Blog 6

For this blog I analyzed a story from the USA Today newspaper that I found online. The article was about states cutting health care coverage due to the economy. I do believe that Lasch's description of modern-day journalism is justified in this article. One of the main reasons I feel this way is because of the lack of argument, which Lasch sites on page 308. This article defiantly circulates information but does not promote and argument. The article states facts about what states are affected by the cuts and how big the cuts will be and other information like that, but it doesn't promote a debate or suggest any further discussion on the topic, just basically says "Here's what's happening, now move on". That is exactly what Lasch said about current journalism. This article is defiantly written objectively, without any one thing really being supported or said. This is what Lasch was saying about the modern-day journalism, that they no longer promoted debate because being objective in reporting in order to provide information as accurately as possible has become the ultimate goal of the modern-day journalist. As Lasch says on page 310, the journalism community no longer promotes the development of "the ability to follow an argument, grasp the point of view of another, expand the boundaries of understanding, debate the alternative purposes that might be pursued" in the public. The journalism community has turned from originally stimulating public debate and development of knowledge to a source of objective information and nothing more. I do believe that I am presented with a very well researched article, however. This article is very detailed with more than half of the total length of the article coming from specific examples of what the health care cut meant by state. The article is in a nationally known newspaper so that helps me feel that it is well researched and reliable. Articles in a well known paper like this have to be very well researched because so many people read the paper that any mistake will be found and pointed out. While I do feel that Lasch was completely correct in his description of modern-day journalism and that this is shown in the article that I found, I still believe that this article was very well researched and that it is indeed reliable. I think that the statement of objective fact actually does help promote a sense of the article being reliable and well researched, even though it does cause for a lack of debate over it.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-10-28-health-cuts_N.htm

Blog 5

For this blog I decided to watch the Vice Presidential debate. I missed this on tv so I watched the video of it on youtube. I believe that the purpose of both of the candidates was to inform people of their stance towards the bigger issues and show the difference between the two parties stance. The purpose was also to persuade the views to vote for the speaker's party. The speaker's purpose was also to motivate the viewers to support each speaker's party and spread the word and get more support for the party. I believe that these purposes were actually accomplished. Both of the candidates had good points and debated very well. They stayed away from personal attacks and focused on the issues. I believe that anyone watching the debate who was unsure of who to vote for would definitely have been swayed to supporting one of the parties, as to who did this the best I couldn't tell. I believe that both candidates did a fantastic job and deserve the support of the people watching. I feel that Governor Biden presented himself as more of an authority instructing with a hint of a peer sharing information while Senator Pallin presented herself as more of a peer sharing information with hints at being an authority every now and then. Both of the candidates had great eye contact, not being able to speak from a prepared script but reacting to the question and the opponent's response. The audience had a couple of reactions, but they were instructed from the beginning to not react at all so the audience reaction was kinda of misleading. The candidates usually finished in the allotted time but both were cut off a couple times in the middle of a point, so both could have used a little more time management but did a great job regardless. I believe that both candidates were very appropriate for the audience. They both used very profession language and were mostly formal with enough informality mixed it that it made both candidates very understandable while not taking away from their credibility.

Blog #4

http://www.360tuners.com/ProductImages/engine/coldairintake/AFCCAV9524L.jpg

I am going to write my fourth blog about the effectiveness of ads. The specific ads I'm talking about are air intake ads online. I am looking for an air intake for my car to try and boost gas mileage a little bit more, and maybe grab an extra horsepower or two, but I don't want to spend a lot of money. This has resulted in me looking through a very large number of different websites and ads. The image above is one of the better sites that I visited. The majority of the pictures were just a blank white background with the part shown in the center of it. This resulted in high contrast but I don't feel it was very effective. It was hard to focus on the part when the background was white, my eyes would start to drift around the page instead of focusing on the part I was trying to look at. The ad I have shown also uses contrast, but instead of just a white background it has a background with subtle colors and shapes. This causes my eyes to stay focused on the part shown, since the background doesn't blend into the rest of the web page my eyes are able to stay centered on it easily. Another common issue I had with most of the images was alignment. Most of the pictures were of the air intake horizontal across the middle of the image with nothing else. This alignment allowed my eyes to move from the left of the image to the right without anything really stopping them. That alignment was completely boring and didn't prompt my eyes to really take notice of anything. The ad I attached also doesn't have this problem. The ad has the intake vertical, using the bend in the pipe to hold the logo of the part maker, which most other websites also lacked, and also to cradle a smaller image of exactly everything that comes with the air intake. This is highly effective because my eyes start at the top, move to the logo, then to the filter on the fully assembled intake, then to the smaller picture, all without every really being told to move. This ad is far more effective than most of the ads I saw and I feel that this ad is actually a very well made ad.