Rough Draft of Politcs Essay

Political campaigns are about a dime a dozen. Many have the same features, and the same development. If the party wants a candidate to look good to the American voters, the advertisers will highlight the good qualities a particular candidate possesses. However, if it is the design of the advertisement is to make a candidate look bad the advertisers will highlight the flaws of that candidate. The reasoning behind this is simply to get more votes than the rivaling party. If a candidate can be portrayed as either right or wrong for certain reasons, it makes all voters despite their voting background vote one way. Such is the case for the political advertisement against Jeff Flake entitled, “Jeff Flake’s Out of Touch, Extreme Record is Wrong for Arizona.” The makers of this political attack advertisement used many popular cultural beliefs and values embedded in American society to further the effectiveness of the idea that Jeff Flake would be the “wrong” choice for Arizona for voters of both liberal and conservative views.

            The advertisement does this by targeting key topics that transcend the lines of political affiliation. For instance, in the video it states that Jeff Flake voted against funding for child abuse prevention. Despite what political affiliation a person may have, all people are expected by popular cultural values to believe that child abuse prevention is important. With this in mind, this political attack advertisement challenges people to still want to vote for a person who voted against protecting innocent children from abuse. It plays off of the pathos of parents, grandparents, and others to seek for another candidate that will vote in favor of protecting children. Highlighting that Jeff Flake voted against funding child abuse prevention implies that Jeff Flake does not care about standing up for children and protecting them. Further denying a cultural belief embedded into society to correct wrongs by being a voice of change. The advertisement continues and points out that Jeff Flake has voted against college aid. Showing the audience that he does not care if people are able to be educated, leading them to find the candidate that will vote for those particular groups to have their voices heard because, as implied by the actions of Jeff Flake, he will not vote for what the voters want and need.

            Unfortunately for Jeff Flake and his campaigners, the political attack continues alarm many other people by the content of the advertisement, “Flake voted against bulletproof vests for local police.” Safety is a big cultural belief. Americans believe in the right to be safe in many forms. As people, want to be guaranteed safety, and this is through the ability that local policemen have to fully perform their duties as public defenders. However, this value is something that it seems that Jeff Flake does not believe in the way the American people do. As portrayed in the attack, a vote for Flake is a vote for less safety because the policemen ensuring safety will not be as protected as they could be. Overall safety is an issue that popular values instill in Americans to allow for the most protection available to those who ensure societal safety. This idea continues into the next issue of the attack is that Flake voted against the GI bill for veterans. Every attack targets different and special group’s interests, such as the interests of those who have served the country being supported by the country to be able to support them after they served the country. Here, Flake is shown as not being loyal to those who have loyally serving the country. The attack implicitly targets Flake’s credibility to be loyal to those who vote for him.

Rough Draft

Here is a very rough version:

At some point in their life, a person has witnessed two or more friends gathered in order to spend quality time together. In past years this meant seeing the friends participate in board games, sports, movies or other activities. However, today friends gathering to spend time together may be a variety of activities, however, at the center of the friends’ interactions will be the time for all of the friends to text another person who is not there. Texting has shifted what friends do together, and even more so how people interact. Texting targets a demographic of people whose ages range anywhere from twelve to thirty-five. Why has society been encouraging interactions through texting more than interactions face-to-face with another human? Whatever the reason, the increased amount of texting as the message of the media has had profound impacts on the interpersonal relationships of those who engage in it, such as weaker friendships, less social skills and the inability to connect with other people.

            While texting has the ability to connect people to one another, popular culture ideas of texting do not promote the ability for closer relationships over texting. For one, texting connotes the convenience of the other person. Unlike other forms of communication, especially interpersonal, texting places the receiver solely in control of the situation. Instead of trying to meet the needs of a friend when they need help, texting sends a message that a person can answer whenever, and that it is completely acceptable. The medium of texting sends the message that convenience of responding whenever trumps the friend’s needs, even if it is an emergency situation. Texting causes problems in communication because of its innate nature to cause misunderstandings. With the words people choose to send in their texts, the diction and connotation of the meanings of the content of the text can be misinterpreted. In changing to a form of communication that is faster and convenient, the message of the medium states the variety of interpretations that can be taken from a simple and well-meaning text.  Further it promotes the popular cultural value of popularity. Popularity has always been based off of how many people a person talks to as well as how much information the person knows about different situations. With texting, a person can give the illusion of accomplishing both requirements for popularity. Firstly, a person would be in public, possibly even with friends, but be bombarded by messages from other people all at the same time. Second, with all of the messages from other people, the individual would be well informed about what is going on in the lives of those around the individual. However, even though the person would be so informed, they would miss out on the one-on-one person interactions that are invaluable.

            Texting may be affecting many people in their ability to have social interactions with the people around them. People learn to interact with one another through interactions that are unscripted, in person, and once done cannot be undone. However, texting is changing that system dramatically. It appeals to the popular cultural narrative of being able to control the situation around one’s self. In texting, it gives the ability to phrase, organize and develop messages to be sent over time that a person can be in control of any situation. This concept also connotes empowerment that a person uses words well. However, in a person’s daily interpersonal interactions there is hardly ever a choice to craft one’s words to make the ideal impression. The new media medium of texting changes how people interact from face-to-face to over screens where body language, intonation of voice, and other indicators of certain feelings, concepts or ideas are taken out of context.

News Broadcast

As stated in the well named, but blunt article, “Man Shoots Self Fatally on Live Tv after AZ Car Chase,” news covers these sorts of stories for a momentary boost in ratings. However, as evident in the outcome of this certain car chase, filming and broadcasting live car chases to get ratings may have severe consequences. It may have value to show car chases live for such reasons as seeing how good the police are at doing their job, getting some entertainment out of someone breaking the law when you happen to be bored, or for critiquing what the person did wrong and figuring out how to seamlessly steal a car. Regardless of the reason new stations decide to broadcast a live car chase, the real reason and motive for showing it is for the ratings. Ratings equal money, and they mean that the news stations competitor has one less person watching their new broadcast.

New broadcasts showing things like this shows that the news is obsessed more with showing the bad in the world and allowing the driver to have a few moments of fame, (though in this case the driver would never know that he did get his fifteen minutes if fame). News broadcasts need not be all sunshine and smiles, there are harsh realities that happen every day that should not be ignored, but the news needs ensure that if children are watching the news with their parents that they will not be witnessing things that will damage them. Personally, I avoid the news for this reason. When I watch the news, it always tends to highlight the negative things going on in the community, nation, and world. I think news stations have found a niche and are stuck. With so much that goes wrong in the world it would be nice to hear about the good.