Final Blog Post

 

In what seems to be a recurring theme and ultimate realization in my posts, too much of anything is never healthy. Within the realm of this class, I held this to be painstakingly true when discussing our relationships with technology. For me, I’d like to say my relationship with technology is quite an interesting one, to say the least. Being born in 2001, I may not have had the privilege to see the first television, the first computer, or other pioneering advancements in technology, but I did have the privilege to see the evolution of the digital footprint of technology; the internet unfolding before my very small, naive eyes. I still remember the first Iphone, a touch screen phenomena, or the very first layout of Instagram. But one of the most fond memories I have is adjacent to that discussed in the video titled “64-65 NY World’s Fair FUTURAMA Ride Video.” When I was younger, my family and I would take trips to Walt Disney World, in which we would go on one of my favorite rides there, located in Tomorrowland: The Carousel of Progress. This ride, although not exciting for some, stimulated my hope for a stronger and better future because of the advancement of technology. It gave me hope too, that every tomorrow would be better because of this ever-evolving technology. I think the biggest part, or the middle man of relationships with technology is naivety. Being naive and thinking technology can do it all, or being cynical that technology can do nothing at all; will get us nowhere. It is about this middle ground, a cynicism or curiosity with a dash of hope, that will help us balance our relationships with technology going forward. After watching this FUTURAMA video, I felt like that naive younger me, wishing to believe in something that fondly again.

I can not however sit here and say I still feel that sense of hope in technology today. My parents were never a big fan of children getting cell phones, or using social media. So, I never had any real access to technology until I was about halfway through middle school, when I got my first ever phone. Like any young child, I obsessed over my phone. The apps I could put on it, the accessibility to text my friends; my eyes were never leaving that screen, until it was time to lay my head to rest. However, even still, technology had not yet overtaken my world. It wasn’t until I made my first Instagram account that I realized the endless opportunities social media and technology provided. This newfound digital freedom was exhilarating. As I grew older, I downloaded more and more social media apps to connect with people all over the world. I began making friends with people from places like Australia, Canada, and all over the UK. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, this was my gateway to the start of one of my most unhealthy relationships to date: myself and technology. 

Going through high school, I used my phone as an escape, a way to not have to socialize with those around me, and a way to hide from reality. Without it sounding like a cop-out, I think my relationship with social media strongly contributed to the introverted personality I present today. Downloading social media and leaning into this newfound technology was essentially me cosigning my personality into the stratosphere of the internet. Although I have not been personally affected, social media opened my eyes to the many cruel aspects of the world, such as cyberbullying. According to the National Center for Health Research, of children aged 13-17, around 13% report having depression, and 32% report having anxiety. These percentages now must coexist with the already 25% of adults aged 18-25 who report suffering from various mental illnesses. In most cases, social media’s toxicity is the main reason high profile people (ie. celebrities) delete all social media altogether given the latter. It is through even these rough times too that I learn who I do NOT want to be or how not to act. 

Social media and the advancements of technology does have its perks too, that often go unnoticed when discussing heavy topics such as the mental effects the internet inflicts onto its users. For example, music streaming and having this newfound access to music changed my life for the better. Before having access to millions of different bands and genres, I was simply limited to my parents’ music taste. After this new discovery, I began to grow into myself, making choices of things I liked and didn’t like, and discovered that my passion for music was much stronger than I could have ever imagined. From there, I fell in love with the literature of music, and people’s touching ways with words. In high school, I began a blog in which I analyzed some of my favorite songs; and found my passion for writing and music. This is still translated today, as my major is Social Media and Digital Communications, with hopes to work within the music industry. Due to this being the focal point of my degree, I of course have social media accounts on every platform, though I never really post and tend to keep my life private. Therefore, my digital footprint is relatively small, with only my public accounts coming up upon searching myself. I additionally noticed a lot of results for my father rather than me when searching myself, mostly due to the fact that he is a prevalent member of my home community and is the Director of Transportation Agencies at our state transportation company. However thankfully, my family and I as a whole do not have that much personal information about us online. 

