The third

In the last reply to my original question (first reply is here), I remember wondering if the general "of course" response to my question was due to our generation, or to our colleges, or maybe just due to the general public growing disaffected with authority. Well, I don't know if this one answers my question but:
I was surprised this week when I got an email from someone who I know who was born in the 50s. And this is her take on it.

Has media's influence on your view of politics changed it for the better?
In several ways, media's influence has changed my view of politics for the better. 

I feel there is always someone out there who can put what I am thinking into words and language better than I can. Like you sometimes don't know what you think till you hear it come out of someone else's mouth. These "someones" are often the 'average Joe's' that the newcasters push a mic in front of. I feel this is a better influence towards politics because it stretches me to dig into what I really think.
Another way is in TV shows where actors seriously or humorously actually "say it out loud". Which may be something you thought but never put out there in words. I think of the show Last Man Standing before the election where Tim Allen plays the husband who is clearly Republican and his wife obviously Democratic. These shows make it feel ok that you can have different political views than that of your family and friends. This to me makes the media influence a better influence since if you have ever actually been in a political argument with someone it NEVER feels ok. 

I also feel that media influence clearly gives us as "we the people" a way to spread the word. I believe there are many instances in politics where it is important for "we the people" to actually have an idea of what is happening in the political venue. Cover ups, not telling the whole story and hiding our heads in the sand really don't make for a very good image of our historical "we the people" image. What good are the "people" if we don't keep an eye and ear to our "governors". I think that the media investigations into politics is a very good influence for us to keep track of the people we elected into politics.

For the worse? 

Without being too ying/yang, I believe that media has also changed my view of politics for the worse. I think of ALL of the negative ads yet again before yet another election and I find myself not only "not liking" the other candidates but also "not really liking" my choice of candidate either. Here, for me, those negative ads turn me off from all partisan aspects of politics. Many people I have spoken to as well are turned OFF by this negative media influence. It may not be the media writing the material but shouldn't they be accountable for what they broadcast.

Another very negative influence the media has for me regarding politics is when newcasters and papparazi splash us with personal issues of politicians that are not related to politics. This results in defaming said politicians by conditions in their personal lives that have nothing to do with their jobs. As the years go by the media seems to know and tell more about these people than "we as the people" really need to know. It is a fine line as to what we should know and what is splashed about.

Just this year I happen to notice another negative aspect of media's influence on my view of politics. An out of state friend mentioned a political billboard along his travels. The negative ad not referred to in my state was now here at home. I refer to how close we all have become. We not only converse with our co-workers, family and friends locally but also state and globally making what is happening far away known all over and quickly.

Another aspect of the negative view of political media coverage pertains to "news" put forth before facts and accountability are even considered. Is is just me that thinks NEWS is synonymous with TRUTH...it should be, did it used to be? Where ever the news comes from...paper, radio, tv, internet sources, I believe it SHOULD be synonymous with TRUTH and not GOSSIP. We rely on media to be the voice for the rest of the people other than ourselves, therefore I believe truthful it should be.
Can you recall a time when your view of politics hasn't been defined by what's on television or are there other strong influences on your view of politics? What are they? Note: Media defined as TV shows, magazines, new-paper, radio and TV (Assuming internet sources as well?) 

I don't recall, of course that doesn't mean it wasn't there, the negative display of politics thru the media when I was growing up. I remember the news was the NEWS and you respectfully paid attention to the professional individual on TV. From the news announcer to the politician I believed it all to be factual. Was this a youthful obscure memory or is indeed the media these days taking us on a roller coaster ride?

Besides tv, the internet has brought to my home many aspects of politics. Articles coming from any and everywhere are at my fingertips. It is no longer "if you see it...it is so" however and the negative side of this is that often by the time I have read the article I have already formed some sort of opinion and I assure you that due to my source I am not confident it is entirely based on the truth. 

In summary, I find that media's influence on my political views are some good and much not so good. I feel the media has one of the most valued jobs to do in our global society today. I believe that if we are informed by facts and followed-up articles with accountable reporting and researched topics we can be a connected community. As time goes on overall I feel their influence on us has run amuck due to their often unnecessary, slanderous and haphazardous ways and styles of reporting. I would challenge media to report and advertize as I remember as a child....NEWS = TRUTH. 

Thank you Moss for this discussion question.

Reply 2:

Here's the original Post.

And the first reply.


