On the Media: Imagine That

In the "On the Media" podcast episode entitled "Imagine That," the hosts reflect on how the media got the idea of a Trump presidency so wrong. On of the most interesting points of the podcast was the fact that the President's real power lies in rhetoric. There's an intricate system of checks and balances in place to make sure the commander in chief can't get too powerful. Becasue of this, the hosts of "On the Media" said that Trump will mostly be running into dead ends to accomplish what he wants to accomplish and will be instead spending his time blaming the media and others for his shortcomings.

The media was so sure that the GOP nominee would be someone like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio. But because the dismissed the even idea of Trump being president, that allowed material for Trump to build on. Now that Trump is president, the media is trying to figure out what happened. While it's very possible that fake news may have contributed to the rise of Trump, if the media had treated Trump like any other presidential candidate and not reported on him every time he made a crazy comment or criticized someone on Twitter, Trump wouldn't have gotten the attention that allowed him to ride the wave to the presidency.

Now that Trump will be president, we have to start treating him differently. If the media continues to  give him attention for saying outlandish things, Trump will continue to be able to blame the media for his mishaps. If the media goes forward in 2017 and reports on Trump's specific policies instead of finding the sensational headlines for Trump, Trump will begin to lose the attention he thrives on. By media taking a back seat and doing less of what it does best - generating clicks- this Trump phenomenon will move on like a bad dream come 2020, or even sooner.

UPDATE on Facebook Campaign

So on Wednesday, Dec. 7, I experimented with yet another type of video. I did a Facebook Live video of my morning newscast. This video generated substantially more engagement than any other post during my campaign.

Looking at the statistics, I was first surprised to see so many unique viewers. While it's true that most people didn't watch the video for longer than 15 seconds, it was great to get so many viewers. According to Insights, this post reached 605 people so far, which is a far cry from the 82 followers I have on my Facebook page right now. This is clear to me that Facebook is promoting Live videos much more than regular videos. This will be something I try more of in the future because of how much engagement it received relative to everything else on my page. 

My Campaign: Spencer Ricks, Journalist

I learned a lot about how to promote and market myself while starting and managing my Facebook page: "Spencer Ricks, Journalist." I started it with the intent to showcase my work as a journalist and show a "behind-the-scenes" look at being a journalist. Ideally, I would have started it sooner so I have more of a track record on it. But none the less, I will continue to post on it in the future and maintain the page with content.

I've experimented posting links to my articles, videos, and pictures. But my posts definately got the most engagement when I posted relevant, dramatic, or "breaking news" content. The number one post on my page for engagement was one about a death on campus:

The second most engaged with post was a helpful piece for students about a carshare program on campus:

And finally, my third most popular post was a picture of myself filming a football game: 

Because a lot of my audience was my friends and family, pictures of myself were usually pretty popular. But the helpful articles for students and the dramatic, breaking news story was the ones that got the most engagement. Knowing this, I would have focused more on posting dramatic, eye-catching stories. Because these types of stories are somewhat rare for me to cover at Dixie State University, it could have come down to bland headlines for the rest of my articles. 

I was thinking my videos would get a lot of engagement. I posted five videos, three of which were very different in nature. I posted two Snapchat videos, two edited "Radio Dixie 913" news-shorts videos, and one time-lapse video of me editing my radio newscasts. However, even though these videos took the most amount of work to produce and post, they were some of the least viewed posts on my page. In the future, to increase engagement with videos on my page, I would have experimented with more variety with videos, including with length. I am also planning on testing out a Facebook Live video on my page soon.

I will definitely be continuing to post on my Facebook page in the future. All in all, I had 41 posts on my page since August, which isn't near as many as I would have liked. Looking back, I would have posted something on my page every day so I can keep my audience in the loop. I would have also liked to advertise my page if I had the funds so I could reach a bigger audience than just my friends and family.   

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Well Informed: Implicit Bias test

I took the Harvard Implicit Bias test on Male and Female words with Career and Family. My result somewhat surprised me, because it's not the way I would have previously categorized myself. My result was this: "Your data suggest a strong automatic association for Male with Career and Female with Family."

Even though I work with several females and I have no problem with women working, I was raised in a traditional conservative home where my father worked and my mother stayed home, which is probably where my implicit bias came from. 