 

As another important perk to new technologies and social media, new job opportunity sites such as LinkedIn have proven to be a crucial networking platform in the past decade. It made the job application process much easier, and allows for employers seeking applicants to get a preview into the people they plan to hire, before even an interview process.

Looking back after learning from both this class and my life experiences, I can conclude my relationship with technology has gotten better, but only because of my awareness to avoid its obsessive traits. I could also say this relationship is similar to that of a love-hate relationship. I feel like it is additionally important to address the idea that technology is inescapable, so many things in this day and age are reliant on it, and technology won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. It is essentially like any bad in-law: we have a choice; to find a way to get along with it and formulate a stable relationship, or get left behind.

The Age of AI

 

Given the rapid growth of technology over the past couple decades, the advancements of AI (artificial intelligence) can be seen running equally adjacent; with both working in harmony to present the “what if’s” or possibilities of the future. In previous videos we’ve watched in class, we’ve seen creations such as personalized robots, realistic-feeling prosthetics, and even robotic devices expressing emotion. We’ve also seen it in normalized technology in society, through facial recognition, and search/recommendation algorithms. However in this Frontline documentary titled “In the Age of AI,” we get a deeper look into these advancements and what they can mean for ourselves, our future, and our safety. 

In the documentary, we saw things like the technological advancements in China, and how newfound AI can affect employment; but the one thing I wanted to discuss was the 24 year old entrepreneur/inventor of the self-driving, very large storage trucks. I had many thoughts on this initially, but the first thing that came to mind was safety. To set the record straight, I am not opposed to the idea of self-driving cars; I think Tesla’s are one of the greatest inventions of this generation. However, a Tesla is a small, average sized moving box, in which IF an error was to be made during the self driving feature, it would only harm/hurt those in the car, and occasionally a car or two surrounding them, given the circumstances. With this Mac truck sized automobile, if it even glitches ONCE, in the slightest way, we are talking mass casualties car pile-ups. We have seen what kind of damage human error inside one of those trucks can do, and if you allow a computer (which lacks both reflexes and human error) to drive a truck like that, I can only imagine chaos will ensue. Not to mention, I myself would be terrified to drive near a truck like that, as those big trucks with real people driving on the highways tend to scare me regardless. This is the area of AI in which I believe they are trying to fix something that is not broken, and they are just playing around with technology for the sake of it, because they can, not should. 

Additionally, these new technologies are essentially bringing us back to the struggles once faced during the first wave of industrialism, with almost a 50% decrease in employment/affecting jobs. AI is creating this extremely imbalanced economy, in which middle class citizens won’t exist anymore, you’re either rich for inventing or poor because your job got taken by a robot. Like anything, there needs to be a line drawn, and a perfect balance. Personally, I do not see the need for many AI inventions. This is of course not without dissent, as technology and some AI advancements have been beneficial and have attempted to make “disabled” aspects of our lives easier. For example, things that we have talked about in class such as prosthetics for musicians and athletes, or having the ability to detect certain diseases, are the things I think AI should be solely used for, and are some of the only things that do more good than bad. We should be trying to make our current situations better, not reinventing the way things work and essentially leaving the human race to be extinct. With AI, we are pushing ourselves (humans) further and further out of the big picture of the world. 

Diffusion of Innovations: Social Media

 The “Roger’s Diffusion of Innovations Theory” is essentially “a hypothesis outlining how new technological and other advancements spread throughout societies and cultures, from introduction to widespread adoption.” And, through this theory, we can make a valiant attempt at assessing the potential reasonings or rationale for why this new technology spread at the rate it did, with relation to the context of the times through business patterns, consumer needs, politics, and the socioeconomic stance of the world. When researching Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations Theory, the easiest way in which I could appeal this theory to both my and this generation’s understanding, is applying it to the phenomena of social media.

