Final

Social media has been a vicious beast from the beginning. Modern social media has magnified this and brought it to the main stage of our minds because of it's very public presence. In the case of Monica Lewinsky it was early in the stages of social media and most of the attacks were done in private while nowadays all the attacks are done publicly in comments sections. However, one thing has stayed the same and that is anonymity online. While technology has made it easier to track and find out who your anonymous attackers are, many people are not willing to take the time to track IP addresses to discover who the commenters are. This anonymity makes people forget about the humanity of the people they are interacting with. Many times people online say things they are never willing to say to someone face to face. One recent event that shows this extremely well was #sorry an exhibit that Shia LaBeouf put on in New York to apologize for his antics at the premiere of Nymphomaniac Volume II in which he wore a bag on his head reading "I'm not famous anymore" and after the hate mail he received online he decided to publicly apologize by giving people the opportunity to tear him apart in person as payment for forgiveness. He was shocked when over 85% of the responses in person were positive while online 90% were negative. He stated on a talk show that most keyboard warriors are too afraid in person to do anything. This is proof along with the case of Monica Lewinsky that people online have become desensitized to the humanity of the person and say things that they would never dare say online.

I believe the same example of Shia LaBeouf is a great example of how compassion could displace shame online. Much like we see where he received two different responses based on the medium if we were able to inspire people to use compassion and start a trend instead of bashing people that others who normally wouldn't comment with compassion would follow the trend and it would saturate the post with kindness instead of anger and hate like we normally would see trending. The problem really is society. We love to see fights and anger. Compassion has no climax that the viewers are anticipating and so we choose to provoke hate in hopes of a great show. This is not unique to our society. As we look back in history we see the Greek Colosseums and the amazing turn out to events in order to see someone who committed a crime and to pay their debt must fight a group of men or a lion in some instances in order to pay their debt. The spectators were not their for justice, they were there for a blood bath.

Can one person change a society? Ghandi said "Be the change you want to see in the world." And while this saying is great will my comment really change a society? Do I have to comment on every post in hopes of trending? The saturation of hate on the internet is becoming overwhelming. We almost need a flood much like we hear about with Christianity in the times of the prophet Noah. With no sign of that becoming a real world possibility I am prepared to do my part. However, I am not the type to comment on every post and every subject online. I am usually caught spectating and waiting to see what happens. Recently with the mascot change and the hate that surrounded Dixie State University online some of my friends in student government and I decided we needed to change the pattern on the Facebook and Twitter feeds by posting our honest positive feelings toward the new mascot. In doing so we witnessed more supporters sharing their voice and assisting in showing the negative that was online that there were positive opinions who were hiding in the shadows because we believed that we had won the fight with our mascot being selected. This is a common pattern. Supporters of a topic feel they have won and will not speak out. We see this in the world of protests as well. You never see picket lines in support of something because they are actively involved in the cause and are moving it forward while protesters attempt to create an angry mob. The silent voice is typically the supporting voice and that is where the change must start.

Facebook Final

This project was disappointing in its results. While my business flowed about the same the Facebook page had no real impact. And in my evaluation of it I believe I figured out the reasoning. While the Facebook page seemed like a great way to reach people I began to see that no one was interacting because it was just sales things. I promoted my page on the St. George Online Yard Sale and the Salt Lake Online Yard Sale page(unfortunately the moderator removed the post so I don't have a screenshot) and gained a few followers from that and then lost a few just as quickly. I promoted on my personal social media page which helped me break 30 but also didn't bring forth any business. Ultimately I decided that the page is something that I would want to be subscribed to for the purpose of buying and selling vehicles however the average person doesn't need to be watching for cars all the time and when they need to purchase a vehicle they take their business to Craigslist or KSL Classifieds. Luckily, I have my ads on there as well and over the course of time I was running this page all of my business was still from KSL or Craigslist. I did get page views because I linked the page but people would look at the page and that was it. There was no action of them sharing or liking or anything along those lines. However, in my pursuit to find the example people I listed on my Facebook Campaign, they did in fact find me. They weren't identical but they were similar because I was targeted the appropriate audience.

Here we see the logistics and insights of the page over the course of it's lifetime.

 This run down of all of my posts slightly reflects the success of each vehicle and post. The post from March 13th about summer coming up is my most viewed post. It had no mention of upcoming sales it simply said that for the summer you are going to want A/C. And the people seemed to want to read that. My second most popular post is the vehicle that I sold faster then even I was ready for. I sold the Mini Van in Salt Lake and the buyer found the original ad on KSL and then viewed the Facebook page to see if I had any other vehicles he was interested in. Within 20 minutes of first contact with me we were singing the paperwork for him and his family to drive off in the 2003 Dodge Caravan.