And now, the second reply is by my very good friend Anna, who has survived half a decade of being my friend:

Dear Moss, 

Here is my opinion on this matter, 

Over the course of my life, until very recently, I have not really done too much with politics. Once I got to be in high school and through college my response to politics has changed more. I have become more involved. After taking an introduction to sociology class and studied how media is everywhere and that it influences almost every way we think I do think media has changed how I view politics. I know for the most recent election there was a radio commercial that skewed how I was going to vote for president because it dealt with an issue I am currently involved, college. When campaign teams turn to issues like that I do not know how I could not fall for campaigning of that nature. As I sit here writing this response I cannot think of a time when media changed my idea of politics for the worse. I think how nowadays with all the campaigning that people do is a bit ridiculous and at times makes me want to not vote but I do not think the media advertising them has affected my view of politics. For the most part I think the media has done a very good job of conforming to my view of politics. While I was growing up I saw myself as a liberal but now that I am in college and trying to make my own life I see myself more conservative. For our society today I think a lot of what is presented in the media for political view does have a lot to do with liberal or conservative views. Some examples that I have seen presented in media are television shows, radio ads, stories in newspaper, and some magazines. Most of these sources of media are things I found interesting or examples of how other people with similar political views were expressing themselves.

Thanks Anna!

I'm starting to see a trend here: For one, only college students have replied. Right now, admittedly, that's two out of two. But I am seeing that we have noticed how much media changes our opinions of politics. Now, that could just be the classes we're taking. But Anna goes to college in Wisconsin, whereas Cthulhu goes to college in North Dakota. So it's not one specific class or professor. It could also be the admittedly liberal views of most of the colleges that I've been in, but acknowledging media's influence isn't the realm of the liberal, exclusively.

Media's influence is a fairly obvious assumption to make these days, which I say says something rather important about the skewing of details in the news.

One of the questions I have is: Has this always been around? Or is it a fairly recent development going hand-in-hand with the proliferation of media?

First Reply

Thank you to Cthulhu (name changed by request), who was among the first to toss me an answer to my question. Earlier this month, Cthulhu actually did accidentally write a research paper. Funny story.


At any rate, here was the original Plea For Help post.


And here's what Cthulhu has to say about it.

Hi Moss, 

"...but should you accidentally write a research paper, I won't judge." had better not be a jab at me! ;) As for your questions: there aren't many sources for political information that I'm aware of that have not gone through one of the various media you mentioned above. My view on politics in general have been shaped by what I've read, seen, and researched. If we are talking about a single issue, there is the potential to find information about it if one looks hard enough (interest groups and journals come to mind), but usually the most accessible source is one of the media you listed above. I cannot recall a time in my life where my views on politics have not been at least somewhat influenced by the media. I do try to at least research what I hear and verify facts, but when not all the facts are revealed through these sources, it makes it very difficult. Again, this is my view on politics itself, not the issues being raised for vote. 

If you mean my political views, I would argue that my political leanings are NOT shaped much by the media (different than my view on politics), though there is definitely some influence. As mentioned before, I look for facts when choosing what side of an issue I'm on. It takes time and a BUNCH of Google-ing to find unbiased sources (usually I compare and contrast what I see on the various candidates/issues websites/distributed literature and then look for outside studies, depending on the issue). This is difficult and requires a lot of effort to make sure I'm not reacting to the stories and appeal to emotions rather than the data and logic. Essentially, it's a bunch of (sometimes really fun) critical thinking. I firmly believe that when given this freedom to choose our leaders and our rules, it is our responsibility to inform ourselves, not to just rely on others informing us. It's a little like bedtimes as an adult: I'm completely free to stay up as late as I wish, but my choices have consequences that I need to understand and acknowledge. 

This part has changed since college. After doing some honors coursework, I've learned that I cannot take information presented at face value (we cite things in papers for more than just avoiding plagiarism!!); I must do my research and reach my own conclusions. Before college, my views were shaped by largely what I heard on the news and read in the papers. My views themselves haven't changed much, but I am definitely more informed (and more confident in the information I have) now than I was four years ago. 

Sorry for the rambling; I didn't edit. HA! No accidental research paper for you! (please read that last sentence in the Soup Nazi voice, if you'd be so kind) 

Hope this helps! 

Cthulhu

Thanks, Cthulhu, that helped a lot!

Jaded

This was written for a class November 15th 2012:

"I wrote a small piece during class October 15th: 'Let me posit a theorem: None of this fucking matters.

Everyone in politics, media, public, it's all just grand gestures and petty thievery on a stage.

Real life continues on as normal; the winter comes sooner every year, the weather changes, people die and live and farm and breathe. And it doesn't matter who wins because nothing really changes. I hear people say that “in the old days...” what? The nature of people remains the same. There is always a minimum of voices for a majority of votes and very little individuality.

