Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Sarah Palin and Gatekeeping

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/264042/february-08-2010/sarah-palin-uses-a-hand-o-prompter


In this clip from the Colbert Report we see Sarah Palin speaking at a teas party convention. The way she and Rush Limbaugh are presented while very funny is an example of gate keeping. Gate keeping is the process through which ideas and information are filtered for publication and this is a tactic of a lot of late night comedy shows. Gate keeping we only see certain clips that show her and Limbaugh in the way that the Colbert Report wants to display them in. We don’t get to see the comments before or after the footage that was shown. Their comments were probably taken out of context to put them in a bad light. While the Colbert Repot is just a comedy show aimed at satire this kind of action is taking place in major media outlets all the time is places like fox news. Certain major news network use clips of context to either build up someone or show them in a bad light. Whatever it takes to get their political agenda across.

Chris Juran

Public Opinion & Spiral Of Silence

http://iowajournalism.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/public-opinion-and-spiral-of-silence-by-brendan-ferguson/

In class, we mostly associated the Theory of the Spiral of Silence to political issues and presidential election polls, but I also found another interesting and very appropriate comparison to sports. Something that a lot of us can relate too yet may not have ever put the two together. This article mentions two legendary sports teams in the grandest city of American Sports. These two teams are the New York Mets and the New York Yankees. This poll that the article mentions states what most sports fans already know and that is that more baseball fans in New York like the Yankees over the Mets. The poll found that 34% of New York roots for the Yankees, while 25% root only for the Mets. The interesting thing I found that relates most to the Spiral of Silence Theory is that the other 41% of New York fans are either undecided or like cheering for both of the teams. It makes sense that most fans have allegiance to one team but if they are around opposing fans that like the other team. Some fear alienation whereas other fans are more brave as to show their alliance. This is frequently seen at sports games when the home team scores, if there are fans wearing the opposing jersey or hat, they are more likely to stay seated and not draw attention to them. I found it to be a very cool and interesting article.

Dave Henney

The Daily Show on CNN's coverage of the health care bill

This clip is rather old, but it is a great example of the changing nature of what is considered "news."


What I found most interesting about this clip, if you managed to make it all the way through, was that it really did a good job of emphasizing the lack of serious journalism in the media today. The underlying point Stewart was trying to make was that the media today does not really seek out the truth, rather they simply propagate the same information that is given to them.
We learned in class about how the media today is largely profit driven. This has led to a decline in investigative journalism, which is costly in both time and money, and a move towards opinion-based journalism where either one commentator states their opinion, or two or more people debate an issue. This has also led towards more coverage of the "horse race" aspects of politics rather than actually investigating closely what the politicians or politicians are actually saying.
Even though this clip came out before I started taking this class, when I first watched it I was appalled at the lack of serious journalism being done. As Stewart pointed out rather sarcastically, fact checking is supposed to be the function of news. In the past many great journalists made a name for themselves by investigating the statements and actions of politicians. Even the Watergate Scandal was broken because of the investigative journalism efforts of Carl Bernstein, who at the time was a young reporter for the Washington Post.
I think this clip is also important because it further illustrates how it has become the job of Comedy Central to hold the media accountable. The reason John Stewart has become the most trusted journalist in America is because he is brave enough to at least hold the media accountable for their mistakes. I think his success should also illustrate to the media that there is actually room for responsible journalism today, and that people really do want to watch news that investigates the truth, rather than just acting as a forum for politicians to disseminate false or misleading information.
Political ads can be a great source of agenda setting, framing, and image priming. As I was going through political ads from the last few years I came across Mike Huckabee's ad from 2007. This ad entitled Mike Huckabee and Chuck Norris. My first thought is image priming. However after this incident of image priming was not done by Mr. Huckabee, instead Chuck Norris was really priming Mr. Huckabees image.

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDUQW8LUMs8

After watching the ad, it is quite funny at first. Then I think to myself, "wow this guy potentially could be our next president." He did a great job teaming up with someone that would get him some limelight and exposure. On the other hand having Chuck Norris jokes support your run to the White House is a bit amateurish. This video in a way reminds me of the "John McCain celebrity ad that we watched a couple times during our class." The ad declares Obama is more of a celeb than a candidate.

