Manipulating Public Opinion

“Manipulating Public Opinion: The Why and How ” by Edward L. Bernays is an interesting argument. I agree that “public opinion is subject to a variety of influences that develop and alter its views on nearly every phase of life today.” Especially in todays society with the use of different kinds of media. We choose to spread hate and very little positivity through outlets such as Twitter, Facebook, and mainly media. With the use of the news, manipulating the publics opinion is now one of the easiest things to do. Our own election involved manipulation of public opinion. Not only did our candidates campaign to manipulate opinions but they also did debates and speeches to sway the audience. With the power of twitter people can have their public opinions manipulated in a bad way because of what Donald Trump refers to as “fake news”.  Although I find it hysterical  it is used in the wrong context when the President refers to the term. There is fake news on different social medias but mainly not in the professional media of the news. The fake news I am referring to is the magazines that we see in the grocery store on the when we checkout. The sources that were used for those magazines are getting their information from someone who is non credible or it is a source that is non credible. Bernay talks specifically about a psychological aspect on how people manipulate public opinion and I found it to be quite interesting.  He said a psychologist has a scheme on how to sway the publics opinion. He also said that the psychologist provides three steps. The first step being to deal with a problem that concerns the public. Then he uses his diagnostic ability and then a sociology. At the first stage “he employs the technique of statistics, field surveying, and the various methods of eliciting facts and opinions in examining both the public, and the idea or product he seeks to propagandize.” This is a very smart technique because people are gullible on the internet.  Through using his diagnostic ability and sociology he gets the public to trust his judgment. He then uses facts and statistics to sway the opinions of the public in a way that is beneficial to him. Bernay then provides specific examples of how this technique was used in the real world. One of the examples that he mentioned was the fight against lynching. I believe that without the psychological manipulation we would not be where we are today.

The Banking Model

After reading The Banking Concept of Education by Paulo Freire I have noticed some things that I completely agreed with him upon and some things that I felt were not necessarily true. The chapter “The Banking Concept of Education” was a chapter from Paulo Freire’s book entitled “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”. What “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” is simply about is, Freire’s proposal of a pedagogy (method and practice of teaching) with a new relationship between teacher, student, and society. At first when I was reading the chapter I noticed that Freire was mainly saying that students are the narrators of the material they are teaching and they are simply just a way to make the students memorize material easier. Freire talked about how we think of multiplication. He stated “the student records, memorizes, and repeats these phrases without perceiving what four times four really means.” I think that this is what my math teachers mainly tried doing in my high school years because I believed that the teachers were there just for a pay check and did not actually care about the students. Paulo Freire talks about all teachers in this manor though. On that note I believe he is not correct about all teachers. Some teachers are passionate about their teaching and you can tell the difference. I remember I had a teacher once for English and this teacher wanted to make connections with every student. He would even try to help them outside of class. For example, he would tell us stories about how he would go help the students with their car troubles and he would invite them over to his house after knowing a little background about them, he was more like a role model. Paulo Freire then goes on to talk about the banking model. He specifically mentions “dichotomy between human beings and the world”. Dichotomy is a division or contrast between two things that is represented as being opposed or entirely different. Freire talks about consciousness. He mentions that the educators role is to organize everything that the world has to offer and to simplify it for the students. I agree with the author that educators do this because they are supposed to make the world and understanding place and a functional society. For example, usually students think that a math class is useless. I learned this year in my current math class that math formulas and different things we do in math are used in everyday life. For example making a transaction includes math, building anything involves math. Freire is wanting to show that teachers are just opening doors for students of the future.

Was Police Brutality Actually The Meaning of The Statue?

