Since the first television was invented, the media has played a significant role in shaping public opinion. We live in a society that depends on information and communication to keep moving in the right direction and do our daily activities. And with the advent of technology and social media, the media now plays a more integral role in shaping the public’s thoughts than ever before. One of the reasons that we so willingly accept the media is because it has become such a part of our daily lives. News outlets have access to billions of people, making it easy to access billions of people and get their messages out to the masses.
According to our textbook, Americans spend an average of thirteen hours a week on the Internet. TV also plays an important role in how people view politics and government. MTV started covering presidential campaigns as early as 1992 with campaigns to get young people out to vote including “Choose or Lose” and “Rock The Vote.”
In the most recent election, the media played a tremendous role in influencing voters. Many people even referred to the election as a “Social Media Election,” with the endless amount of campaigning done on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. According to an article written by Katy Bachman in AdWeek, nearly a third of registered voters (30 percent) had been encouraged on social networks by their friends or family members to vote one way or another. Among registered voters, 22 percent let others know for whom they planned to vote on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter; and 20 percent of people have encouraged others to vote for their candidate using social media platforms. Some even think that social media helped President Obama get reelected. A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that 79% of liberals use social sites, compared to only 63% of conservatives.
Though I do think that the media helps get important information out to the public, the media can also do harm. In the past news reports were highly limited to presenting the different facts and information surrounding a specific event. It was considered to be irresponsible for reports and news anchors to incorporate their own thoughts and ideas regarding a certain situation.
However, nowadays there are more and more anchors and news presenters already give in their own opinions and interjections, which can also strongly influence how one perceives a specific news item. Many news sources also lean either left or right, so someone’s perception of an event or candidate can be biased or skewed a certain way, depending on what news station they are watching. For example, someone watching FOX News could get a more Republican slant on their news while those watching MSBNC will get a more Democratic opinion.
However, mass media can also have a positive effect on people. It can bring feelings of pride and patriotism, especially during national catastrophes such as the recent Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy. Regardless, the media ultimately has a very large impact on how people get the message about a specific news item.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
The NRA Lays Out Groundwork Against New Gun Laws
A barrage of calls to change gun laws has emerged after last week's horrific tragedy in Connecticut, and the National Rifle Association has kept quiet. However, no one expects the NRA to keep its silence once President Obama or members of Congress take any action to change the laws. For years, the well-known gun rights advocate and lobbying group has laid the ground work to fend off any move to change the national gun policy, spending millions of dollars to destroy laws that would make it tougher to purchase or wield guns.
Calling on celebrities such as Chuck Norris and the late Charlton Heston as spokesmen, the National Rifle Association is considered to be "royalty" in Washington, and is known to easily be able to bring together its 4 million members. "The whole fire arms community is very powerful, because gun owners see their relationship to this democracy through the eyes of the gun issue," said Richard Feldman, a former NRA lobbyist and president of a gun rights group called the Independent Firearm Owners Association.
This year, the NRA spent approximately $17 million on federal elections. According to statistics, it's a pretty large amount when compared to the overall size of the industry. Based on estimates from Wedbush Securities analyst Rommel Dionisio, annual gun sales in the U.S. total about $3.5 billion.
Compared to that, Goldman Sachs corporate political action committee and employees spent a total of $7.5 million on candidates running in the recent November election. The investment bank raked in about $29 billion last year. "But Goldman Sachs doesn't have 4 million members who are very passionate, vocal and well-distributed from coast to coast," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director for the Center for Responsive Politics, a group that tracks political spending of various groups and organizations. "Certainly money is part of that, but the NRA is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, because they can draw on such a huge base."
