Debbie-Wasserman-Schultz

            When it comes to women in politics, there’s a lot for us local South Floridians to be proud of with Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. Not only is she a strong female voice that was very instrumental in the re-election of president Obama, Wasserman-Schultz also serves as the chairperson for the DNC. Although I personally do not remember the first time that Mrs. Wasserman-Schultz ran, but I have heard stories of how she was very reliant on walking the streets of the her district and getting to know the people, a quality that can be seen as a virtue.

            In addition to her quick rise in the past 8 years to the DNC chair, she also made history as the first Jewish Congresswoman ever elected in Florida.  Her dedication to her Jewish heritage gives us a deeper look into the family values that Mrs. Wasserman-Schultz holds. Her and Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania were instrumental in getting May declared as “Jewish American Heritage Month”. Additionally, she helped to form the National Jewish Democratic Council and served some time on the regional board of the American Jewish Congress. Her dedication to her roots have shined the brightest in times of disparity, specifically when it  has come to the Middle Eastern conflict. Although Democrats have been accused of being “Anti-Israel”, Wasserman-Schultz has on multiple occasions, fought back against these accusations.

            Personally having heard Debbie speak on behalf of President Obama in his travels around Florida, I was very impressed with how she overall carried herself. The second she hit the stage; she graced the audience with poise and class. Not only was she trying to help President Obama get re-elected; she herself was trying to get re-elected.

            The woman that most recently ran against her was the daughter of a local restaurant owner, Karen Harrington. When I got to speak personally with Karen and her volunteers about why Karen deserved to win, they could not come up with strong enough answers against Mrs. Wasserman-Schultz.

            Who knows what heights Mrs. DWS will reach, but all we know is that the limit is endless.

Narrowcasting

      Narrowcasting is when a television station targets a specific population within a society. This is most commonly spoken about when it comes to the cable network for FOX News, which popularly narrowcasts notoriously conservative-directed news stories.

    MSNBC is typically considered to be the directive of the liberal media. So after for example, the Sandy Hook tragedy, the liberal media began running stories advocating for more and more gun control and an assault weapons ban, while channels like FOX News began running more stories that criticized the liberals for trying to take away Americans 2nd Amendment rights by taking away their guns. FOX News stories began to veer in the direction of how we need more guns to protect our citizens and that if the teachers had been armed with guns, that the tragedy would have been prevented. 

     CNN is typically considered to be more in the middle when it comes to a liberal or conservative slant, but often people of the opposite sides will accuse CNN of leaning right or left, just because they don't like the story that they are reporting because it conflicts with that person's views.

            Narrowcasting can lead to narrow minds which is very dangerous to a society. People will tune into a channel just to hear from a specialist or an anchor that will report with a slant towards their views, which can inhibit the amount of information people take in. With the lack of non-biased information, people selectively pick and choose information based on what they want to hear, creating individuals who are not well rounded.

    In addition to stations that are directed to a certain group of people based on political ideology, there are stations that exist solely based on ethnicities such as with Univision and Telemundo, which are channels with Hispanic-directed programming. Christian conservatives can watch the 700 club and there are also African-American directed television shows on BET. 

   Narrowcasting is quite controversial, because although it allows people to be able to seed out the type of television programs they watch, but it can also polarize a nation, especially in an election season.

Social Networking Sites (ch 15)

   Chapter 15 has a section of the chapter about media that focuses on how social networking sites have created another new form of news dissemination on the internet. Sites like Facebook and Twitter have not only become popular areas for the average person to share their political commentary, but have also become direct news sources for millions all over the world as well. It doesn't matter what channel you turn on, local news or network news, I can guarantee you that the anchors will mention to the viewers to follow their channel's Twitter or Facebook account. 

     In order to keep up with the changing times of technology, it has become important for these stations to create accounts on these user friendly sites to stay relevant to the viewers. Since the beginnings of journalism, the competition between papers or news stations has always been "first on the scene", "first with the story" or "exclusive with the story". Because of social networking, the time between news coverage and news breaking has been reduced to seconds, making it more clear to who truly is the first with the breaking news.

    Additionally, as the book mentioned, many politicians and even the White House itself have created profiles on the popular social networking site, Twitter. With politicians getting on the internet, it allows for them to give constituents the feel of more of a personal connection. Additionally, in cases of controversy, Twitter accounts can be the place for PR damage control or in reverse can be the reason for the controversy in the first place. Allowing figures to have almost direct communication with the people has critics worried “that a growing reliance on social networking sites will weaken the media’s role as a filter, educator, and watchdog.” Which may be negative for media outlets, but for the people it can result with less censored, hand-picked, and biased news delivery.

         Twitter has also become instrumental in allowing people to post their political opinions, or even form their political opinions at that. Searching a trending topic such as #StateOfTheUnion or during the elections #RNC or #DNC can allow others to take a peek of  how their online peers feel about a certain issue or political event.

         The book mentions that social networking has also been useful in elections for expressing support and that in the 2008 election when then presidential candidate Barack Obama was able to establish Facebook pages with millions of fans each. In the 2012 election this continued to hold true, where Facebook was used to advertise when the President was coming to speak, fundraisers, and to spread information at high volumes in rapid amounts of time. 

My Least Favorite Female Politician

   Sadly even rappers can't disassociate the rise of women in politics and the one lady that disgraced the rest of the gender. As they say in the song Mercy off Kanye West's most recent album,

"White girl's politicin' that's that Sarah Palin"

  Of course as a feminist I should be happy for all women who get the chance to rise up to positions of high political power (former governor of Alaska 2006-2009 and former Vice Presidential nominee 2008), but I cannot shake all of her silly remarks that four years ago made her the laughingstock of America. 