Social media has taken over the world in a span of only two decades, and has a high-tech international reach no other form of communication could previously offer. In addition to its communicational reach, it also has the world’s mental stability and addictive habits in a chokehold. This large new world of communication pioneered digital communication, and was a major step forward from email, letters, or text messaging. With that being said, the introduction phase was naturally those with whom had the means and the curiosity to invest their time in this new product. Being that most, if not all, social media is free, the possibilities were endless and there was no financial commitment needed, leaving very few reasons as to why not to invest. Since the start of the integration of social media, it took very little time for it to take off. Like any new product, nobody had the foresight to see its eventual harm, leading those to withhold this absolutist idea that this was all a great thing. The early majority then quickly rushed in like a dam's doors opening, leading to a skyrocket in downloads, use, and number of profiles, leading us to the peak/tipping point or “late majority.” From here, we saw applications take off like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and in the most recent years: TikTok. People are now starting to implement this new wave of technology into their daily lives; in some cases people have social media as jobs, or job applications now require your  social media accounts to review in the job application process.   

To this day however, social media still sees a large amount of laggards through the maturation and saturation of social media, in which now it is a part of our daily lives we can not escape. The one thing nobody really thought about with the creation of social media was the massive digital footprint it leaves behind. As everyone is aware, “whatever you post stays on the internet forever.” Although it gives this new range of communication, it is also breeding grounds for controversies, misconceptions, rumors, mental health deterioration, and personal privacy breaching. Social media also showed an increase in FOMO, which stands for “fear of missing out.” In fact, statistics have shown that around 56% of social media users and 69% of millennials experience FOMO. Which then, has the ability to lead to things such as mental health deterioration. Social media also has proven to breach our personal privacy in the past couple years, with apps such as Facebook and TikTok stealing and selling our personal information. There is also the generational gap, as those who are already half or more than halfway through their lives are grown adults and do not feel the need to get into social media, which is deemed by the eyes of society as a “childish” endeavor. For these reasons, and many others, laggards choose to not adapt social media (and probably rightfully so) into their daily lives. 

In recent years, we are starting to see this saturation phase, as there are no real new innovations being made, just different variations of the same applications that do essentially the same things. A perfect example of this would be TikTok and Triller. They are both applications which do the exact same thing in an already saturated market. The same can be said for photo apps such as VSCO, Lightroom, and Picsart. 

To conclude, this new form of communication comes with many benefits and expands the arms of technology and communication globally, but it undoubtedly comes with other questionable effects as well. As long as we proceed with caution, similar to how we would with reading side effects on a medicine bottle, we can find a way to healthily integrate social media for all.

EOTO 2: Illusory Truth Effect

 Finding and deciphering truth from all the lies and misconceptions in the world has become increasingly more difficult as time and technology evolve. Like many things in this world, too much of anything is seldom a good thing. And, even if we do not want to admit it, with the first amendment we see direct proof. Having this freedom to speak about anything and everything on any platform has been both a blessing and a curse to ourselves and others. Especially with the evolution of technology, we can see new speaking platforms rise such as that of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., in which we can speak about anything factual or not, without repercussion. It is because of these platforms and advancements in technology that we see the emergence of the “Illusory Truth Effect.” Although this effect has been around for decades before this newfound rise in technology, we can see this effect prevalent now more than ever in the empty “truths” we can now so freely throw around the world with one push of a button. 

The Illusory Truth Effect is essentially having the tendency to believe something is true after being exposed to it multiple times; it is the emphasis of quantity over quality, and the concept that familiarity breeds trust. The discovery of this theory came to fruition in 1977 in the study of “Frequency and the Conference of Referential Validity,” conducted by Temple University’s Lynn Hasher and David Goldstein, and Villanova University’s Thomas Toppino. In this specific study, they hosted a randomized group of students in which they exposed sixty generic statements. Upon hearing these statements, the students were asked to rate how certain they were that each statement was true or false. Throughout the course of a couple weeks, they would bring these students in and have them rate their certainty of these statements, choosing to expose some statements more than others. Eventually over time, Goldstein, Hasher, and Toppino found that the more exposure the students had to certain statements, the more likely they were to rate/perceive the statement as true. Thus, the Illusory Truth Effect was born. 

Backpacking on their discoveries, it is said that every day we make an average of thirty-five thousand decisions. Whether that’s what time we choose to eat dinner, or even something as subconscious as how quickly we choose to break when approaching a red light. We are constantly making choices/decisions, and our mind is always at work. Consequently, because we make so many decisions daily, we often take mental shortcuts. These can be any type of decision making tool, such as using trial and error, the rule of thumb, or taking educated guesses. Because of this, we are more susceptible to just believe these false statements we see, just because we are using deductive reasoning and assuming because we have seen it multiple times it must have been true. 

