Facebook and Self Efficacy

This campaign cycle is going to get ugly.  There is just no getting around that.  Personal attacks are already being launched from Barack Obama to Mitt Romney and vice versa.  This is not atypical of campaigns nowadays.  In fact, most campaigns, from state races to national presidential elections, feature negative, personal attack ads.  The latest round of volleys in this campaign cycle has to do with the issues of politicizing the death of Osama bin Laden.  This is a very sensitive issue and has become an important issue in the campaign.

Romney, and others including former and current Navy SEALS, have called the president's recent campaign ad touting his decision making regarding the killing of bin Laden. The ad suggests that Mitt Romney may not have made the same decision.  Many have called this highly inappropriate because the real heroes are the SEALS that carried out the operation.  In the minds of many, the president's decision is not what is important in this case.  Nonetheless, the president decided to use the ad and now he must deal with the political consequences.

This topic is very interesting to look at because it is a fairly big deal in the current political world.  However, I have not seen this topic pop up on my Facebook news feed at all.  This is very interesting to me, seeing as this story is one that is all over the news sites.  This is a good example of the situational political knowledge that we've been discussing in class.  The argument is that Facebook doesn't necessarily make people more engaged in politics, but it may increase their situational political efficacy.  Thus, Facebook and social media can increase people's knowledge about certain issues, if they so desire to inform themselves.  It is interesting to me that some issues of political importance consume Facebook news feeds, while others are hardly ever mentioned.  This phenomenon is a little strange for me, but it goes along with the argument regarding situational political efficacy.

In the future, there is a chance that Facebook, and other forms of social media, could help people become more involved in politics in general. However, for now it seems as though Facebook is only as good as the people that use it.  What trends, what's followed, what's important seems to be at the discretion of the people.  Framing and agenda setting by the mainstream media can't be seen on Facebook and maybe that is a good thing.

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A Look Back at Osama

Today marked the one year anniversary of Osama Bin Laden's death. One year ago Sunday there were tweets on Twitter about the death of Osama Bin laden.  That was followed by the official announcement made by Obama to the nation. The following papers throughout the United States entailed pictures and comments basically tearing Osama a new one. If this wasn't bias without any people who actually met Osama bin Laden I don't know what is. I am not saying I agree with Osama Bin Laden at all, but  I wouldn't hesitate to believe that the papers elsewhere in the world were not so offensive. I obviously agree that everything that man planned and  took part in was immoral and that he deserved what was coming to him, but its amazing how there are people out there in the world that saw these papers and thought they were shameful to what he did for what they believed in. It is even funny that while I was writing this, the auto correct for spelling brought up Obama for Osama. He has been totally dis recognized to the point where the spelling corrections change his name to our President.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/01/osama-bin-laden-death-newspapers_n_1467524.html?ref=media

Never gunna give you up, never gunna let you down...

SO, Im never going to give up on the idea that Facebook/Twitter/Blogs and the rest of new media are changing the way we become informed. So I googled (in the news section of the search engine) the word Facebook.... What comes up is a plethora of news articles that expresses how Facebook is making a difference in communication. I chose the very first article, resulting from my search, to share with you.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/technology/facebook-urges-members-to-add-organ-donor-status.html

Facebook is now thinking of adding an organ donor status to its pages. Why is this important you may ask? Well, the point of this someone odd feature to to try and urge other people to become organ donors. Since there are 161 million users on Facebook, that is a possibility of 161 million people being exposed to the idea of being an organ donor. The most interesting thing about this is that the people involved, Johns Hopkins Doctors etc, are actually calling this the Facebook Plan. As if Facebook is being part of some sort of policy.
If we are starting to add information about being an organ donor, and theoretically find organ donors through this social networking site, what other things will we start to explore for SNS use? Social Networking sites are just evolving at a very fast rate. I look forward to seeing how these sites continue to change the way we communicate with one another.

A Failed Experiment in the Promotion of Self-Efficacy

I recently had an unpleasant exchange on Facebook.

On an otherwise productive Sunday afternoon, I was perusing my facebook feed when I ran into the comment you can see in the screen shot. As someone who considers herself to be pretty rational (most of the time anyway. For evidence otherwise see: that time in class when we talked about dead bodies on the news), I immediately knew that any anger towards the facebook "friend" or craving for informational justice would not be satisfied by engaging her in a discussion. I had evidence of this after reading the Kushin and Yamamoto piece on Friday. Their results clearly stated that online expression, such as the types of dialogues that take place in various social media frameworks, were related to situational political involvement but not to political self-efficacy. They cited incivility as a reason online exchanges might often be unsatisfying.

I realize that the evidence I am bringing forth to support their argument is merely anecdotal and is not representative of any solid sample size.

