Blog Post 8

The topic I'll be covering in my presentation is how U.S. media uses fear to influence viewers in their coverage of both domestic and international news stories more than foreign media outlets and news agencies. I will be analyzing news article from The BBC and CNN, both related to international attacks on public figures. To do this I will apply the two concepts(you originally had us using five but dropped it down to two or three in a later class) of nationalism and socialization to identify what the primary work being done is and how using fear to evoke emotions might have secondary effects or blow back on both the viewers and U.S. media. I will also use apply concepts that we've learned about in class to dissect how the concept of fear is promoted by the CNN article compared to the BBC article.

BBC Article- The selected BBC article informed the reader on how an attack on the Vatican was prevented by Italian authorities through wire taps that alerted them to the fact that their may be an attack of some sort. they were issued 12 warrants that resulted in 9 arrests. The article stated factual evidence that was supplied to them directly from Italian officials and did not include any speculation on the motives of the individuals, the article only provided the factual history of the individuals criminal history. The article also explained all of this with a sense of calmness and levelheadedness, it did not use texts that someone might consider fear inducing or paint a picture of fear when describing the individuals or the possible plans they had conspired to execute. Over all this article is presented in a way that presents the facts to the readers in a logical, responsible matter and lets the reader draw their own conclusions to the story.

CNN Article- The CNN article described the same event, although in much different tone. The article starts off by using the descriptors of terrorist, Al-Qaeda, and mentions Osama bin Laden, all in the first four sentences. This is a pretty clear attempt to influence a reader to feel the emotion of fear before they get into the meat of the story because Americans have been conditioned to feel a sense of fear towards Al-Qaeda and terrorism since the 9/11 attacks and throwing Bin Laden's name in there does the work of giving a face to individuals who tried to execute this attack at the Vatican to the reader. The article then goes into the criminal history of the individuals, note that the CNN article calls them terrorists, neither did the BBC article call them terrorists or did the individuals have any confirmed connections to any officially acknowledged terrorist cells. We can see how in this article CNN uses the concept of buzzwords with subliminal meaning to draw fearful emotional response from the audience. Overall this article gives the reader a sense of fear that the individuals are out to get America by relating it to Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda and presents the facts of the story with a spin that reinforces the feeling of fear without letting the audience draw their own conclusion as to how to feel about the story.

This relates to nationalism and socialization because the CNN article is aimed at an American audience and the secondary work being done in the article is to instill a sense of nationalistic pride in U.S. citizens by getting them to have a unite feeling against these so called "terrorists". In regards to socialization the articles do the work of instilling a socialized culture of fear in the U.S. audience leading them to make decisions about government policy and social norms out of fear rather than applying reason to the decisions.

In conclusion it is clear how U.S. news media uses fear to  both draw viewers and to instill a sense of fear of world affairs in the audience. this work causes the population to act out of fear instead of reason. This work being done allows the government officials to act upon that fear by passing laws and policy that the U.S. population might disapprove of if they thought with more reason than fear.

March 23rd Blog Post

Over spring break I consumed three big sources of media. Each morning as i would eat breakfast i would watch CNN to be up to date with world events and developing stories both domestic and internationally. I also watched The Daily Show with John Stewart on comedy central several times throughout the week. Finally I was twitter periodically throughout the week. While I have always somewhat followed these news/media sources I have started to view them in a different way as I look at them with both the view as and insider looking out and now, due to class, an insider looking in. By this I mean that I look at the news stories and how they're presented and try to draw conclusions as to how a person with no prior knowledge of whats going on in the U.S. would look at the stories, how they would make them feel, and what thoughts they'd have towards the U.S. after viewing them. After applying this point of view to the news stories I concluded that while there is still an enormous amount of American perfectionism in U.S. media in relations to international events, the facade that America is perfect is starting to crack when it comes to our domestic issues and disputes. Unfortunately on the over spring break I did not have the time or resources to dive deeply into new media sources or how they display American news in any different ways. In conclusion after applying a different point of view to our media in the U.S. I can draw the conclusion that while it is and easy assumption to make that Americans come of as ignorant internationally, anyone who peeks into our domestic affairs can see that we are far from a perfect society.

