COMM 4020 Political Communication blog

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2015/04/environmental_groups_to_hit_rob_portman_with_tv_ads_for_his_global_warming_proposal_video.html

Chapter five of Denton & Kuypers’ Politics and Communication in America discusses two models of uneasy relationship between politicians and the press. A recent example of the “attack press” model surfaced against Rob Portman by environmental groups. Earlier, we viewed Rob Portman’s Announcement (COMM2040 Module) speech in which he presents himself as a “family man” and dedicated to the plight of the “average American.” However, once Portman announced his presidential candidacy, environmental groups jumped on his stance to support big business and the pollution that comes with it. The attack ad cleverly asks the viewers to “hold your breath” for the duration of the commercial while images of suffering asthmatic children are depicted as victims of Portman’s contradictory message. It is interesting to see this example play out exactly on cue as the book states about the progression of Presidential campaigns.

The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Moms Clean Air Force will run television ads in major Ohio cities with pleas for voters to investigate Portman’s policies:

“Senator Portman led the charge in Congress last month to allow power plants to keep polluting our air.

“Pollution which is not only one of the major causes of catastrophic climate change, but also leads to childhood asthma attacks.

“Senator Portman’s supposed to protect the people, not the polluters.”

Powerful media can also be a positive means to begin the dialogue of questioning the people in power who have our lives, our future in their hands.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rubio-tells-donors-he-is-running-for-white-house/ar-AAaWfh

This article is all about Senator Marco Rubio announcing his bid for the republican nomination as their choice of presidential candidacy in 2016. This is an example of surfacing.  While Senator Rubio maybe fairly new to the political arena he has obviously, by looking at his credentials has been setting himself up to be a viable candidate for the presidency.  While the senator’s choice of announcement for candidacy date may not have been the best he has certainly made a big splash.  The scene for the announcement was as follows,  he spoke from what would be considered a flashy political setting in front of a large crowd of donors.  Senator Marco Rubio has made it known that he is taking on Hillary Clinton in this race.  While The senator may be young and by some considered that a first term senator as not being experienced enough to run this country he took this in to consideration and laid out a specific plan to show himself a s a policy expert, on both foreign along with domestic issues.  Rubio is a first generation immigrant with his parents fleeing Cuba and becoming US. citizens Rubio has framed his campaign to the voters as him being a man that came from blue collar roots who can relate to the common citizen and will be out to help the average American have a voice in government instead of the typical top 1% of America making the laws that all citizens must live by.

The New York Times recently posted a article that disguised rhetoric in about Rand Paul’s accepting of Bitcoin, a form of digital currency that is untraceable and is not backed by anything other than trust and the online market. If you are unaware of Bitcoin the article doesn’t really explain it other than that its bad side, which is a concern, but it isnt the only issue. Bitcoin being what it is can be exploited very easily and say you want to give more than the limit of 100 dollars. if you move bitcoins between accounts you could potentially send thousands of untraceable funding to a campaign that could be from a foreign source or just making campaign funding even more secretive for corporations. not to mention that Bitcoin has been known to fluctuate massively, it went from a few cents to over 1000 US Dollars each bitcoin when it first got attention. that being said if someone controlled the market for a candidate could kill the market donate more money then raise the value which then can be converted into currency and used for any expense remember that its untraceable so they don’t necessarily have to used this funding for there campaign. its a trust based system in a untrustable market being mixed with politics. the article although questions the use of bitcoin it mentions its strong support including this comment at the end: Mr. Klein said. “I also believe in a year or two, this won’t be a story because every candidate will accept Bitcoins — just like every candidate has a website.” hopefully this doesn’t get abused.

The article I chose to discuss can be found at the link: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/fashion/for-male-politicians-dieting-is-a-campaign-issue.html?referrer=
This article is fascinating to me and it touches on a variety of issues we have discussed in class. Whenever I begin to think about appearance and personality in regards to campaign politics I am instantly drawn back to the video we viewed in class of the politician announcing his plans to run. Members of the class were highly irritated by his behavior; whether it be his dry mouth, his speech patterns, or even the wall he was standing in front of. People took issues with these things and seemed to dislike the candidate because of them. Although these issues hold no political weight it seems as though he could have lost voters in my class simply because of the way he talks. I was and still am shocked people think this way.
So now we move onto the article which raises questions about weight watching when it comes to political campaigning. Not too mention the thumbnail image attached to the article is a picture of governor Chris Christy, which is clearly an example of framing and agenda setting. Aside from that the article brings to light this idea that appearance matters. It matters so much that campaign teams focus great deals of energy to make a candidate look a certain way. This often includes dieting to promote the look of strength and health. Whether I want to believe it or not these are things that matter to the people who vote. More often than not these issues matter more than the actual “issues”.

Many Americans know the relationship between America and Cuba and it has not been a good one. But that all changed when President Obama and Castro declared an end the cold war. In CNN’s article about the Summit of the Americas threw a wrench into the new found agreement. The article is about the Venezuela government accusing the United States of terrorism. CNN’s article strategy was to create drama with the use of the political language. The article does this by using sentences like “The much anticipated handshake between Obama and Castro would steal all the headlines if it wasn’t for Cuba’s strongest ally, Venezuela.”