In the podcast, “The Foot Solider” by Malcom Gladwell the civil rights act is discussed and Birmingham’s events are mentioned. What was mainly discussed was a sculpture made by Ronald S McDowell. It was called Foot Solider because that was the term used who marched in Martin Luther King’s Army. It was shared that Stevie Wonder cut his hand on the sculpture because the artist didn’t smooth out the sculpture when he created it with bronze. Haze said that cops were never like and the cops did not like the black people. In 1953 there were nonviolent protests that occurred around Kelly Engram park. The protests were supposedly getting out of hands and Dick Middleton was a member of the Canine unit within the police force. Supposedly the Sheriff couldn’t get enough of the protest and so he called Dick Middleton and had him bring all the Canines. There was a No Man’s Land and a fence that separated the police and the black protestors. When the photo was taken a black protestor supposedly ran around the fence and Dick Middleton’s German shepherd leaped at the protestor who then was considered a foot solider. The story got complicated when Walter Gadston was interviewed about how he got involved with the Civil Rights Movement.  Gadston was actually the person who was allegedly attacked. The reason it got complicated was because Walter Gadston was asked why he was a foot solider. Gadston then did said he was not even a foot solider. He then gave an explanation as to why he was not a foot solider which was surprising to the interviewer. He said that on the day of the protest he was at school and an acquaintance of his said that Martin Luther King was in town that day protesting and Gadston wanted to see him. He then skipped school and went to the Kelly Engram Park. He said on his way to the park the protestors were coming towards him and he wanted to get out of there way so he walked off to the side and past a gate. When he went past the gate he was grabbed by Dick Middleton the police officer and as he was getting yanked towards the officer the police dog Leo bit him so he threw out his leg. What Walter Gadston had described then became a clear image once you look back at the sculpture. Leo was lunging and Gadston and Middleton were startled. The police officer was actually restraining the dog and his arm is flexed and his other arm was on him and just touched him. Gadston didn’t think he was part of police brutality and he was surprised that he got such a big reaction out of the wrong story from the movement. I feel like this is a great example of don’t judge a book by its cover. The solution would be to hear Gadstons story before seeing the sculpture, or to take down the sculpture completely.

Can You Trust a Terrorist?

 Malcom Gladwell discusses the book written by John Rizzo which is an autobiography. They mainly talked about a terrorist that he discussed which was an asset when Rizzo was part of the CIA. They said that the terrorist was highly reliable and didn’t want money because he was doing the job for his conscious and it was an act of expiation. Gladwell talked to a reporter named Tim Weiner about his experience with the CIA. Weiner talked about how he went to Afghanistan and before he left contacted the CIA. The CIA did not help him but when he got back from Afghanistan they contacted him and brought him in to talk to a KGB mole named Aldrich Ames. They talked about why we trust the CIA. They had a very good point about how if the CIA were to mess up we would turn to the press to cover exactly what happened. The Cia had worked with the main terrorist by the name of Al Pacino. They talked about how he had done many terrorist attacks and they did not do a background check on him because they were providing them with valuable information. The information he provided was to find another dangerous terrorist by the name of Carlos the Jackal. They talked about a D- notice in the United Kingdom and how in the UK the government can tell the press to not publish something that will put a red flag on them because it will damage national security. The only problem was that in America there is the law freedom of the press. What the government would then need to do would tell enough information about the secrets from the CIA and then they would then have to trust the editors to take the information seriously. Weiner was then given a call about the CIA and then Weiner met with the director of counter terrorism and got specific information that he was not supposed to disclose to get anyone hurt. Weiner wanted to reveal that Al Pacino had a brutal resume that had two bombings in 1984 that inured Americans. Al Pacino was the story from Wieners perspective because the CIA did not tell congress about Al Pacino. Rizzo was then told that the asset was flabbergasted with the evidence that was found out about him. A New York Times story ran about Al Pacino giving information to the CIA and it made the front page. Later on, Al Pacino was then tracked down and killed by his terrorist group. What this says about trusting a terrorist is that they will give you valuable information but they cannot be trusted 100%. They are no solutions when trusting a terrorist because you can make lives worse. What this says about power is that when you are more powerful you have greater responsibilities because you are in control of what happens.