Using this logic, we can then see how this effect can easily be used as a pawn in the political sphere. For example, propagandists and politicians' use of repetition of false facts leads to a gradual gain of following over time. Prime examples of this can be seen in both Hitler’s ideologies and the 2016 Presidential Election. Using a quote from Adolf Hitler’s manifesto “Mein Kempf,” he says “slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea.” Being that Hitler was a firm believer in manifestation, he used this idea of repeating his “truth” to the people of Germany to corral an entire nation to believing this false narrative of purging certain religious and minority groups to create the biggest genocide of all time. He used the concept of the Illusory Truth Effect to instill this hatred for the minority in these people’s minds, and even got people to work for him and a large part of a nation to follow him and his manifesto as if it were the Bible. 

As mentioned before, another example of the Illusory Truth Effect in politics can be seen in the 2016 Presidential Election, with candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Although as a former businessman former President Donald Trump was well rehearsed with the Illusory Truth Effect, and has been seen using it on multiple occasions, here we are going to hone in on his perceptions of the United States involvement in the Iraq War. In an interview in 2004, Donald Trump was seen expressing his feeling that the United States needed to be involved in the happenings of the Iraq War. However, for his 2016 campaign, he claimed he wanted no involvement in Iraq, and wanted to keep the military involvement in those cases to a minimum. When the media resurfaced that interview, accusations of lying, manipulating the public to gain the anti-war voters’ vote, and his deceptive character were all called into question. Instead of owning up or explaining his seemingly change of heart, Trump deflected this issue by directly attacking the media for their “dishonest stereotypes” to validate his false claim that this 2004 statement was never said. And, unfortunately, with the Illusory Truth Effect, we tend to believe repetition sometimes more than hard/physical proof. So here we see Trump using this effect for his own political gain by manipulating the public using the effect, leading to a gain in followers and eventual success in the election. It is also important to note here how politicians manipulate both the truth and the public, as studies showed over half the nation felt Hillary Clinton was the better candidate, but because she lacked these manipulating techniques such as the Illusory Truth Effect, people saw her as “not trustworthy.” 

In addition to the political sphere, the Illusory Truth Effect can be seen as specifically damaging towards specific groups and minorities such as the LGBTQ community, religions, ethnicities, and race. There are many discriminatory misconceptions often made about the LGBTQ community, but one in particular is the HIV and AIDS pandemic that plagued the late 1900s. Here, we saw many people spreading the false narrative that gay men were “gross and dirty” humans for being gay, and eventually contracting these sexually transmitted diseases. This tarnished the LGBTQ community and allowed for people to believe this was true due to the repetition, and also allowed this to be a “truth” used by religious propagandists working against the morality of same sex couples. Another example seen in the ethnicities/religion sphere is from the 2017 London terrorist attacks. The image above was plastered all over news outlets, in which we see a Muslim woman walking on her phone with crying and upset caucasian people in the background. As I’m sure we all knew where this was going, this image was then used on social media and news outlets to spread the idea that this woman was “indifferent” to suffering victims and those around her, portraying the overall false stereotype that all Muslim’s are bad people who love to watch others suffer. When in fact the opposite is true, CNN even included a piece about how Muslims were standing with the victims, not with the people who identify with their religion. 

Finally, we see the ways in which this Illusory Truth Effect can affect ourselves and the future in front of us. With these new platforms mentioned such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc., we have this newfound freedom on these platforms to speak freely and spread any news without the need for sources, thus leading to the rise of fake news and rumors. If enough news articles catch wind of a rumor and write a piece about it, many will be inclined to think it is true due to the amount of time they have seen a similar article. However here we are getting our wires crossed: repetition does not equal validity. Credibility cannot be gained through repetition. This effect has the power to destroy careers and the livelihoods of normal folk, companies, and celebrities alike, if we give it the power. Until we as a society can learn that, stop these mental shortcuts, and look through these articles and decipher what is true and what is not, we will be stuck in this subconscious loop forever.