For my breakdown of an event I decided to dissect the coverage of the Tunis attack between CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/23/africa/tunisia-museum-attack/index.html), and American based news source and the BBC (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32018405), a news outlet based in England. I'll start the breakdown with CNN, the report comes from Laura Smith-Spark and Claudia Morales, both of these authors are contributing writers for CNN covering news in predominately Asia and Africa, so there does not appear to be outside influence in the writing. I would say that the audience for this article is the American public, not necessarily an international audience. The text of the story indicates how the attackers were wearing explosive vests during the attack but were not able to get them to work. However if you dissect the article a bit more we see that the author uses both subtexts and persuasion to suggest certain ideas to the reader. The authors use the phrase "Suicide Vests", when describing the vests worn by the attackers, also describing them as "terrorists". The picture the authors paint is one that reinforces the stereotypical image of what Americans see when they envision a "terrorist", even though a terrorist group didn't claim responsibility for the attack until Thursday. Through the language used we can conclude that while did turn out to be attacks by a terrorists group, the CNN article was quick to jump to conclusions in almost automatically assuming that the attacks were from an extremist group, and using the right buzzwords and language, was able to paint the same picture for the readers of the article. Painting this picture to the American public does the work of increasing American resentment of extremist groups like ISIS and through this public resentment can rally political support for action against ISIS. The article uses the idea that if you paint the event full of things the American public already knows about and has preconceived notions about, such as the fear of ISIS or terrorism in general, the average reader will be more interested and the article as a whole will garner more attention than if the article was presented as being about a freak occurrence by two people who have no association and acted on their own will. It becomes very apparent in the article that the value of the article to CNN is while, first and foremost, presenting a story about what happened in Tunis, however skewed that story might be. The article also strongly suggests both consciously and subliminally that ISIS is a terror threat not only to the middle east but to everyone not affiliated with them, especially to the intended readers of the article, the American people. While most could agree that ISIS is a threat and does need to be dealt with, this article compared to the article the BBC put out is a clear indication of how the American news media can shape our thoughts and feelings on a topic or event by adding buzzwords or language that subliminally causes us to link happening events to ideas or notions, good or bad, that may have been previously developed. In comparison the BBC article was what most would consider a bit more fact based and less emotionally/opinion motivated or driven. The BBC article is written for a international audience as it presents distilled facts presented directly to the BBC. The article describes the attackers as gunmen in stead of terrorists. The article also makes no mention of any suicide vests and only mentions the word "terror" once, not even related to the actual event of the attack. The article uses minimal subtext or persuasion techniques to sway a reader one way or the other on what emotions the reader should feel while reading the article. It does this by, as stated before, presenting primarily facts about what happened and the Tunisian governments response without adding any buzzwords or language that would suggest underlying themes. In conclusion we can see how the American press network might be using subtext or persuasive techniques to sway the reader to feel sad, scared, or angry at the events that unfolded in Tunis without presenting the whole story, where as the same story from the BBC tells the story without causing an emotional response, rather encouraging a logical response from its readers by presenting facts from the Tunisian government.

March 9th Blog Post

This week in class we discussed the idea of money and how it impacts our lives as Americans, both socially and economically. Early in the week we discussed how money impacts the world of sports, in particular we saw how racial trends show that while African Americans make up the majority of players, ownership of the teams and organizations is overwhelmingly white as we saw in the facilitators article (http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/12093538/the-year-racism-sport). Through discussion we singled out reason for this may be that traditionally it has been common place for a white majority to run the business side of many organizations and for other racial minorities to do the daily busy work or be responsible for the production of capital for the larger business. Later in the week we dug into the finer details of neoliberalistic society and how it affects us as Americans. One of the big ideas we tried to dissect in class was what the idea of the American dream is. In the following discussion we could not put a concrete definition of what the "American Dream" is for everyone. The conclusion we came to is that the American Dream means something different to every person. This means that to one person it could mean being able to pay bills, buy food, put a roof over their head and clothes on their back, and be financially independent . To others the American dream may mean amassing a great deal of wealth, building a legacy for themselves, making sure their kids are financially taken care of, and being able to buy experiences that make them happy. The conclusion we came to as a class from this discussion was that because the American Dream means so many different things to everybody in the U.S. these differences could be a possible reason why there is a great divide in opinion on how our country should operate economically and politically. The objection or debate that arose in class was how much happiness we can get solely from money. Though their was many different opinions in the exact numerical amount that we start to become less satisfied with how much money we have, it was a generally agreed on idea that we reach a point where happiness is not monetary, it is something we achieve through social means such as a successful marriage, a job that fulfills you and makes you happy, or having kids to look forward to spending time with.