Why California Should Tax Country Clubs

Like Malcom Gladwell I also hate golf and he has increased my hate of golf. It is the least productive thing rich people can do. What Malcom explained from the amount of money and the number of rounds they play is ridiculous. The fact that our president spent the first four months in office flying and playing golf three times a week is a waste of time and money using Air force 1. The principle and tax law of called highest and best use widened the reality of how much land would have been taxed when it came to the golf courses they used. In California, the country clubs got together in 1960 and wanted a constitutional exemption from property taxes because of Bob Hope. If you own a property in California and you have lived there since 1970 you don’t have to pay and increase in taxes if your property goes up because of the California constitution law in law 13 called proposition 13. Just like Malcom Gladwell I think that is insane. This is especially good for people who own country clubs in LA. They continue to exist because they supposedly have not changed hands. I also believe that Gladwell provided a good point when they talked about if the owners die isn’t that a change of hand. They went to the city’s lawyers and after 6 months on June 2, 2010. They concluded that no they do not change hands. He talked about Theseus changing every single plank on a ship so it becomes a new ship or an old theory. He argued that it was the same ship because he left the same dock. He talked about spatial temporal continuity theory which says an object can maintain its identity so long its change is gradual and the object maintains its form is preserved the changes of its component materials. The country clubs used this theory by saying the rich white guys that keep getting replaced they possess spatial temporal continuity. What this says about the golf course is that they are taking advantage of proposition 13. They talked about how much taxes all of the country clubs combine would of have to of paid. They came to the conclusion that since they spent 9 billion on the country clubs and only spent 200,000 that they would have to pay back 89,800,000 in taxes. What this says about the country clubs power is that they have been finessing the system since 1970.

Musical Depression

While researching different advertisements and visuals I came across an ad that peaked my interest that was about a suicide hotline. I then looked for other ads while listening to music. After listening to the album “A Man on The Moon The End of Day” by Kid Cudi I realized he was talking about suicide. I analyzed the album cover and noticed there were a lot of meanings for why he made the album cover like he did. Not only to pictures hold a thousand words but so do different visuals that can be for posters, music, and advertisements.

The ad I had discovered was for a suicide hotline by the name of CVV.org and it was all black with a focus on a man with his face buried in his hands. On his hands is a yellow face with a smile. The ad also has a description that says, “we transform sadness into hope”. In most of CVV’s ads it shows abandonment and dark color schemes with one form of vibrant colors to represent hope. The text and the images do complement each other by directly stating what emotion is portrayed. The visual adds information that the text does not discuss which is about how he is hiding his true emotions. The text would not be as strongly communicated if the visual was not there. The visual is the focal point of this ad and the text is there to clearly state what is happening. The visual deepens the understanding of the text by showing change in the word transform and providing a source to contact with a simple and memorable phone number of 141 24th. The main finding I had was that being an ad it was very persuasive and wondrous. It was persuasive because of how the person buried his face so similarly to people in distress. This ad persuades the audience to call because it provides a sense of hope. This ad does a great job at using logos, and pathos. It uses logos by showing a man who is struggling with suicide and it shows how he feels on the outside. The ad also appeals to pathos by using a black background to show sadness and hope with a source of vibrant colors of yellow to capture the audience’s attention. It also shows the logo of CVV which looks loving because the logo is a heart with a phone dial in the center of it.

If I could recreate this advertisement I would try to make it attention grabbing to the eye to try and capture a wider audience and also teach others who are not depressed. I would first change the black background to a vibrant color to get everyone’s attention. I would then show the person’s face smiling and next to it someone the same person as depressed. I would then put above them change the caption in a very large and dark font, “Do not go unnoticed.” I would say this because then people would wonder who is going unnoticed. I would then put CVV’s logo and phone number at the bottom of the ad and use the same quote they did next to the logo of, “we transform sadness into hope”.

“The Man on the Moon The End of Day” is Kid Cudi’s first debut album that was realized in 2009 and it was nominated for three Grammys. After listening to the songs in the album you notice that he is talking about wanting to commit suicide. He also has a theme of dreams and nightmares and how he is living a nightmare and he has a dream of how great his life is. In the album cover he uses the moon as his mind and he melds his face into the side of it. He also has a dark background to the right of the moon and a white light hitting his face on the left side of the album cover. The album cover portrays a message that people could interpret of him trying to say that he is seen in the spotlight but in his mind, he believes that with fame he is not bigger than anyone and has the same problems everyone else does. He chose to use a futuristic font and a dark color scheme.

