Journal: 1-2

Ethical Gun Control

     While researching the question from my last blog entry I found a couple of interesting statistics on the internet:

Most consumers say they prefer to receive information about advertisements or promotions via snail mail. How would thye prefer marketers communicate? 51% say mail, 19% say bill inserts, 17% request no communication, 5% say e-mail, and 1% say telephone.
--Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, September 2005

52% of consumers would be much more or somewhat more likely to purchase a product seen in a commercial versus one featured in a product placement (23%).
--FIND/SVP, August 2005

Consumers are 50% more likely to be influenced by blogs and e-mails than radio or TV advertising.
--EPM Communications

     Although my research showed results of how consumers react to different medias of advertisement, it didn't quite show how they reacted to different styles of advertising. It is from this that I can conclude from the research that American's are really in to impulse buying and the advertising companies are taking advantage of this. Whether they advertise by email, tv, radio or whatever else. My research shows that the advertising business is rapidly growing. Sadly, I was not able to find the exact answer to my question from my last blog but atleast I found out more about the advertisement business and how they work.

     This past week we have been watching a documentary titled "Bowling for Columbine". The main theme about this documentary has been about how Americans are out of control when it comes to guns. Although I know that this is very biased, I can't help but partially agree. My opinion from this documentary is that America should have some form of better gun control than we already do. I believe that only people with hunting licenses should own a gun and that's after having a background check to make sure they aren't a criminal. I just think that it's just strange that we have such bad crime records in regards to guns as opposed to places like Canada and England. Are American's just naturally more violent in nature?

     Thinking of gun control made me wonder just where are issues with this subject stemmed from? I'm sure it's no mistake that some think its socially acceptable to own and use a gun how they wish because they see the government doing the same thing over in Iraq. Also, movies and TV shows especially about the mid-west give off the impression that it's cool to own a gun and makes you look better and seem more powerful. And perhaps all those violent video games kids play now in today's society also make it seem like killing someone isn't a big deal. Maybe its a combination of all these factors or maybe it comes from the fact that American's really pride themselves on the 2nd ammendment and want to have a way to protect their family if their family is under attack.

     This applies to outside of the classrom because you can't turn on the news anymore on the tv without hearing something about casualities in a neighborhood from shootings, a bank robbery that happened in your state or how someone went crazy and decided to kill their wife and kids. One has to admit that there is always coverage of something that has to do with a gun in the news almost every night. It makes me feel as though we all hear it so much that we have somehow become extremly desensitized to all the violence we hear in the news and maybe perhaps that is yet another reason of how gun control is mostly ignored in America.

     Every since we have been talking about gun control in class it has really opened my eyes to how many problems there are with our gun control laws in America. It doesn't seem right that a simple murder involving a gun barely gets national news coverage over half of the time. I have really noticed that Americans harly ever consider it interesting any more to hear about a homicide involving and gun because it seems so commonplace.

     So I conclude this blog entry with a question I would like to know about gun control. How many people exactly were killed in major countries around the world alone in the year 2009 by the use of a gun whether it be accidental, suicide or homicide?

 

"Online Advertising, Marketing - Online Consumer Statistics." Business & Small Business. Web. 27 Sept. 2010. http://www.entrepreneur.com/encyclopedia/businessstatistics/article82676.html.

"Pro-Life or Anti-Sex?" Experimental Theology. Web. 27 Sept. 2010. http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2010/05/pro-life-or-anti-sex.html.



, April 2006

Journal: 1-1

The Media's Lies

     One of the things that I found interesting in class was the discussion of the use of fallacies, euphamisms and loaded language in everyday media. Talking about this in class made me realize just how much lies there are in the media and since the discussion I've noticed it in almost every ad I see on TV, in magazines and on the radio. I can see however that there are positive and negative sides to this issue. On the positive side I suppose one could argue about how tricks used in the media help encourage consumers to buy products and boost the economy. On the negative side however, one could argue on how the media never gives the straight turth about a certain product. Most of the time they use fallacies about their product to make it sound like their product is better than anything else out there. They also use euphamisms and loaded language to help stir up some emotion within the consumer to encourage them to by the product. So this issue could really be taken either way.

    The discussion about the media this past week really made me wonder how we actually can know what products are the best for us out there if the details are so clouded from the media. I know I am guilty of seeing an ad on TV for a new mascara on the market or an ad in a magazine about the latest style of shoes and going out to buy them just because of the way they were presented in the advertisement made them seem great. It also makes me wonder how many times I fell under the spell of an advertisment and became obsessed with wanting to having that product. It's way too many for me to count or even remember. It makes one think about how many people are also guilty of buying into unclear advertisements.

    As I have stated before this lesson can deffinately apply to beyond the classroom. Everytime there is an advertisement it is almost gauranteed that there will be a fallacy in there trying to get consumers to buy their products. I think all of my fellow classmates from now on will be more aware of what the media is really trying to say through it's unclear subliminal messages. I think this is really a valuable skill to have as an everyday consumer.

    It occured to me in class that not only do fallicies show up in advertisements but they really show up in politics as well. It seems as though politics is almost just about trying to make your opponent looks bad and make yourself look like the only choice. But also, fallicies in politics also occur on political shows as well. This is because most political sources of information have some sort of biased to republicans or denocrats. One can really tell this by turning on the TV to a political show where it is clear that they only endorse democrats and are constantly putting down the republics and the same can also be said for shows endorsing republicans and putting down democrats. These two different points of view can leave a citizen feeling uncertain about what really is the truth about politics.

    After this week's discussion about the media, I wonder what really matters in an advertisement or political ad to the viewer. Is it the fallicies which matters most? Or do we crave to have the truth? Maybe it's neither. Maybe we just mindlessly watch advertisements and never realize how things can be made to look different than they actually are.

Rachel. "Dissent." Thoughts From A Conservative Mom. Web. 19 Sept. 2010. http://www.thoughtsfromaconservativemom.com/?tag=dissent.

Bluedorn, Nathanial. "The Fallacy Detective." Fallacy Detective. 2010. Web. 19 Sept. 2010. http://www.fallacydetective.com/products/item/the-fallacy-detective.