However, despite this revelation of my implicit bias, it does not mean I can't choose to look past it. While the test indicated that I have a "strong automatic" implicit bias against women with careers, I laud women in the workplace and I personally believe we'd have a lot less problems as a world if we had more women leaders. This is part of the reason I voted for Hillary Clinton. Some of my political heroes are women like Margaret Thatcher and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 

It's no secret America as a whole has a implicit bias to women in the workplace. With American women only being paid 80 percent of what men of the same occupation are being paid, the U.S. is ranked as the 47th best country for women to work. Those are embarrassing statistics. But it is a problem that is fixable. 

After the genocide in Uganda, it was a tough time to be a woman in that country because of all the violence and extremely conservative views on women's role in the workplace and in in government. Women didn't even have the right to vote in Uganda before 1980. Since then, laws were signed to give more rights to women in Uganda and increase diversity in the government. Long story short, women now make up 35 percent of Uganda's parliament. 

If Uganda can turn on a dime and allow so many new opportunities to women in such a short amount of time, the U.S. can do the same. It would take passing policies like placing a minimum on the amount of women who are to serve in government positions, and enacting laws to enforce workplace diversity. It would take some time, but I believe the U.S. can move toward reducing this implicit bias against women in careers that I have, according to the implicit bias test. 

On the Media: Unreal

The top story in this week's "On the Media" was about Steve Bannon's rise to power in the media world with Breitbart News. Knowing it's strong right-wing slant, it has been easy for me lately to disavow any article posted on social media from Breitbart News. However, this story about the history of Breitbart News and how it's shaped politics in this last election was eye-opening to me. 

Breitbart News, while openly an ultra-conservative news site, is not one of the websites that is known for perpetrating fake news. The podcast episode talked about how Steve Bannon started Breitbart News after being frustrated with the "mainstream media's" reluctance to cover any corruption claims with the Clinton's during Bill Clinton's presidency. There were lots of conspiracy theories and opinions about how the Clintons were corrupt and mishandling money, but through Breitbart News, Steve Bannon started a platform to investigate the stories about the Clintons. 

Eventually, according to the podcast, Breitbart News became an avenue for legitimate journalists at bigger "mainstream media" newspapers to learn and also investigate the stories about the Clintons. 

Breitbart News now touts itself as being a place to show the hypocrisy in the media and in politics. While Breitbart often uses exaggerated click-bait headlines and content to attract alt-right readers, most if not all of their stories are based on fact, which is still commendable at this time while social media is being pummelled by outright fake news right now. 

The podcasters interviewed Josh Green, who covers politics for Bloomberg News. In October 2015, Green wrote an article on Bloomberg News about Steve Bannon entitled "This Man Is the Most Dangerous Political Operative in America." Long before Bannon was a household name like it now, Green wrote about the history of Bannon and why he's so dangerous to the fabric of "mainstream" American politics and the establishment.

In his article, Green writes: 

"To succeed, Bannon will need to activate the anger and disgust with cronyism that’s as powerful among supporters of Sanders as it is among fans of Trump. In Tallahassee, as GAI’s phone keeps ringing, the vehicle for achieving this is clear. Editors and reporters at prominent magazines and newspapers, including ones that had passed when approached with Clinton Cash revelations, are calling to ask when the next salvo will arrive—and might they arrange an exclusive?For many, the answer will be yes. 
'We’re going to go to the investigative units, not the political reporters, and just give them the stuff,' says Bannon. 'We have faith they’ll take the stories and do the additional reporting.'"  

Steve Bannon has launched a war on the establishment and by investigating the "conspiracy theory" stories about the Clintons, Jeb Bush, and the other former establishment juggernauts. By giving this content to the investigative journalists, Bannon has hurt the establishment far more than any attacks from political opponents could do.

Bannon, through Breitbart News, is part of the reason Donald Trump is now the President-elect because of this slam campaign against the establishment he's achieved from harnessing the anger from working-class white America.

 

Facebook page insights

Here are the insights for my most recent posts on my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/spencerricksnews/

Recognizing Default Responses

Default responses drive everything that I do. While I don't always realize it, I have certain responses to certain things I see or hear. For example, when I am in a large group of people, or when I'm trying to impress someone, I have a different persona or facade that I assume. But it goes beyond that.

