4-24-13: Demographic Targeting

I’ve been trying to remember the name of the website that we went to in class where it determined our outlook towards race, age, religion, skin tone  and other factors through the survey, so I could redo it right now as I type this blog. But I shall go off of memory and say that I didn’t think it was reliable at all to tell me how I feel about certain things. One example was that at the beginning of the survey/test, they asked me, on a scale of 1 to 10, whether I was favorable towards younger people (10) or older people (1) and I chose 6, and at the end of the test, the score for me was that I was 40% less favorable towards older people. wonder how they got that?

I understand the scientific reasoning they have behind how you are favorable towards a certain factor over another. I only took the age test, but I assume if you did the weight test and you grew up in a very healthy home that looked down upon obesity in any sense, then you would probably test higher in correlating heavier set people to negative and fit people to positive and lower in vice versa.

I also understand how demographics can play a big part in elections. If they can predict how a person would vote, I can see why they would encourage that person to vote since most younger people do not vote with thinking that it’s only one vote out of millions.

Theories of Moral Development

There is one thing that I agree with for all of the stage theories: we do get wiser with age and experience. But that said, I think I mostly agree with Piaget’s version. I feel like Kohlberg only took the age aspect of Piaget’s theory, everything else was completely different. Piaget was talking about abstract thinking, and Kohlberg’s theory was about goals; thinking with a purpose.

I understand Gilligan’s approach to changing Kohlberg’s theory to better fit women, but I feel that it’s just an extension of Kohlberg’s conventional stage. I would think that the self-sacrifice and protecting others would be placed beside the duty and guilt section, but because of Kohlberg’s poorly-made decision to give such a strong bias to males in the tests, Gilligan felt like she had to create a completely separate moral theory from her teachers.

I do agree that men and women may make moral choices different from each other in the most basic of sense (biological/evolutionary reasons) but I feel like in modern times where women have much more opportunity than they did 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago, women use the justice-based theory as much as they would the delicate, care-based theory. Also, I don’t believe I see any decision I ever make in black and white, and  sometimes I rather go with my gut instinct rather than logics, so I would think not all men go with just firm and unwavering justice-based theory all the time.

Reality TV and its effect on television

I never really understood how reality TV is called “reality” TV. It seems to me the farthest from reality you could get, just before sci-fi tv shows.  I know that not all reality TV shows are completely pointless, but they are unfortunately tied in with the biggest reality TV shows, like The Kardashians or Jersey Shore. Reality TV has had a definite effect on people and television. I feel like it stretches people’s way of thinking and life through someone else’s reality. Shows like Survivor and Man vs. Wild may drive people to wonder about if they have the survival skills to live in an extreme environment and could have them consider their choices better when going on camping trips or whatnot. For a personal example, for the only reality TV show that I watch, Catfish, it really makes me cautious about who I talk to online and how much information to put out, in case someone uses my information.

I feel like I said this in a previous blog post, but I feel like most people watch reality tv shows because they wish that it was their reality, such as the party life of the Jersey Shore cast or the fabulous dining and events that the Real Housewives of wherever are apart of. It’s crazy that many people stopped their lives and watched the Kardashian wedding, over two people that they don’t know or wouldn’t come to their wedding. I really enjoyed the Kardashian divorce skit from SNL, making fun of the ridiculousness of the press that they get. Reality TV doesn’t have to have such a bad rep that it gets, as long as people are aware of the line between reality and television.

Chapter 7-C Case Study: Weddings, Anniversaries, Birthdays and “Bondings”

I don’t understand the complete outrage towards Washington’s Herald and their posting of the gay couple with the header “Bondings”. I would slightly understand the upset from the public if it was still called “Marriages” but it was just a bonding ceremony. I would think both sides would be upset, conservatives with their stance on marriage being between a man and a woman and also the LGBT would be upset at calling a civil union or bonding a “marriage”, even though it doesn’t have the same benefits of a marriage for a man and a woman. One of the questions in micro issues piqued my interest about how some people compared this event to the first publishing of a mixed-race marriage before it was socially acceptable. I feel like it does have some similarities, but it could not be the same. I can’t fully relate to the ceremony bonding of two people of the same sex and I don’t know anyone who could relate, but I feel like the outward appearance of a mixed-race marriage is much more apparent than a LGBT relationship. I hope I don’t offend anyone, but I just feel like society would see two people of the same sex, at first, just friends before seeing a wedding ring, but a relationship would be assumed first in a man and a woman of two different races. Also, I’m not saying that kids of a same-sex marriage aren’t teased but those kids are teased if it is somehow known to the rest of the school or other kids that his/her parents are both one of the same sex, but kids are two different races, if it is apparent enough through skin tone, culture or belief, could be prejudged before anything is known about him/her.