To bring in more people and be direct I would change the image by removing the glasses on his face to not be pretentious and to change the font to be more professional. Also, we could not combine his face and the moon so he doesn’t portray himself better than everyone The white light behind him shows that people only see a glimpse of his world. Removing the stars and making it a black background shows how alone he feels. I would also change the color scheme from dark colors to more vibrant colors so the expectation of his music is uplifting and joyful.

After deconstructing the advertisement and album cover I noticed that color schemes play a very big role in the mood of the visual. My visual analysis theme relates to society because it shows that people who are suffering from depression are not as easily identified as people think and they are all around us famous and normal people. After conducting the analysis, I have understood that depression is very common in today’s society. These visual texts show that with fame and money it does not cure everything and I realized that people can hide their true selves from society to not have people feel bad for them. The power and influence of music in the youth today is what some teens make their decisions off and seeing that people actually do care about suicide just lets me know to stay open minded and positive.

They say I say part 3

“As A Result”: In this chapter Graff and Birkenstein focus on talking about establishing connections in your writing and being able to have a good flow to your sentences. By flow they talked about someone named Bill who has sentences that were not relating to each other in the same paragraph and how he would rush through assignments and not reread his work to see if it made sense. They provided different tips on how to make sentences flow together and be easy to relate to the previous and next sentence . They specifically mentioned transition words so readers can follow your train of thought. They said “transitions tell readers whether your text is echoing a previous sentence or paragraph.” Graff and Birkenstein mentioned using pointing words which refer directly back to your concept in the previous sentence. They said one of the best ways to keep your argument moving forward is to repeat yourself in a different way which is to “try building bridges and echoing ideas.”

“Ain’t So/Is Not”: Graff and Birkenstein talk about different ways you can keep your voice when writing academically because students in college often try to be scholarly and their work does not have their personality in it. In the section of the chapter entitled “Mix academic and colloquial styles” Graff and Birkenstein talk about how different writers use common terms we use in everyday life instead of the official and sophisticated term. They provided a great example when they showed a passage where the person used the term ” nut case” instead of “the fine line separating a visionary from a lunatic”. They also talked about when you have different audiences to mix styles. They used the example of a job application or a letter for a grant and they said to be professional and courteous.

“But Don’t Get Me Wrong”: Graff and Birkenstein explain and give examples of what metacommentary is. What metacommentary does is narrate or guide the reader to understand thoroughly what had happened or is about to happen. A section the authors focused on was using metacommentary to clarify and elaborate. In this section they mentioned “extracting full potential from your ideas.” To simplify what they were mainly talking about was how to easily paraphrase in one sentence what was unclear. Graff and Birkentstein then provided many templates that readers could use to help create metacommentary in their writing.

“He Says Contends”: In this chapter revision was the main topic discussed and how important it is. The authors provide different questions that the revisionist should be asking themselves. For example, a question that they said was ” Have you shown why your argument matters.” The questions are mainly to have the writer express and go in depth of their ideas and to clearly present them in their writing. They then showed a students revision of the show “Family Guy”.

Visual Text Analysis

 

Ethos: http://www.CVV.org.br is a suicide hotline that  carries out emotional support and suicide prevention. It is completely free of charge and they provide someone to communicate to. It is under full confidentiality by phone, email, chat and voip 24 hours a day.

Logos: This ad from CVV shows a man who is struggling with suicide. His hand has a smiley face on it because it is showing what he shows on the outside but not how he really feels. The phrase says “We transform sadness into hope” so it is talking about CVV’s is trying to do.

Pathos: The man’s face is buried in his hands which shows signs of sadness. But since his hand has a smiley face and a facial expression of happiness it shows that he is hiding his emotions. The choice of background of black shows that he is lonely or hopeless. It captures the audience’s attention by using the vibrant color of yellow on his hands, and it shows through the logo that CVV is loving and can be someone to talk to by having the dial pad of a phone in the heart.

In most of CVV’s ads it shows abandonment and dark color schemes with one form of vibrant colors to represent hope. The text and the images do compliment each other by  directly stating what emotion is portrayed. The visual adds information that the text does not discuss which is about how he is hiding his true emotions. The text would not be as strongly communicated if the visual was not there. The visual is the focal point of this ad and the text is there to clearly state what is happening. The visual deepens the understanding of the text by showing change in the word transform and providing a source to contact with a simple and memorable phone number of 141 24th.

