exercise two

What is news? To me, news is factual information on what is currently going on in our world. When I watch the news, I not only look for factual information, but also unbiased information. The news was designed to inform people about what is currently going on all around us, not what people think about these topics. In watching the news, I like forming my own opinion, not basing my opinion on other people's.
There are a few things I look at when it comes to considering reliable news. As I stated before, the information must be factual and unbiased. I feel like when personal opinions are placed into the news, people don't hear both sides of the story. Do we really know what happened? To me, the opinions make the stories unbelievable. News also has to be cited properly. It's easy for us to believe what reporters say, however logically speaking if their work is not cited, why do we believe it? The only exception to this rule would be reporters who obtain the facts themselves, from experience. Other than that, how do we know they're not making it up? Citing a source would make it much more reliable. Lastly, when the news is organized, it makes it less suspicious and more reliable.
News is factual information on what is going on around us. Things i would consider news would be weather, traffic, crime, election, sports, things happening in the community, and education. Also, I have family just about anywhere you can think of so I enjoy watching the international news to see what is going on where my family lives. Often when watching the news, it seems to me that it is mostly one-sided which in turn discourages me from watching it. The reporters should let the watchers/readers make an opinion for themselves, not push one onto their audience.

Class Wiki

We need some sort of organization for the class wiki, no doubt about it. I feel like a good place to start is breaking up the wiki into certain categories, assigning a group of people to each category. Last week when we attempted to create our class wiki, it was out of control. One person would create an entry, and two minutes later someone would delete it or overwrite to their desire. People also edited entries and added their own personal opinions. By assigning particular people to particular topics, it would make the process of editing entries and adding entries to our class wiki less chaotic.
I feel that another important factor in creating a successful class wiki is making sure all entries are neutral. An entry should not promote or demote a particular topic, group, building, etc. Instead, the entries should only contain information from other reliable sources. That is a big cause of all the chaos last week, people disagreed with the opinions in an entry, deleted it, and wrote in their opinions. A wiki is not supposed to be based on opinions, rather than factual information. If however, opinions are wanting to be expressed, the wiki as a whole should be consistent. By this I mean that the class as a whole should decide whether or not they want to include opinions and go through with it. This leads me to my next discussion. If we were to add opinions on our class wiki, we should, in fact, cite our sources for our reliable, factual information.
The wiki should flow properly. There should be several topics, with other topics branching off on them. They shouldn't all be on the home page of the wiki because that is very unorganized and makes it difficult to navigate from topic to topic.
In conclusion, the main key to make our class wiki successful is organization. If the wiki is organized, it is easier for people to obtain the information they are looking for quicker, which is more effective. Also, the wiki must be consistent throughout. Lastly, each person should be assigned to a topic. This prevents chaos and controversy between the classmates.

advertisement parody

Our ad was designed to effectively communicate the affects that smoking has on people. The idea behind our parody was to show that smoking leads to death. The slogan for Camel is “Pleasure to Burn,” which was perfect for the concept of death. Cody and I came up with the idea to create an image of an urn with the Camel symbol on it. In the process of making this image, we asked which colors, backdrops, and text would most effectively communicate the message to the audience. In designing this advertisement, I realized how much thought and effort goes into each and every advertisement, and which methods are affective and which are not. I’ve also realized that advertisements have a way to catch people’s attention. There are not many limitations as to advertising. Anything can be advertised whether it’s healthy, safe, or just the opposite, as long as warning labels are also advertised. This doesn’t make sense to me at all because the advertisement is basically contradicting itself when these labels are placed on them.

Effects of Social Networking on the 08 Election

Social networking sites, such as MySpace, Facebook, and blogs, have a huge impact on this years presidential election. These sites have influenced the election in a positive way, persuading as many people possible to vote and constantly reinforcing the fact that every vote counts. On Myspace, when users first log in, the home page is usually associated with the fall election and has advertisements about it everywhere. Also, there is a tab on MySpace specifically for the election, called “Election ’08.” On this site, there are daily polls, clips from the presidential debates, race coverage from NBC news, a way to register to vote, and other various tools. There are also users blogs posted about their opinions of the debates, candidates, and issues of the fall election. Also, users are able to post their own thoughts and opinions on their own personal profiles, which in turn exposes their thoughts and feelings about the elections to their network of friends. Facebook, on the other hand, is not as creative with the fall election as MySpace is, however users are still able to post their feelings towards the elections on their page. Since most college students are on Facebook as opposed to MySpace, the statements that the users post are effective and in turn start conversations on the election. Not only is the election represented visually, it is also represented verbally on both sites. With that in mind, the more users that go on MySpace and Facebook, the more people exposed to the presidential elections, and therefore the more people that vote.

Both MySpace and Facebook users can put whatever information they want on their pages, whether it be video, words, or photos. Looking at my friends’ profiles, without a doubt it is proven that these social networking sites have made an impact on voters, especially first time voters. For example, on Facebook, users can change their status messages and display how they’re feeling or what they’re doing. As soon as the first debate was over, people immediately changed their status messages to how they felt about the elections and how well of a job one candidate did or how horrible another did. This then started conversations between the users of Facebook as to whether they agreed or disagreed with each other and so on. The more images, messages, or videos people post, the more exposed the election becomes to everyone.

Social networking has mad it unbelievably fast for information, thoughts, and opinions to spread. Imagine a world without social networking. People would not be able to express their opinions as easily or freely to people halfway across the country. “Groups” of supporters of a particular candidate will not be able to be formed, advertisements would not influence over 35 million users, ages 18-21, of social network sites.

Professor Troy Murphy is one of the founders of MiVote. On this site, individuals, mostly students, can voice their opinion to anything. These topics range from the economy, gas prices, war, education, the candidates, or even share a personal story about how our future president will affect them, either positively or negatively. By accessing this website, users are able to view others opinions on issues that are important to them and hear both sides of the story. Overall, social networking has an enormous impact on the election, allowing individuals to express their feelings and influence others in doing so.