This articles also creates drama through political language by expanding the story about the tension between the US and Venezuela, that the Venezuela President is accusing the US of over throwing his government. They continue to discuss who was called a terrorist and what the US did to Venezuela to create this reaction which is accuse 7 government officials of human rights violations. The article then ends with “…Summit of the Americas could go from “mi casa es su casa” to a walk into the lion’s den.”

Chapter 6 of our books discusses some very often used media techniques. It discusses the concepts of agenda setting, priming, and farming.  Agenda setting is the idea that the press tells the readers which topics or issues are important. Denton and Kuypers say “agenda setting is the power of the media to focus their light on issues that normally would go unnoticed”. Denton and Kuypers also propose the idea of Framing, which is that the media present their ideas in the light that they want the viewers to see it, hence framing.

The politics of feminism is a strong example of agenda setting. The author Jessica Ravitz goes out of her way to shine light on a meeting between two female congresswomen. It is reasonable to assume that countless meetings occur between different members of congress on a regular basis. So the question arises, why is this meeting so special that it deserves an article on cnn.com?  Could it be because these two women have very different opinions; Carolyn Maloney is a left wing democrat and Cynthia Lummis is a conservative republican.

The author then goes on to list some of Rep. Maloney’s accomplishments over her 22 years in congress.  One would have to admit that all of the accomplishments listed are pro women centered.  Almost to give the reader the idea that in all of her 22 years in office, pro-female legislation is all that Rep. Maloney has done.  I would have to think that in her many years of service she has been a part of many pieces of legislation, gender neutral.  Framing perhaps?

In this article I found on CNN.com they are discussing Kansas trying to pass a bill on the uses of welfare. The article leads us to believe that everyone using/receiving welfare are using it on unnecessary purchases, that the citizens who’s taxes go towards welfare can not afford, like tattoos, vacations, or massages. This may not always be the case but in this article there is a quote saying “we’re going to tell you how and where to spend your money” as in ‘your money’ they mean the welfare they had received from the government/tax payers. Having a bill similar to this already in place seems like a no brainer. Why are we not already doing this? This could cause some issues with many parties, groups and companies. But in the long run this may save our government who owes trillions of dollars some money. This also may encourage the temporary use of welfare vs the unfortunate but sometimes true side of life time use(and/or welfare fraud). This article also touches on food stamp use, and they make it seem as though a bill for food stamps may encourage healthier and more nutritious eating. These bills are very controversial issues between the democratic and republican parties. And as to be expected the republicans are all for and the democrats are completely against it. Will this really solve the issue of welfare fraud, or will this just cause other issue?

Someone close to Hillary Clinton has reported that on Sunday she will officially announce her bid to run for the Democratic National nomination in the 2016 run for the President of the United States.  Her format is a video that she will release on social media.  We discussed in chapter 7 how effective the internet could be in a presidential election and Hillary is going right to the source by not just using internet news media but social media to make that announcement.

We have also discussed that timing is important when releasing certain informational news about a campaign and Hillary’s team has worked very well in leaking just enough information to see what response might be out there.  She does have a strong backing from many in the Democratic Party and seems to be a forerunner for that party, but as we have seen in the past that does not always mean that, she will win the nomination.

The Republications have made it known that they are not in favor of her campaign and have started with several attack ads and statements trying to pull her campaign down right from the start.  They say that the American people want a leader they can trust and they cannot trust Hillary.  Hillary is using image ads to help boost her appeal by stating that she is a women and grandmother who wants to make sure that the next generation will have as many equal opportunity’s as possible.

When I mentioned earlier in this blog that her campaign team was really using the best form of media to release this information this was because who tends to use social media the most? Research shows that it is the next generation of voters, which not only include men but mainly women.  Good call Clinton campaign team.

http://time.com/3814732/white-house-conversion-therapy-youth/

http://www.hrc.org/blog/entry/obama-calls-for-end-to-dangerous-practice-of-conversion-therapy

Chapter 12 of Denton and Kuypers’ Politics and Communication in America discusses the increasing differences of modern presidencies and the new form of leadership. “Certainly in the last 25 years we have seen a transformation or a transition in terms of the roles and functions of the U.S. Presidency-not so much from a constitutional perspective, but from a cultural and sociological one” (p 257). Arguably, the American people would never have seen the discussion of banning sexual orientation youth Conversion Therapy during Nixon’s presidency. Yet, today the White House released President Obama’s Administration’s support to ban this horrific assault on gay, bisexual or transgendered minors. This decision surfaced after multiple reports of teen suicides that were attributed to the abusive tactics inflicted on non-heterosexual children as a means of “reparative” therapy. The Administration is following the recommendations by a number of major medical institutions who are taking a stance against this unproven, unethical programming. According to the article, Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to the President wrote, “As part of our dedication to protecting America’s youth, this administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors.” This practice is already banned in California, New Jersey and the District of Columbia; each state will have to vote on banning this atrocity.

The President has not enforced a federal ban on this issue but is a state decision. It is unfortunate that Ohio remains opposed to the Human Rights of the LGBT Community; however, it is an egregious act of violence, bullying and child abuse to turn a blind eye to the innocent citizens whose only protection can come from the government to save them from the perpetrators-the victims’ own families.

To view Ohio’s lack of support and refusal to accept that the LGBT Community has the same inalienable rights as Heterosexuals, visit: http://www.hrc.org/states/ohio. It is encouraging that our government has made strides to ensure equality in American continues to be a focus for improvement; however, it remains perplexing that this issue is still even debatable.