final reflection

I found this course to be extremely beneficial. Looking at the news has changed many of my perspectives in a positive way. These changes of my perspective have allowed me to be more open-minded and confident in my viewpoints. This class also allowed me to get in touch with my own writing. I was able to put my voice in which made the creative process go a lot smoother. I will definitely be able to apply my knowledge of the news towards future essays, conversations, and situations I may be involved in. I've gotten into the habit of checking various news sites at least once a day and that's a lot better than refreshing Facebook compulsively.

short essay 2

People have been hearing the clichéd expression “a picture is worth a thousand words” for years; however, in regards to news articles in the media circulation this is a valid point. A picture can make or break a story depending on how the audience perceives that image. The picture is meant to evoke emotions from the reader and create a harmonious relationship between the texts. The author of a certain article must choose a picture that they believe will not only attract attention to the piece, but also create a visual representation for their words.

            While browsing the Huffington Post I came across an article titled “Eric Filipe Gaskin, Kitten ‘Mauler-Declawer’, Sentenced For Animal Cruelty”.  The caption to the picture remarked “Horror: Man Sentenced For Shocking Kitten Abuse” and underneath was a picture of two small kittens playing in a flower field. The immediate reaction to such an image would be one of disgust towards the perpetrator. The reader would find himself or herself overcome with sadness for the abused kittens and click on the link to fuel their curiosity of how a human being could perform such an act. These photogenic kittens do not represent the ones that Gaskin had abused, but rather the idea of animal abuse in general.

            The article is likely to get a lot of attention throughout the web because of the picture associated with it. Pictures of baby animals often cause people to stop what they’re doing and examine the creature’s features. In this case, one may be astonished to learn that such an innocent and picturesque animal could possibly be “mauled”, as the caption suggests. This type of article and picture duo is, as morbid as it sounds, perfect for sharing with other’s on the Internet and will ensure quite a bit of traffic because of the shocking topic. Upon further inspection of the story, the reader will discover that the kittens in the photo have nothing to do with the kittens in the article other than the fact that they’re both from the same species. Gaskin, the kitten mauler, was sentenced because of the imminent death that pursued his declawing of his daughter’s kittens. The article did not take into account whether or not Gaskin was financially able to get the kittens declawed properly at a vet’s or if the act was done out of malice. The reader goes straight to assuming that this man is a criminal and prison is the justice he deserves. Like most articles, the reader is only subjected to one side. We only know what the author wants us to; in this case we are lead to believe that a man has brutally murdered the picturesque idea of kittens.

            I believe that the image beckons a wave of sympathy towards the kittens and anger towards the man who hurt them, whether or not it was intentional. This combination of text and image is a sure fire way for the author to get attention. The fact that a picturesque image was used rather than a realistic portrayal of the kittens that were harmed is slightly concerning. If these kittens were relatively unattractive would the story still get the same amount of attention? Sometimes a picture is worth so much more than the contents it represents.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/22/eric-felipe-gaskin_n_2745794.html?utm_hp_ref=crime&ir=Crime#slide=1526335

The article written by Morris deals with the meaning behind a photograph. Morris states "A captionless photograph, stripped of all context, is virtually meaningless. I need to know more." However, I disagree with this. A captionless photograph may not be meaningless to everyone. People often connect their own thoughts and ideas to the unknown. They derive from the familiar and give it a symbol. When I look at old photographs I tend to create a story behind them. I think that a captionless photo has a meaning to each individual...even if that meaning is simply "nothing". Who knows...maybe i'm thinking too much into it. However, I do understand what he's getting at.
True, once we have context the story behind the photograph changes. During our last class we discussed Pistorius and  how he murdered his girlfriend. He had an ad that said "I am the bullet in the chamber" followed by the Nike "Just do it" logo. Without context this would seem like a normal ad. However, when looking at it after knowing he had committed murder you start to surround yourself with questions. Is he notoriously violent? Did he murder his girlfriend with a gun? How will this change the future of advertisements? 
We often give meaning to the unknown and this is called symbolic interactionism. We give meaning to ordinary things, like photographs. Even though this may be the case, I do agree with Morris that we are unable to gather the true meaning of a picture until we know the entirety of the story behind it.


https://www.google.com/search?q=pistorius+nike+ad&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=aVkkUcrZPMjLqAHS-4HwCQ&biw=1125&bih=559&sei=a1kkUbWnEY79qAHe3YGQAQ#imgrc=yBHr3YjPVZv_mM%3A%3BDH9mZ-digHoMAM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fi2.cdn.turner.com%252Fcnn%252Fdam%252Fassets%252F130214105230-pistorius-nike-ad-horizontal-gallery.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.cnn.com%252F2013%252F02%252F14%252Fbusiness%252Fpistorius-nike%252F%3B640%3B360

taking an approach.

