Month: February 2017

In the last year and a half, we have seen a multitude of high profile celebrities speak their minds about the polarizing election of 2016. A majority of these celebrities also spoke on huge platforms, often while being hosted on national TV in front of millions. From Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem to Meryl Streep at the golden globes, athletes and entertainers all had a voice in our nation’s current political and racial state. The issue most Americans had was that TV entertainment is meant for exactly that, where there should be absolutely no room for politics. However, no matter what side of the political scale you are on it is not hard to realize why they spoke about such a polarizing topic. But why is it that these story-lines blew up in the face of Americans. Two words: social media.

The main stream media reporting on TV and even the internet has been around for quite some time now. However, there is a relatively new beast in the media industry that is social media. While our televisions and newspapers were always a good source of information, they never provided a platform for discussion between the people. Sure, if you saw something interesting on the news back in the 90’s you would most likely discuss it with someone. The internet also allows for discussion with other individuals, whether it be online or in person. Although, the difference is that social media has created a new mindset for people. Many people have heard the term “internet tough guy” or some other variation of it. This term essentially means that people are acting big and tough because they know they are shielded by the screen that lies in front of them. What this means is that the internet allows people to have the confidence to say things they would not say I person. So, what does this mean in relation to entertainment and politics. With the rise of social media over the last decade (give or take a few years), audiences of all kinds have merged into one atmosphere.

Take for example the Golden Globes, that took place on January 8, 2017. Meryl Streep took the opportunity during her acceptance speech to voice her opinion on Donald Trump and the past election. Yes, while millions were watching on TV, the real heat happens on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Between all social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook are the breeding grounds for the most hostile, back and forth typing wars known to man. These platforms allow you to connect to those talking about the same subject as you in seconds. If someone takes to twitter to comment about a situation such as Meryl Streep’s speech, within minutes they can be fighting with someone halfway across the world. The aftermath was not very pretty either, as celebrities and thousands of other Americans got into heated arguments over her comments.

The problem here, is that with all the media we consume through our mobile devices, anything posted on the internet can go viral in minutes. Because of the personal customization that we are given, we can receive notifications from any social media account, news outlet, or text messages from friends without doing any research. Notifications are sent right to our phones, for which all we must do is tap on the notification to consume its content. Also, most Americans who own a mobile device, have it on them at practically all times. So, when 20+ million people tuned into the Golden Globes, you can bet something as polarizing as Meryl Streep’s speech will go viral within minutes.

Now, is it totally appropriate for celebrities to speak on political issues when the consumers of their entertainment watch them to escape all that drama? The answer is quite ambiguous, as it really depends who you are. Some say that in political times that we are witnessing right now it is necessary, while others say it is disrespectful and inappropriate. Personally, I think the mainstream media, as well as other news blogs, to a fine job of relaying issues to the public as needed. So, my answer to the question would be to leave it off the national stage. If celebrities want to go on their own time to talk about political issues, great. However, if they are speaking on an entertainment platform those comments should be kept to themselves.

 

Bibliography: 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/08/entertainment/meryl-streep-golden-globes-speech/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4100928/In-one-speech-Meryl-Streep-showed-bravery-Donald-Trump-entire-sad-privileged-life-Twitter-explodes-actress-anti-Trump-Golden-Globes-speech.html

https://www.statista.com/statistics/266669/golden-globes–number-of-viewers/

 

With new modern trends and an ever technologically developing world, the entire political landscape has and still is changing. The important question to think about in this situation is this for a largely positive or negative impact. I am almost certainly sure that this is a primarily negative impact however, let us first like at some of the positives. With the growing world of social media, politicians are able to advertise themselves in many different ways. Not only is it easier for them to promote their agendas, but they can now introduce themselves on a more personal level with the people. Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and other social media sites allow politicians the chance to show everyone what kind of person they are (or at least what they want us to perceive them as). Also, social media allows for an instant connection to the audience that presides on each social networking site. All of this is good for the politicians, however, none of this benefits the rest of us all that much. So, how exactly is social media negatively impacting our modern-day politics?

