MM 3133 - Colby Clinton

Internet Battlegrounds. From the perspective of a voting-age young adult, this election year has been nothing short of dramatic. The 2020 election is a scenic backdrop for a global pandemic in an already erratic year. It is strange to think that the impeachment trials, Weinstein trials, Brexit, and the Australian bushfires all happened this year, and now the election is in the limelight in the penultimate month of the year. As someone who is constantly viewing social media and online entertainment of various kinds, I have seen my fair-share of political advertisements . Outside of class, as well as for in-class assignments, I have viewed well over a dozen of these advertisements from various candidates including Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Jo Jorgensen, and Howie Hawkins. Candidates like Jorgensen and Hawkins do not have as large of a following as the two primary candidates, and as such, I have not seen their ads without looking for them specifically. I do not normally seek out news thr...

The Arkansas Coalition for Peace and Justice. I have never had an interest in any particular lobbying groups in the state or around the country and I would suspect that many of my classmates feel the same way. For many of us, the upcoming election will be the first election we are voting in and this will be the first time ever that those who are voting for the first time will have a say in the national government. I cannot be the only one who has felt silenced my entire life. Having an opinion on the way that the country, state, or local government is run should not only be entitled to those who have say, because sometimes those who have a say in the matter decide not to vote either, which is okay. For many people, this is the time to begin learning about the way of politics, local government, and all of the things you've been told to stand idlily about. Using the Citizens First Congress of Arkansas  website, I found an interest group called the Arkansas Coalition for Peace and Jus...

Rooted in Truth or Conspiracy? Whatever it takes to stir the pot.  If I had a nickel for every time that Professor Reppert mentioned the ' talking heads ' on cable news, I would probably have enough money to get a drink and a package of M&M's from the vending machine. If I had to know what a 'talking head' was to cash-in those nickels, I would have to give the money back. As it turns out, a 'talking head' is simply a reference to the way political commentators are presented on the screen (with a zoomed in camera angle where they are seen from the chest and up). If I had figured out this definition earlier, I probably could have engaged a bit more in class these past few years but that is not really important. What is the reliability of the predictions that these political pundits make? Where do their predictions come from and are they rooted in factual evidence or in conspiracy? How do they maintain a following for simply giving opinions? I will do my be...