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Dani Menser
Comm 336

Before taking this course I had no feeling towards the media and or the government. I wanted nothing to do with politics and or the media. In my eyes you could not trust either on of them in anyway, shape, or form. They both lied and never said anything hardily ever that was anywhere near the truth. When I signed up for this course I headed into it with the thought of no matter what I learned it still was probably all going to be lies. And I knew we were going to be discussing the election and I told myself that I was going to do the assignments and that was it, I was not going to get drug into the ways of the political and or media world.
Now my views are completely and utterly different. This class has taught me how to dig for the truth and how to tell who is lying and who is being honest. This class has helped me in ways to find out what I never thought was possible, it has shown me how to find honest journalist, or well slightly honest. I know also have followed up and watch the complete election coverage and actually enjoyed it. I did my own research and found out what I needed to know about each politician and have come to my own conclusion despite my family’s views. I know have a much broader view on the whole thing and hope to keeping getting more interested and more knowledgeable on it all.
I believe that this class was taught very well. The only thing in this class I had a hard time following was the blog assignments. I still don’t quite understand what you were looking for in them. I never have blogged before and maybe I am just out of the loop and not understanding them, but other than that this was a very well put together class and I really enjoyed it a lot. I really enjoyed how open ended your questions were for discussion and how you let us all have our own point of views. You never forced your views on us like most teachers and I really respected you for that.

the course about media and government, we cant look at how media deals with the government w/o looking at the ecomonmy or forign affairs. We have been doing more media and public affair. By posting the question for this question, we're doing the same thing we're doing for the final exam. We can look back at the things we've read and use it. Look over stuff and come to conclusions about it or an evaluation about it.
- Evaluate and analyze, when analyzing you break down and re evaluate them.

***~Paper~***

Due 21st of November. 10 pages. -Evaluate the camgaign and election coverage in the light of this critique. -Evaluate on a scale of 1-10 or a letter grade.-Compare different media outlets (ex - politico vs. Washington Post)
-Discuss the entertainment aspect of the coverage.
-Discuss the media coverage of the campaign after the credit crisis began.
-Discuss the Sarah Palin coverage.
-Independent monitor of power?


***Possible Final Question***
-(25pts)How do the forums do? Do they provide a forum for critisism or compromise...especially when they start snarling at eachother calling people facists.
-Postmodernism
-Check out question 2A from old 317 final (May 2008).

Check Mackeral Wrapper for the Elements of Journalism on the CCJ website posted to wrapper.

Questions to be answered

How much news has been packaged as entertainment?

Are we sprived of a coherent contextual understanding of the world?

Is that a bum wrap?

How much of the election news has been packasged as entertainment?

How can we make a difference?

As an American citizen there are many was we can make a difference in our government. We have the power to change what we dont like. When they intergrated popular soverignty that put the people in charge over the government. It is our duty as citizens to take a stand for what we beleive. We have the right to vote for who we beleive should run our country, we have the right to go out and talk about what we beleive we need to see in our country, and we also have the right to take a stand and tell them what we see that they are doing is wrong and tell them and make our voices heard. I beleive that we have become to complacent with just "going with the flow"

assignment

How much does pre-election coverage effect how we vote? Read the stories on the front (home) page of Politico.com and answer the question: How does this election coverage help me exercise my rights and responsiblities as a citizen? As you think about the coverage, ask yourself what you (can) do as a citizen:
Vote
Keep up to date on issues
Pay taxes
Write your representative(s) and senator(s)
Walk a precinct
Sign up as a deputy registrar
Work at the polls on election day
Take part in a phone bank
Attend a rally or demonstration
Wear funny T-shirts
Anything else that makes sense to youAs you read the coverage, ask yourself how individual stories on Politico.com factor into these roles. Post your answer(s) to your blog.Example: Politico.com has a daily feature called "The Arena," in which politicians and others who follow public affairs answer questions of the day. Today's is "Based on what you know now, is Obama headed for a blowout victory?" One answer is by appellate lawyer Walter Dellinger of North Carolina and visiting professor at Harvard. His answer: "I can't speak to the national politics, but I have become convinced that Obama will win my home state of North Carolina ..." He adds, "I think enthusiasm and ground operation coupled with early voting will trump closet racism and Obama will exceed his poll numbers in NC." This sounds like the kind of "horse race" coverage I like to complain of, but the issues Dellinger raises can affect my role as a citizen, because I bet my wife I would push a peanut with my nose from the Tennessee line on I-40 to Cape Hatteras if Obama carries North Carolina. (A Carolina-style boiled peanut, of course.) More importantly, he gives me reason to hope racial attitudes down South are not as harsh as I had feared they were.
FootnoteA story on the Bloomberg website about changing attitudes in the South makes the same point: "North Carolina, like Florida and Virginia, represents a New South politically, different from the deeply conservative, reliably red -- as in Republican -- one that marks most of Dixie," says Albert R. Hunt, executive Washington editor at Bloomberg News. It's a good example of political reporting as well. Worth a read. Would be a good one to analyze for next week's assignment, too, if you get my drift. So there's more going on in the horserace coverage, if it's done right, than who's going to win the election ... even if the horserace is the news hook that gets readers into the story.

Analysis or Advocacy?

I beleive that Andrew Romano was doing an analysis. I beleive this because he was going through and breaking down the camapign parties and explaining how each campaign has its faults and how they are running on each others slip ups. He goes on to explain how Mcains campains are being more looked into that Obamas. He even went out and found some of Obamas slip ups.