Topical Blog Post #14

Going off of my experiment last week, this week I posted something that was much less controversial. My post literally said this "I don't understand how some people choose not to eat meat. If I could have an all meat diet, I would" This post was not confrontational to anyone. But here are three responses that I got.
"What you don't think vegans are people too? People like you are what's wrong with the world"

"well you are what you eat--a pig" (lol at that one)

"good thing you like to murder thousands of innocent animals" (she then posted a link to an article that was about factory farming).

I was shocked that a post this simple and about MY PERSONAL PREFERENCES got that much attention and people were actually offended by it. While this post wasn't necessarily political, it demonstrates that people attack almost anything you say on social media. It is dividing us more and more and the "discussions" that take place are close to meaningless.

Topical Blog Post #13

Today I shared two different articles on my Facebook feed as an experiment. I posted one article that was for abortion and one article that was against it and I waited to see what people's reactions to my posts would be. The results were very similar with each article. On the one that was for abortion, some people commented how they agreed with the article. However, there were about six or seven comments made that attacked the view. Rather than attacking the article, they attacked me. I was called a "baby-killer", "murderer" and one person said they were going to unfriend me. On the article against abortion, the same thing happened. Only now people told me how disgusted they were that I thought I had the power to tell woman what to do with their bodies. One woman said "wow you're against abortion? I imagine you're against woman's rights and the LGBT community too right? Honestly people like you disgust me, idk how you can even live with yourself honestly" Pretty dramatic stuff. I thought i drove my point that it is impossible to have a real discussion on social media. It really is a battle ground.

Topical Blog Post #12

Here is a link to a article that states how social media is dividing/polarizing America's political sphere:
http://pac.org/does-social-media-drive-polarization/

This article is a good summary of my argument that social media is polarizing politics and why that might be the case.

Girl vs. Women-language matters

I think it is very true that language can be very demeaning to a person’s status. This is demonstrated very well in the video through the use “girl” vs “women” type language. I see a direct parallel with language about men as well. I think of terms that people throw around to describe men. Terms such as: “kid”, “boy”, and “bud”. From my own experience, I absolutely hate it when someone older than me calls me bud. It implies that I am of a lesser status than them and it implies that I am less experienced and/or knowledgeable then they are. Terms like this are demeaning both intentionally and maybe even unintentionally. This is why we have to be careful with our choice of language. Each word in every language carries both denotation and connotation either of which can be offensive and/or demeaning to certain individuals or groups of people.   

Topical Blog Post #11

The Ted Talk we all just watched "The Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has a direct parallel to my topic. Earlier in my blog posts, I addressed a concept known as confirmation bias. Once again this means that people only look at the side of things they tend to agree with and they block out everything else. Her idea of a single story relates to this because people only ever look at one side of politics when it comes to social media. They never gain the full story/information that is presented. Also, by not researching the other side of the argument, biases and stereotypes are created. Just look at Republicans and Democrats, they generalize and dehumanize each other all the time. But in reality they probably don't truly know what the other side is fighting for and why.

The Danger of a Single Story

From this Ted Talk, the biggest thing I took away was that a single story entails the creation of stereotypes. The reason we tend to believe certain things about particular individuals or groups of people is because we have only ever been presented a single story of those people. In other words, we have only been presented one perspective on how that group or individual is portrayed. In order for us to be able to eliminate these stereotypes we must see past the single story and learn to see things in three dimensions rather than as a single flat surface. Once we look past these single surface we are able to see people for who they are and not what society has portrayed them to be.

Topical Blog Post #10

I held my focus group the other day, I interviewed six people who have all had extensive experience in politics, law and social media. Constitutional Lawyer Von Keetch brought up an interesting point. He said “…social media does not have the power to present a valid argument based on the fact that it can never provide someone with the full story”. I have taken the point to call this idea the "snapshot effect". Meaning that social media can only provide a snapshot of a news story or political information. It fails to provide the whole story which can lead to misinformation or even falsified information. Social media is causing a whole lot of uniformed people.

