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