Instead of someone saying Huckabee is a celebrity, he instead brings in a celebrity to his side to reach out to Americans to gain their vote. In a way if I would have watched this commercial during the election I would be interested. However when it comes down to the economy, health care, and so on Chuck Norris is not going to be of much help to Mike Huckabee then. Actors have a great power over masses of people and candidates will use their star power to project them into the entertainment spotlight. Ronald Reagan was one of the first presidents to use his acting career as a platform to stand on.

I think this commercial just shows how entertainment can draw Americans to someone just because of a celebrity. If not, we would not see Chuck Norris on TV endorsing Mike Huckabee. This was a great example of image priming because by having support from a tough hard hitting guy like Chuck Norris, some Americans like their candidates tough and intimidating. That is the approach I assume Mike Huckabee wanted to fulfill.

-----Corey Righter

More Celebrities, Less News



Towards the beginning of the semester, we talked about how news was getting "softer." We are seeing more reports about celebrities, just because it is cheaper to produce. This clip is straight from CBS News Online's YouTube page, and not only is it about celebrities, but it tells you how to make yourself look like one. I hardly find this to be news. Yes, it is informative, but it is really just an excuse to have some guy promote his book and give CBS some cheap material to "report." It is not exactly something that I believe should be pushed on the American public as important, let alone advertised as news. The thing I find even sadder about this is that under the "more from user" tab on YouTube, every video is related to celebrities or fashion, instead of any of the "real" news that is also offered by this user.

Anna Sartori

Agenda Setting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pB_CNBL8xA

This comedy routine talks about agenda setting, and how one media outlet breaking a story can not only affect the rest of the media, but the lives of the general public. The comedian first talks about Swine flu, and how it garnered national attention from its media coverage. It talks of how the media convinced the entire nation that they were in immediate danger of this deadly disease. It than continues to mention how as soon as news broke of Michael Jackson's death, the coverage of swine flu did as well. And subsequently the entire nation seemingly forgot about the once notorious disease just because every media outlet's eye was squarely on Michael Jackson's death. His routine progresses, talking about how coverage, followed by national attention, of swine flu flucuates simply by what else the media wants to cover. He than compares it to the coverage of tsars, bird flu, and the mad cow disease. His routine is dedicated to sarcastically describing aganeda setting, and the immense effect it has on the publics focus, and perception.

Ryan Mead

Agenda Setting - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8519685.stm

This article details the changeover in the British Tory Party, a conservative party much like the Republican party in the States, to supporting gay rights. The agenda setting part is very obvious: including gay politicians in their party, they hope to swing the gay community's vote back towards them, to increase their chances of election/re-election and increase their power within the British Parliament. The article deals with issue priming and framing as well. The priming aspect comes from the public's previous viewpoints on the homosexual community and the news coverage they received. Now as the country becomes more and more progressive, citizens were not responding well to the too-conservative policys of the Tory party. Acknowledging this failure, the party then uses a new framework to change the publics viewpoint of their stand towards gay rights. Image priming is another factor, although not quite as large. The head spokesperson, Mr. Herbert, who is openly gay, is the new face of the party, and some 15 other politicians, also openly gay, portray a "gay-friendly" face to the party. This combination of issue/image priming, framing are used well under the umbrella of agenda setting and effectively show the system in action.

Agenda Setting



This video was put together to show how the media set an agenda during the democratic debates during the last election. You can see how the public, during the debate, was largely agreeing with Obama's answer to the question; that he would meet with world leaders after the election with no preconditions. When Clinton answered the other way the public did not support her as much. The next part of a clip is a compilation of news clips that show how the media tried to persuade the audience that Clinton had the right idea and she had won the debate. When you watch it all together it makes a lot of sense.