Politics now rely on the internet as well as social media to be able to get information out to the entire world. This can be very convenient now that mobile devices have become the norm. however, with such concepts such as the public sphere and the filter bubble, this comes at a long-term cost. Many of the topics that we have covered in class revolve around a similar pattern in that people are being concentrated into areas of thought that only they agree with i.e. filter bubble, public sphere, and echo chambers. Since algorithms such as the filter bubble are able to categorize us into groups based on political beliefs, other dominos then fall into place, creating a dysfunctional outlook on politics. As we have witnessed in this previous presidential election, politicians have used their social media platforms to invoke their followers with emotion rather than focusing on the true facts. We saw Bernie Sanders speak passionately about legalizing marijuana and making college education practically free by saying how much we deserve this and that. However, he never said the tremendous costs we would be giving up to achieve such gaudy feats. We also saw Trump use a wide variety of adjectives to negatively describe his counter parts. He even coined the phrase “lock her up”, hinting of Hillary Clinton’s ongoing investigation with the FBI. Even Hillary herself, joined in with the antics. Despite all of this nonsense, many people still sided with a particular candidate purely based on emotion and excitement rather than each candidate’s actual policies.

I have spoken to many colleagues who say they are voting for a certain candidate purely because they are “funny” or got “the best” of the other candidate in a twitter battle. This is crazy, right? After more than 200 years as a free democratic country, where our government has been driven by the educated collective thought of many, we are now being governed by those who are more “entertaining” than others. To be fair, I am not solely referring to Donald Trump but a large majority of politicians. In hind sight, social media is turning politics into a top-hit reality show. The drama that surfaces on social media flows over into TV media outlets, which then over-exploits each story on an entirely different level. At the end of the day, most politicians may hate the way they campaign and conduct business has evolved. However, they know that they must do it this way or else they may be out of a job.

The most concerning part about this is that more people are consuming news though social media than ever before. Fake news was a hot topic that entered the presidential election towards the election and the amount of people consuming (and believing) fake news through social media is appalling. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook have been slowly involving themselves more and more with politics each year. However, this past election, has bursted into the political scene in as dramatic fashion as you could ask for. So, with the rise of the next generation into the business, economic, and governmental world, it is up to us to make a change in the way social media influences our government.

 

Sources:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/2016-election-social-media-ruining-politics-213104

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/09/30/more-and-more-people-get-their-news-via-social-media-is-that-good-or-bad/?utm_term=.bc48d6c94a42

In the last several years our society has become sensitive and offended by other opinions. For the larger majority of our population there are practically two schools of thought. One thought is fairly conservative in thinking, while the other is more progressive. While there are those who fall in between, there is no doubt our societal thinking has become quite polarized. It seems as If we are being pushed to associate ourselves with people and information that only supports our interests. Although it is important to be firm with your beliefs, it is also important that we familiarize ourselves with the thought process of other individuals. Our country was built by our fore fathers to be a collaborative environment in which we absorb the opinions and views of others to further our learning and understanding of our peers. This is where anomalies like filter bubbles and echo chambers come into play. For those who do not know what these two concepts are, let me briefly explain. The filter bubble is essentially a personalized browsing experience, tailored specifically for the user based on their information. In short, the internet feeds you news that it thinks you want to see. Echo chambers is practically the same concept in that it is an enclosed space on the internet feeding you information/news you want to see.

Now that we have the basics out of the way, we can get straight to the point. The issue at hand here is free speech zones on publicly owned universities and colleges, that is, those owned by the state. One in six public colleges in America are subject to these so called free speech zones. To put this in the words of Turning Point USA, “that means 1 in 6 universities have taken free speech and moved it to a confined space on campus”. Recently, these free speech zones have generated much controversy. It is widely debated that these zones are unconstitutional. Essentially, the argument is that since it is owned by the state there can legally be no zones according to the first amendment. Private colleges, however are not owned by the state, so what they do on their campuses is their business. So, unfortunately there is nothing that can be done about this issue on private campuses. Anyways, in order to understand the importance of abolishing these zones we need to understand what has caused them and why free speech is so important, especially at such a young age.