The NRA didn't do so well in the latest election as only a handful of the candidates it supported won, according to the Center. However, experts say the NRA is in strong shape to defend against any move to limit assault rifles like the one used in last week's school shooting. The NRA has showed off its powers well in the past. It successfully managed to push through new laws lightening gun bans in national parks and Amtrak trains in 2009, a year when Democrats pledging stronger gun control laws controlled both Congress and the White House. Overall, so far this year, the NRA and other groups that lobby Congress and the White House on gun rights have spent almost to $4 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Personally, I think there should be stricter gun laws so incidents can hopefully be reduced in the long run. While I don't support their views, I do admire the effort and teamwork the NRA puts together to defend their views. It is this persistence that more companies and organizations should have when it comes to doing anything they can in order to support and defend their opinions and views. Overall, based on last week's tragic events, I feel that something needs to be done in order to curb violence and the potential for future incidents like the one in Connecticut.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Second Chapter 9 Post
A unique feature of the executive bureaucracy is its division into areas of specialization. Agencies usually fall into one of the four general types:
- Government Corporations
- Independent Executive Agencies
- Cabinet Departments
- Independent Regulatory Commissions
Government Corporations are businesses created by Congress to perform functions that could be provided by a private business. Developed in the early 1930’s, government corporations are the newest aspect of the bureaucracy. They are often created when the financial incentives for a private industry to provide services are not high. For Example, The Tennessee Valley Authority provides electricity to millions of Americans in the Appalachian region at reduced rates.
Independent Executive Agencies are governmental groups that resemble a cabinet department, but have narrower areas of responsibility. These agencies usually perform services rather than regulatory functions. The heads of these agencies for the most part are appointed by the President. Independent executive agencies exist apart from executive departments for a variety of reasons. Some examples of independent executive agencies include NASA and the EPA. The EPA could have been created within the Department of the Interior, but instead was created as an independent agency apart from the departments in order to administer programs aimed solely at controlling pollution and protecting the nation’s environment.
The fifteen major Cabinet departments are basically administrative units that have the responsibility of conducting wide reaching areas of government operations. About 60% of the federal workforce works within the Cabinet departments. Departments within the executive branch are headed by Cabinet members called secretaries. They are tasked with establishing their department’s general policy and overseeing the operations of department.
Each secretary has a deputy who helps by taking part of the administrative responsibility off the secretary’s hands. Several assistant secretaries lead major programs within the department as well. In addition, each secretary has a number of assistants who help with a variety of jobs within the department, such as budgeting, planning, and public relations. Most departments are subdivided into divisions, bureaus, or sections. It is at this level that the meat of the work of each agency is accomplished. Most of the time, departments are subdivided along functional lines, but the basis for division is usually by geography, work needed to be done, or clientele.
Independent Regulatory Commissions are agencies created by Congress to exist outside the major departments in order to regulate a specific economic activity or interest. Congress sought to create commissions that could develop expertise and provide continuity of policy with regards to economic issues because neither Congress nor the courts have the time or specific qualifications necessary to do so.
Overall, the executive bureaucracy is able to function pretty well thanks to being divided into areas of specialization. Without these different types of specialization, things within the bureaucracy would be very unorganized and nothing would ever get accomplished.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Made in the U.S.A?
This past week, Apple announced that it will move some of its production back to the United States. Apple is hoping that their move will encourage other companies to follow suit, the manufacturing industry said, even if their move is mostly a symbolic step. "Anything that Apple does, from design to manufacturing, is hugely influential," said Chris Anderson, a former editor of Wired magazine and now CEO of San Diego-based 3D Robotics. "Other companies could look at this and say, "If Apple can do it, so can I.' "
Apple CEO Tim Cook said in recent interviews confirmed by a variety of sources that his company, which currently does most of its production in China, would invest approximately $100 million to bring some of its Mac manufacturing back to the U.S. starting next year. What I realized though is that Apple's move isn't surprising. According to recent studies, Apple's move follows a continuing pattern of American companies bringing manufacturing back to the country due to rising labor, supply and production costs in China. "China isn't cheap anymore. And you also worry about the political risks and the environmental cost of doing business there," said Anderson, whose firm creates consumer drone technology. Anderson actually moved his company's production out of China two years ago, setting up manufacturing facilities in San Diego and Tijuana. In the same interview, Anderson said that making his products closer to his customers has actually turned out to be cheaper. Instead of manufacturing in bulk as he did in China, he ramps up production as orders come in. He also saves on shipping and other distribution costs.
