Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Teenagers and the media

Teenagers are so wrapped up in their electronic devices these days. They spend all day on social media. Social media holds so many different things that poison the minds of teenagers. Studies show that teenagers that are using social media during the night tend to mess up their sleeping schedule and build anxiety and depressive traits.

      The things that teenagers see on social media can be toxic. There are different dangerous games that they will see and say that they want to try it because it looks "fun" or "cool". A couple of years ago there was a game that went viral called the choking game or something alone those lines. These kids would wrap a belt around their neck and choke themselves until they passed out. I don't exactly know why this looked fun to them but this led to several deaths.

      Social media is in control of the teenage world. It all seems to revolve around it. Teens seem to need social media to survive. They can't go a few hours without needing to check their phones to see what someone tweeted or what stupid thing is going viral next. Honestly, the things that teens are making go viral today is making me sick. They make me question if my generation is ever going to amount to anything. Social media has poisoned the minds of teenagers today.

The media during War time

The big question is how free is the press during war times? Well it all really depends on how the government looks at it. The government has many things going on during the war that they do not want the media to get involved and broadcast them for everyone in the world to see. The government will limit the media in any way they can.

      The military took control of all radio communications and censored all photographs during the first world war. Congress passed the Espionage and Sedition Acts which made it illegal to publish anything disrespectful to the government of the war going on. 75 newspapers had lost their mailing rights or had to change their editorial positions after the first year of the law being in place.

      If the press wanted to access then they had to apply for credentials. This allowed for the government keep things such as the creation of the atomic bomb on the low while it was being built. It wouldn't have been very much of a secret if the press was able to broadcast it to the world. In some cases, the government being able to control the press isn't that bad if it means the are able to keep essential information private. The moral of it all is that media during war time does not have the first amendment fully protecting it.




Thursday, February 18, 2016

How the media helps the funding of ISIS.

      The media's role in the funding of ISIS is tremendous. The media covers multiple parts of this organization and they use that to their advantage. The extremist group lets the media capture everything they do to spread their cause. They even announce things that they have done to the world just so the media will put it out. The group has hundreds of social media accounts that have numerous purposes.

      ISIS uses these social media pages to help recruit soldiers to fight for their cause. They put things like goals and their beliefs on these pages to try and appeal to people that would believe the same thing that they do. This is how they have been growing. Many people read all about this group and realize that they are fighting for something they can agree with. They are usually younger people that are recruited because this is the group that uses the internet and social media the most.

      The extremist groups gets donations from very wealthy people in the Qatar area due to the government's very loose currency exchangement policies. Money is transferred through social media pages and illegal pages such as the black market. Again, all of these people who are donating have been following the cause from propaganda that the media is portraying. The media is helping ISIS grow as a whole and will continue to grow until the world does something about it.

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

The Media's Role in Politics

      The media is an independent vital feature of any democracy. If the government were to control the media then they would never have to be held accountable for their actions as there would not be any immediate proof and they would have a huge influence over its people. A free press is a very important thing in a democracy. Its role is to criticize the government and keep the people up to date so they can know exactly what is going on.

      The media some may say is actually corrupt and one sided. In some cases, this is true. Major organizations tend to take one side of the political spectrum and report biased coverage or act as propaganda for a political party. The media fails to share in depth information and just shows what they see. The concern is that politics is is emerging as a media empire and only portraying the things they want their people to see.

      In 2000, Jeb Bush ordered election supervisors to purge 58,000 voters on the grounds as they were felons and not able to vote (http://www.wanttoknow.info/mediacorruption).  Once looked in to, only a few of the voters were felons and the rest were entitled to the right to vote. This news story ran in the papers but not in the United States. Instead, it was printed in Britain. As a result of this whole ordeal, over 50,000 people were unable to vote.

      The media is one big biased organization. Major media corporations are opening up to government intervention which allows them to get away with many things without the media announcing them to the public. Some media corporations are taking charge and switching to private terrestrial and satellite TV. Even with efforts such as these, the government will always have its hand in the media world.