I don't like to think I stereotype certain individuals, but it definitely happens. For example, in St. George, when I see an older, white male wearing conservative clothes, I automatically assume that man is part of the "Mormon elite" and is someone who may be ignorant and support Donald Trump. I come from Seattle, where diversity is much more common. I have Muslim and Mexican friends, so coming to St. George where there is so many people of the same culture (white Mormons), it automatically places barriers between me and these individuals here. 

It is the same way with clothes. For example, if I see someone wearing a hoodie and saggy pants, my default response would be to distance myself from that individual. I don't see myself as a racist person in any definition of the word, but I realize I may have default responses of implicit bias against other races that are different than my own. I try to prevent this by making friends with people from other cultures and learning as much as I can.

Default responses are more than just reflects, but we can fight default responses by forcing ourselves to be mindful, critical of ourselves, and always trying to learn about others' points of views. 

Terrorism and Tribalism

Aarhus, Denmark

With terrorism growing worldwide, it has become a new issue for world leaders to tackle with. It is not a binary issue like wars have historically been.  Countries can't declare war on a terrorist group, because that only feeds into their terrorist group's narrative.

For example, if you use the phrase "radical Islamic terror" or declare war on "jihadists," you are only giving the terrorist group means to grow and expand their rhetoric. As Shadman Bashir explained in his lecture in class on Nov. 2, terrorism is about sending a political message and "media is the oxygen" feeding terrorism. So how do you cut back on terrorism? Don't give the terrorists what they want by confirming there is a war waging against their way of life. Instead, give the people in lands occupied by terrorism a means to be educated on the real issues and allow terrorists a way to amnesty. This is not radical--it has been proven to work.

In a town called Aarhus, Denmark, extremism has started to grow and the young men of the town were leaving in droves to join ISIS. Instead of harsh penalties against the young men for attempting to leave and surveilling mosques, they made it clear that the young men were welcome back home, where they could be given help reintegrating back into society. The ex-suspected terrorists receiving help with going back to school, finding an apartment, meeting with a psychiatrist or a mentor, or whatever they needed to fully integrate back into society. The "Aarhus model" of dealing with terrorism has been called the "hug a terrorist" program by the media and has been harshly criticized.

But it has been proven to work.

As reported on the episode "Flip the script" on the NPR podcast, "Invisibilia,"  "since the initial exodus of young people to ISIS, very few have left from Aarhus for Syria, even when traffic from the rest of Europe was spiking. Last year, in 2015, it was just one person."

The podcast brings up the point that the model in Aarhus is precarious though. "One terrorist attack in Aarhus could undo much of the work that has been done." But the opportunity to save a young man's future makes this program worth it. 

On the other hand, politicians like Donald Trump have taken a hard stance on terrorism. Trump has said he will declare war on ISIS, block Muslim immigration to the U.S., and carpet bomb parts of Syria and Iraq where terrorism has taken hold. 

Trump's plan is not unique. It has been a talking point of the Republican Party and other politicians around the world for years. However, it is only out of fear and doesn't do anything to solve the problem. What we need is sane, preventative measures to give terrorists a path back to society instead of declaring war on their religion.

Well informed: Radicalization and Religion

Radicalization and religion is a topic that is thrown around a lot in today's politics and on social media. Donald Trump has made it a key point of his campaign to attack the religion of Islam and claim Muslims need extra monitoring. Likewise, Republicans have been drawing the link between Islam and terrorists by using the phrase "Radical Islam." On the other side of the aisle, Democrats have avoided using the term "Radical Islam" to not link terrorists with the billions of peaceful Muslims in the U.S. and world. President Barack Obama addressed this very point during a speech in June 2016 after the Orlando nightclub attack (see attached video).

There is a very real war against extremist terrorists around the world who twist the tenants of Islam to fit their narrative of why they want to kill people and establish their own autonomous state in the Middle East. But religion is something that is like air — it has been all around humanity for centuries — and just because Muslims don't fit the stereotype of white Christian Americans, they are seen as different and "part of the problem." Religion isn't the problem. ISIS kills more Muslims than anything There are many countries around the world with a majority Muslim population that in some ways are more progressive than the U.S. in some ways. An example of this is Malaysia (a majority Muslim country), where there are more women in government positions than the U.S.

