More on Media

So I have been thinking lots about the effect that media has on government and I decided to take a more political approach in this entry. I am not an expert in politics but I have a good friend who lives in Boise, ID who breathes politics so I asked for some of his perspective and opinion on how the media helps or hinders politics. My friend, Jordan Morales, is actually working on the campaign team for Keith Allred who is currently running against the incumbent governor in Idaho. He has been highly involved with local politics for the past couple of years and I think his perspective is interesting.

Most of Jordan's insights deal with how the voter is affected by the voting process and how media plays a role in that and what media can do to help people be better voters. I think is goes along well with the earlier post on civic media.

#1 - Promotes Awareness
Jordan told me that tight races between canidates and what he calls "hot button" issues, or contorversial issues, always draw out more people to vote. One example being Prop 8 a couple years ago in CA. It was very contaversial and more people than usual came out to vote for it. More people will vote if they feel that their vote will actually have sway. Jordan said this about the media's role in topics like this. "I think the media has a lot of power in covering controversial initiatives or close races and showing the people how close it is and why they need to get off their duffs and go vote." When the media covers hot topics it shows people how important their votes really are and it is another incentive to get out and vote. We all know that a democratic system does not work unless the people voice their opinions and this is done mainly through voting.


Now this was interesting to me because I really do not like this part of the media. I feel like too much time is spent on the news describing what canidate is ahead or which way the public is leaning on a topic versus actually focusing on where canidates sit on issues or what the ramifications of certain items on the ballot will be. Jordan's insight hasn't completely changed my opinion but it is nice to know that there are some benefits to things the media does.


#2 - Education on the Voting Process.
I am going to quote what Jordan said about this. He does it well and after I will comment.
The media should make it a point to inform the people the what, where, when and how of voting. Every state has different policies and procedures for how to register to vote, where to vote, setting up people for absentee voting, etc. Some states make it easier than others. In states where its harder people tend to not vote as much so here the media really has the responsibility of helping people with these kinds of things.
Fortunately digital media helps lots with this. Here is a Video as an example how it is helping.

#3 - Media's Impact on Information Cost
Information cost was a new term for me. I will try to explain it the best I can. Basically what it is, is the 'cost' in time, effort, and maybe money that it takes a person to get informed on the topics during an election. Jordan pointed out to me how this is a huge barrier to people voting. Many people are unwilling to pay the 'cost' to vote so they simply do not. This is another area where the media can make a huge contribution. They can take steps to lower the cost so that voters can get the information that they need. "The media like the newspapers and television news should actively follow candidates in an effort to give people a good un-biased shot of who these people are and would then lessen the information costs making it easier for people to go out and vote." 


Media that helps people become more involved in politics especially voting is easily classified as civic media. Media that promotes civic involvement is any form falls under that category.  

Mary Shelley is Amazing

So just to start off I would just like to say that Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is one of my all time favorite books. I have read it a couple times and it grabs my attention every time. There is definitely something lost in the modern day depictions of the monster in modern media. They lose the amazing interactions between the monster and creator that are present in Mary Shelley's novel. Nothing is more fascinating than human interaction and how human perception colors the world. Shelley does an amazing job at portraying the relationship between Dr. Frankenstein and his creation and how that relationship evolves over time.

I will highlight a couple points that I find most interesting and try to show how Shelley develops the characters over the course of the story.

Media and Democracy

So I would like to build off one of the early posts that I had done on civic media. I had talked a little about the use of media and what I perceived civic media to be. I am going to try and refine that idea and expand a little bit on it.



So just to start of I really think that civic media's main purpose is to help inspire democratic ideals. Democracy requires an educated group of people so that they can make decisions that will benefit the society. So that is what civic media tries to do. It gives power to the people in the form of education. I think Thomas Jefferson summed it up best when he said, "I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but the people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take power from them, but to inform them by education." That is the purpose of civic media to give power to the people.

Reflection

I still feel uncertain about my Digital Civilizations class. I do not feel like I have figured out for myself how to do well in the class. I think that it comes mostly from the fact that the class is very different from any that I have taken before. It focuses more on learning a set of skills versus learning a set of information. I enjoy the fact that we are expected to use the skills we are learning to proccess information. I feel that I learn more effectively when I use skills in a real situation rather than learn about them in theory.      