Mitch Free, founder and CEO of an Atlanta-based website MFG.com, which is an online directory that helps companies find American manufacturers, agreed that making goods in the U.S. offers some distinct advantages. "Your production time is shorter and you carry less inventory," said Free. "By being closer to headquarters, you can speed up design and innovation and protect your intellectual property," he said. In addition, Free considers that it can also breed goodwill and positive PR. "Supporting Made in America makes you a good corporate citizen," Free said. "Apple is such an innovator and you hope that other companies will follow its lead."
However, Apple's move may not generate many more new factory jobs, though, since technology manufacturing today is so automated. "It's not like you need workers sitting on workbenches to assemble computers," Free said. In addition, according to Free, since so much of the country's manufacturing base has eroded over the years, finding American workers with the skills to immediately start on the factory floor can be a challenge. According to research conducted, the easiest way for Apple to jumpstart production in the United States would be to make a contract with its existing Chinese manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group and build another facility to assemble Macs. This approach would be similar to what Japanese automakers have done in the past when they've come to the U.S., bringing in Japanese management and high-skilled Japanese workers to train American workers.
Personally, I think this move by Apple is a fantastic one. Sure, it may not make a major difference overall, but the symbolic meaning behind it speaks volumes. In order to help our country get back on track, more companies need to follow in Apple's footsteps and bring jobs back to the country. If more companies take this action, we would be able to provide a few more jobs here and there to the millions of unemployed people throughout our country. Every little thing helps, and by doing this, companies can be making a huge difference.
Article
Chapter 9 Post
Bureaucracies have helped shape our government since the days of the Constitution. The federal bureaucracy is the thousands of federal government agencies and institutions that implement and administer federal laws and programs. Bureaucracies were originally created in order to have rule among agencies. The term “bureaucracy” is one that we use almost every day, because we are faced with it so often. The aim of the bureaucrat is to apply uniform rules to uniform cases, to work by a recognized code.
There are many types of bureaucracies. Bureaucracies exist for virtually anything, including the US Postal Service, The Environmental Protection Agency and the DMV. Though there have been and still are plenty of ineffective bureaucracies, there have also been some very effective ones. Among the most successful bureaucracies include The Manhattan Project and the urban planners of postwar Germany and the Victorian public health commissions as well as the public works.
The benefits of bureaucracy make it attractive to many. Increased efficiency can lead to better medical care, better traffic control, a better economy, and all sorts of benefits which make life run smoothly. Bureaucrats can stand out against the partisan influence of connections and kinship and the corruptions of threat and bribery. Bureaucracy is a powerful bulwark against revolution, subversion and over-enthusiasm. It can protect scarce resources, allocate wealth more fairly and protect the weak from the strong. Bureaucratic regulations and rules help ensure that things are running smoothly. For example, it ensures that the FDA takes appropriate precautions to safeguard the health of Americans while it is approving a new medication.
The bureaucracy disapproves of all rule breaking, and tries to prevent all forms of corruption. It thrives on rule making and attempts to make provision for every kind of situation, tries to prevent individuals in the group from exercising too much personal power. However, there are also drawbacks to the bureaucracy which make it unfavorable to many. As the rules multiply, it becomes so difficult to do anything that one has to cheat or break the rules in order to survive. Indeed, since the rules often conflict with each other and whatever one does breaks some rule so it is a question of choosing between illegalities. Bureaucracies ultimately present a breeding ground for dysfunction. Loss of focus on goals can lead to competitiveness and distrust among departments, refusal to respond to changes and crises, wastefulness and lack of effective coordination. Another one of the major complaints of bureaucracies is the amount of paperwork associated with it. Just think about all the paperwork you have to fill out when you go to the DMV or filling out an application for a government student loan. Though there are some efficient bureaucracy examples, many governments and organizations still have a lot of work to do in order to achieve better results.
There are many types of bureaucracies. Bureaucracies exist for virtually anything, including the US Postal Service, The Environmental Protection Agency and the DMV. Though there have been and still are plenty of ineffective bureaucracies, there have also been some very effective ones. Among the most successful bureaucracies include The Manhattan Project and the urban planners of postwar Germany and the Victorian public health commissions as well as the public works.