Into answering the first question for macro issues about whether or not the paper should have offended a large portion of its audience for a morally correct decision, I feel like the managing editor may have misjudged the city’s view on same-sex marriage. In the case, it says that Seattle was involved in a campaign to have domestic partners eligible for medical insurance and that Seattle had grown 36% with an increase of people of different backgrounds, cultures and beliefs, so Strick, the editor may have believed that it was okay and that the city was ready for this kind of stance. He probably knew he was going to offend some people but probably not as much as he did in his decision.

Citizen McCaw Blog Post 2

I feel like newspapers are in a decline because people are turning to technology for their source of information, rather than print. There are a few reasons I could think of: It is much more expensive. My parents were subscribers of The Kansas City Star for years, perhaps before I was born, but since my mom almost gets all of her news from Yahoo or local news station websites like KMBC 9 news or Fox 4 and decided to just save money and cancel their subscription. The internet almost pays for itself in value when you could read multiple newspapers like the New York Times or the Huffington Post, along with unofficial news sites such as Yahoo News or Reddit. Another reason I feel like newspapers are in decline is because of the widespread use of citizen journalism. Millions upon millions hear of breaking news first through Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube before network television stations tell them now. On what chapter 8 states, people seem to prefer actual coverage other than just someone talking about it in the station, so videos that everyday people shoot with their cell phones or sound clips from voice recorders are used alongside stories by official journalists and news reporters on the local news or cable news. Most of these videos can still be viewed by the public regardless if they make it to the news, due to bloggers and tech-savvy people who have more viewers/subscribers than some network or local news stations have already, from blogs like TMZ or LifeHacker. I feel like news companies and stations are finally starting to understand and catch up with today’s technology, changing their print-only newspapers into being available on tablets on mobile phones. It’s becoming necessary to be able to survive in the media business.

Citizen McCaw Blog Post 1

I feel like the journalists for Santa Barbara Newspress were in journalism for the “truth business” as Jerry Roberts said, but Wendy McCaw just kind of used the justification of her having bought the newspaper in that the business part is emphasized over truth. I don’t know whether or not if all of Mccaw’s stories about animal rights were true, but I do know from the documentary that it overshadows more important stories in Santa Barbara. I can see her understanding from her point-of-view that she could post whatever she want since she is the owner of the newspaper, but the problem come in that she took over a once-credible and trusted newspaper to give her own twisted spin on what should be important over certain things in the news.

I would have actually felt sympathy for McCaw if she had bought a completely new/different newspaper, like Santa Barbara Nature or something, but I feel like her using the reputation of the long-standing newspaper for her own personal gain was the first line she crossed with the Santa Barbara community. She lost even more readers/followers after she started using it as a weapon against well-respected citizens in Santa Barbara  like Rob Lowe and Jerry Roberts.

Class Discussion: 3-6-13 Pundits

I knew I was one of those people when I heard in class that more than 50% of Americans hear about political news from sources like Colbert and Stewart. I don’t necessarily like them, they’re only on the TV while I’m doing my homework because Tosh.O went off. I do sometimes hear about the craziest stories, such as this one about the chairman of Gun Appreciation Day saying that if African Americans were able to bear guns back during slavery, then slavery would not have happened. I stopped and dropped all I was doing when I heard that because it was the most hilarious thing I heard all week, maybe all month.

I agree with our discussion in class about how positive political ads for their candidate are nowhere near as effective as negative political ads towards the other candidate. I feel like our society pays more attention to the what if’s that could affect their family from the other candidate instead of the benefits of their own candidate, especially when you are in a swing state and you get both equally positive advertisements for both candidates, so anything significantly negative could completely shift votes in a landslide. For example of the 2012 elections in our state, it seemed like Todd Akin would beat Claire McCaskill last November until his comments about legitimate rape broke national news, then the what if’s came up, about if he would set back women’s rights in Missouri and possibly in the Senate, even Republican women who were going to vote for him decided to change to McCaskill because they could not back someone who could believe there were different kinds of rape.