Say Candidate A and Candidate B are running for office. Say Candidate A wins. Guaranteed, there will be a war (well, a conflict. War isn't politically correct). There will be a scandal (potentially life-changing for someone). There will be at least three protests per term about an issue that everyone will think will change the world in some deep, ineffable nature. Change is set in stone.

Now, Candidate A won't be able to do anything, because the new rising feeling in the nation will be the politics of Candidate B's party, and even a portion of Candidate A's party will be stricken by an uneasy feeling that perhaps...just perhaps...all of their posturing and strutting about change and bettering oneself, all of the acting onstage about traditions and in morality plays is just that: Acting.

Off-stage, our candidates behave just like people. They make mistakes, they lie, and - possibly the most unforgivable sin in America - they are wrong.

And nothing will change.'

This was before the election; and I find that nothing has really changed. I came into college angry, ready to fight the evils of the world and raise up justice to its previous place on top of the world...only to find that it's an impossible task to raise up thin air. You can't fight yourself.

I've been taking too many classes designed to make me angry, designed to make me stand up and say “This isn't right and here's what I'm going to do about it”. But here's the thing. No one person changes anything. People are agents of change; that is to say, change will happen no matter what one single person does. Because the human race is, while fairly static in some respects, remarkably fluid in others. The existence of change is something that is guaranteed; something that is, in fact, never going to change. King Arthur's knights existed nowhere but in the imagination of a lonely child. Don Quixote is a better comparison for the human race – endlessly tilting at windmills.

The difficulty lies in the fact that all media, at heart, is a story, and all stories try to explain something. It doesn't have to be a story that's true. What matters now is our pleasant fiction that a story that meets all of the pieces of evidence is true. What matters now is how badly we want to believe certain things. There are no monsters under the bed. You will walk home safely (and if you don't, you're obviously doing it wrong). No one really dies (And it's almost certainly someone's fault if they do). All of our parents are understanding and innately born with the gift to lead (and if they aren't, they're doing it wrong). At some point in your life, you too will transform into this rare creature, this adult, and you too will have the authority to solve the world's problems. And if you don't, well. You're obviously doing it wrong. With this much privilege, (we are the golden children of the world, after all), this much wealth and opportunity – if you don't take advantage of it, there is obviously something wrong with you. You're a deviant, a radical, worse, you are lazy.

The media gives us certain images, certain archetypes of people: the hero, the warrior, the bright protector, against the sneaky, the conniving, the small and the dark. We aren't expected to choose favorites, like in a football game; why should we have to, when it's already done for us?Yes, I am cynical. I am jaded, I am angry, and I am perversely proud of it. And I'll cheer for anyone who I know isn't trying to manipulate me. Which isn't a long list at all anymore."

Stop Killing Our Future

I was talking to a friend about Ron Paul, because he(the friend) is now a delegate for 2000 people (be afraid. be very afraid).

He said an interesting thing in passing, and he probably had no idea that I'd seize upon that stray comment, so don't blame him for this rant. 

Ok. So he and his friend were talking to the senator being elected (Sorum.) and mentioned that he was pretty cool – a stand up guy – but also mentioned that he (Sorum) didn’t really pay all that much attention to a “couple of kids” until he realized that they were in charge of 2000 votes. That is - until he figured out they had actual power and influence upon his position.


And okay. I get the popular preconception of the teenage years being stupid and hormonal and not political, but come on. I’m nineteen. I’m in TPS (Ten Percent Society), FUND (Freethinkers of UND), Honors, VP of CrWC (Creative Writing Club) , SPILL (Supporting Peers in Laidback Listening), volunteering to help with an engineering outreach program next week, and I’m working with the Nonprofit Group on campus. I play D&D and read Howard Zinn and Genome for fun. I’ve been quoted in our newspaper twice – once on CrWC, once on the Interfaith Fair. I wrote a letter to the editor when I was twelve, asking for a horoscope designed for kids. I know self defense, I write - a lot, and I have a job offer from the multicultural center here. I’m undecided, yeah, but I know damn near every building on this campus, which lunch room’s the best for food (Terrace), seating (squires), quick (MarketPlace), and always open (Wilkerson). I’m a voter. I’m eligible to join the military. I critique my friends’ papers and stories, and I’m almost always available to give advice. I pay taxes. I am, for all intents and purposes, an adult, and so are most of my friends. You want to know the best thing about coming to college? It was the fact that, for once, my professors actually wanted to hear me talk. They wanted to hear me think.


College is the first place where I have realized that some of the things I’m saying are something new and might be right. College is the first place where I have realized that some of the things I’m doing are right.

Experience shouldn’t count for so damn much unless you constantly use that experience. I’m probably not going to argue with Hawking about Physics, or King about writing horror. But I know that I know more about certain ideas than some of my older colleagues, and I will not back down from them just because they have been alive longer than I have. 


