a matter of what you're used to.
     I basically grew up with the internet in my life. I'm completely used to having discussions with absolute strangers with unknown backgrounds. I prefer it that way, because when there's a disagreement, it stays focused on the issue at hand; there's no cheating by calling up things you know about someone from previous discussions and writing their opinions off as a result of something you don't think is important. My dad acknowledges this as true, but argues that you also lose the level of understanding you gain from knowing things like that about the other person. It's more difficult to come to an understanding if you DON'T have knowledge of the background belief or experience that contributes to that person's view on the topic you're debating. It's really just a matter of what you're used to and what you think is more important.
     That's why it annoys me to no end when people complain about the way information is shared nowadays, or when my peers complain about the "old complainers" for not understanding. It's annoying that neither side has tried to figure out where the other is coming from, and it's not as if they have any hope of doing so if they both reject the other side's preferred platform of communication. My dad and I have come to terms with the whole thing, so I'm pretty unsympathetic with those who can't or won't.


Additional Sources:
Bettina Fabos, Christopher R. Martin, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication, 8th Edition. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.

Targeting the New Generation

     I turned 18 and registered to vote about two years ago. This will be my first opportunity to vote in the Presidential Election. And I'm noticing now, more than ever, the efforts that some political campaigns are making to win me over onto their side.
     Not me personally, but my generation, the group of new voters that's just beginning to become politically aware. Both Democrats and Republicans keep emphasizing their humble beginnings, and how they started from almost nothing and worked their way up to the status of potential president. This catches the attention of people in the lower financial classes, but rings particularly powerfully with younger people. Many of us between the ages of 18 and 25 have either just finished high school, are invested in college, or just graduated and are looking for some way to build ourselves up to financial stability and independence. For our Presidential candidates to tell us that they've done essentially the same thing we're trying to achieve.. That hits home.
     Targeting this demographic is also pretty strategic of them, in my opinion. This is a group mostly consisting of people who've just recently left home and begun getting accustomed to legal independence. It's the perfect time for a political group or party to prove to them that they should support their plans and agendas. Plenty of young people go out into the world representing and supporting the views they grew up learning from their parents, but plenty more inherently think their parents are wrong and want to form their own stance. It makes a great deal of sense for politicians to aim their efforts at an investment like that.
     More recently, it's been noticeable that the Democratic party has been trying various tactics to win over the younger voting generation as a whole. Politics has traditionally been a platform for older citizens, those with experience with political happenings and long memories. Speeches often refer to past events, invite old Presidents back to speak on new candidates' behalves, and make the whole political environment seem abstract to young adults by alienating them. Both Democrats and Republicans have always tried to win over the "younger" generation, meaning people between 30 and 40, but little attention was ever really paid to brand new voters. But just last week, President Obama did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on popular news forum site Reddit. If that didn't immerse my generation in current politics, nothing will. People who previously viewed all of politics with a removed and distant eye were instantly fascinated by the fact that our incumbent was on Reddit with them. It was like the king emerging from his castle of news reporters and old advisers and joining you and your friends at Starbucks for a muffin and some coffee to talk about life. Even if people didn't agree with the answers he gave, the fact that he gave them left a pretty big impact, and it was a very strategic move of him to make.
     Additionally, at the Democratic National Convention, Julian Castro was given the honor of delivering the keynote speech. As the mayor of San Antonio, Texas, his presence not only reached out to the Hispanic community by being the first Hispanic politician to deliver a keynote speech, but also to the largely Republican population of the southern states. And at the age of 37, as the youngest mayor of any of the US's top 50 cities, he also appealed to the younger generation of voters who had previously had little ability to directly relate to any of the speakers at events like this. This was a very efficient way for the Democratic party to appeal to the younger generation by appearing to "freshen up" their act.
     So it's become pretty obvious that new voters under the age of 25 are now being much more specifically targeted than they had been in the past. President Obama was even speaking recently about passing some social programs to try to help college graduates pay off their federal loans. Student loans are possibly the second-scariest thing for newly graduated students to think about, only coming in second to the struggling job market and how difficult it is to find employment as a young person with relatively low experience. To have the highest-ranking governmental individual in the country tell you he'll help you pay off your student loans is an extremely attractive prospect.
     I actually find this campaigning tactic to be admirably strategic. They're now beginning to pursue a fairly large group of relatively green-horned people who are, for the most part, absolutely itching to have their own opinions and act upon them. And once these opinions are developed, they'll probably stick. Someone who begins their political involvement with one party is very likely to stay with that party for most of the remainder of their voting life. Whichever party can win over the new voters will be gaining an extraordinary asset to their cause, and it sure seems like the Democrats are getting a leg-up on it.
   

