Facebook Campaign

Mission Statement:

Our mission is to provide reliable vehicles to every in need, from the Salt Lake area to the St. George area, at an affordable price while guaranteeing a safe way to shop used cars that come state and emission inspected by trustworthy experienced mechanics.

Example Personas:

Samantha is a 19 year old college student. She in in her second semester of college and lives in student housing. She has been working a minimum wage job and wants more independence in her life and an ability to expand her horizons in work and social aspects. She has a budget of $1,500 for a reliable vehicle that will get her through school and into her career until she is ready to buy a car that suits her needs as a woman in the workplace.

Alex is a college dropout who is trying his hand as an entrepreneur. He has a business plan that involves many meetings all over the state as well as a few out of state meetings. He only trusts his vision to be portrayed by himself and his current vehicle won't make it much longer especially if he tries to take these road trips for the meetings. He has a budget of $5,000 after he sells his car. He needs something with relatively low miles and that is reliable and easy to fix on the side of the road if something minor happens like a tire blow out or a bump knocks a belt off.

Tammy is going through a divorce and was always a stay at home mom who is going into the workplace for the first time since she was married. She has 4 children that she has full-time custody over. Her husband is taking the car as part of the divorce and she knows that to provide for a family she will need a job and a vehicle to get there that can also get the kids to all of their various practices and events. Her budget is roughly $3,300 and she just needs a vehicle to help get her through the next few years with as little trouble as possible. She needs someone she can trust to buy a car from without all the risks of there being problems that were hidden during the sale. And she needs this vehicle quick.

Plan:
My plan with this page is to achieve 200 likes by the end of the semester. The page will continue after the semester and will continue to grow. I expect to sell on average 3 cars a month through the process of this Facebook page and to make the selection more easily accessible for those searching for vehicles.

Affordable Auto Utah Facebook Page

Straight Outta Nominations: Racism 2.0

http://cdn.movieweb.com/img.news.tops/NEtmnmDkUDPHxw_2_b.jpg

What year is it? Based on recent announcements and responses for the Oscar nominees I would think it was the 1960's. After a second year of overlooked minority actor nominations the Hollywood minorities are speaking out. At the front of the boycott is Will and Jada Pinkett Smith and director Spike Lee. But where does the problem lie? Is it the Academy being racist? Is it poor minority performances? Is the industry just too white? Or is it all of these things?

The truth is everyone is pointing the finger at each other. While some say that the minorities are overreacting and wanting hand outs, others can see the unfairness and are fighting for the equal rights deserved. Most of the controversy however is a fight over African-american recognition and not so much the recognition of all minorities. We hear about these powerful black leaders in the movie industry fighting but where are the representatives for the Asian, Native American or Middle Eastern cast and crews? Dave Schilling of "Vice" magazine explained that we have tried to allow more minority recognition with new award shows like the BET Awards or the GLAAD Awards but they just don't have the same prestige as the Oscars so it is a controversy and you don't hear any whites complaining about the lack of nominations at the BET Awards. He goes on to say that we need to make minority categories for the Oscars. However if that happens and one minority is not accounted for then once again it is unfair and this would include: homosexuals, transvestites, disabilities and race. So there is no easy solution. But then he looks at the movies that had potential for last years nominations that would be considered "black" movies and the list consists of a lot of movies whose performances do not compare to those of Oscar worthy films. So maybe the problem lies within the industry.

Julie Hinds of the Detroit Free Press has some other ideas as to where the problem truly lies. She uses statistics to prove her point that we need more diversity in the Academy of Motion-Picture Arts and Sciences. The Academy is made up of over 6,000 members. 94% of the members are white and 77% are male with the median age in the 60's. With statements from members telling the press that they voted for a black film or actor to almost clear their conscience or something. These are the kind of statements racist people make to help themselves believe they are not racist. It's justification.

Honestly, I see some points they made that are valid. Will Smith did great in Concussion and Jason Mitchell blew me away in Straight Outta Compton. Both of those movies portrayed a minority struggling to overcome a world in which the majority race was dominating. Their films were about or had undertones about this exact controversy and yet the nominations given to Straight Outta Compton went to the white screenwriter. I can see the problem within the conflict. I can see why it would arise without appearing detrimental but we live in a diverse world where change is welcome. So why not shake up the Academy and get less old white guys and more fresh outlooks.