Comparison of Utility of Materialistic purchases vs. the purchase of Experiences 

This graph show how people viewed how happy materialistic purchases made people versus how happy using money to purchase life experiences made people. Interestingly enough before the person received the object or experience there is an overwhelming feeling that the materialistic purchase will bring much more satisfaction than a experience. For example people thought buying a new car would make them much more happy than going skydiving or going on a vacation. Though as you can see both short term and long term after getting the the object/experience the experience was bringing much more satisfaction than the material good was, even though the experience is over and they could still be using the material good they purchased.

The article put out by PBS backs the idea that buying experiences is a large factor in being "happy" (http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/blogs/can-money-really-buy-happiness). In this way the author says that money can buy "happiness". The key idea to understand here is that it is not actually the money itself that makes one happy, it is the result of what can be experienced because of the money. When looking at the idea of happiness from this point view the conclusion that we drew from class discussion is almost spot on, that having a certain amount of money will make you happy to a point, that it cannot bring one all aspects of happiness because those come from social interactions and a sense of self purpose. A good way to describe it is that making a certain amount of money gives you a foundation of happiness but it is up to you to build the rest of the house through finding and doing what makes you happy, whether that be building a successful marriage, finding a job or hobby you love, or raising children. This is what the modern American Dream entails.

March 2nd Blog Post

In the reading the main discussed topic is the idea of neoliberalism and how it is affecting the United States economically, politically and socially. In the reading titled "A Brief Examination of Neoliberalism and Its Consequences", the author describes neoliberalism as "Heavily promoting market-based economies that highly value competition and efficiency, neoliberalism has moved countries closer to adopting social Darwinism." All of the articles seem to cast this idea of neoliberalism as a bad idea that will ruin America's economy by increasing the wealth gap between the rich and the poor as was stated in the reading titled "Blaming the Poor for Poverty", the author states that "Most of the poverty in the United States is artificially manufactured. It is poverty created in the pursuit of “free market ideals,” expressed in recent times by the imposition of neoliberal economic policies – the sort of policies that cut taxes on the wealthy, do away with fiscal and other business regulations, shred the social safety net, and erode middle-class stability – all while singing the praises of self-reliance and individual responsibility." This applies to many of the discussions we have had in class on whether or not it is the responsibility of the citizen to work hard to improve their position, if the structured process of upward mobility has become too exclusive or has developed a barrier to entry that needs to be reformed, or if race and gender affects your ability to move up the ladder socially and economically. This view of the idea of neoliberalism seems to be somewhat one sided, it doesn't mention that they also drive competition and efficiency, which are the two of the corner stones of what our capitalistic society is built on. The article paints these concepts as a bad thing while in reality they are ideas that keep the United States competing as a world power economically. Competition benefits our society because remaining competitive on the world scale both drives prices down and keeps jobs in America as opposed to shipping them off to a foreign country because costs are lowered. Efficiency is important to our economy because anywhere you can cut costs is money that can be reinvested into the economy, whether that means buying new equipment, hiring more workers, or expanding your business, all of these options stimulate the economy. The ideas of neoliberalism give off the idea much similar to the ideas of the American dream, that hard work and receiving an education to acquire skills that few have to market yourself to the workforce will enable you to ascend your class and accumulate more wealth than your parents before you. Objections to neoliberalism seem to be that it favors the wealthy and that it deepens the wealth gap in America. Arguments against neoliberalism also include the idea that upward mobility in America is almost impossible and that the poor become trapped by a capitalistic society. 

This video gives us a basic overview of how neoliberalism works and the the history behind it. In the video it mentions the idea of political isolation if countries who except IMF help don't go along with what the dominant group wants they will be cut of economically and politically from the majority of the developed world. This directly connects to the concept of social isolation we have talked about in class, about how if a minority group refuses to go along with the social norms and culture they become social outcasts, much like what we saw with when we talked about the groups with different sexual orientations and how they are on the fringes of society. This video also poses the question of how do you balance free market economics with enough regulation to protect but not too much as to limit economic growth?