EOTO 2: Reflection

 This past week, my Media Law and Literacy class here at High Point University were back at it again with our EOTO presentations; this time surrounding the ideas of false information through theories, policy, media sphere, and awareness. One of the only presentations that really piqued my interest was the presentation on CIA Black sites. Ever since I was young, the CIA, FBI, and their millions of conspiracy theories were always something I was infatuated with, and so writing about this presentation seemed like a no-brainer. 

Although the secrecy both from the government and about these black sites is overwhelming and preventative towards giving a concise breakdown of them, we can build backwards with the context of CIA Black sites. After the tragic terrorist attacks of 9/11, former President George W. Bush and his administration encouraged the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to create these secret outside facilities “to detain and interrogate high level Al-Qaeda suspects.” And in 2006, these black sites were implemented, the first in Guantanamo, but then spanning eight different countries. These black sites can be most commonly found in war territories with the general purpose of detaining enemy soldiers, criminals, terrorists, or combatants. The black sites in question are some of the most secretive places in the entire world, so it is still hard to tell exactly how many detainees have been taken to these sites, or how many sights in question exist. However, it is said that there were about forty individuals that have been taken there over time. Given the efficacy (or the efficacy in the government’s eyes) of these black sites, they began to use them for additional international investigations, hence the growing and unknown number of attendees. It is said by the government that they use “enhanced interrogation methods” to interrogate these suspects, which we all know is essentially code for torturing. In fact, The New York Times has an article dedicated to a detainee who came forward about just how grueling the treatment was at the black sites he visited. In his recount, about seven of the forty taken there were subjected to these “enhanced interrogation techniques,” and produced no information. Additionally, three of the detainees were subject to waterboarding techniques. They claim this “method” is useful, however as stated in the presentation, only a handful of detainees have actually assisted in investigations. 

Consequently, these severe and secretive black sites come with internal and international effects. The biggest issue, spanning all areas of the topic, is trust. Before diving into the negative effects however, it is important to address that while the black sites are clearly lacking in morality and legality, the  initial idea of these black sites wasn’t meant to be deceptive or this torturous. In fact, I think an argument can be made that some of the world’s biggest terrorists or criminals wouldn’t be caught without them; but at what cost? These few and far between big breaks like finding and killing Bin Laden are great, but these innocent people who get taken to these locations on faulty information are just as much a real person as the terrorists they’re torturing. This secrecy and harm not only leads to distrust within the citizens and their government, but it can have an even larger effect on the United States’ international relations. These CIA black sites are essentially tarnishing the reputation of the United States, the government, and the CIA; especially with these detainees beginning to come forward. If surrounding nations feel they cannot trust the United States, that could mean negative effects in the economic sphere, and the political sphere. If nations do not want to work with us because they can not trust us, we could lose key defense bases, fly over privileges, or many other military advancements to protect national security, or countries we have agreements/ties with. This can also affect our economy, as we could lose important trade deals such as our Free Trade Agreements (FTA’s) we have with over twenty other countries. Which can lead to shortages of necessities, inflation, and an eventual economic crisis. No stable relationship was ever built on distrust, and this secrecy and “no holds barred” format of interrogation is not the correct direction to take our nation, or the world, into. 

To conclude, there were many impressive EOTO presentations this time around, but the CIA black sites was definitely the most interesting to me. Learning just how much we don't know about our government is terrifying, but so necessary.

Privacy

Privacy is a basic human right that we can only dream of having in all its entirety. Ironic isn’t it? Something so simple, easy to respect, and so personal, is the one thing that we cannot have solely to ourselves? As the days go by, it has come to my attention more and more how the only thing we have to its entirety is our minds and our bodies—unless you’re a woman, then (in some states) you just have your mind. In the group of Ted Talks I’ve watched regarding our cyber footprint and the discussion of privacy, I’ve found many discussion-worthy points about the government’s involvement in our privacy, and the ways in which we ourselves can hinder our own privacy. 