Julie Colvin

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Political Framing


I found this political cartoon to be quite comical as well as representative of some of the thoughts and feelings of the American public. This specific use of image framing of the current political staff in power triggers a direct, immediate response from its viewers. This political cartoons artist's goal was to negatively portray the current administration by using an emotional frame, specifically fear. The artist dresses the three key political players in the decision making process for bills, laws, reforms, etc. in lab coats, gloves and even has Harry Reid holding a large needle. The artist does this because most human beings fear being hoovered by people holding large needles and lab coats, getting ready to operate on them. The meaning behind this cartoon is simple, do we the American public trust our government in power to "operate on our country?" The facial expressions and the order in which the characters are standing is also important. Pelosi and Obama are standing back while Reid takes front and center, needle in hand ready to operate. This may mean that he has more perceived power than Obama and Pelosi. Additionally, the facial expressions on all of the characters are that of confusion and uncertainty. These are facial expressions that a person would not want to see before being operated on, hence reinforcing the artist's frame of fear. Having a clueless political administration in charge of our country is quite scary. I believe that the artist did a fantastic job of picking a fairly general concern of the American public and using image framing to initiate a specific response.
-Maria Matlack

Priming and Agenda Setting

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2010/02/16/am.gupta.fat.babies.cnn

This is an excellent example of priming and Agenda Setting. Here, the seed of influence is planted in the minds of all the parents/parents to be/grandparents that fat babies are the start of fat children and fat children AREN'T GOOD FOR ANYONE. This video, while not directly talking about it, emphasizes obesity as one of America's primary problems. The very nature of its existence speaks volumes about how the media portrays weight as an issue, and how large of an issue it has become. I think possibly the most interesting part of the video is the reporter stating that "keep in mind this doesn't mean that a chubby baby will be a chubby adult, or an obese adult." Not only does this affirm any passing thoughts about obesity that may have been floating around in your mind, but it also manages to continue to set an agenda concerning weight in America. Later in the video, the female co-anchor mentions that it is hard or impossible to overfeed a baby by breastfeeding during the designated window, and the Dr. says nothing to refute this claim...and instead confirms it in many ways. NOW we have yet another ideal hidden in the subtext: breastfeeding vs formula. Is weight a problem in America? Probably. Is this kind of news coverage the way to deal with it? I would challenge that.

-Tim

Framing on whether to show a certain photo or video

By:Lauren Bruno
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2001-03-06-smart-cars.htm
http://www.911dispatch.com/video/miami/index.html

When deciding what topic I wanted to discuss in this blog I thought of what situation I felt like was most interesting. I decided to choose from our topic of class discussion and the article on February 3rd's class.
“A classic debate in every newsroom is whether they should run the photo and where” (Strupp, 2005). This quote was said in the article and I think is a very good point; it is a very tough decision whether to run a photo or a video when you are a journalist. If you do not run it you may get fired but if you do run it you may loose respect from other people as a person.
My example is a story that is very tramautizing to me. Karla Gutierrez drove her car off the road into a canal and found her car was sinking. She frantically called 9-1-1 and the conversation was sent through out the internet and actually played during evening news on some stations.
This is a topic we did discuss about framing on February 3rd's class when mentioning if you would publish certain photos or videos as a journalist and this to me is something that very well supports that. It is something that goes with the topic very well and I think a lot of people would not know what to do as well. I would have never played this video of a woman frantically calling 9-1-1 on the evening news. There are families eating dinner with little children and hearing this lady panick and then her just get disconnected, you know she drowns and when I first read about this and heard this video I was very traumatized, so to me it is something as a journalist I just think is not necessary or right at all to publish to internet sites or the news. On the side of the end of the website link I published it also says 'Operator: Well, we lost her.' That is something else that should not be shown, an operator acting as if it was not a big deal. When reading this and picturing the lady is tramautizing, it should not have been shown. Certain news stations after tried to make a come back saying they used the video of her voice to show people how to get out of a sinking car and that is helpful but Karlas voice and words should not have been published. To me this was an explicit and great example of February 3rds discussion.

By:Lauren Bruno

Sarah Palin & Image Priming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xqDKKcdra8

The above video is a display of image priming and I believe that Sarah Palin's image, which consists of her demeanor, style and personality, played a large part in voters' backing her.