The article put out on http://fee.org/freeman/detail/free-markets-are-regulated makes a very interesting argument that free markets are already regulated. The article states that the market is regulated by participants operating by the laws of economics which creates what are called pattern predictions, or sets of rules that we recognize and understand. The article then goes on to point out that having an outside force, such as a government, set prices could produce non-natural shortages or surpluses that could have been mitigated by allowing the free market to adjust for the increase or decrease in supply. This idea that letting consumers determine the market environment without the artificial creation of limits and prices by an outside force is the principle that the free market system runs on and this article makes a strong case for why letting economies flow naturally and be regulated by the consumers that make those economies up might be the solution to the problems faced economically right now.

Blog Post 4 Feb. 23rd

The assigned readings all have a common theme both related to each other and related to some of the past discussion we have had as a class. The common theme in the three readings seems to be that the way that the United States government operates itself both domestically speaking socially and internationally over the last 50-60 years has been irresponsible and, in turn, caused our reputation to be tarnished abroad and has caused social tension and inequality abroad.

 Evidence of this can be seen pretty clearly in one way or another in all three of the articles. In the article about European views on America some Europeans from various countries go as far to say we are borderline crazy with the way we conduct ourselves politically, economically, and especially militarily. In the second article about the truth behind Vietnam it is stated that the history has been muddled by the government to cover up how brutal the war was and that they are using the celebration of veterans as a vehicle for that cover up. Finally in the Atlanta Black Star article it is stated that the popular newspaper, The New York Times, that in the published article they are giving an unfair presentation by not addressing the the topic of how the persecuting parties in many of the described situations were white.

This all relates to earlier discussion we had in class because as a class we seemed to come to the conclusion that fixing the structure of government is more productive than "fixing" the parties or groups the government is presiding over. in all three of these articles the argument being made seems to agree with that conclusion. Some of the arguments made regarding these articles is that the war in Vietnam was a really a front for a standoff between the U.S. and Soviet Union during the cold war and while this may be true it doesn't mean that what happened there can just be passed off or forgotten.

This video shows how the domino theory of the effects of communism has effected human history. It goes to show that while Vietnam in itself was a huge part of American history, when you take a step back and focus on the bigger picture, it was just one of many aspects of how the U.S. and Soviet Union unofficially squared off against each other during the cold war. The argument could be made that the policy of containment was one of the largest driving factors in the U.S. entering into Vietnam. This come back to the discussion about fundamental flaws in the way our government handles itself and how it can be corrected.

In the videos posted that we watched last week in the "Make Mine Freedom" video we noted how it all seemed to be white males portrayed in the cartoon which, going back the the New York Times article, might explain why the term white was not used to describe the persecutors. It may be at during that time period any crowd that viewed lynchings of African-American individuals were assumed to be white. Whether this is right or not is another conversation, but it would explain why the New York Times published the article as it was.

Blog Post 3

The first video points out that some aspects of America are flawed, but in the overall our system works well to promote hard work and spur economic growth. The video seems to represent all races and genders as stated in the beginning of the video even though all it seems to show is white men. Though the representation of class is skewed because it shows a difference between the upper class white men and working class white men. These differences are understated in the video but when recognized, paints a distinct difference in the way classes are treated. I don't think there are meant to be implications from this difference in representation, I think it is just a media portrayal of certain job sectors that is meant to draw a laugh as it is a cartoon. This video somewhat relates to the concept of feminism we talked about last week as it show a woman being looked at as an object rather than a person.

This video shows how a celebrity feels about how the worlds political systems. He highlights how he sees the the social system is failing the majority of the worlds population. He says the world is creating an underclass and destroying the planet. The core conflict in the interview is whether the old way of doing politics works or if there is a new different, way of conducting worldwide politics that would benefit the worldwide majority. This interview seems to have a bit of a comedic relief side to it so it may need to be taken with a grain of salt, as we also don't know how credible the actor in the interview is. This video ties into last weeks discussion because it highlights how certain classes have a leg up in the world because of what they are born into.

This video really digs into the some of the theories behind the 2008 financial crisis, the main argument being that the current view of economics is fundamentally flawed, he then goes into explaining some of the factors behind his thinking, these range from cultural characteristics to failures in policy. The video looks into the idea of systemic risk as a  factor in the role of the collapse. The author comes down to saying that the root of the problem this time is excessive power of capital and that the pumping up of credit line spending , most notably on mortgages. He then makes the argument that policy has screwed manufacturers in the pursuit of keeping financiers happy. Overall this video relates to the conversations we had last week of ingrained ways of thinking in a culture and how long those take to break.