 All of my major activity happened in the first few weeks of functioning and then I couldn't find any interaction in the community. If the charts resembled the business I would be out of work. However, third party classifieds websites kept me going.

 All of my reaches were organic. The spike that happens is during a time in which I was trying to gain a following by doing more text and less ads. However this spike doesn't assist in the purpose of the page.

 The spikes came at weird times that didn't make a lot of sense to me. My most popular posts as far as people reached are concerned were posts that were simply text. The ads with the pictures had little to no interaction.

The other categories were unable to give me data as to Age and Gender and city.

Overall I would say that I was unsuccessful at conducting business via Facebook. I never hit my stride or found the path I needed to take to really take off with this page. Continuing forward I don't know if I will continue to run the page or if I will stick strictly to KSL and Craigslist. While the ads are nearly identical people seem to trust classified specific websites more then they trust Facebook for their car buying needs. I admit I should have posted more frequently in an attempt to keep subscribers interest. I just was unsure of what to post about 2-3 times a week. I tried to at least post updates once a week and even struggled at that. Facebook is almost too hands on for me in this aspect of my life. I enjoy being able to post an ad to KSL and then just wait for a call rather then posting a post and then having to promote it for likes and shares. If I can figure out the art of selling cars on Facebook I know it will elevate my success but for now I am left searching for the way to do that.

Facebook Ad

My ad is a slideshow function that shows cars that are available for sale. I believe the movement of the pictures will draw the eye. I struggled to make my ad demographic become more specific. I continued to add filters but it never swayed from the middle toward the left. However, cars are something that is a very broad demographic so it makes sense. I did not place the ad, but I am decided on whether or not the money would make it worth while comparative to free advertising like KSL or Craigslist.

Automatic Attitudinal Response

As hard as it is for me to publicly say I am biased, my posts say it all for me and reading back on them makes it so apparent to me. While I like to believe I am a critical thinker I have major anti-establishment beliefs and those influence my ability to critically analyze the On the Media assignments and the Well Informed Assignments. I am specifically going to be looking at my post about Democracy 2.0 from February 28, 2016.

The first thing you see is the meme which is bashing the Electoral College and the election process. This already speaks volumes about my stance on the topic. My first sentence is showing that I don't have a desire to even view the topic and think of it critically. And the video link I share is a video link of someone who is also anti-establishment and therefore agrees with me. I never once mention the other sides view or a positive outlook on democracy, reading back on it I see myself becoming one of those crazy conspiracy theorist hippies that I used to joke about in middle school and high school back when I thought I knew it all. My responses to the topics make it seem like I feel high and mighty because I can "see" what is really going on and no one else can. Now I question myself and how I became so closed-minded and egotistical.

So how can I overcome this problem? The truth is I am not the problem, the problem is the establishment... And I am completely joking when I say that. We cannot place the blame anywhere but on ourselves. I have recognized my bias and my automatic attitudinal responses and now with that in mind I must continue to progress forward in pushing those thoughts aside. The second step is the hard one. Even in writing this post I am tempted to say "but I am not wrong because the establishment is clearly corrupt so my response is correct." As I continually tell my brain to let me think this through so I can post effectively it keeps trying to persuade me. By talking myself through the situation I am able to stop and think before I type. Now as step 3 I must open my mind and accept opposition. I must see the good of democracy like the fact that the system is set up in a way that if a President dies we do not panic because we know who is next in command and we are not without a leader which would cause us to be vulnerable for other countries.

The real problem here doesn't lie in this one post though and that is what worries me the most. Even my racism post in which I am defending the black actors who feel misrepresented at the Oscars I blamed the establishment for being racist. The truth is that behind every establishment is men and women who are probably similar to me trying to pass the blame off somewhere else. And if I can solve my own pre-disposed beliefs then I can be sure that I am being critical as I analyze any situation or problem that may occur in comfort knowing I am not being unfair to one side or the other or trying to place my problems on someone else's head.

On The Media 3

A War Reporter Played by Tina Fey

Well, I was at a loss on which segment to pick to evaluate for this post because I really didn't want to post about the election. The election is becoming so saturated with garbage that I feel like I am hearing about the characters of the Jersey Shore and not Presidential Candidates. So, why did this story break through the layer of elections and make it onto this weeks show? Well, this film does take a look into a world that is usually portrayed in the film as constant action and war but this film shows that there isn't always action and that in reality what the media usually portrays the Middle East as this crazy non-stop war that we need to support and conquer to get our troops home.