Topical Blog Post #9

My research led me back to a news article that was published back in 2016 saying that President Obama had signed an executive order banning the Pledge of Allegiance in all public schools nationwide. This was clearly a fake news article, but it was shared on Facebook over four million times. It spread like wildfire and for a while people seemed to believed the story. This is just one example of the fact that it is very hard to tell what is real and what is fake when it comes to posts on social media. Most people don't seem to do any further research on the topics either, they only read the info they are presented. It also shows how easily fake information can be produced/shared/distributed on social media.

Op-Ed

            The article written by John Dickerson titled “Don’t Fear Twitter” is not only an opinion piece, it is simply idiotic. The overall claim of Dickerson is that Twitter allows people to follow news like they never have before. He says that “As journalists we take people places they can’t go. Twitter offers a snapshot way to do this”. Dickerson is exactly right, Twitter is a SNAPSHOT only! Since when have you ever heard someone say “oh just give me a snapshot of your story and leave out the rest”. Dickerson’s statements claim that people don’t need to hear the whole story or see the big picture of what’s actually going on when it comes to the news. This is just one of many reasons you can’t trust the media in today’s world; they have agendas and they never tell you the whole story. In order for people to be truly informed, they have to know what’s really going on. That means telling the context of the story, any relevant background information, what source the information came from and give the important details. The whole point of media coverage and/or journalism is to inform the general-public with the truth. Twitter is just another way the media can distort the real story and bend the true nature behind them. Going back to Dickerson’s original quote, media does take us to places we can’t necessarily go. But what he is saying is that he can take you to those places, but you must wear earplugs and close one eye for the entire journey.

            Dickerson also tries to back up his argument by providing an example of when the planes hit the World Trade Center on 9/11. He states that Twitter would have been a great way for the media to cover the story as it unfolded. This statement is both offensive and insensitive to the catastrophe of 9/11. Studies have shown that many people who use social media for their news tend not to look at any other sources for gathering information. How on Earth is someone supposed to appreciate fully and empathize with an event as disastrous and inhumane as this one if they simply get their news from 140 characters? Even if there is a link posted to a real news article on the topic, the odds people will actually click on that link are close to zero. People view Twitter posts for instant gratification. People go on to Twitter because they want information and they want it quickly and as simple as possible. Why would someone go on to their Twitter account to view 140 characters just so they could go on to read an article 100x that length? The answer: they wouldn’t.

            To make a long conversation short, Twitter is not a viable way to gather news information. A social media site such as this one cannot provide accurate coverage of real stories without distorting them to one degree or another. One cannot consider themselves informed if they only gather news from one source, especially if that source is limited in the number of words they can use to tell a story. People need to look at multiple sources and gain all relevant information to have any sort of knowledge on a subject. The definition of knowledge is: “Facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.” Funny, I couldn’t even fit that definition into 140 characters.

Topical Blog Post #8

In a few weeks I will be holding my focus group for this researched paper. Below are all the questions I will be asking in that group. If you would like to comment and answer these questions yourself that would be awesome/helpful!

Interview/Focus Group Questions

·       What has your experience with politics in social media been like?

·       How/in what ways have you seen political leaders use social media?

·       Has their (political leaders) use of social media been effective? Why or why not?

·       How/in what ways have you seen the general-public use social media?

·        Has their (the public) use of social media been effective? Why or why not?

·       Do you think social media is a valid source of distributing and viewing political information? Why or why not?

·       Do you think social media has become an effective source of informed political discussion? Why or why not?

·       Research has shown that social media has the tendency to create “the nasty effect”, this means that posts/comments can change the nature of the real story. Do you think this is the case? Why or why not?

·       How likely are you to click on a link connected to a news article on social media? (Choose one)          

o   Very likely

o   Likely

o   Not likely

o   Sometimes

o   Never

·       Links on social media have sometimes been known to be connected to fake news sites, how have you come to trust whether a link is viable or not (if any at all)?

·       Do you believe that social media and politics should have interrelations? What are your reasons for your answer?

