Monthly Archives: November 2017

Social Media, Fake News, and Russia Meddling – Capstone Project

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Social Media, Fake News, and Russia Meddling – Capstone Project

Recently, it was discovered that Russia used social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to cause division among Americans and influence the 2016 presidential election. This was carried out through the use of Russian created computer bots that would create fake news pages that would then seek out individuals who would be susceptible to the content. Due to the lack of fact-checking and quality insurance on many of the social media sites, fake news has become an epidemic. Combine that with the fact that two-thirds of US adults now get their news from social media, thus leading to highly problematic results. The amount of fake news that plagues Facebook is incredibly alarming, with 470 accounts linked to Russia. Furthermore, it was estimated by Facebook that over 126 million people were served content from these Russian linked pages. Twitter found similar results, finding 2,752 accounts associated with the Internet Research Agency, which is the phony agency that was creating the fake news. Overall these accounts posted 131,000 tweets in a period from September to October in 2016. The main goal of this Russian effort was to instill division in America. This was done by creating fake news stories that were about some controversial issue and then have it reach individuals that would with either agree or disagree with its content. This can be highly dangerous because if someone already has an extreme stance on an issue they could see content that would just reinforce their beliefs. For this reason, it’s incredibly important for there to be more transparency on social media, and also fact checking on news posts.

Celebrities and Social Responsibility

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Living within a culture where celebrities are generally held as very important and influential figures, my capstone project will be diving into celebrities and social responsibility. I hope to present a couple different angles that evaluate the “Hollywood/Celebrity Bubble,” the expectation of a higher social responsibility from celebrities, and different ways that entertainers have used their influence as a platform to discuss sociopolitical issues. I plan to use a video remix to outline the different ways celebrities have used their influence to make political statements, ignored any potential influence they have on others and made poor choices or statements, and the controversy behind their connection to average American struggles. I will also use an infographic to display the statistics behind the amount of political comments made in music compared to other forms of entertainment, like the NFL, talk shows, etc. I am still working on creating a smaller focus for each media object but will work with lots of angles which will paint my thesis that celebrity influence is very important in our society and should be recognized as more than entertainment. Ultimately, I hope to create a discussion around whether celebrities should be held at a higher moral standard than the average American by using their influence for the better, or if they should remain entertainers in their Hollywood bubble.

The Recent Controversy in Sports

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2017 has been a strange year. Never before has the nation been so divided over the most American sport created. There has been large backlash over the action of a large portion of NFl players who have decided to take a knee during the playing of the national anthem. The backlash was amplified by a tweet by President Donald Trump that insinuated he believed that the players taking part in these demonstration should be let go from the NFL. After this tweet more players began to step forward and participate in demonstrations as a sign of unity and solidarity with their fellow players. This caused a major media spike in the coverage of this conflict. The majority of NFL team owners and coaches with multiple different political viewpoints and even players such as Seattle Seahawks Cornerback Richard Sherman have been asked to comment their side on the conflict. Even people outside of the NFL have been asked to state their side on the issue like NBA star LeBron James and San Antonio Spurs coach Greg Popovich. At its core this issue boils down to the following. There is a disagreement between the players taking these actions and the spectators watching the games about the meaning of the protests. The original protest were part of the Black Lives Matter movement and Quarterback Colin Kaepernick was the first to kneel before he was cut from the San Francisco 49er’s. The protests this originally began as another protest against the oppression of colored people but was received by a portion of the fans as an act of disrespecting the flag. Since the tweet the majority of protests have to do with the President’s call to fire players who take part. Is this an attack on freedom of speech or does the fact that the players are playing under a private company with its own set of core values surrender that right.