I do not believe they paid much attention to her stance on issues but they fell in love with her character instead. The same can be said about Barack Obama but I think it applied to Sarah Palin more. For example, the above video got more attention than her actual stance on issues. Her "soccer mom" image and "pitbull with lipstick" comments were talked about day in and day out on every channel including CNN, FOX and MSNBC. I listened to her opinion on certain issues but I found it strange that in certain interviews she barely had anything with much substance to say regarding issues.

Palin was a compelling figure because she was a woman, she was an attractive candidate to many and she was energetic. These factors could be a reason as to why many people chose to vote on McCain's behalf. I think her image carried her more than her actual opinions and her beliefs on issues that are currently impacting America.

- Peter Panepinto

Agenda Setting and Stereotyping

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2010/02/12/pm.1.backhanded.politics.cnn?iref=allsearch

This video is centered around the president's recent push for bipartisanship in order to get things accomplished. There are numerous clips of Obama speaking about Democrats in his administration working together with Republicans. The video then goes on to talk about how his approval rating has been plummeting, which leads one to believe that Obama is so prominently promoting bipartisanship not only for progress, but also perhaps to gain support from Republicans, Independents, or even Democrats that have lost faith. It then talks about how Obama said the only way to move forward with healthcare reform is to throw out the bill that the Democrats wrote and work on one together, which also supports the previous statement. This would be an example of agenda setting both in the sense that he is promoting bipartisanship to boost his approval rating, and that he is addressing the controversy over the healthcare bill, which is already a very prominent issue. The video also has examples of gender stereotyping. It covers Michelle Obama's plan to cut back on childhood obesity, which is a healthcare issue. Healthcare issues are commonly associated with females which is a type of gender stereotyping.

-Carl Ballard

Media Ownership and Power


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDHJ4LN1l5M&feature=related

The media are “agents of those in power." They are in the business of creating a culture, a.k.a the culture industry. Diversity of the cultural realm is essential to the survival of democracy. That diversity has been dismantled, along with democracy. The Constitution was supposed to free culture from government and entrust it to “the marketplace of ideas.” Today, there is no form of media unregulated. Even if it is so-called “self-regulating,” the government still has say in content seeing how they provide funding and tax cuts to many major media conglomerates. The six major media conglomerates(News Corporation, Disney, General Electric, CBS Corporation, Time Warner, and Viacom) own the large majority of all media outlets, thus controlling the large majority of content distributed. This consolidation of content allows for the conglomerates to create a “Consciousness Industry” in which they attempt to produce a form of consciousness in the audience that benefits the class that owns the media. They control the context within which people think, define what is right and wrong, define social problems and their solutions, and how to behave in general.

The owners of these conglomerates sit on many boards and have many special interests world-wide that they are happy to promote via their media outlets. For example, debate over the arms race is almost completely absent from network TV because GE is a defense contractor for the government. Information about oil companies is compromised because oil representatives sit on boards of all the powerful news media. These examples are just a scratch of the surface of the kind of control over content that these major conglomerates and the powerful elite have.


Christian Saveoz

Framing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hppMh1DC2z4&NR=1

I found this video on YouTube. In the video, they have a clip of a video interview done with people who voted for Obama outside a polling station. They discuss the effects of how the 2008 presidential election was framed in the media. John Ziegler believes that people voted on personality and media perceptions rather than on campaign issues, inferring that Obama won because many who voted for him didn't vote on his policies. While I may not necessarily agree with this clip, I do see how the campaigns were framed in the media and how many people can vote for reasons other than beliefs or policies of the candidate.


-Christine Crowley

Agenda Setting & Twitter

As I started thinking about Agenda Setting, and doing some research I thought about the ability of Twitter as an entire outlet for agenda setting, not only by the media but by just about anybody. Posts on Twitter have the ability to become "trending topics," in which a large population of Twitter users are discussing the same matter. These "trending topics" become the most important topics on Twitter, whether locally, or nationally. This is essentially online agenda setting. Someone, usually a celebrity, or news outlet with a large number of followers post something that they would like to see discussed, and spread all over Twitter. People pick up on these posts as the most important news and "re-tweet" and publish the news throughout their Twitter accounts. Often the most important topics on Twitter are involving celebrity gossip, but it is the celebrities themselves, or personalities like Perez Hilton who take the opportunity to set the agenda for celebrity news gossip. When serious news breaks, news networks relay the most important facts via Twitter. Since the 2008 elections, politicians have also adopted Twitter as a way to set the agenda for their policies and provide their followers with snip-its of the issues they want voters to focus on.