Articles Discussed:
https://www.vice.com/read/maybe-its-time-for-black-people-to-have-their-own-academy-awards-165

http://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/movies/julie-hinds/2016/01/23/and-oscar-goes-no-actors-color-2016/79116340/

On the Media #1

The Wunderkind of the Free Culture Movement. Aaron Swartz had the goals to change the world. He had a vision that the internet was the means by which the world could be changed and he knew that the first step to a better world was free knowledge. Copyrighted material is not free on the internet and the is the problem that Aaron had. So he basically took as many possible copies of scholarly journals from J-Store and was sharing them with the world. When he was caught he returned the files and although J-Store dropped the charges the prosecuting attorney's continual pushed for "justice." This "justice" that was demanded eventually caused Aaron to take his
own life. But why did it have to come to this? Was the fight really worth the ceasing of one man who has been contemplated as a criminal or a revolutionist. I side with the revolutionist and idealist standpoint. Aaron Swartz saw the future. He was not pushing for socialism he was pushing for the right to gain knowledge being available to everyone. The way I view this in my own life right now is with textbooks. We live in a digital age and yet we are still paying hundreds of dollars for college textbooks each semester. Nobody wants to be carrying around large heavy paper copies but at the same time who is willing to pay the same price for a PDF copy that you can't sell? Why are these books not offered for free in PDF formats? We pay our tuition and our fees for classes and then on top of that a professor holds to right to assign additional fees to us based on a corrupt industry of textbook makers who only re-arrange the same material every 3-5 years in order to make more money. If Aaron was successful in his actions and continued in the pursuit I believe not only would our country and world be better off as a society but as an education system as well. This young man struggled in educational systems and yet he saw the bigger picture and the need for school and surpassed it by using his own means of study. The millennial generation is just the beginning of technology, as future generations come the technology will advance and take over more aspects of living and the textbook companies see that and are scared. Copyright was a thing of the past and needs to be reformed and regulated on what should actually be Copy-written and what should be shared. Free the media and free the mind.

https://www.wnyc.org/radio/#/ondemand/565907

Facebook Page

The Facebook page I will be launching and managing is for a business that my dad started and brought me into as a partner. The business is a used car dealership that is a branch of an auto shop in the Salt Lake area. They now sell used cars full-time on location however I will be in charge of branching into southern Utah and everything in between here and there. My role will be to promote awareness of the business and their mission to supply affordable reliable cars to virtually anyone who has a license and is in the market for a vehicle that is road-ready and has been inspected by professionals and deemed ready to sell. This will take out the fear of buying a car off of Craigslist.com or KSL.com classifieds with little or no experience working with cars and in knowing you can trust that you are getting dealership quality cars without the used car lot experience or risk of buying a lemon associated with shopping for yourself off of personal ads. The page will feature ads, posts about specials, as well as information on the employees so that you can gain a relationship with a team of people you can trust.

State of the Union Address 2016

Initially I was excited to keep track of social media for this topic. My mindset in government has been swayed to sit at a neutral position because I have learned that being one person in Utah my voice in politics doesn't matter, in fact I have learned that the only way my voice can be heard is if I become an elector or a politician and I have no interest in either of those categories. The only problem about social media was that no one in my immediate circles even commented on the subject of the State of the Union Address. So I was forced to search and follow #SOTU and this was disappointing as well.

This State of the Union Address was expected to be different, I believed it would be a lot of President Obama doing and saying whatever he felt like because after this he is done. However,  to me it sounded a lot like him boosting his own ego. He continually talked about how much he has "improved" the country. Now the internet had a few things to say about how he was lying for no reason because he already is the president and that won't change if he just admits that he screwed up or that he really didn't do that much good. I didn't promote any particular candidates and maybe in re-discussing his plan was that it would obligate the next president to follow through on his plans. But what really was happening is that he was trying to promote the idea of keeping him in office.

Now as many common tweets and Facebook posts were either for or against President Obama and his plans one that caught my attention was a tweet by a presidential candidate who has a notorious Twitter presence and that was Donald Trump's tweet which read: "The #SOTU speech is really boring, slow, lethargic - very hard to watch!" Now while we all have the right to our opinion, I think it was out of line for someone who plans to be the next president to "trash-talk" a current president publicly like that over a simple speech and not for a specific controversial topic he discussed.

Some good points that President Obama made were concerning foreign policy which surprised me when he discussed the fact that we cannot take over and repair other countries. I believe that is one of the best things he has said within his presidency because it is the first time he is trying to get back to the basic principles the country was founded upon. This topic had the most positive rhetoric and feedback on social media it also had quite a bit of mocking but the good outweighed the bad and I agreed with those who liked this statement. No topics discussed on social media swayed my original opinion a lot of the speech seemed very straight forward to me and unpersuasive and more factual.