With as sensitive as our world has become today, many people probably wonder why it is so important to promote free speech. The truth is, we are now told that if you are offended by someone’s opinions you should ignore them and their thoughts and move on. While it is your right to do so, it is not constructive for our growth as a nation and as an intellectual being. To put it bluntly, it greatly inhibits our learning. Universities have enacted these “zones” and “safe spaces” to further our learning, but it inexplicably does almost the exact opposite. Let me throw out a quick example. Take a country that is under a dictatorship type rule where one person makes every decision about the future of the country. Historically, those nations have miserably suffered economically and in many cases ethically. The point here is that our species thrive on taking the best thoughts and ideas of everyone to make conscious and fundamental decisions. A great example of such effort is the Constitution. Anyone who has taken an American government course knows that the U.S. constitution went through many drafts. Ideas were being thrown left and right by a large group of people. This collaborative environment resulted in one of the best pieces of government in history. Speaking of our government, free speech was also granted to us to help us fight against any unjust actions the government might impose on us. Imagine if Martin Luther King Jr. famous “I have a dream” speech was censored from major news outlets and media. Our country may be an entirely different today.

Now that you have a basic understanding as to why free speech is so important on college campuses, we need to understand why these zones are even here. Filter bubbles are a relatively new concept to our society, with the development of the internet in the last twenty years. However, echo chambers seems to be a concept that has been slowly building up for some time. The intention for the filter bubble was not necessarily supposed to be negative, but the results are telling a different story. The original idea was to create a tailored experience for the consumer that made it easy to consume the information they wanted. However, it has done quite more than that. The filter bubble has helped to develop a society that has become primarily biased towards their own thinking and beliefs. Now more than ever we are seeing more and more extremely far left and right wing attitudes. The accepting of this type of consumption of our media has made it a norm to think that we should be entitled to our own safe spaces of thought. Since universities are now more accepting than ever (which is terrific I might add), they believe this line of thought falls under the same category of protection. With as hard as it might seem, our thoughts are practically being controlled by people who have millions of dollars and are able to create algorithms that allow for such filtering. Who knows, maybe we end up like Korea one day, where what we look at and see on the internet and news is all controlled by the government. Yes, that is a very bold and extreme statement, and I’m not saying that will even happen, but it only shows the importance of protecting and promoting our freedom of speech.

Sources:

Virginia Bans Unconstitutional Campus ‘Free Speech Zones’

Click to access 5ReasonsCensorshipShouldOffendYou.pdf

Click to access 5bed6be4733c1eb18e3adec122073a22.pdf

 

The 2016 presidential election was like no other, as it took the country and the entire world by storm. Alleged scandals were practically the center of debate throughout the entire process. However, many of the accusations directed towards candidates were largely inaccurate, many being completely untrue. Such information has been deemed as fake news, a topic President Trump has widely criticized in the last several months. According to The Atlantic conservatives are much more susceptible to believing fake news, compared to their counterparts. Recently this has sparked a debate of whether liberals are actually smarter than conservatives. Obviously this is a statement that is not backed by any information. So, why are some people more susceptible to believing fake news than others? In an article written by Daniel M.T. Fessler. the article states that conservatives are more cautious of dangers in the world. Essentially, if a hazard is noted, they would rather believe it than ignore it. On the surface, this seems like a good principle to follow because we live in such a dangerous world. However, the important lesson here is that fact checking is now an important aspect of consuming media content.

We no longer live in a world where our only source of media comes from a few pieces of paper. The internet is one of the primary sources for consuming news and information. With websites such as Reddit, people can post whatever content they feel like, with little to no regulation. Media and political bias are another problem that makes fake news more relevant. Anyone who follows the news even the slightest, knows that there are right leaning outlets such as Fox News, and left leaning outlets such as CNN. Such biased networks have tendencies to report fake news. For example, Snopes.com debunked an article which states that an FBI agent linked to the Hillary email scandal was found dead, apparently committing suicide. The Denver Guardian, the source that leaked this fake news, was even reported to have been a fake news source. Most recently, it was reported by the Associated Press, that in President Trumps phone call to the President of Mexico, Nieto, Trump threatened to send the U.S. military into Mexico to “take care of the bad hombres”. However, Mexico debunked this accusation, saying the “tone was constructive” and “it was agreed by the presidents to continue working and that the teams will continue to meet frequently to construct an agreement that is positive for Mexico and for the United States”. With all of the controversy surrounding President Trump, fake news such as this does not bode well for his administration. Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show on comedy central, even chimed in on the matter before it was proven fake news. With the divide that has been slowly brewing throughout this past Presidential election, it is prudent that the American people are vigilant when consuming news.