Religious rights for everyone must be protected at all costs, and religion must not be linked to terrorists if we are ever going to win a war against extremism. 

On the media: Kids these Days

Music's role in convincing someone to vote for a particular candidate may be subconscious, but it plays an important role in elections nowadays. In the latest "On the Media" podcast entitled "Kids these days," one of the topics discussed in music's place in presidential elections. The podcast episode explored also the generalizations of the millennial generation and defended the use of "trigger warnings" and  safe spaces. But it was music's role in elections that really stood out to me because it brought up music in contexts I'd never thought of before.

Even from early elections in the U.S., songs were used by candidates to demonize or belittle their opponents and make themselves seem like heroes. Personalized songs were used often historically, such as a song Frank Sinatra made for John F. Kennedy's campaign called "High Hopes." In the song, Sinatra sings: "Everyone is voting for Jack, cause he's got what all the rest lack. Everyone wants to back Jack. Jack is on the right track cause he's got high hopes." This is an example of a song with a strong social context with the explicit message to vote for Kennedy. 

In the '80s, the podcast brings up the fact of how music in presidential campaigns began to shift from songs with personalized lyrics to more underlying "cinematic music." During 30-second campaign ads on TV, the music would create the physiological context impact by underlying the words being spoken on the ads. For example, when ads would be speaking about how the opponent is a terrible person, dark, ominous music similar to that you would hear in a horror film would play. Or when the ad tried to make the opponent seem silly and like he didn't know anything, the music would be light and silly like something you'd hear in "Loony Toons." Hillary Clinton has used this strategy of light, silly music on her ads to make Donald Trump seem dumb. While there are no words in this type of music in campaigns telling the potential voter what to think, the physiological context of this type of music is very effective because of the mood it can create.

Personalized songs with specific words about the candidates are much rarer nowadays. While Hillary Clinton has used songs like Katy Perry's "Fight Song" as a rallying tune for her campaign, it doesn't specifically mention Clinton even though Perry has appeared alongside Clinton in her campaign. On the other side, Donald Trump has used songs like "We're not gonna take it" and "We are the champions." The artists for many of the songs Trump uses in his campaign have asked Trump to stop using the songs, but that's besides the point. The point is popular songs used in campaigns like this create a strong social and cultural context for the campaign. 

Not all personalized songs are extinct from presidential campaigns though, as a group of singing girls became famous after singing a song specifically about how Trump "will make America great again."

I believe music definitely impact political campaigns nowadays. It can and has been used deceptively by creating a mood that isn't consistent with the words being spoken in a campaign. Politics is all about presentation and stagecraft nowadays, regardless of what the main points of the campaign is. Whatever your opinion is on Trump, his years as a reality television star and media-wrangling celebrity has made him a master of the physical context of his presentation. This includes big lights, gaudy decor, and his use of music on stage. Music has the power to make people feel certain ways. In this era of all kinds of music being used in campaigns, voters have to look past the music and lights to see the truth (or lies) hidden behind it.

  

Spencer Ricks Journalist

My Page: "Spencer Ricks" facebook.com/spencerricksnews

My Mission: My page will be promoting my own journalism. It will be a tool to share my stories and network with other journalists, as well as sharing pictures and videos of my work behind the scenes.

Personas:

Paul, 20, is a sophomore business major at Dixie State University. He is not part of student government or any of the athletic teams. He is just an average student who wants to stay informed on the news around Dixie State University. 

Jessica, 45, is a mother and wife living in St. George. She has attended Dixie State University, and is interested in what is happening in her community. She lives near Dixie State University and is interested in what is happening there.

Darren, 30, is a news director in Seattle running a community news website. He is looking for talents and freelancers who have experience dealing with Seattle city politics and local social issues. 

Plan:
Share personal articles, both new ones and old ones that are still relevant
Interact with audience and gain story ideas
Share pictures and videos of my experience reporting to give a "behind-the-scenes" feel to my articles. 
Connect with other journalists in St. George, Seattle and across the country