American Ignorance Facts

This article was very interesting, in today’s society I have found it to be true that people will stick to their guns even if they are proven wrong. As the article puts it, trying to convince a misinformed person with real-world facts is like “fighting a grease fire with water. It seems like it should work, but it's actually going to make things worse”. We live in a time where people are more outspoken and more opinionated than ever before. I have a few guesses as to why that is, but I cannot be entirely sure. One thing I do know, is that Confirmation Bias has become one of the biggest problems in today’s political, social and economical world(s). People only look for “facts” that back up their position. Take abortion for example, I can guarantee that nearly everyone who is pro-choice could not give an accurate representation of the pro-life argument/reasoning or vice versa. For whatever reason, people absorb information that goes with the schemas they already have, and they block out any information that goes against those pre-existing notions. This is probably why no one can have a two-sided discussion on controversial topics like abortion. Those “discussions” are more screaming matches than anything else and all that ever happens is a stalemate on the argument. Personally, I believe facts are facts, stats are stats and trends are trends. You can’t deny something that is actually happening, no matter how much it goes against you and not matter how much you don’t wan to.

Topical Blog Post #7

I found a study conducted by Dr. Rebecca Hayes that evaluated political posts of Facebook. Her article "Face[Book] Management: Self-Presentation of Political Views on Social Media”, states that the majority of people will hide, unfriend or even block people on Facebook that post political information they don't agree with. This article ties directly to confirmation bias and how present it is on social media. Her study also notes that a good percentage (about 15-20%) of people don't even want to see political information of any sorts posted on social media sites. 

The Truth is Hard

I find a lot of power in this short poem. Freedom of the press is one of the fundamental rights that sets the United States apart from being a dictatorship. The fact that any individual, group or political party would want to restrict our freedom of expression is a really scary thing. This country is set on a foundation that people have the freedom to more or less say what they want. That is also key to keeping our government in check. The United States is a DEMOCRATIC-Republic. Shutting out people’s views and opinions just because they go against your own is in itself a mild form of fascism. I consider myself to be a Republican, but I will not tolerate restrictions on freedom of speech, expression and press on any group or individual. 

Topical Blog Post #6

I was looking back on tweets made during the presidential election of 2016 and I found something interesting. I viewed tweets made by both Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton during the election. Here is an example of a tweet Trump made:

 “Nancy Pelosi and Fake Tears Chuck Schumer held a rally at the steps of The Supreme Court and mic did not work (a mess)-just like Dem party!”

And here is an example of a tweet Hilary made:

“Trump just criticized me for preparing for this debate. You know what else I prepared for? Being president. #DebateNight”

Looking at these tweets, I noticed that social media has become more of a battleground than a source of quality political discussion. Rather than people criticizing the other's policies or plans for the future, each candidate attacks the other personally. I have seen this countless other times among political authority figures as well as the general-public.

"Speaking For Utah Women"

The tone of this article is clearly sarcastic, it brings humor but seriousness into the issue of the wage gap concerning the women of Utah. I think her tone is very effective in getting her argument across. It shows how fed up and annoyed she is by the decision the "GOP guys" have made. This tone might even be more effective than a formal argument. Sometimes people get tired of hearing fact after fact after fact, sometimes people would rather hear an opinion of a real person who has real experiences. Her tone really brings her argument to life. While personally, I think opinions are an invalid way of supporting an argument (I believes facts are needed to back up real world claims), her argument comes across in an very effective way. This type of article is definitely persuasive and it does kind of inspire her readers to be fed up/get angry about the situation at hand. Her implied call to action is definitely being heard here.

Topical Blog Post #5

One of my sources written by Benjamin Lyons and Aaron Veenstra is titled "How (Not) To Talk on Twitter: Effects of Politicians' Tweets On Perceptions Of The Twitter Environment." Some new information that I had not previously thought about was presented. They call it the "Nasty Effect". This effect refers to the fact that people's comments on a social media post can drastically alter the true nature of the original post. False information or even people who disagree with the post can produce comments that twist the meaning of the original post. I have seen this constantly on sites like Twitter and Facebook so this information will definitely help me further my research.

she persisted

She spoke, she was warned

They gave their explanation

firm, she persisted 

Topical Blog post #4

Another problem that political social media has caused is confirmation bias. This term means that people tend follow people/read posts that agree with their pre-conceived notions about political topics and they block out any information that opposes their beliefs. This is dangerous because people are only looking a one side of the coin that is politics. There are at least two sides to every story and social media is causing people to believe that the coin is the same on both sides. That or they will create stereotypes and biases against the other side as well. Combining this information with the misinformation effect, it is clear that social media can easily distort the truth and produce polarization on a mass scale. 