Once upon a time, length of life used to mean that you were more evolved – better at survival, and not getting killed. But that was before medical advances and technology and better hygiene. In 21st century America, being older than someone else means that either your genes haven’t yet missed something important while self-replicating, or your doctor is good.

This is a serious problem in America, where kids are killing themselves because it’s the only way to get people to listen. When did teen suicide become the new way of expressing yourself? It took two years and nine teen suicides for Bachmann’s home district to lift the “No Homo Promo” Policy. Nine. 

We are killing our future.

Kids are smarter than you think, but they believe adults. What you tell them impacts their beliefs, their choices, their future. And when you tell them that the only way for them to get your attention is by killing themselves, they will listen to you very well.


I don’t have a solid solution. I hope someone comes up with one soon. But I think it’s pretty clear that we need one soon. The issue isn’t so small as LGBT bullying, or the religious diehards at my school who think it's funny to write that the Freethinker group here is going to hell. And yeah, that ticks me off. But these are symptoms of a larger problem.


The issue is the fact that no one is listening to the kids. “A penny for my thoughts, oh no, I'll sell 'em for a dollar/They're worth so much more after I'm a goner/And maybe then you'll hear the words I been singin'/Funny when you're dead how people start listenin'” goes the song – and it’s true. It has become a case of too little, too late – especially for the nine casualties of the “No Homo Promo” policy.


We need to stop using children as our weapons in a war of miscommunications and bad policy.


You need to respect kids.


Because we're more powerful than you think. And once we realize that, we won't be the future.

We'll be the present.

Minor Disagreement

"And I'm sorry, but I don't want to have this argument anymore. I might feel..." Searching for the words to say how I feel, what I feel. Right now the only thing I can think of, honestly, is tense and uncomfortable. Why do you have to talk about this now? Why did you have to spoil this now? I can't eat - I look down at my half-eaten pepperoni pizza slice on my plate, next to it the grapes. It had made me so happy when I'd realized that the dining center had had them.
I can't eat.
"badly for the fact that you had to wake up, but we have rules in our room now." I'm still fumbling for words. Words - spoken words - are never your problem. And when I'm talking in front of three people, one of whom are angry, two of whom are, I know, judging, weighing, measuring in that way that our gender has...the words stick in my throat along with the partially digested grape.
You say something to the judge, say it again, there's a question. I know these things but they're already fading in my head.
At this moment I can think only of escape. It's always been my habit to run from these things, these conflicts that make up our lives. But I'm serving no good here but to repeat myself.
"See, we have these commandments in our room. And we've been asking people to stop leaving garbage in our room for a while now, because we have to clean it up..."
"But there were *5* other people in that room, and *I* had to wake up..."
"And I don't want to argue about it anymore. I'm not going to apologize for it."
Awkward tense silence to match the tenseness in my stomach. I'm not done with my plate but I'm done with my food.
I get up, walk to the dish area, put my dishes down. I can't even pause long enough to put them on the conveyor belt, and then I'm walking - not running- walking briskly down the stairs, through the tunnels.
In the elevator I can put a hand to my stomach, a fist to mirror the fist in my gut and my head and knotted around my feelings. It's hard to disagree with a friend - I have gone from having none to having many in what feels like a very short time, and I'm still terrified of losing the ones I have.
I will mourn this, angst over this, and finally write it down, trying to work out the tenseness in my stomach.
You won't remember this.

So. Uhm. Yeah.

Right, so I know I said I was going to do a few posts of real political import.
But I'm a college student. I can do politics for only a few hours at a stretch, and I had an intense debate (series of intense debates) about Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game earlier today. And I have a Religions quiz for tomorrow that I should be studying for anyhow.

So I'm not.

This is what's new with me in college.
Hrm.
I'm taking a Creative Writing Class...and we have fiction workshops tomorrow...on my story, so I'm properly worried now. Also, there's the Inquiry to Religions quiz, which I've only half-assedly studied for. And then there's ISP.
And then I need to find the Housing offices because I did something stupid when recontracting for next year that I'm not talking about anymore.

But after that I get to talk to my mommy on facebook, which is infinitely yay.

So, good hand, bad hand.

Also, we just had a curling bonspiel and my team won! Go my team!

Hm. I also kind of have a stalker. Ish. It seems like a strong word, but he's totally a closet stalker. Like, he reads *all* of my wall posts. Who does that? Well, me, but I don't talk to people about this two days later. It's...creepy, honestly.