The benefits of bureaucracy make it attractive to many. Increased efficiency can lead to better medical care, better traffic control, a better economy, and all sorts of benefits which make life run smoothly. Bureaucrats can stand out against the partisan influence of connections and kinship and the corruptions of threat and bribery. Bureaucracy is a powerful bulwark against revolution, subversion and over-enthusiasm. It can protect scarce resources, allocate wealth more fairly and protect the weak from the strong. Bureaucratic regulations and rules help ensure that things are running smoothly. For example, it ensures that the FDA takes appropriate precautions to safeguard the health of Americans while it is approving a new medication.
The bureaucracy disapproves of all rule breaking, and tries to prevent all forms of corruption. It thrives on rule making and attempts to make provision for every kind of situation, tries to prevent individuals in the group from exercising too much personal power. However, there are also drawbacks to the bureaucracy which make it unfavorable to many. As the rules multiply, it becomes so difficult to do anything that one has to cheat or break the rules in order to survive. Indeed, since the rules often conflict with each other and whatever one does breaks some rule so it is a question of choosing between illegalities. Bureaucracies ultimately present a breeding ground for dysfunction. Loss of focus on goals can lead to competitiveness and distrust among departments, refusal to respond to changes and crises, wastefulness and lack of effective coordination. Another one of the major complaints of bureaucracies is the amount of paperwork associated with it. Just think about all the paperwork you have to fill out when you go to the DMV or filling out an application for a government student loan. Though there are some efficient bureaucracy examples, many governments and organizations still have a lot of work to do in order to achieve better results.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Do Not Track?
The encouraging promise of a single button that prevents ads from tracking your online behavior is fading away quickly. More than nine months after the Obama administration, digital advertisers, browser makers and privacy advocates agreed in principle to create a "Do Not Track" mechanism for Web browsers, the tool is no closer to becoming a reality than it was back in February. In actuality, the entire plan is on life support as support slowly disappears.
According to various sources, the groups have been sitting around a table every Wednesday trying to reach a consensus on how a Do Not Track button would be implemented. After months of negotiating, the groups still can't even come to an agreement on what "tracking" means and includes. The advertising industry wants to hang on to the current business model of targeted advertising, which is where ads are generated to users based on their browsing activity. Lawmakers and policy advocates believe that people should easily be able to opt out of that. Sadly though, the one thing all sides agree on is that they are hopelessly deadlocked. Privacy advocates accuse the advertising industry of unfairly stalling the process over the last few months. "The advertisers have been extraordinarily obstructionist, raising the same issues over and over again, forcing new issues that were not on the agenda, adding new issues that have been closed, and launching personal attacks," said Jonathan Mayer, a privacy researcher from Stanford and Do Not Track technology developer who is heavily involved in the negotiations.
"We have made, maybe, inches of progress," he said. "This continues to be a stalemate." From the other point of view, the industry claims that privacy supporters are trying to impose overly restrictive changes that could seriously hinder the digital advertising business. "We have a real concern about using a sledgehammer for a flyswatter problem," said Marc Groman, executive director of the National Advertising Initiative, a group of online advertisers. "Do Not Track will have a disproportionate effect on our stakeholders."
The World Wide Web Consortium, more commonly known as the W3C, is moderating this seemingly endless debate. In an effort to blast through the impasse, the W3C hired Peter Swire this week, an Ohio State University law professor and a former privacy official for the Obama and Clinton administrations, as the working group's new chair. W3C's hope is that Swire can quickly build consensus. As of right now, most major browsers include a Do Not Track button, but without any agreement on how Do Not Track should work, the button is pointless.
An initial plan to have Do Not Track up and running by end of the year is looking to be very unlikely at this point. Part of the problem is the large number of stakeholders with competing interests in the situation. For instance, smaller advertisers argue that Do Not Track favors large players like Google and Yahoo, both of which has a vast content network of its own. Even with Do Not Track turned on, those giants will still be able to track users' behavior on their own sites, just not across the rest of the Web. Another problem that came up was when Microsoft opted to turn Do Not Track on by default in its latest version of Internet Explorer. That threw negotiations into more of a whirlwind.