"millennials"

I really like this video! This is not the first time I have watched it, but it gets better every time I see it. I do believe that he is correct when he says that millennials have been “dealt a bad hand”. We were born in a time that where so much is expected of us. We also live in a time of great technology which has brought about a certain need for instant gratification. The combination of all these things has primed us millennials to have a very big fear of failure. Along with that we feel large amounts of shame when we do fail. This certainly backs up the statistics that show that the millennial generation is more prone to things such as shame, depression, laziness etc. While this is very true, I also believe everyone is in charge of their own lives. I believe we all have the power to choose our own destiny. While millennials have certainly been dealt a bad deck, that is no excuse to have the millennial mindset. There are plenty of millennials who still believe in honest hard work and that the past doesn’t create their future, they do. I am in no way discrediting real mental health issues, such as depression, I am simply saying that everyone has the power to create the circumstances they want. You can’t change the world in yoga pants people!

No gender barriers

While this article held some valid points, I really think many of things it said men expressed were kind of absurd. I do agree that yes everyone loves to express themselves and not “bottle up their emotions”, those types of things are healthy regardless of gender. And yes who doesn’t love to smell a good ol’ bed of roses every once in a while. I just have a hard time believing that every guy they surveyed wanted to paint their nails and wear sundresses. One thing I noticed is that they never state how many guys they surveyed or more importantly what type of men they surveyed. In other words, what was their population and sample like that they put in the survey? We don’t know! This article also never tells us of any guy who says he wouldn’t do any “feminine” things even if there weren’t gender barriers. Personally, I would never paint my nails or do anything likened unto that activity. So I don’t think this article can be presented as real evidence for the subject, it can be skewed or misrepresented to easily. Of course, I don’t speak for every guy out there, but personally that is how I viewed this article. .

Topical blog post #3

In my research, I have found that one of the biggest problems with political social is the misinformation effect. Many studies and articles have shown us that fake information can be easily posted and distributed on social media. Along with that, social media is allowing people to post information without having to have that information fact checked or backed with any real evidence. Anyone can just blast their uniformed opinion onto social media sites. More studies have shown that people who use social media to gather political information cannot tell the difference between real and fake news sites and/or articles. They also tend to not look further into the posts to check if they are real or not. Obviously, there is clear and present danger with the misinformation social media is causing. 

Elisa Chavz-Revenge

I think Elisa Chavez’s poem Revenge is really a protest against President Trump and all the policies he is planning on putting in effect. Her poem was published in January of this year (2017), so the timeline makes sense. She makes mentions of things such as: gun control, the ban and deportation of certain immigrants and minority movements. She clearly has very strong opinions on the topic(s). She uses words like “swastikas”, “haunt”, and “trample” to describe people who oppose the political correctness and minority/social justice movements (that’s her poem in a nutshell, obviously her meaning goes deeper than that). A few questions came to my mind after reading her poem. What connection(s) does she have to the topics at hand? Why does she have such strong feelings about the subject? And what solutions, if any, is she willing to provide? You can’t really understand someone’s views if you don’t understand them as a person, I must take a deeper look into her life to find out those questions.  

Shame/Guilt-Ted Talk

I really enjoyed this Ted Talk. The first thing I picked up on was that shame relates directly to our classroom. I thought we had a good discussion last week about seeing all points of view and how we are seeing more and more gender expectations. While we had good discussion, I think that shame is what was holding many people back from expressing their own opinion. Some may have been afraid that they would be ridiculed for their belief on the topic; some may even have thought they weren’t good enough to contribute to the conversation. Both these beliefs are dangerous or “seductive” as she states in the Ted Talk. Everyone in our class has the right to their express their opinion openly without having anything holding them back.