Blog Post 2 Feb 9th

This week in class we really dug into the topic of gender based inequality in America and what can be done to combat it. In both of the articles chosen by our peers gender bias and inequality were highlighted as prominent social issues that demand change in America today. In the Feb 4th article (http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/01/31/us-rights-gender-idUKKBN0L323K20150131) the topic of whether or not a specific gender should be assigned to a person was discussed. "A growing

movement views gender as a complex, mainly psychological phenomenon in which a person's external anatomy is no longer the defining factor" (UK, Reuters) this led to us coming to the conclusion by the end of the class that a person should be able to choose what they identify as, but that that the social issue of gender assignment may be hard for people to understand both because of an ingrained way of thinking through the generations and because it is a concept that is relatively new and difficult to understand.

In the Feb 6th article (http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/23/us-usa-losangeles-firedepartment-idUSKBN0KW05T20150123) the topic of both gender bias and racial bias in the corporate hiring process was highlighted. Throughout the class we discussed possible reason for this and came up with the reason for the bias is because of ingrained culture in America that takes generations of change in thought to truly correct. This belief is one that I argue is on of the foremost reason change is so hard to completely procure. If we look at a similar issue of civil rights in America, the right for African Americans, we can see many of the same issues being faced by women in their pursuit of equal rights. In the last 50 years or so we have made leaps and bounds in America that have given African Americans the same rights as white Americans, something that just a few decades ago, was seen as a crime to give African Americans. If we look today we can see that in just 50 years women have come from being almost exclusively caretakers of the home to being CEO's of world renowned corporations. While there is much work still to be done it should be viewed as an accomplishment what women have achieved in the last 50 years. The opposing points that were presented is that, while accomplishments have been made, not enough is being done fast enough, to this one must understand that nothing worth achieving can be achieved quickly, especially in the day and age we live in today, while this not be the right thing it is the reality I believe we live in. I say this because gender rights are not the only thing trying to progress in America, whether it be gay rights or racial civil liberties, everything is progressing at a slow rate, no revolution is being achieved overnight. The differing treatments of women and men in the workplace can be highlighted in this video.

At one point in the video it is mentioned that the woman in the interview came off as aggressive and that's not how women are supposed to act. This highlights another point we talked about in class, the way people think about how men and women should act in the workplace. In class we discussed how discrimination in the hiring process has to be chosen to by the employer to commit. If the employer has a specific way that they think a gender should act it is highly likely that discrimination will happen when that gender doesn't act the way they think they should.

 This article (http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/04/05/when.to.act.like.man/) really seems to highlight the problems females face in the workplace. "Nobody seems to know where, exactly, a businesswoman should fall on the spectrum between "acting like a lady" or asserting herself "like a man." (Ridgeway, CNN) This really shows that there is  really no way to win in the workplace, you either get labeled aggressive or or passed up for lack of speaking out.

Feb 2nd Blog Post

Last week we looked at what some common American Ideals were. These ranged from racial inequality to how Columbus day is viewed in America compared to other place in the world, while all of these were tied to American identity by how they portray American culture I found that one stood out the most in the modern day. Of all the topic both discussed I found the wealth distribution to be the most interesting.

In the video it called wealth solely as income, which is a yearly salary. Wealth is the amount of money someone accumulates over a lifetime. Many of the wealthiest individuals in America that the video talks about have accumulated their wealth through many other forms of making money other than just a yearly income. These include inheritances or capital gains.

The Miss Representation video was also very eye-opening. The portrayal of women in the media has become more and more sexually based. The question I thought was extremely interesting was how far can you take the sexual advertising before the American Public draws a moral line in the sand?

This video shows how much the media still uses women for sex appeal. The argument for this is that they are doing it at their own will and are being compensated for it. While this is true it s the actors responsibility to know the line between what is considered advertising and what is degrading to women.

 In the video assigned in class states that " the restrictions that earlier generations had do not exist today" this is troubling because it implies that pretty much anything can be shown and portrayed by the media in any way they want. MediaKnowAll.com states that media representations of women are becoming more and more sexual as the advertising guidelines become looser and looser content wise.

Video Source: YouTube.com