Thankfully, the W3C is determined to break the deadlock, and they believe that they have a solution, even though it may somewhat be a negative idea. In the agenda for its latest face-to-face meeting, the group admitted that "many issues cannot be resolved in a way that does not raise any objections." So, the W3C plans to start pushing all parties forward on the path of least resistance.
"We always seek consensus, but when we can't, we get votes and make decisions," Jacobs said. "Saying 'I don't like this' is not going to be considered a strong objection. We're not going to be held hostage when a group can't make progress."
This situation is definitely one that shows the lack of compromise in today's society. The ordeal over the Do Not Track button can easily be related to Congress today in their inability to toss party lines aside and come together to come to a bipartisan agreement when it comes to some major bills and laws that need to be dealt with. I hope this situation can be ironed out soon because a lot of people are quickly losing hope, and if it isn't figured out soon, it really will run the risk of just disappearing out of people's minds.
Articles
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/technology/mediator-appointed-in-do-not-track-efforts.html?_r=0
http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/30/technology/do-not-track/index.html
According to various sources, the groups have been sitting around a table every Wednesday trying to reach a consensus on how a Do Not Track button would be implemented. After months of negotiating, the groups still can't even come to an agreement on what "tracking" means and includes. The advertising industry wants to hang on to the current business model of targeted advertising, which is where ads are generated to users based on their browsing activity. Lawmakers and policy advocates believe that people should easily be able to opt out of that. Sadly though, the one thing all sides agree on is that they are hopelessly deadlocked. Privacy advocates accuse the advertising industry of unfairly stalling the process over the last few months. "The advertisers have been extraordinarily obstructionist, raising the same issues over and over again, forcing new issues that were not on the agenda, adding new issues that have been closed, and launching personal attacks," said Jonathan Mayer, a privacy researcher from Stanford and Do Not Track technology developer who is heavily involved in the negotiations.
"We have made, maybe, inches of progress," he said. "This continues to be a stalemate." From the other point of view, the industry claims that privacy supporters are trying to impose overly restrictive changes that could seriously hinder the digital advertising business. "We have a real concern about using a sledgehammer for a flyswatter problem," said Marc Groman, executive director of the National Advertising Initiative, a group of online advertisers. "Do Not Track will have a disproportionate effect on our stakeholders."
The World Wide Web Consortium, more commonly known as the W3C, is moderating this seemingly endless debate. In an effort to blast through the impasse, the W3C hired Peter Swire this week, an Ohio State University law professor and a former privacy official for the Obama and Clinton administrations, as the working group's new chair. W3C's hope is that Swire can quickly build consensus. As of right now, most major browsers include a Do Not Track button, but without any agreement on how Do Not Track should work, the button is pointless.
An initial plan to have Do Not Track up and running by end of the year is looking to be very unlikely at this point. Part of the problem is the large number of stakeholders with competing interests in the situation. For instance, smaller advertisers argue that Do Not Track favors large players like Google and Yahoo, both of which has a vast content network of its own. Even with Do Not Track turned on, those giants will still be able to track users' behavior on their own sites, just not across the rest of the Web. Another problem that came up was when Microsoft opted to turn Do Not Track on by default in its latest version of Internet Explorer. That threw negotiations into more of a whirlwind.
Thankfully, the W3C is determined to break the deadlock, and they believe that they have a solution, even though it may somewhat be a negative idea. In the agenda for its latest face-to-face meeting, the group admitted that "many issues cannot be resolved in a way that does not raise any objections." So, the W3C plans to start pushing all parties forward on the path of least resistance.
"We always seek consensus, but when we can't, we get votes and make decisions," Jacobs said. "Saying 'I don't like this' is not going to be considered a strong objection. We're not going to be held hostage when a group can't make progress."