However, my intention at the onset of this brief and discouraging encounter was not to bolster their findings, but to perhaps change the status quo. Could I encourage this "friend" to seek some information and maybe retract a controversial statement? As you can see, I didn't succeed, but one could argue that I could have taken a different approach. Perhaps I could have been a little nicer or a little more encouraging.

Are most political debates that take place on social media platforms doomed to incivility? Is this a problem that's unique to a generation? What would you have done differently in dealing with my facebook "friend"?

What the Facebook Dragged In

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/30/stephen-king-tax-me-for-f-s-sake.html

Courtesy of Mr. Wilderidge's facebook post.

     So Stephen King has jumped on the Warren Buffet train with a little more... frankly, balls. In his 3 page

"Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake!" King offers a critical blow to the super-rich, including himself, on taxation. With a few f-bombs... well, that's an understatement.

     Honestly, though, this is journalism at its finest. The Daily Beast published a citizen-submitted article written by a volunteer that they didn't have to pay. It is in no way objective, nor does it aim to be: King is certainly not held to the professional restraints of a journalist, but is, however, well-respected. He can say what he wants and neither be punished for kicking the system too hard, nor ignored for being an incompetent renegade. It aims to create change, either among the "1%" or give a rallying point for the middle class to force change. 

Ideal American journalism? Certainly not. A success? Absolutely.

Thanks but, No Thanks Poli Sci

“If media surveillance causes governments to fall and public officials to be ousted, democracy is well served” Doris A. Graber (2010)

I can understand what Graber must have meant when she wrote this line in her book, “Mass Media and American Politics”. She came to the conclusion that a major role that the media pay in a democracy is the people’s watchdog on the government. Her statement obligates the media to report to the people every and any events that in turn would mobilize the people to cause “…governments to fall and public officials to be ousted…” Graber also notes that the media must also “interpret the events’ meanings, [and] put them into context.”

What must we conclude then, when the media, not only fails to do so but, report false claims within their interpretation of event’s, which then leads a group of people to want “public officials to be ousted”, on such false premises?

 “As outrageous as those breaches of decency are, they are merely the latest extension of Obama’s polarizing presidency.”(1)

“President Obama's intensity remained static during that same period, but he remains more polarizing than Romney.”(2)

“Obama: The most polarizing president. Ever.” (3)

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!

(Excuse me for my abbreviations, but seriously why must so many Americans be exposed to such horrendous misleading information?)

The latest attacks on President Obama have made me sick, and would likely make Sean Theriault rip his hair out. 

Who is Sean Theriault? Well you may know him as the author of a little book titled “Party Polarization in Congress.” In his book Theriault covers four major variables which he finds to significantlyinfluence party polarization in Congress; these are as follows: redistricting, geographic sorting, the institutions and procedures of the House and Senate, and the influence of party activist.

Wait. Did Theriault miss something? Are these journalists on the cutting edge of research on party polarization? Or are there methods of determining that President Obama is the cause of polarization through a gallop poll severely flawed? (3)

We need a watchdog over our watchdog. Be it Jon Stewart or Sean Theriault, someone must report to the public all of the flaws the media make, for the sake of preventing Americans to be mal-informed by atrocities such as the one above. We need political science to be integrated into our mainstream media.

Thank you Brendon Nyhan and John Sides for your essay “How Political Science Can Help Journalism”

Though I fear your work may fall on the death ear’s of the media as most political science, such as Theriault’s work, has.

(1)    http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/04/30/president-obama-is-getting-desperate-and-it-shows/#ixzz1taBa21K1

(2)    http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865554601/Mitt-Romney-and-Barack-Obama-battle-for-voter-intensity-edge.html

(3)    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/obama-the-most-polarizing-president-ever/2012/01/29/gIQAmmkBbQ_blog.html

Slogans

Browsing through Buzzfeed  I found a list of the 11 best campaign slogans. The posting noted that, with the 2012 Presidential Campaign slowly approaching, President Obama's reelection campaign released their new slogan, "Forward." There are background whispers about the similarities to MSNBC's slogan "Lean Forward."

After reading through the list and examining President Obama's new slogan I question the purpose and the reasoning behind campaign slogans.  Ever aspect of a campaign seems to have a purpose, negative campaign ads inform us, even if they were intend to breed hate for the enemy, so what are slogans doing if we can't even understanding them.

Drawing from the field of marketing and advertising, slogans are used to typically advertise the purpose of your product or in this case the campaign, and to help you remember the candidate and what he stands for.  From this I understand what "Change" was all about.  So I ask are we moving "Forward" in 2012? And has enough change taken place for you to be looking "Forward" into the future?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/11-presidential-campaign-slogans-more-original-tha