And I've told him I am *not* seeking a relationship, really. And he's like, yeah, okay, I'm not either, but then he texts me or FB chats me and it's making me uncomfortable. Not, like, OMG call the cops if you see this man uncomfortable... but I'm not on the best of terms with most of humanity anyway, especially the male side.

So. Stalker, bonspiel, mommy, recontracting, ISP, quiz, workshop (shudder)...
What else?
Oh yes.

My roommate has taken up snoring. I've taken up smothering myself with a pillow and going to sleep with Black Sabbath on my MP3. I haven't done this in a while, so maybe that's why I woke up at 3am, 5:30 am, 7 am, and 8:30 am...and finally at nine when my alarm rang this morning. So that's exciting.



So I drew that two days ago.
I also have an entertaining story about a pair of swim trunks, which I'll tell you as soon as I doodle out the pictures. Or not.

Nanowrimo!

The smell of ink.
The feel of paper.
The smell of burning circuits as your brain fries itself due to looking at a computer screen on way too much caffeine for way too long.

Yes, children, nanowrimo is coming up.
And by nanowrimo, I mean the awesomest thing to come out of november ever including Marie Antoinette, Matthew MacConaughey, and Madame Curie combined.

50,000 words in 30 days, man.
Y'should do it.

Starting on November 1st, I will go insane. And very likely disappear from the Internet...except for this bit of Internet.

That's really all I had to say.

Except...
Not half an hour ago, someone came by my room and gave me a cookie. Chocolate Chip. And milk.
For no reason other than the fact that she really wanted to bake something.
I love college.


The cookie tasted delicious, by the way. So did the milk.

Moldy Bread

Just so you know. This is NOT an autobiographical comic. However, I WAS getting some bread out of the fridge today for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And I'm used to Krista's Kitchen bread, which is made without preservatives. And I've had this bread in my fridge since the beginning of school two months ago, so I'm wondering..."Just what IS the expiration date on this?"
(I never did get around to finding out.)
But after I wonder that, I wonder, "What WOULD I do if this bread was a little moldy?"
And at this point, I REALLY want a sandwich.
The bread wasn't moldy, by the way. But...if the bread had been moldy...I have a feeling I would have cut out the mold at least...but I would have eaten the bread.
If my parents read this, I'm sorry. I apparently learned nothing about nutrition. But at least I take my PB&Js really seriously.

Receipts and other insanity

I'm in college now. A month or something. Yay me.
I didn't post about it because I forgot I had a blog in the insanity that was happening at the time...
Although the UND Hall Orientation Team rocks. We drove in, worried about how we were going to get all this stuff into my room...
And, swear to whatever god you wish, twelve H.O.T. members descended upon us.
So I like them now.
My classes are good.
Technically I only have two, but one of them is four-in-one, which is a good deal.
I should technically be doing my homework in that right now, but...
Homework vs. playing on the Internet.
Guess who wins.

We went to the bookstore to get my books. Got one I really didn't need, but didn't notice until much later.
Parents went home.
I lost the receipt.

*THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT*
*DON'T LOSE THE RECEIPT*
*KEEP THE RECEIPTS. ALL OF THEM. EVEN THE ONE YOU GOT WHEN YOU WERE DRUNK AND BOUGHT A GUMBY DOLL WITH THE SPARE CHANGE YOU FOUND UNDER YOUR ROOMMATE'S BED.*
*THANK YOU FOR LISTENING*

So I couldn't return the book. Which is called Careers in Criminal Justice and Related Fields, by the way. For those of you who are interested.
Also, these books were rented. This means that at the end of the year you must return them or you have to pay the full amount.
These books normally cost about 200 - 300 dollars.
Renting? Costs about 25.
Get my concern?
So I fired off an email to the bookstore people, asking if there was any way they could help, blah blah blah, feel like a moron, blah blah blah, please reply, thank you, bye.
Never returned the email.
Ever.
This was last month.
I didn't even get a form letter that said,

Yes, you ARE a moron. Pay the full price.
Sincerely, us.

So yesterday I sent off another one.
A little less apologetic, because I was slightly ticked at them for not reading their mail and really ticked at myself for losing the receipt. Gave them ALL the contact information that I've ever had.
Today I found the receipt.
It was in the middle drawer of my desk. Next to the broken scissors I need to replace, the spare batteries, the headphones, the sewing kit, and the calculator.
Of course I would never look there. *rolls eyes*
So yay!
Also

Dear UND Bookstore:
I'm sorry.
But you should check your mail more often.
Sincerely,
Me

Now I'm gonna go and return my book. And get money.
And stuff.

Books you should read...
Name of the Wind.
by Patrick Rothfuss.
He has a blog. (http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/)
It's awesome.
Read it.