This situation is definitely one that shows the lack of compromise in today's society. The ordeal over the Do Not Track button can easily be related to Congress today in their inability to toss party lines aside and come together to come to a bipartisan agreement when it comes to some major bills and laws that need to be dealt with. I hope this situation can be ironed out soon because a lot of people are quickly losing hope, and if it isn't figured out soon, it really will run the risk of just disappearing out of people's minds.
Articles
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/technology/mediator-appointed-in-do-not-track-efforts.html?_r=0
http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/30/technology/do-not-track/index.html
3rd Chapter 7 Post
Many critics believe that Congress has become broken and has been taken over by partisanship and extremists. The increase in partisanship has ultimately led to greater inefficiency and lower approval ratings in Congress. Though the current divide is between Democrats and Republicans, there is also a divide that exists between those states (and even cities) with very large populations and the rest of the country. This results in a disproportionate amount of power that exists when a handful of states hold more power over the rest. Though this divide is not discussed often, it is one that certainly exists in our Congress.
When our country was founded, there were only small differences between the states, in terms of their overall population. In 1790, when the first census of Americans was taken, the top five most populous states were, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York and North Carolina. During the Constitutional Convention, the partisan divide that existed was between the federalists and the anti-federalists. The Federalists wanted greater power at the federal level, while the anti-Federalists championed a system of government where more power was shared with the states. The results of the compromise between these two opposing views resulted in the 10th amendment to the US constitution,the final amendment listed in the original Bill of Rights. While this system worked well when the differences in population were small, at the time of the drafting of the U.S. Constitution over time, migrations of the U.S. population have significantly changed where power resides in Congress. Currently, the five most populous states are California, Texas, New York, Florida and Illinois. Not surprisingly, these states hold big, metropolitan cities in them.
This disparity in population has led to a great disparity in the way that Congress distributes money to the states, and to which states have the biggest impact during presidential elections. Today, the representatives of the five most populous states control the legislative agenda, and because these five states vote primarily for the Democratic party. This has led to the creation of what some people believe to be an unfair advantage in the distribution of taxes and votes in the Electoral College.
Many argue that this system is unfair and unjust. Citizens of small states want their states to have an equal say in the legislative process and want their voices to be heard in Washington. Perhaps a solution may be to have equal representation in the House, however, to get this passed would take a lot of time and energy and would probably not please those living in the “bigger” states.
Living in Florida, which is included as one of the most populous states, it is difficult for me to really visualize what the other states are feeling about this. However, I can imagine that smaller states feel that they are at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to various topics. In theory, our government should be a government that serves all people of the United States, not just the people who live in the most populous states.
When our country was founded, there were only small differences between the states, in terms of their overall population. In 1790, when the first census of Americans was taken, the top five most populous states were, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York and North Carolina. During the Constitutional Convention, the partisan divide that existed was between the federalists and the anti-federalists. The Federalists wanted greater power at the federal level, while the anti-Federalists championed a system of government where more power was shared with the states. The results of the compromise between these two opposing views resulted in the 10th amendment to the US constitution,the final amendment listed in the original Bill of Rights. While this system worked well when the differences in population were small, at the time of the drafting of the U.S. Constitution over time, migrations of the U.S. population have significantly changed where power resides in Congress. Currently, the five most populous states are California, Texas, New York, Florida and Illinois. Not surprisingly, these states hold big, metropolitan cities in them.
This disparity in population has led to a great disparity in the way that Congress distributes money to the states, and to which states have the biggest impact during presidential elections. Today, the representatives of the five most populous states control the legislative agenda, and because these five states vote primarily for the Democratic party. This has led to the creation of what some people believe to be an unfair advantage in the distribution of taxes and votes in the Electoral College.
Many argue that this system is unfair and unjust. Citizens of small states want their states to have an equal say in the legislative process and want their voices to be heard in Washington. Perhaps a solution may be to have equal representation in the House, however, to get this passed would take a lot of time and energy and would probably not please those living in the “bigger” states.
Living in Florida, which is included as one of the most populous states, it is difficult for me to really visualize what the other states are feeling about this. However, I can imagine that smaller states feel that they are at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to various topics. In theory, our government should be a government that serves all people of the United States, not just the people who live in the most populous states.
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