WI: Politics and Campaigning

For this Politics and Campaigning post I decided to focus on online campaigning. In my research I was directed to an article from the guardian called Avaaz: can online campaigning reinvent politics. The article focuses on Avaaz an online campaigning site and how effecitive it has been in influencing international politics. Avaaz creates petitions to protest various global issues and gets as many people as they can to sign them. Basically getting a petition considered by world governments is a numbers game. For example in the UK there's a law that says Parliament will respond to every petition that meets or exceeds 100,000 signatures. In the U.S. it only takes 25,000 signatures. Avaaz takes knows these laws so they pick an issue to tackle and they work on gathering the required amout of signatures to get these governments' attention.

There are many who say petitions don't really make much of difference in politics and that Avaaz produces nothing more than clicktivism. However activist Noami Colvin said "An Azaaz petition at the right time does swing the balance on a lot of issues." This happened in cases of the Bradley Manning support network and the Occupy movement.

These online campaigns really do seem to have their place and they provide a convenient way to get involved in world politics. I feel like it fits in well with today's age where narcotizing disfunction runs rampant. Avaaz makes activism just as easy and clicking like on Facebook or using a hashtag to promote a cause. And since they have made a difference in many cases I think they do a have significant role to play in the future of politics. 

WI: Learning and thinking

The video post on the class blog brought to light some interesting issues the current education system. One that I thought was particularly interesting was how they compared American K-12 education to a factory, training students to fit a certain mold and punishing those that don't fit. While I don't completely agree with that, I do see that many students that need more help than the current system offers. There is definitely a need for more non-linear learning methods if you will. I really liked the Knewton software that they talked about in the video. It basically designs a ciriculum for each individual, instead of asking every student to conform to learning the same material at the same pace.
A Huffington post article from 2014 written by Sramana Mitra says that our system could benefit from teaching the principles of entrepreneurship more. I full-heartedly agree. Every student studying any subject would be much more prepared to enter the workforce if they not only understand their craft, but also understood the business of the industry they wish to enter. I would also argue that critical thinking is glaringly missing from American high school education. Teaching and compelling students to think critically about the subjects their learning would prepare students for college more than probably anything else. I know I would have benefited from it.

Sources:

• http://comm3480.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-future-of-learning.html
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sramana-mitra/the-future-of-education-1_b_4617335.html

OTM 1: Kids These Days

This week on On The Media they covered a variety of topics including one debunking the myth about millennials as cultural rebels. This topic really resonated with me because I am a millennial. There are many stereotypes about millennials that are not necessarily true. A few that they mentioned on OTM were millennials are killing the housing market because they'd rather not own a house, millennials are killing the napkin industry because paper towels better suit their lifestyle, and millennials are not buying cereal because they don't like to do dishes. When you examine these stereotypes closer you can definitely see that there is an attempt by news media to prompt people to understand the psyche of millenials. A news consumer hears that information and make a conclusion about the way millenials think based on what they heard. That kind of media framing lends itself to older generations negatively criticizing younger generations. This has been happening for decades we just happen to be living in a time where baby boomers are criticizing millenials. In past decades it was traditionalists criticizing generation x-ers.
There is a social impact as well. I have heard baby boomers carry on entire conversations about how millenials are destroying all the values they hold dear. And they do it because they just want to be rebels. Millennials have legitimate reasons for the decisions they make just like baby boomers have reasons for the decisions they make. Of course these baby boomers would never lump their grandchildren in with those destructive deviants. But those conversations negatively affect the way millennials are perceived in a social context. The narrative about millennials in the news media seems to be that millennials make life decisions based on how they feel in the moment and they hardly ever consider the long-term consequences for their decisions. So the social perception is that they don't buy houses because right now owning a home doesn't suit them. They would rather shy away from that commitment because that suits their lifestyle. That is simply not true there are reasons for millennials not owning homes for example many millenials can't afford a mortgage. And perhaps because of budgeting apps and other technologies they are being more cautious with their money.
These narratives have created a perceived culture that millennials reject everything that past generations built society on. That is simply not true. I am a millennial and I value many social institutions that many people believe millennials have rejected. For example I am married. I grew up wanting to make that commitment and when I moved away from my parents I got married. I know many other millennials in our community that have done the same thing. Another thing is my wife and I own our car. As soon as we could afford it we got a car loan and starting paying off our car. We do not own our home but we have been saving money and building our credit in an effort to become homeowners in the future. My wife and I are not alone in this, there is a countless number of millennials that value these same commitments and institutions.
If we are to continue judging people based on the generation they're born into,  I would propose that we consider other factors as well. For example narrowing our scope of judgement by saying millennials of a particular local culture value these things and behave this way. For example I have observed that millennial Utahns are the exception to many of these stereotypes. A large number of millennials from Utah marry in their early 20s or late teens and a large number are home and/or car owners or at least have that as their goal. You could narrow it down even further by considering millennials' religion and the culture built around that. For example mormon millennials in Utah. Because like millennials from Utah could behave differently from other millennials, mormon millenials also could behave differently from other millennials.