Democracy 2.0

The idea that the internet allows us to access all kinds on information sounds very exciting. Publicly available data has the potential to change how people get involved in politics. My knee jerk reaction, though, is that we can't expect our people to let go of their tight grip on apathy and get interested. Democracy will always be about who talks louder, not accurate representation of groups of individuals.
I think that expecting a conversation between representatives and constituents is a little naive, just like Pia says in her TED talk. There are too many people and too few officials for real, effective conversations.
I think that as people sit behind their computers judging politicians, and coming up with new and exciting ways for millennials to ignore politics, we should all remember that we hopefully have taken the time to educate ourselves about what it takes to make the big decisions we're criticizing.
Last note as always: I never claim to KNOW very many things, especially when we're talking about places I've never been, people I've never known, theories I've never tested, and experiences I've never had.

On the Media: Debunking Migration Memes

Impacts of social media: I think the impact of social media in this are pretty obvious. We're literally talking about social media memes.

CONTEXTS

Physical: We're talking about memes that are being shared on shared on social media sites in Europe.

Social: These memes are made either by people who have malicious intent, or people who are trying to be funny/relevant. The people who are seeing these stupid things online are the real problem because they are sustaining these ideas and themes, and they don't even really know how carelessly impactful they are being.

Psychological: The purpose of these memes is to cause people to think of refugees in a specific way: They are dangerous, deceitful people taking advantage of the people and the government. 

Cultural: I'm not sure if this is racism, or a cynical greed for hostility and antagonism. 

Temporal: Memes come from our young people, and our late generations. The way we use them is just like how propaganda posters were used in the past. People don't need to believe every part of what they're looking at because those ideas take root in our mind. I've heard about studies that show that people are likely to believe information even after it has been disproved. So even if people kind of know that it's wrong, they still kind of really believe it and that's what's happening here. 

Veracity: I think this might be the only On the Media post I do correctly because my answer for this section may always be the same. I think I have no business discussing the accuracy or authenticity of the information presented here because I don't know much else about it besides what I heard in this On the Media podcast or read about on the internet, and isn't that kind of what the problem is with this whole meme sharing thing? People don't know what the heck is going on because they're accepting information to be true which they do not know that validity of. 

That being said, I think it comes down to trust. Whose information can we trust to be reliable? I believe that memes are being posted all over social media in Europe, that they are a problem. The rest may all be speculation.

PERSONAL COMMENTS

There are parts of this story I don't understand such as: Who takes the time to make all these memes? Why are people circulating them? Why can't we all just get a long?

Last note as always: I never claim to KNOW very many things, especially when we're talking about places I've never been, people I've never known, theories I've never tested, and experiences I've never had.

Okay, here goes my first Correctly done On The Media post. The part of the show I'm focused on is the part about the World Trade Center terrorist attack. I listened as Brooke walked through the museum while describing her experience.
The museum opened in May of the year 2014. "The National September 11 Memorial Museum serves as the country's principle institution concerned with exploring the implications of the events of 9/11, documenting the impact of those events and exploring 9/11's continuing significance."  Brooke talks to [man] at one point about how they made decisions about the design of the museum, and that was the part I thought was VERY interesting. He talks about how they let the large space of the building speak for itself to describe the enormity of the event, and about how difficult it was to decide how severe to make it, while protecting the emotional wellbeing of those visitors who experienced the event, and those who know next to nothing about it. Can you imagine the emotionality of going through all the information to do with the attack and deciding how much to disclose to the patrons of the museum? I'm thinking about how emotional it was for me to think about the events of that day. While I was exploring 9/11 related information online, I was overwhelmed by what was out there. How much harder is it for people who were there? for the people who were nearby? People who lost family members? The struggle to balance the experiences of those people is the museum is mind boggling.
It's interesting to note, though, that when Brooke was there there weren't a lot of tears. Is this to do with the apathy of society these days? Meaningful healing? or the onset of forgetting? I feel like it's a combination of both healing and forgetting. This country has been through disasters before; natural disasters, war, poverty. This, I think is the natural process of healing. Event, immediate reaction, long term reaction, memorial, "museumification", neglect.
Kinda funny that they have a gift shop though, am I right?

True Crime

Let's talk about TRUE CRIME. It's a non-fiction genre of literature in which the author actually talks about elements of real crimes, and it has a really bad reputation of being kind of sleazy. It's kind of like a text version of COPS. 
Apparently, the difference between the really good true crime books, and the really trashy ones, is the position of the author. If the author writes as if the gory details are the most important part, then it turns into a creepy little story meant to raise the hair on your skin. If the author focuses on the real story, the whole thing, and the uncertainty of the ending of most of these stories, then the author has succeeded in representing the more authentic way of writing a true crime book.
Part of the criticism of true crime stories is that authors often aren't educated in psychology or familiar with case studies and information that would legitimize their work.
I think it's interesting that crime fiction is more acceptable to people in general because the crimes in the story never actually happened. It makes it okay for people to be interested in reading because it isn't real.

Ceaseless Celebration

I made a Facebook page! The name of my Facebook page is Ceaseless Celebration, and the purpose of this page is to make you aware of holidays and observances that you might've otherwise been utterly unaware of! I know, you're excited.

The plan is to post 1-2 times a day about the various exciting, and sometimes obscure, holidays and observances. The goal is to post articles, images, and videos featuring information about the holiday, and visuals of specific people celebrating these holidays. I will do my best to find people I actually know to showcase in these posts so that I can tag people as much as possible. People LOVE it when they're tagged on social media!

Personas of people I wanna target:

Ashley:
Millennial
Lives at home
Uncommitted
Limited attention span

Jennifer:
Middle aged
Empty nester
Self focused

Jim:
Procrastinator
Stoner
Impulsive

Racism?

Let's talk about racism... I am a little uncomfortable talking about this topic because I don't know what's right. I've been thinking a lot about this #blacklivesmatter movement, and there are a lot of other people talking about it too. And it seems EVERYONE else knows how to feel about it. I grew up color blind, and I don't mean I can't distinguish between red and green. I mean that I disregarded other's skin color. Recently, it's been brought to my attention that this is absolutely the wrong way to think about race and color because it disregards the struggles of individuals dealing with discrimination.
The #blacklivesmatter movement started as a response to the Trayvon Martin shooting and the acquittal of the alleged shooter, George Zimmerman. It grew to be a huge anti-racist, anti-police brutality movement across the whole country, and has become quite the controversial topic of conversation as more cases of racially motivated police brutality cases are brought into the public eye.
Some internet goers responded to this movement with another hashtag: #alllivesmatter. The interesting thing about this is how many different people are coming from similar perspectives, but disagreeing over whether or not the movement should be #blacklivesmatter or #alllives matter.
As for myself, I commonly come to the conclusion that everyone is a little wrong.