The most impactful video I’d watched in this series of Ted Talks was the Juan Enriquez talk regarding “electronic tattoos.”  In his talk, he essentially described the internet, social media, and all its inner workings as our own “electronic tattoo,” in which everything we choose to post to the internet stays there forever. And, through this, we can research anything from a person’s credit score to an image of their family within seconds. Additionally, the face.com reference made by Eriquez also implies now businesses and companies can have images of you, in which they can use your likes and desires to form your own personal target market. Realistically speaking, these accounts we create and the content we post will be immortal: and outlive both us and any generations still left to come. The things we post and the beliefs/opinions we share will be plastered on the internet forever; what’s a more privacy violating notion than that? Essentially, this finality and permanence of our words on the internet have everlasting generational effects. For example, if my grandfather had posted something on the internet of questionable taste, and a future employer or “fans” if I were to become famous, look back at my history and my family, they would see this statement or this string of beliefs and hold me accountable. Thus, damaging my reputation and hindering my ability to find employment. 

If there's one thing I have now instilled in my brain in this class, it is the difference between private and public entities. Given that social media sights such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are all private corporations, there is not exactly much the government can do on the social media front in regards to protecting our privacy. Besides, the government does more to violate our privacy than it does to protect it anyway. In fact, about 66% of Americans think the data collected by the government about our personal selves has a higher risk than it does reward (Pew Research). The best and most efficient way the government can help us with regards to privacy, is starting with themselves. Until they can reassess the way they violate our privacy and take accountability, it would be hypocritical to buckle down on any sort of new privacy protection laws. Only then, when they realize the role they play in this violation, can new privacy laws be made, or old ones redefined.

For me, having all of my content I put onto the internet be permanent doesn’t fully bother me, as I’m more of a “like other people’s posts and stalk” type of person, and seldom post my own content. However, I don’t like the idea of permanence in any form of my life, but even though I do not post as much as others, I would still like to know I have the ability to freely post and not worry about it coming to haunt me in fifty years. Therefore, I think the best way to protect ourselves from this issue, since the only thing the government seems to do about it is add fuel to the fire, is try our best to avoid posting personal content onto the internet or its platforms. Although this can be very difficult, it is more than obvious our government doesn’t plan on saving us any time soon, and so it is now every man for himself. One of my favorite history teachers in high school told me this concept in the sphere of historical learning, and it is something I often apply to my everyday life: “there are no absolutes.” For this specific case, what I mean by using this idea is that social media and the internet is completely unavoidable; nobody can detox it and shove it out of their lives completely. We live in a world where this is our new reality, and so we must adapt. Conversely, nobody should be posting every single thing they do or all their opinions on social media, either. Life is about balance, and although this scale might be ever so slightly in constant teetering back and forth, maintaining that balance of personal life and public information is key to attempting to restore what is left of our privacy.

Anti-War Voices

The anti-war perspective has been something both seriously stereotyped and egregiously silenced since the beginning of time, largely sprouting from our failure and urgent need to restore the protection of dissent in this country. Some of the first instances that come to mind when thinking about anti-war voices is that of the Vietnam War protests and—fearing a repeat of World War I— the infamous America First Committee protests; which are specifically interesting to look at given the flip-flop in anti-war sentiments the moment the Pearl Harbor attacks took place. It is not of importance where we look on the timeline of this nation, if there’s a war (or a sentiment to begin a war), there’s going to be people protesting it, whether the government tries to silence them or not because the power of dissent is something the government still, and will always, fear. 

With that being said, this conversation would be obsolete without discussing the ways in which the government has legally attempted to silence anti-war voices throughout the years. This can be best seen in the Sedition Act of 1918 and the benchmark case of Schenck v. United States (1919). The Sedition Act, most known for its pairing through the “Alien and Sedition Acts,” curtailed free speech rights of U.S. citizens during time of war by prohibiting speaking out against the government, with the consequential punishment of deportations, fines, or imprisonment. For obvious reasons, this act was met with many great challenges, one in particular being Schenck v. United States in 1919. This Supreme Court case upheld the Espionage Act of 1917, by concluding that Charles Schenk and Elizabeth Baer did not have the First Amendment right of freedom of speech to speak out against the World War I draft. Through this ruling, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote his infamous decision, stating that there needs to be a “clear and present danger” for the government to limit speech. It is said that later down the line Holmes regrets this statement, as it is highly subjective, and allows the government to speculate to draw their own conclusions (ie. it was too vague and vast).