As an example, I found a blog post about Twitter's Agenda Setting power and its influence on a local front in Austin, Texas.

http://socialmediaprclass.blogspot.com/2009/03/twitters-agenda-setting-power-example.html


-Emily Andrews-Rice

H1N1 Scare

This article supports the theory of Spiral of Silence. The vast majority of people didn’t have swine flu it turns out. At Penn State, Health Services ended up ordering 4,0000 more swine flu vaccines because of the panic created among the general public. There were only 10 reported cases of students with swine flu at Penn State. I think people panic and got the shot even if they didn’t agree because everyone was getting them and pressuring them. Because people thought they were the minority, they didn’t speak out and got the shot or if they showed flu like symptoms, they automatically assumed its was the swine flu. It was all over the media. It caused a lot of tension and closing of schools. My high school ended up closing because of one case creating a mass panic. Half the school called out sick complaining of flu-like symptoms. There was a stress in the health care system. This shows how the media can create mass panic. People need to think and analysis certain issues when the media sends out mass panic reports.

Maria Lobron



http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/21/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5406025.shtml?tag=cbsnewsTwoColUpperPromoArea









Gatekeeping by Fox News

Q & O
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The clip above is from the Daily Show on February 1st. For the specific part of the video that deals with gatekeeping, fast forward to the 6:00 mark. As we discussed in class, gatekeeping is one of the oldest and most expansive powers of news media. Through gatekeeping, news media can determine what information we possess and which topics are relevant. In this clip from the Daily Show, Jon Stewart shows the highlights of President Obama's press conference with GOP leadership. During the conference, Republican leaders challenge Obama with difficult questions and he responds with wit, never losing his composure. As Jon points out, MSNBC and CNN both covered the press conference from start to finish. But Fox News chose to cut into the coverage halfway through, and interrupt for commentary. Clearly, Fox knows about their audience and what they want to hear. Given that Fox News is notorious for their conservative ideology, they clearly made a choice not to air the President's Q+A in its entirety because they didn't want viewers to hear the President's defense of his recent decisions. This is an example of both gatekeeping and perceived bias in news coverage as we have discussed previously in class.

-Kevin Shaffer

Fox News Agenda Setting for Tea Party



In this clip from the Rachel Maddow show, she discusses the new found enthusaim the republican party has in support of the Tea party movement, whose most well known republican supporter, Ron Paul, was not even allowed to speak at the republican national convention. Rachel goes on to discuss how Fox News has all of a sudden become a huge supporter of the tea party movement, even having some of their correspondents at Tea party events, and showing huge Tea party support on air.

-Shantell Browning

Monday, February 15, 2010

Kyle Davis- Ridiculous Framing from Fox

Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,584883,00.html

Fox never ceases to outdo themselves with "in your face" reporting. In this expose Jenny Block details how all the everyday items found throughout the shelves at Walgreens are actually the tools of the bedroom, hidden in plain sight. Of course these items are sold here: it's a drug store. Where else can one go to get all this stuff in one place. Obviously the condoms and lubricants are used for sex, but more than that they put a nice bow tie on the frame this article is creating.
I'd like to add that while I searched the web for quite some time, I struggled to find some news with an obvious frame that I liked. Most of my searches were just Haiti and Olympics news. Thanks to fox for loading their site with 'news' like "Fox on Sex!"