History of the Representation of Culture in Stand Up Comedy – Capstone

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My capstone project will be covering the history of cultural change through the lense of representation in comedy, primarily through stand up. I will be creating a remix video to create an accurate history of culture in stand up, and I will also be creating an infographic to visually present representation in comedy. Comedy has always been one of the greatest mediums to capture an authentic view of culture. Because of the wide array of comedians, comedic genres, and comedic crowds, you get a diverse view into the world of what people find funny. What people can find themselves laughing at a given moment, is at least a representation of one corner of the culture. However comedy has made several lengthy cultural leaps throughout the years, and this is a direct product of what the audience demands. The history of diversity, be it racial or gender oriented, takes a strict form in comedy. Similar to how in music an audience is the group of people who that musician was able to resonate with, comedians are able to build an audience through a relationship of similarities that is like no other. Also similar to music, comedy experienced a revolution with the main stream success of black culture in comedy, especially with the rise of Richard Pryor, who is still considered by some to be the best stand up comic ever. Comedy has experienced similar evolutions into diversity that have introduced massive new crowds of people because of the representation in the medium. The medium continues to evolve with the culture around it, experiencing booms in popularity with every new lapse of consciousness or enlightenment.

 

Electronic Waste – Environmental and health impacts

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The topic I have chosen for my capstone project is electronic waste, or e-waste. I plan to focus on increasing awareness of the hazards of e-waste and sharing a few ways that consumers can help reduce the impact of it on the environment. I will start by listing common types of devices that need to be recycled by special methods, and can’t be simply thrown away, such as computers, cell phones, and most devices with a battery. I want to share some common local recycling programs, and try to get an idea of where they take the e-waste to be processed. Even when devices are recycled through proper recycling centers, they can still end up in foreign countries where people work in camps to disassemble them for scrap metals and other valuable components before throwing the rest in a landfill. This brings large health risks for the workers, many of whom don’t realize how dangerous it is. My two media objects will be an infographic and a video remix. The infographic will show some statistics about e-waste, common hazardous chemicals, and a map of countries where many of these devices end up. The remix will highlight news stories about recycling programs and options available to consumers for properly recycling their old devices. I also want to show that there are other options to throwing something away, such as repairing it if it is broken, giving/selling it to someone else, or finding other uses for the device. All of those are good alternatives to tossing something in a landfill.

https://twitter.com/miketempdtc201/status/926143484175646720

https://twitter.com/miketempdtc201/status/926141972175208448

https://twitter.com/miketempdtc201/status/926138601150095360

https://twitter.com/miketempdtc201/status/926138553720979456

https://twitter.com/miketempdtc201/status/926138508523085824

Capstone blogpost

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At this point, I would like to create a Capstone project on the topic of endangered species in Washington state.  I will create a 3 page website to host a general introduction to the topic with a list of sources (links to Works Cited), an infographic, and a video remix.  I expect the infographic to define the difference between “endangered” and “threatened” species, to list the species that are in danger of becoming extinct, and the reasons why.  The video remix will be used to show images of the species and perhaps include what we can do to help.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has a great website where you can learn about endangered species in your state:  https://www.fws.gov/endangered.  In Washington state, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service currently (2015) lists 36 animals, birds, and fish as being endangered or threatened: 9 are endangered and the rest are threatened: https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp0/reports/species-listed-by-state-report?state=WA&status=listed.  Since 1978 there have been 80 species “delisted” or removed from the endangered species list worldwide, either because they went extinct, or because there was an error in the original data, or because they recovered: https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp0/reports/delisting-report.  The species report at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service website has information broken down into categories such as plants or animals and by region such as the Pacific Northwest/Pacific Islands so you can find what you are looking for more easily: https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp/species-reports.  The “Ask a Biologist” website hosted by ASU has some nice information about endangered species for children: https://askabiologist.asu.edu/what-endangered-species.

Plastic Surgery

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Plastic surgery in South Korea is a very common thing among men and women. It is actually very normal for a South Korean middle school student or high school student who is graduating to be gifted with double eyelid surgery to make the eyes look bigger. I actually have multiple Korean friends who were offered double eyelid surgery or actually got it as a gift for graduation. Studies say that among women in Korea, a total of 20 percent get some sort of plastic surgery and that is only among the women. If we compared it with the US, only around 5 percent of women get plastic surgery. In my Capstone project I wanted to compare the United States and South Korea differences in Plastic surgery, especially around what age do people tend to get more plastic surgery, it would be interesting and a little bit shocking. There are many cultural differences between the US and South Korea, which is why plastic surgery is seen as commonplace in Korea yet looked slightly down upon in America. There are even different types of popular plastic surgeries in both America and South Korea, for example double eyelid surgery and jaw reduction is very popular in South Korea, while in the United States breast implants and face lifts are very common. In South Korea there are also multiple plastic surgeries to help better a person’s life, for example like a rhinoplasty to help with breathing or a jaw reduction that releases tension in the jaw that could leave life lasting effects.