Media Bias

     In our modern society, it's nearly impossible to avoid the influence of media bias, primarily because media is everywhere. Even if you don't have a television, subscribe to a newspaper, switch on the radio talk show, or have internet access, political advertisements and product placements are everywhere. On your morning commute, you see billboards on the highway or panel ads at the bus stop. When you go grocery shopping, there are people waiting for you just outside the door, asking for your signature, or a small donation to their cause. And even if you never leave your house, if you have a cell phone number or land line, organizations can call you. And the organizations that are most often heard from are almost invariably linked to someone's political campaign.
   
     Information publicized directly from a political campaign office is always publicized with a spin. It's always self-promotion, and any sort of self-promotion is based in fact and wrapped in embellishments or slanted impressions to make the publisher look favorable. Often, this information alludes to facts and figures related to political opponents, in an effort to make said opponent seem somehow less desirable. The intent of any shard-like media contributions made in this manner is to make the receiver sympathize and agree with the deliverer. As such, it's always presented with a spin in that direction, and should be taken with a grain of salt. When a campaign ad is televised, it's important to understand that it's purpose is not to inform, but rather to gain support.

     Even when the factual core of these media shards is presented by organizations whose purpose is to present hard, cold facts, there's some sort of bias attached. When you switch on the nightly news and watch the press coverage of so-and-so's public speech that happened earlier that day, you're getting the bias written into the speech by the political candidate and the bias that's carried over through the news company. They don't have enough cameras or time to present you with every little thing that happened, and often times they elect to show certain things and omit others in order to make the story more interesting. Though it's the obligation and purpose of these media companies to present the public with the facts they don't have time to find for themselves, it's their priority to keep their companies at the forefront of the industry, and they do that through public popularity and show ratings. Therefore, they do whatever they can to keep people tuning in to watch every night, and often that results in a much more dramatic portrayal of events than is necessary or strictly true. So while they present coverage of so-and-so's speech, they'll include the handful of people in the crowd that get whipped up into a frenzy, for example, and pay little attention to the hundreds who stay calm, and therefore make the speech seem more poorly-received than it may actually have been.

     Nowadays, though, there are many other sources to get coverage of political events, sources that don't necessarily care about how they're received or how popular they become because they don't make their living that way. There are hundreds, even thousands of people on the internet, posting their own take on things in blogs like this one, or starting their own sites, or filming series of youtube videos. Many of them do this with the same intent as the campaign directors, to get support and find someone to agree with them. Some others try very hard to be impartial deliverers of fact in an effort to offset the bias attached to media that comes from other angles and sources. But even though they try to present everything as impartially as possible, they still have their own opinions on everything they present, and this always comes across somehow, very subtly, in tone of voice or choice of words. So by virtue of humanity's nature to ascribe meaning to experiences, it's virtually impossible to present an account of an event without some sort of small personal bias attached.

     Because it's unrealistic to try to avoid any sort of public media related to the political environment, it's more advisable to develop a strategy for weeding legitimate information out of the mess of opinionated sources available. This can be done in a multitude of ways. Probably the best way is to consult multiple sources, and as many with differing views as possible. That way, it can become clearer what the common factor is among them. When one site's article presents a certain spin to an event, and another article presents the opposite view, it's much easier to tell what is fact and what is embellishment. It's also valuable to be able to filter media based directly on the source. If you find out what a party is trying to achieve, whether they're a political candidate or a media company or a blogger, you can come closer to guessing the type of spin they may try to implement and compensate for it when you get information from them. It is possible to filter media outlets and form your own opinions on political happenings, it just takes some level of awareness and effort to think independently.