-Kyle Davis

How Old Is Image Priming

How Old Is Image Priming

After being introduced to image priming through the article "Does Presidential Rhetoric Matter? Priming and Presidential Approva" by JAMES N. DRUCKMAN
JUSTIN W. HOLMES
made me do some research and see how long imaga priming has truley been around. Which brings me to Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech. He spoke with a purpose and with feeling but after reading on image priming he spoke with influence. He wanted not only people to here what he had to say but he wanted to make people feel the same way. He made him and everyone he spoke to have the same dream he had. This is why he is one of the most influential public speakers of all time. He made people realize his personality was for the people. He made them not only feel the same way he felt but he made them feel as if he was feeling what they felt.

Justin M. Augustine

Image Priming in Commercials

http://lucidsystems.com/blog/2009/10/unintended-consequences-food-ads-automatically-prime-eating-in-children-and-adults/

This article discusses some of the unintended effects of image priming in commercial advertisements. The author discusses a study analyzing the priming effects of television food advertising on eating behavior that in his words, “shows in undeniable terms that advertising is a powerful real-world prime for both children and adults.” However, the commercials were not necessarily promoting favorability toward the consumption of the product advertised, but rather the consumption of whatever food the viewer had access to.
In one experiment, 120 grade school children individually viewed a kids' cartoon show; half were shown food ads during the show, the other half saw ads not associated with food. A bowl of “goldfish” crackers (not one of the food products advertised) were given to the children while they watched. The study showed that kids who watched the snack ads during the show consumed 45% more crackers than kids who watched non-food ads.
The priming effect is blatantly obvious here, and it shows just how serious this effect can be. Although the ads promote a particular product to consume, viewers were simply primed to eat anything put in front of them. The ads activated an implicit motivational goal to eat, which was pursued automatically by the viewers. As soon as the snacks were provided, the pursuit to achieve this implicit motivational goal was initiated, without any conscious awareness from the viewer.

Tom Gervasio

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Dan LePera- Image Priming

http://antypography.com/2009/01/21/obama/

In class, we discussed the idea of priming. Priming is a cognitive process, in which media information increases temporarily the accessibility of knowledge units in the memory of an individual, which makes it more likely that these knowledge units are used in the reception, interpretation and judgment for external information. It refers to the effort of some preceding stimulus or event on how we react.

We specifically talked about image priming versus issue priming. Image priming is when people judge something, a candidate for example, based on the way they walk, talk, and present themselves. Then there is issue priming, which is when people judge candidates on their policies. There is a big problem in today’s society with image priming and this article greatly supports this problem.

In this editorial, the authors, Scott Thomas and Walker Hamilton, compare the websites of two presidents. They explain how the website of President George Bush is old, the design is dated and the content is boring. The authors continue on to explain how this website represents the man.

Next they explained how Barack Obama’s website is very beautiful and they even refer to it as “flawless”. They continue on to explain how the website makes them proud to be an American and explain the great art and design appeal that Obama has. The authors compare candidates based on websites.

This is relevant to our class discussion on image priming versus issue priming. How can you really compare two people based on their websites? Obama had not done anything, yet these authors already thought he was a better president based on a website. This website supports our idea that image priming is everywhere.

I have a problem with this website and all other cases of image priming, but for candidates, this just tells you that what you say doesn’t mean as much. Issue priming still exists, but in the United States, people have limited political knowledge. The scary part of this website and America in general, is that many people judge things based on appearance.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Anti-French Sentiments

One of the best examples I can think of about how media guides thinking on a grand scale is the anti-French sentiment felt in the mid 2000s. After France announced their decision to not back America in its crusade into Iraq, the backlash was incredible. Starting with the House cafeterias french fries and french toast were renamed to "freedom" fries and "freedom" toast and the trend quickly spread across the country. French wine was dumped into bodies of water and perhaps one of the strangest attempts was a petition to send the Statue of Liberty back.

The media caught wind this story and almost seemed to drive it into the ground. Many different stereotypes about the French people running away from fights and not standing their ground started to circulate. The media framed this as America taking a stand for what it believes in and accused France of wavering. While there was a firestorm in America of anti-French sentiment, there is evidence from media in other countries that they still supported France's stance. Even today after the war in Iraq has been raging for so long and the French look like they had the right idea, there is still an underlying cowardly Frenchman stereotype that surfaces every now and then.