Having It His Way

In the reading “Having It His Way” by Carrie Packwood Freeman and Debra Merskin the authors talk about the media and how masculinity is communicated through advertising. They made a point that “meat is a masculine food” and they gave an example that showed that meat is a masculine food. The example they talked about was a commercial in a grocery store where a guy has tofu and produce in a checkout line and the guy behind him has “half a pig’s worth of ribs” which then makes the guy with tofu less masculine than the guy with meat. This is only one of the many ways they communicated how masculinity is seen. The other discussion they made was about trucks or SUV’s being a masculine car. They then shared in the same story that the guy with tofu decided to leave the produce and buy an SUV. While in the media we see that masculinity is shown through meat and cars that is not the case anymore. What society has accepted now is people who are lean and muscular. In order to be lean and muscular men began to find out that eating the produce and the tofu will lead you in the right direction. They also realized that the food that was masculine such as ribs from pig or bacon from pig is actually harming them. Thats why turkey bacon is much more popular in todays society and why chicken breast is not as available as ribs. The next section that was important was when they talked about different slogans and advertisements for fast food restaurants. The slogans that stood out the most to be the most masculine were Burger King and Carl’s Jr. The less masculine ads and slogans were ads like Subway’s “eat fresh” Subway was able to change masculinity by incorporating athletes in their commercials to help get their masculine customers. Freeman and Merskin bring up another great point which is about how commercials often objectify women. A great example of the objectification of women would be through the Carls Jr commercial. What they tend to do is have a sandwich as the main focal point of the commercial and then pan out to the scenery of usually a beach and the person eating the sandwich is a voluptuous women who is obviously a model taking giant bites of the sandwich to enhance a shared desire of meat and women.

The Future of Medicine Is Around The Corner

After being a kidney failure patient for about all of my life, exactly 16 years. I wondered if there was ever going to be advances in medical research that would benefit me. According to the article, “Could Westworld ever be a reality? This doctor is already 3D printing tissues and organs.” by the author Mariana Kheyfets. There is already a doctor by the name of Anthony Atala who is experimenting with technology that creates tissues from cells and DNA. To be more specific he is able to print cells, bones, and organs on a machine he calls the ITOP. The acronym stands for Integrated Tissue and Organ Printing System. So far he is successful with hearts, kidneys, ears, bones and livers. They are also working on thirty different organs to be able to one day be make the show Westworld a reality. Doctor Atala ensures that there will be no rejection of the organ because it is created from 100 percent of the patients on tissue and cells. He needs the government to approve of his medical testing on humans and then I will have to never worry about taking medicine everyday be able to have a normal life.

 Rhetorical Situation

• Mariana Kheyfets the author of this article is a producer and works on popular news stations. She was also a pro MMA fighter and she has received a degree in Video/Film communications  from the University of Miami Florida.
• The main audience of this article is patients, families, and doctors.
• The context of this argument is the advances that we are finding in medical research that will save many lives.

Argumentative Elements

• The authors main argument is 3D printing organs is realistic and is actually happening today in our society.
• The author claims that there has already been people that have received organs and are doing fantastic. Also the author claims that 8 organs have been surgically implanted.
• The evidence she provides is from Dr Anthony Atala and it is through his TED talk and videos of his machine working and printing cells.

Evidence Appeals

• Logos: I do believe the author is using sound logical arguments because the evidence she provides has been backed up by a doctor who has been working on this research for 27 years. The authors hypothetical situations of printing a human being are not entirely true but are true in that you can print organs individually.
• Pathos: The author uses language to inform and persuade the audience. The author is very consistent in the language she provides.
• Ethos: The author built credibility by providing an abundance of evidence. The authors background also increases her credibility and the evidence she provides helps her argument.

 Arrangement and Organization

• The author remains strongly consistent throughout the whole argument and she is very organized and straight to the point.
• Her claims are presented in a way that helps the understanding of her argument.

   Citation:  Kheyfets Marianna. “Could Westworld ever be a reality? This doctor is already 3D printing tissues and organs” Circa.com.Circa.com, 3 Feb,2017. Web. 3 Feb. 2017.