Citing this precedent and these experiences of the past, we can look at the anti-war efforts of the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was one of the most protested wars in United States history. Given the context of the time, this was also the first televised war, in which citizens could physically see all the bloodshed and damage war entails, thus allowing the public to empathize with the soldiers being sent overseas. Whether those opposed war due to seeing it be portrayed on television, it lacked clear objectives as to what we wanted to accomplish, or was a war we were not obligated to be a part of in the first place, many united and protested nonetheless. With hundreds arrested, and some even fatally injured, this protest initially started by college students took the nation by storm, and the government’s previous “damage control” plans were just not enough.  The protests additionally inspired many artists and musicians to follow suit in support of bringing our troops home, keeping the ideas of anti-war up in the air with a smell of permanence.

When taking a look at the Anti-War website, these radical ideas were anything but a minority; the website is like an encyclopedia for anti-war movements. They even had an article dedicated to the Vietnam War, and how we can learn from it. This website was interesting to view for sure, and it was unsettling the amount of protests and news I had never heard of or seen on any news channel. My favorite thing about this website is the perspective it offers. To be able to form an opinion freely, we must be able to see both sides of an argument. And, after seeing some of these articles, I’m now realizing that no decision or opinion I have made about the government or their actions seems to have been a conclusion drawn on my own. Although the website itself is slightly disorganized, this anti-war perspective revealed many things to me, especially some things about the government that I’m sure they don’t want anyone knowing. I mean, this is an entire organization that sells t-shirts, has weekly updates, and is essentially its own functioning business, and I have never heard of it before in my life; and that says something. As mentioned in this blog and many of my other posts, the government loves images. They love how they are perceived, and how the masses see them. In layman's terms I guess you could argue they’re like a southern family in a small town. Typically corrupt, always hiding the truth. (This of course being a stereotype made from my experience as a northerner with both real life southern families and those types created on television). To our government, protecting themselves, their image, and their power trip they have on the world is all they will ever prioritize, even if it means harming “normal” Americans and their beliefs in the process.  

Another website I viewed was called the American Conservative, in which the first thing that caught my eye with this website was its name, and the opening title of “Realism and Restraint.” This was very interesting to me, as right off the bat it is seemingly a website implying its credibility, which is complimented by its professionalism and clean cut layout of the website. Coming to no shock to myself, most of these articles I read and explored topics I never even knew existed or were even problems within this country. The more I explore, the increasingly frustrated I get with how out of touch I seem to truly be with both the world and how our government governs. Continuing with the professionalism, this website does not seem to be as antagonistic and disorganized as the anti-war website, rather they present a more moderate argument for topics important to them through reputable sources. Similarly, this website does not seem to be taking the radical anti-war approach too seriously, rather they are looking at avoiding war for a more economic argument, by arguing we are wasting money on war and certain levels of law enforcement when reflecting upon their performance.I also feel like it is important to revisit the name of the website to get a better understanding of why this may be. “American Conservative” is its name, and this website is just that: conservative. It is, when comparing the two, the most conservative and reserved, whereas the anti-war website is more directly and outright  anti-government with their certain decisions. 

One thing I additionally wanted to include before the conclusion of  this post is this piece of artwork created by Banksy. In the image, we see a child wearing a gas mask with the words “If at first you don’t succeed, call an airstrike” written in red next to him. This is a great example of anti-war propaganda, done by one of my personal favorite artists. Banksy, being from the United Kingdom, made this piece in San Francisco, California to use his large platform and following to vocalize his opinions on how prone the United States is to violence and war, with airstrikes in particular. This doesn’t have a ton to do with internal U.S. anti-war efforts, but it was something I felt was important to share, as this is an example of how the United States is often perceived by non-citizens. Upon reflection, these two websites along with similar examples all propose both interesting and thought provoking questions and ideas, especially in terms of how often these views are silenced by the government and media alike. Image is everything to the government and media outlets, and if it won’t fit some sort of agenda or agree with some decision they’ve made, these opinions are often swept under the rug or ignored as a whole.