But it gets worse….

   Conservative pundit Charlotte Allen endorsed this creature for the 2016 bid for president recently, which made me so confused. In 2008 I recall that what really killed John McCain was the fear that if the then 72 year old passed away while in office, that Sarah Palin would become the leader of the free world. So then why is there still any appeal to her as a contender for any position, especially president?

Important meeting of myself and the former VP nominee
and Governor of Alaska, not too far from her Governor's
mansion in Juneau. 

    I got the chance to meet with the former nominee who was packaged to us as your typical hockey mom, back in 2011. Okay, I didn't really get to meet her, but who I did get to meet, were year-round Alaskan residents, who gave me their take on "All American Palin". 

   Many responded with giggles others with disguist, and very few with positive words. One man I spoke to, who was a lifetime resident of the Alaskan capital, claimed that she was never actually in the capital city and very rarely was in the Governor's mansion. Additionally he remarked "I voted for her the first time, when she ran for governor, but when she ran for VP… I wouldn't have voted for anything." Personal feelings set aside, I truly was curious about why a resident of Palin's home state wouldn't want their small town gal governor to rise to such a big position. He stated that he felt she was un-loyal to the state and to its people. He remarked that she confirmed his suspicions when she decided to leave Alaska, not even after a full term as governor, to move to Arizona. Of course one man's story was not something to use to base the entire population's opinions off of, but there was some merit in hearing the story of a man who was once a fan but then became a hater. 

    During my trip through Alaska, I hit another town where Sarah Palin, was literally the talk of the town, Skagaway. Skagaway was a town that Palin spent part of her childhood in. Although she left Skagaway long ago, the city kept a piece of her by opening "The Sarah Palin Store". Filled with books and way too many other novelty items of the Alaskan superstar, the store did seem to pay homage to their small-town star, but while making fun of her as well. I even found a license plate making fun of her infamous,

"I can see Russia from my backyard" 

quote. So two years after I went on my trip to explore the state that is usually floating around in a box on US maps, I still continue to ponder, how can anyone take this woman seriously? As a female with political interests, I am more embarrassed than I am inspired by her. 

   

How Seriously are we Taking Shows like "The Daily Show"? (Ch 11)

Jon Stewart, host of "The Daily Show" since 1999.

    I found in my readings of my American Government an interesting finding of a study that estimated that...

     "the same percentage watched alternative sources such as The Tonight Show, The Late Show, or The Daily Show as watched more traditional cable news such as CNN or FOX News."

    As an avid fan of Jon Stewart of The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert of the similar but unmentioned in the book Colbert Report, I did not find these results to be the least bit surprising at all. These are all shows with captivating hosts, very strong fan bases, and the greatest 

material of all, real life news stories! Unlike the news shows of many leading anchors like Anderson Cooper or Wolf Blitzer (both of CNN), fans of these comedic spins of current events will often use their "Ti-Vo" or DVR systems to record episodes to ensure that nothing is missed. The format of these shows are pretty much mockery of regular cable news stations. Not only will comedic geniuses such as Stewart comment on the events reported, whether political or just random local news stories, they will show clips of other reporters and their commentaries, and comment on top of those commentaries. 

RIGHT:Jon Stewart makes fun of FOX News

      conservative personality Glenn Beck.

     

            BELOW: Rally to Restore Sanity and

         March to Keep Fear Alive Promo Posters.

   It may seem random that I decided to mention Stephen Colbert, as he was not mentioned in the book, but there is a reason behind it. Because not only do comedians like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert deliver laughs about current events here and there, but they also serve as figures of influence. In fact, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert actually teamed up to host a "Rally to Restore Sanity" and "March to Keep Fear Alive" (Headed by Stewart and Colbert, respectively) in Washington D.C. on October 30,2010. This rally was described as a venue for attendees to be heard above what Stewart described as "the more vocal and extreme 15–20% of Americans who control the conversation of American politics." The rally was reported to be a real life satire of both Glenn Beck's "Restoring the Honor Rally" and Al Sharpton's "Reclaim the Dream Rally". Although the march was met with laughs and was chock full of celebrity appearances, in sincerity, Stewart stated his intentions as… 

"This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith, or people of activism, or look down our noses at the heartland, or passionate argument, or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are, and we do."

….This was followed by a commentary about how the media polarizes us, that we don't actually live as Republicans or Democrats or etc. but that every day we live on reasonable compromises that happen every day of people with different beliefs. Truly confusing the mainstream media about their intentions, anchors were left confused on how to describe what the rally really was. All in all, it served as the ray of light in serious ol' Washington D.C. , similar to the way both men's shows have the ability to do the same but on a daily basis with serious news stories. 

     Although the intended purpose of these shows was purely for the laughs, in Chapter 15 of my American Government book, it says that…

      "One study conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania revealed comedy programs actually inform viewers as well as entertain them. Regular viewers of The Daily Show were found to know more about world events than nonviewers, even when education, party identification, watching cable news, and other factors were taken into consideration"

   

    

     Findings like this hold very true and have given these shows much more credibility than initially imagined. Many educated people tune in for the chance to hear politics being poked fun at, the same way that the viewers would possibly do in their own homes. These shows have grown so credible that even President Obama (as seen in the video on the LEFT) has guest starred on both "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report". It goes to prove that one does not always have to be serious, to be effective.