I enjoy making connections to information in this class with other things that I have learned outside of class. As I learn about historical movements and events I really enjoy the parallels that can be drawn between everything. I found it very interesting how many of Eric Raymond's and Dale Carnegie's ideas matched up. I also found it very interesting how the debate over capitalism continues today and how different capitalism is in each country. Overall I really enjoy how the class encourages me to bring in information that I have acquired outside of class and apply it to the things that we are learning in class. I feel like I am making the connections that the class hopes to inspire me to make.

Now to address the part of the class that deals with digital literacy. I do not feel like I am doing as well in this area as in making connections between historical content. I am learning lots about digital tools and how to use them but I think that this area is where most of my uneasiness comes from, because I feel that I am not learning enough of the digital skills and that I am not learning enough about the digital skills. I have made progress though. Using Diigo and Evernote have really helped me organize the way I search for information and then keep track of that information. I was able to use Facebook to connect with other cycling enthusiasts and attend Critical Mass. I have tried to search more blogs for information on topics and I actually found an interesting blog on newspapers and what is happening to them because of the internet. I think that the area that I lack most in is creating my own content that is meaningful to other people. I think that I am still much more of a consumer in the digital realm. I have improved greatly in connecting with people but I don't feel like I am contributing to the conversation in any significant way. 

So, to sum everything up, I feel like I am making the connections I should within historical content, but I still feel that I have more to learn to become digitally literate.

Economics

I will be the first to admit that I do not know that much about economics. But one of the things that I have realized recently is that there are many economic systems outside of capitalism. I personally have grown up within the capitalist system and I really have not experienced anything else besides reading about it. I also think that it is one thing to learn about something in theory versus learn about something by putting it into practice. Unfortunately it is not always practical to put everything into practice just to see how it works. I imagine that it would be hard for me to write President Obama and ask him for the power to install a socialist system in the US just so that I could learn a little more about the principles of common property.

So, really the way that I have learned most about economics is from books and studying the history of other nations. I do have experience in the capitalist system. Growing up I could figure out how many lawns I had to mow before I could get enough money to buy myself a new bike. I also figured out quickly that selling lemonade on the corner was the quickest way to earn money. There just seemed to be too much supply and too little demand. I did find though that my little brother and I could make good money at the beach while he played the guitar and I played my violin. It seemed that we had a somewhat unique skill and having an audience of half drunk tourists helped out.

So I really am not sure how another system would work out. I think that most of us are uneasy with the ideas of other systems just because we have not experienced them. I am not trying to group in experts in economics in this category. I am sure they have great evidence why the system they support is the most correct. But I will say that for myself and people in a similar situation as myself that most uneasiness related to different economic systems comes from never having experienced that system themselves. It is kinda like cliff jumping. The first jump into the water below is always pretty nerve racking. But you'll never know how it is until you jump.

PS I have never been the first one to jump. Have you?

Critical Mass

So I would like to make a plug here for one of the coolest things ever. Most of you I am sure are familiar with what a flash mob is. Critical Mass is a cousin to flash mobs. It is slightly more organized and has something of a purpsoe behind it whereas flash mobs do not fall into that catigorie. I guess it is kinda like the concept of a square being a rectangle but a rectangle is not always a square. Anyways I will explain how it works and connects people for a great cause.

So basically what Critical Mass is when a ton of people on bicycles get together and ride the streets to improve awareness of bike riders ans their use of city streets. It really is a great cause and on top of that it is tons of fun. I love bike riding and riding with a couple hundred people and mobbing the streets make it even better.

Heres a quick video of Critical Mass in San Fransisco.



So really quick to make one more plug. None of this would be possible if it were not for the internet that connects all of us. It would be next to impossible to organize an impromptu event like Critical Mass if it were not for the internet and its ability to connect people.

I found out about Critical Mass because one of my friends invited me to the Facebook event for the Provo area. So I brought some friends and loved it. I would never have found out if it weren't for Facebook. I am not trying to say that Facebook is the end all but it is a great tool along with other social networks that connect people in ways that were not possible before.

Philosophy to Empirical Science

This will be really quick. I wanted to say that we as a society owe a huge debt to philosophy. Today I think that we really focus on scientist making the major break through and we really have laid aside philosophy. I am not trying to argue whether that is bad or good, I just want to say that most of the scientific fields today have their roots in discoveries of ancient philosophers. They made huge break through in medicine, politics, physics, and more areas than I have the time to enumerate on. Francis Bacon himself was a philosopher. Rene Descartes, who played a huge role in the transition to modern science, was a philosopher.

One of the greatest scientists that ever lived, Isaac Newton, sums up my thoughts very well when he said, "If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." That is what philosophy has done for us now. Modern science was built on the giants of philosophy.