Anthony Santiago- The Use of Media to Change A Generation

For my semester project, I will be concentrating on the stereotype behind young adults about their addiction and obsession to technology and mobile phones. Many people believe that millennials are unmotivated individuals who have been sucked into the tech world. In short, I will take a look at how different forms of media have innovated to indirectly help the teenage and young adult population break away from this stigma.
As of right now, I am still compiling more research on this topic. I would hope by the end of this project I will have an article/news story style document that goes into the positive effects some media outlets have been.

Midterm Pitch

“If you want a world that respects women,

stop slut shaming them.”

-Nico Lang, Thought Catalog article 2013

When Kim Kardashian posts a nude photo, the world explodes and the internet metaphorically breaks. Twitter and Instagram explodes with opinions, mostly negative, and mostly shaming her for being a mother of two who chooses to post photos of her naked body. When Justin Bieber does the same, other than the admiration, it is hardly discussed. Undeniably, shaming women for their sexual actions can be considered one of the world’s most popular pastimes for as long as earth has existed. Slut-shaming lives widely on social media websites. It loudly makes its presence known and has now taken on a life of its own that has proven to be deadly time and time again. My project will be a written piece, a Tumblr page solely dedicated to the education of internet slut shaming and how it’s effect are much more long lasting than regular day to day shaming. I believe this topic is important as it is a clear view of how desensitized our society and generation has become. It is one thing to pass around a nude photo of a woman through text messages, it’s an entirely different kind of horror to pass around the same photo on the internet.

Capital punishment in the media

I have always been fascinated with capital punishment and for my semester project I would like to explore the media’s role in influencing the public’s perception on the issue. We can all agree; the media plays a very crucial role in shaping the ideas of a society. I would like to explore how the death penalty is portrayed in the media and how this has evolved over time. I will research and compare how public opinion has shifted. I also think it is interesting America is arguably one of the only progressive nations that still has a legal death penalty in some states. Why is this the case? We claim to have a government that is religiously free, yet many of the values deeply ingrained in the fabric of our society have biblical roots. 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/16nF5UpCUl_Htt8fb9ztZ318SPGxTeUHzQMuFefO9F60/edit?usp=sharing

Obama and the Digital Age in the 2008 Election

My project will study Barack Obama's use of the Internet in the 2008 presidential election. Barack was the first president to successful use the Internet and social media in his campaign and win the election because of it. We've become accustomed to seeing the use of social media in the 2016 election, but it's important to understand where it all began. Three-quarters (74%) of Internet users went online during the 2008 election to take part in, or get news and information about the 2008 campaign, according to the Pew Research Center. 

This was a drastic shift as people started to receive their news online instead using traditional media such as television and newspapers. These platforms served as usefully and accessible way to reach "more people without the filter of the traditional media, target its audience with precision and receive almost immediate feedback.”  

My project will be organized into a newsletter with short essays or one large essay on the different aspects of Obama's 2008 campaign. Some of the major points in my project will include:

• The overall shift from traditional media to the Internet during the 2008 election
• Technology on Voting Day
• Social Media and Civic Engagement 

Going Green

My final project will ultimately address specific aspects of where marijuana stands in society. I have researched how it became illegal and attained a negative connotation along with its current popular reemergence as a cultural norm. In addition to exploring the physical properties of marijuana, I am interested in presenting and predicting the future it holds in medicine. I plan on tying the ubiquitous presence of cannabis in our society, whether it be in the mainstream media or in medicine, to how it can still incriminate thousands of people. My research will include various news articles, blogs, magazines, TV shows and documentaries. I also hope to interview a range of younger and older individuals as well as professionals in the medical field about their standpoint on this topic. I will present this project in the form of a tumblr blog. I feel that a tumblr blog will allow me to creatively display my work and correlating references with the use of text posts, pictures, videos and music.

Summary: How do gender roles affect us?

For my semester project I am going to be starting a blog.  My first two posts will be about the ways in which gender roles affect us as individuals when we are children and continue to make a bigger impact on society as we grow into adults.  I've found a few articles from the NY Times as well as BBC and the Huffington Post.  My first post will be about the ways in which children are gendered before they are even born.  I will explore the pink vs blue fight, the ways toys affect children, and the way parents' expectations can affect children's psychological state. My second post will cover the ways early exposure to gender roles can affect the people we grow to be as adults.  I will discuss how gender expectations of men and women can lead to objectification of women and rape culture.  I plan to find more scholarly articles on these affects gender roles have on society.  I hope to use this blog to inform my readers about feminism and what true equality can look like.

Summary: Is Print Media Dead?

At first, I was going to research the positive and negative effects of social media on multiple generations but I've switched over to something I am much more passionate about, books, in the general sense, print media. At this point I've gleaned much information from trade publications, academic journals, and some media panels. Moving forward I want to gain more information from individual print media forms, newspaper, books, and magazines to compare and contrast how digital media is affecting them. I would also like to interview publishers at my current internship, Minotaur Books. They in theory have a direct influence on the book publishing industry and will have a unique perspective on my topic.

I am truly passionate about this project and hope it will make a great addition to my portfolio.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/136qkpbmTd4flc2i1Oxte8NUwiObtMtQRpk7oChRzJrs/edit#slide=id.p