Month: October 2019

For my paradigm shift analysis, I will be focusing on the change and increased competitiveness in the college admissions process with attention to standardized testing. In the 1900’s the first ever normalized standardized testing was given and led to a myriad of changes that lead to the SAT and ACT we have today. In 1926 the first was administered and it changed the college admission process. When the initial multiple choice SAT came out many people debated the efficacy of a multiple choice test. Many argued that it did not accurately portray the skill or intelligence of a student. After the wave of SAT and other standardized tests that we have to day it created a system that bogs the minds of aspiring college students. What started as a simple aptitude test has turned into one of the most stressful and impactful days of testing in students lives. What led to this shift was the increased necessity for top testing scores over the years. With the top fifty universities in the nation needing SAT’s in the 90th percentile it has become overly competitive over the years and will keep getting more competitive with years to come. Two main factors that led to this shift is the commercialization of the SAT and also the increasing competitiveness of college admissions. Many people can obtain access to SAT tutoring programs which disenfranchise the less fortunate while also skewing the the SAT data. The test becomes a game of tutoring and memorization rather than actual intelligence which puts many people at a severe disadvantage making it harder to go to college. Also, with increased competitiveness in college admissions the threshold SAT score necessary to be competitive for certain colleges is rising. This adds undo pressure on the students and severely hurts their chances at college if they are not as good of test takers. The impact of this shift is that students are, rather than actually cultivating intelligence, catering to a test that rewards efficient objectivity and memorization. This puts severe pressure on students to perform under intense circumstances because it can be seen that these tests determine a student’s future. The agents that created this change can be the increased competitiveness in college admissions which inherently leads to higher standardized testing scores.

Paradigm Shift 1- Economic Transition

Before the 1940’s the main monetary backing for every other country in the world was gold. However, around the mid 1940’s the establishment of the bretton woods system allowed all other countries to peg their currency against the US dollar rather than gold. Therefore, the only country that had any relation to gold was the U.S dollar which made the rest of the countries currency more stable.  The bretton wood system consisted of 44 countries and agreed to a fixed peg against the U.S currency with only 1% diversion allowed. Also, this conference gave rise to the IMF and the World Bank. The IMF would internationally monitor currency exchange rates allowing their to be a period of stability with foreign currency exchange rates. The World Bank added a system in which more developed countries could give developmental aid to developing countries more effectively and efficiently. More so, the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1973, gave rise to one of the economic theories for currency today. The idea of a fixed or freely floating exchange rate system. The country was able to pick the way in which the currency is valued, making the currency system more true to value and much more sustainable. 

 

Paradigm Shift 2- Financial Crisis 

Before the 2008 market crash, many large financial holding organizations such as the Security Exchange Commission(SEC) believed that an adequate tool for regulating the market was just leaving it up to financial innovation. It was seen that information efficiency in financial markets was seen as an effective risk management tool for the whole economy. During the early 2000’s there was little questioning the idea of politics affecting the economy and political interests were not seem to affect any markets. However, after the market crash in 2008 the idea shifted to the effect of political factors on the economy and how it operates. There is more backlash and critical look into lobbying interests and what the government is doing to the economy. Governmental regulation is more closely monitored to try and stop the financial markets from being taken advantage of.

My second artifact, the Sandy Hook promise ad is a back to school ad that sheds light upon the horrors that kids have to face when school shootings happen. The ad appeals to their audience by starting it out as a normal back to school ad but slowly devolving it into a cesspool of intense emotions and actions that come out of school shootings. The ad specifically appeals to the audience by first providing juxtaposition of tone from the beginning of the ad to the end. This serves as a way to grab the audience’s attention and focus their attention on the individual horrors that the ad is portraying. Then the symbolism of basic back to school supplies acting as ways to protect themselves from school shooters reveals an extremely important idea that children face in schools. They can not feel safe in schools so rather than using supplies that are meant to be educational, they are forced to think about them as ways to protect themselves as school shootings. It creates an idea that the general population is not keeping kids safe in schools but rather neglecting them forcing students to fend for themselves. The abysmal state of these kids are supposed to create a sense of change in the audience which is the whole purpose of this ad. This ad and my first artifact are similar in terms of general rhetorical devices and topic however the PSA fails to encapsulate the audience in a way that the ad effectively does. The PSA inherently limits it self by defining that guns are the problem to school shootings. Where as the ad just states that school shootings are preventable. To an audience member the idea of taking away guns may be out of there reach but making a difference to fight against school shootings may be more realistic which then creates a stronger civic engagement. Also the similar tone and pathos are more strongly present in the ad than the PSA. The Ad accomplishes the framing of these inhumane school shootings much better than the PSA which is why the Ad invokes much stronger emotions. The PSA is good for appealing to specifically gun control advocates but it falls short of reaching the entire audience. The focused framing of the PSA makes it much less effective than the Ad especially when appealing to the entire population of the United States to prevent school shootings.