The next parallel I saw was that men and woman truly are different. When I say different I don’t mean unequal, I simply mean we behave differently and have different societal expectations. In the in-class discussion I said I didn’t have a problem with the gender specific magazines. I hold true to this, I believe in freedom and that people have the right to publish and/or print what they want (with-in the rule of law of the United States). While that is true, I do acknowledge that society expects to much of each gender, women in particular. I agree completely with this Ted Talk when it showed us that most men are afraid of being viewed as weak and most women fear being viewed as not being good enough (in a nutshell). It is very sad and even repulsive we live in a society that exposes those insecurities and feeds on what they do to us as people. Shame plays a big part in the creation of those very insecurities. Obviously, I am not a women and I really will never have any idea what their experiences with shame are like. Thus I concluded I needed to be more open-minded and let empathy and understanding take their place before I set my opinions in stone. To a certain degree, I think my conclusion applies to everyone. We must come to understand where someone is coming from before we completely shut their argument down. Empathy is the antidote to the sickness that is shame (as stated in the Ted Talk).

Topical blog post #2

This is a link to a study conducted that shows just how much President Trump and former Secretary Hillary Clinton use social media (Twitter specifically). This study puts in into perspective just how big of a factor social media is becoming in today's political realm.

http://graphics.wsj.com/clinton-trump-twitter/

Three A's of Awesome

The thing I liked most about this Ted Talk, was when he stated that we need to see the world with our “three-year-old eyes”. We must see everything like we saw it for the first time. I know that as I have gone throughout my high school and now even my college years, things have become very routine. My life has simply become the same thing over and over. Work, school, gym repeat, work, school, gym repeat. I need to learn to see things in a fresh way again, go out and break my routine every now and then. Life is too short to do the same thing over and over again. Go out and experience new things or even do the same thing but look at it in a way you haven’t before. In the famous words of Ferris Bueller “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Death Sentences

George Orwell once said "...if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." I find this very idea demonstrated in today’s world when people use the word “love”. This may not be what people usually think of when they think of “irresponsible language”. Irresponsible language is usually defined as a word or phrase that in one way or another ultimately offends someone. I am not in any way offended by the word love, but in today’s society I have found that when people use the term they have no idea what they are actually saying. I find it irresponsible that people throw a word like love out like a beach ball at a “1975” concert. The word is used so often that people have become desensitized to just how much weight falls behind it. Just to be clear I’m not saying I hate it when people say something to the effect of “I love pizza” (let’s be honest who doesn’t??); however, I can’t stand it when people in a young relationship, such as one in high school, say they love each other after they have been dating for 2 weeks. Come on you guys are like 16 years old you don’t even know what that words mean yet! Love takes on a whole new meaning when it applies to a human being. I have seen cases like this this far too often in my own life and the lives of those close to me. That is just one example in a sea of misuses of the word. Sadly, people say things like this so often that the true meaning of the word love has, in a sense, been lost. Love is such a strong word, call me old fashioned but in my opinion when it is used correctly no word carries more power or brings people closer together than this word. So, next time you are thinking about using the word love, ask yourself: Do I love it? Or do I love the idea of it?  

Topical blog post #1

The issue I have chosen to research is how social media is affecting American politics. I have decided to write about this topic because of America's most recent presidential election in 2016. Social media was used very frequently by all candidates and both the Democratic and Republican parties. I saw each candidate interact with one another and I also witnessed first hand the political discussions going on all across the web. Viewing all these posts have made me question if social media is even an effective tool for communicating political information. Should social media even be interrelated with politics at all?

Betsy Devos Hearing

“Limit the role of government in America's schools and trust that the free market — and parent choice — will lead to innovation and improvement.” In my opinion, this is the way schooling should be. America was founded on a free-market economy in which the Federal Government played a very small role. For a market economy to work the Federal Gov. must only set the minimal standard and then let the states experiment with things in their own way to find out what does and does not work (I’m paraphrasing Ben Franklin there). I also agree that in Federally funded programs, the Federal government has the power to step into the playing field of education and enforce their rules. I think Devos has some good ideas for education; however, I do agree that her new policies may have a scary impact on federally or state funded public schools. 

I Am.

I am...
A fighter
A Dreamer
A Realist
A Skeptic
I am..
passionate
caring
objective
hard-working
intelligent
proud
strong
I am...
me.