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.