The Cultural and Economic effects of Virtual Reality

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For my capstone project, I plan on taking a look at the effects of VR becoming more mainstream. For instance, how much VR sales have impacted the economy, as well as the reasons people like it. I’m thinking of creating an infographic with statistics and imagery that shows VR’s effects and impact, as well as a remixed video. The infographic could have statistics about VR headset and software sales, percentages of people who enjoy VR or otherwise think their purchase was worth it, shown in graphs, imagery, etc. It would give someone who doesn’t know much about VR a good idea of where the technology might be headed, and what people think about it right now. For instance, VR was once considered nothing more than a dream, as many people promised fully functional VR in the past, but now people seem fairly satisfied with VR. I just need to get the numbers to back that up. As for the remixed video, I might try to find a documentary, interviews, reviews, etc. that pertain to VR, whether it’s about a particular headset, software, or just people talking about the future of VR. I would take the most important points I would be trying to get across and edit it together in an easy to watch video. I think it might be interesting to explore the social effects of VR as well as the economic ones as well. I’ve seen things like VR chat-rooms where people can interact with each other while donning their virtual avatar and think it’s a fairly neat thing to see.

Capstone Project – Social Media Advertising

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The subject matter of my capstone project is Social Media Marketing, primarily focusing on how it can help local businesses. I will do a remix as well as short remix. Social Media Marketing is a facet of digital marketing. the term references the way in which current platforms have monetized access to audiences for advertisers. Just as traditional advertising, Advertisers on social media create and implement both simple and complex campaigns to spread brand awareness and promote products or services. Establishing and dominating the digital sphere is a critical aspect of today’s business climate. Neglected or implemented improperly, it can allow users to dominate the conversations surrounding your brand, negatively affect sales, damage your reputation or image via earned media. Done properly, it will generate fans, facilitate conversations about your brand, drive traffic to your owned media and physical location, increase sales, and serve as a hub for your earned media. Social media marketing can be a huge difference maker for business owners who chose to adopt social media sooner rather than later. Auction prices for Social platforms remain incredibly low compared to their traditional counterparts. Not only is there a huge potential benefit in the price, perhaps the biggest upside of marketing on social media is the ability to create highly targeted audiences. Meaning we can create customer persona on a per product or per service basis and market those products and services to the specific people that we know buy those products. Social media marketing is a powerful tool that can both hurt and help today’s businesses.

Evelyn Smith Capstone: Wage Gap in the United States

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The subject I have decided to cover for the Capstone Project is the Wage Gap in the United States. This issue is addressed on social media through #EqualPay. According to research by the Washington Post, the median salary for women working full-time is 80% of men’s median salary. If you apply that to the calendar, that means that for 10 weeks a year, women are basically working for free.

This is an important social issue that effects millions of women across the United States, amongst various fields of work. For instance, a report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that woman working in health care administration makes 22% less than their male counterparts for performing the same job. The same report cited research by the Economic Policy Institute that found that black women earn 65.3% of the wages that white men earn performing the same job. For Hispanic women, this percentage is around 57.6% the amount that white men earn.

To inform the audience about the issue, I will employ the use of two media objects. The first media object I will create is an infographic. This will be used to showcase data about the wage gap, and how it effects women differently by race and industry. This data will be shown using images, graphs, and charts. The infographic will include the #EqualPay, to prompt user engagement through social media.

The video remix is my second media object. I plan to remix clips of interviews/news reels of different wage gap stories and experiences, into one compilation. The video will provide the testimonial evidence to support the numerical evidence seen in the infographic.

Sources: AJC Article and Washington Post

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