According to Harris, taking an approach is not the same idea as picking a side, like with forwarding and countering. Taking an approach is much more stylistic and reflexive. In fact, "you rewrite not passages or ideas from a text but an author writer's mode or style of working" (Harris 95). Harris talks about the three distinctive ways in which one can take an approach on a piece of writing. First, you must acknowledge the influence; look in your own work to see how a certain author has influenced it. Second, you turn an approach on itself by asking the same questions to the author. Third is reflexivity. Reflexivity is about looking back on your text and noting the methods taken in forming it.
Taking an approach can be seen throughout many New York Times articles where the author may question or speculate into a situation. Often times their curiosity or political beliefs transcend into the writing and forms the language they use to create a text. For example, Jonathan Weisman wrote an article called "Texas Senator Goes on Attack and Raises Bipartisan Hackles" . In the article, Weisman takes an approach by painting Cruz in an unfriendly manner. His language suggests that he disagrees strongly with Cruz's political viewpoints, which can be seen by the phrase in the title "raises bipartisan hackles". This leads the reader to be set up for a man who is so bad that even his own party doesn't want anything to do with him.
I believe that taking an approach can be difficult in the reflective manner. We are surrounded by so many forms of writing it's hard to be definitively influenced by one in particular. 

VAWA

            I have chosen to write about The Violence Against Women reauthorization bill to a female-identifying audience. Ideally, this audience would be a blogging community so that they may interact with my statements and remarks. I got the article from the Huffington Post. Jennifer Bendery wrote the piece, titled VAWA: Senate Overwhelmingly Passes Violence Against Women Act. I wanted to recreate the article in a way that young women would be able to understand and feel a sense of empowerment from it.

Hello, my female and female-identifying friends. We no longer need to be afraid of reporting abuse. We do not need to ask ourselves “who will help us?” if something, God forbid, may occur. Finally, I am pleased to inform you all that Washington has recently passed and approved the Violence Against Women reauthorization bill, as well as acknowledging some key amendments that were not accepted last year.

This bill was originally created in 1994 and has helped various programs stay afloat to provide help towards those who have been abused. The reauthorization bill was not passed grudgingly or reluctantly, but with an overwhelming vote of 78 to 22. A handful of republicans who had recently opposed the bill and voted against it put pen to paper and supported us this year. Our voices are finally being heard.  I’m happy to report that the decision to pass this act was achieved by both democrats and republicans; in other words it was a bipartisanship effort. This is a huge step for congress, and shines a hopeful light for victims of abuse. $659 million will be authorized to various Violence Against Women Act programs over the next 5 years.

For the first time, protection will be granted to LGBT and Native American victims. People, with the same rights as you and I, are finally being included and noticed under the eyes of the law. There will be a shift in focus on sexual assault prevention. I am not sure on what types of preventative measures they are planning to enforce, however I hope they stray away from victim blaming. We should not have to worry about the way we dress or act, am I right, ladies? Assault is assault no matter how revealing our clothing may be.

There is also a section of the bill that that pertains to targeting human trafficking and offering grants to children who are victims of trafficking. Of course, congress is far from perfect. Undocumented victims will still be denied protection, even if the perpetrator of their abuse was a citizen of the United States. Senator Leahy states, "If you're the victim, you don't want to think that a lot of us who have never faced this kind of problem, sat here in this body and said, 'Well, we have to differentiate which victims America will protect.'" Even though protection towards undocumented victims will not be appearing in the bill, Leahy is determined to get it through legislation and we should be behind them 100%. Victims deserve protection, no matter what their citizenship status may be. Our fight is not over yet, but we are making progress. Women are slowly but surely being acknowledged by our government, and we should not rest until we are all given the same rights and protections under the law. 

Forwarding isn't always rewarding

Forwarding is basically like creating a new conversation about some old news. A writer will take an idea, or work from another author, and use that content to create a new idea for their readers. They are forwarding a message to a different audience. It takes a public approach towards a personal opinion. Instead of voicing your opinion to the original source, you're shouting it to multiple people who may express a similar or opposite viewpoint; this gives them a chance to forward their thoughts as well.

I went to the Huffington post and browsed the entertainment book section because I figured that would be the best place to find an example of forwarding. Sure enough I found an article that took the words of Shakespeare and transformed them into a new thought for a specific audience.

Amy Helmes made a post titled "Can Shakespeare Help You Score This Valentine's Day?" to give her readers some (really lame and in some cases illegal) advice. One of her points "Ah, young love. Juliet Capulet was a mere 13 years old when she did her "amorous rites" with Romeo, who, presumably, wasn't too much older than she." is very concerning and definitely frowned upon by modern society. This just goes to show what kind of uproar forwarding can cause! It does not always work in your advantage. She could have easily written about the cliché "forbidden love because of their families" but nope. She had to go for the underage aspect. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-helmes/can-shakespeare-help-you-_b_2639538.html?utm_hp_ref=books

Who needs the press?

In modern society, we rely more on the middleman rather than the press itself to gather news information. We can’t be bothered to check reliable news sites every 30 minutes to find out what is happening in the world. Instead, we go on Facebook, check our twitter feed, and watch the simpsons. We don’t really know what is going on until an individual posts a status, a tweet, or our television program is interrupted with a breaking news story. We live in a world where we are spoon fed everything. Our phones get push notifications, which is a perfect representation of how news is pushed towards us. We only need the press to make the story. We don’t need them to give it to us. I agree with Jeff Jarvis overall. I saw how this played out with the whole Kony 2012 situation. Everyone on my Facebook feed was posting “Stop Kony!” and sharing images of the children forced into being soldiers. How many of these people actually saw such a thing on the news? None of them. How many heard a celebrity or friend talk about it? All of them. I’m not going to get into the gritty details of Kony 2012 because it holds some controversy. I just wanted to share it as an example of how the press isn’t as important as it used to be for a way to get news information. We use the middleman, people, social media, and word of mouth, to find our news stories.