Some example articles:

CNN about the House's name changes
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/11/sprj.irq.fries/index.html

Article about protesters
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/03/08/1046826560311.html

Petition to send Lady Liberty back
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/iraq/2045074/detail.html

BBC New's report on the situation
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2848979.stm

-Brittany Thomas

Sprial of Silence

Article: Obama's Spiral of Silence by Wynton Hall
http://townhall.com/columnists/WyntonHall/2008/10/31/obamas_spiral_of_silence

This article discusses how the spiral-of-silence was thought to play a part in the Obama/McCain campaign. Writer Wynton Hall wrote that in October of 2008, the polls show that America was favoring Obama by a larger number. Hall wrote that this favoring and lack of coverage of McCain could be the result of the spiral-of-silence; meaning that conservatives, knowing they were in the minority, could have kept away from polls. Hall says that "if the Spiral of Silence thesis is accurate, this means that the lopsided liberal coverage—not Mr. Obama’s race—will have been responsible for silencing support for Senator McCain in national polls." He goes on throughout the article to discuss the origin of the sprial-of-silence. It was created by a German political scientist named Elisabeth Noelle-Neuman in the 1970s. Even though we know who won the campaign, this article shows us how the spiral-of-silence was thought to play a role in our most recent election, one which many of us had a lot of interest in. Also, I chose this article because it fully supports what we've read about and learned about in class regarding the spiral-of-silence. The article gives us background information about this theory and gives us other examples of how it played a role in elections/opinion polls. It supports our reading by saying that those who in the minority of opinion "tend to clam up for fear of social isolation or being ostracized by the majority."

Rachel Horensky

Austin Kelly blog

Honestly, I had to watch it more than a few times to take in everything that was being thrown at me. But just check this out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8&feature=related

Monday, February 8, 2010

Priming

Have you ever noticed how commercials always seem consistent with our expectations of "reality?" In class we discussed the effects of priming, and how as a result of priming in the media we, in fact, may form certain judgments or expectations. For example, when we think of the duties of the household like cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc. we often assume it to be a woman's role. Here is an example of a commercial that fits in with and perpetuates our expectations of the role of women. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpEyKKJLlmI

Naturally, this commercial doesn't cause us to think twice. We simply agree with it without actually realizing it. Women and cleaning--it fits into our schema. However, take a look at the new marketing campaign for Starburst. The commercial has you thinking twice--from a marketing standpoint this is a good thing (as we'll remember the Starbursts), but it shows an example of how priming really does play a role in forming our expectations/stereotypical ways of thinking. Take a look...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHgo4tPIjvk&feature=related

It certainly produces a "double-take" effect because it does not coincide with the judgments or assumptions we are used to making.

(posted by Cally)

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Agenda Setting- President Obama- Citizen Tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pqzNJYzh7I&feature=featured


In class we discussed the theory of agenda setting. We also discussed some of the most important issues being dealt with in America today, some of which being economy, education, and health care. As a running candidate for presidency it is your main concern to address these topics with voting America. Political candidates will make promises to reform the ongoing problems within our current system. We learned about a causal relationship between politicians, the mass media, and the public when dealing with agenda setting. There is also a feedback loop in which the cycle reverses. The public will set the agenda that will then affect the mass media and the political candidates. In this YouTube video titled "Citizens Tube: Interview with President Obama" American citizens are able to submit questions they want answered about reform that President Obama had promised. The first question brought up involved concerns about health care reform. Health care would be considered first level agenda setting from the public. The second level would be the attribute salience dealing with insurance reforms. President Obama shared his ideas of instituting better practices and a more effective health care system. Other question included jobs and economy, financial reform, and education. President Obama broke those big topics down into smaller sections, and discussed what he plans to do for small businesses, the unemployment rate, and tax credits.
It amazes me how technology like the Internet and YouTube allows the public to set the agenda for such a powerful man as the president. This interview took place five days after the President's State of the Union Address. American citizens were able to voice their opinion and get feedback on which issues are effecting them the most. This allows the president and the American people to stay connected and keep a strong, trusting relationship.