So does the propaganda outweigh the actuality of it? I believe it does. This is a rare case in which we can hear a small portion of what was really seen by a third party source over there. While I haven't seen the movie or read the book in the short 9 minute clip I could see that both the film and the novel have a purpose of giving civilians the insight that we deserve. The propaganda is what got us into most of our countries major wars and it is what keeps the boots on the ground and by exposing what is really happening we have a chance to get the support to get the troops home and to stop finding this war with an invisible enemy who probably doesn't want anything to do with us simply because we believe that America must mediate for the whole world and show them that we can protect everyone or that in the conspiracy theorist case that we start wars in order to steal oil because we don't want to use our own. I believe with how long this war has been going on and the number of people who don't support the war we will see more things like this in the media but first they will have to force themselves through the horrific blanket that is the Presidential elections.

On the Media #2

Politics were never intended to be entertainment but rather a way of appropriately choosing the right person to entrust with running our country and representing us to the world. But now we are engulfed in a dirty fight between candidates who know the people just want to see a brawl. Trump has no problem sending low blows to his candidates but what happens when the press decides to ignore the true front runner and act like second place is the new first? Marco Rubio is pretty happy about it. Second place for the GOP is the new first and it doesn't matter how far ahead Trump is because at least Marco got a silver medal! That's bogus. We need news sources to start with headlines like "Trump bullies his way to first in another caucus" or "Rubio is in second because you people keep supporting Trump." Instead we get headlines that tell us Rubio took second by a landslide! And no one has to wonder who took first because we all know. Trump is a crowd pleaser. And by crowd pleaser I mean in an audience of old white racists conservatives who probably were bullies in elementary school and now work for the kids they bullied and they think this is their chance at revenge. But who cares? Because Marco Rubio is in second place... America needs to pull our heads out of our asses and realize that we can't celebrate second when first still belongs to Trump. We didn't aspire for second in the Revolutionary War, if we did we would still be subject to the Queen. We didn't aspire for second during the Cold War otherwise we would be drinking Russian Vodka and wondering why we need a fuzzy hat in the spring in St. George. America has never celebrated second, we aspire to be the best, and while we fall short a lot of the time, why are we so hopeful knowing that "at least the guy in second seems promising" because the truth is, the guy in second will disappear after the election and it's the guy in first who we have to look to for the next 4 years.

https://www.wnyc.org/radio/#/ondemand/579001

Democracy? 2.0

Really? Democracy... That describes my basic feelings toward this topic. Especially at this time in our country when the elections are so "exciting." I mean come on, who are we kidding anymore? Do they teach what any of this stuff means in schools growing up? They say the words democracy and "a government by the people for the people" but who actually learned what that meant in elementary, middle or high school? I'm in college and I'm not afraid to admit that I don't fully understand democracy but I feel like whatever our country is doing isn't democracy. We hear the dumb jokes about Obama being a dictator and how Trump will do the same but will that really change much? I feel like no matter who is in office and what their title is, the government is going to do what they want when they want to without our permission. Elections only matter for the electors and they can do whatever the hell they want when they vote. I think the best explanation of the elections I've ever see is a clip from TruTV's new show Adam Ruins Everything. For once someone who doesn't seem like a crazy conspiracy theorist is explaining the election and citing sources showing why it is so screwed up. If you don't live in Ohio, Florida or Pennsylvania (aka "Swing States")  then why bother?

Before I get too off topic with this rant I want to look into what democracy is at it's core.  Dictionary.com says that democracy is: government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or a by their elected agents under a free electoral system. Well there's quite a few problems that I see with this in the United States. First off, I didn't elect an elector he was appointed that by someone with prominence. I don't feel like I have any power in what is done in this country especially living in Utah. And if it is truly by the people how come my only options for President are rich politicians who can afford to run and whatever it is you would call Donald Trump? I don't see any middle class blue collar workers running because they got weeded out by the rich. In fact, what I would love to see is a homeless man in office. Because he doesn't have a job or a house and so he isn't worried about things like segregating us from the world or hacking an iPhone. All he cares about is survival and trying to help everyone survive and that is ultimately what a government should be there for is making it possible for us as a people to co-exist while helping each other survive. Politics has become a game rich people play against other rich people and I'm getting real tired of having to hear about it. I want my voice to be heard in society and not silenced by the the number following the dollar sign on my bank account. Will we ever be equal?