IMC Hawks Blog

Tag: public opinion

  • Ready or Not, Here We Come!

    Well, it wasn’t ready. The Affordable Care Act website, that is. Commonly known as Obamacare by critics, the program officially launched October 1, 2013 and attempts to allow each American the opportunity to have affordable health care. The program was signed into law in 2010, but only just now became part of daily American life. The website experienced technical errors last week, and again this past Tuesday. However, this was unrelated to the government shutdown. Instead, the system experienced a major overload due to mass traffic to the site, claimed those who run it. An estimated 8 million visitors forced the site to send a response of “Please Wait and Be Patient,” CNBC reports. Run by the Department of Health and Human Services, the process to acquire a health care quote is actually quite simple. I myself did it and, just shy of giving my contact information, I was inches from an affordable quote in less than two minutes.

    Page that loads with technical issues, courtesy of MSNBC
    Page that loads with technical issues, courtesy of MSNBC

    Fox News said that the 93 million dollar website was the victim of poor Java Script coding, to the point where, simply put, the site freezes up. It doesn’t know where to go or in which direction to proceed. Yet MSNBC follows the path of the HHS, saying it was simply a matter of visitor overload to the site. MSNBC did not report, as of posting, that there were Java Script coding issues.

    So. Which to believe? It is common knowledge that news stations lean differently towards their side, whether it be right or left. Even CNN, a major world news outlet, leans toward one side. This post is neither liberal nor conservative, and it neither promotes nor discourages the Affordable Care Act. However, it does encourage that American citizens not rely solely on one news outlet for information. Rather, gather your news from a multitude of sources. Otherwise a viewer faces the possibility of being a victim of “Spiral of Silence.” The Spiral of Silence is an instance where an individual, with one opinion differing from that of the majority, is unable to voice said opinion for fear of judgment. For instance, if I believe Theory X, but my neighborhood only watches one news channel that reports solely on Theory Y, the neighborhood will only be educated on Theory Y. If the entirety of the neighborhood, apart from myself, believes in Theory Y, I would be uncomfortable in expressing my opinions and differences. I am lost in the Spiral of Silence. If you support a cause that one news station does not, you are only educated on their belief. In the land of the free, is our free speech being suppressed by the media?

    -Hilary Hall

  • Justin Bieber wants YOU to adopt an animal.

    We all know that celebrities play a huge role in the commercial and marketing industry. We have all seen the Proactiv commercials featuring a long list of celebrities that struggle with acne or a commercial like the one featured in yesterday’s post with Pauly D. In fact, according to the International Journal of Advertising about 25% of all US advertisements use celebrity endorsements and whether we want to admit it or not (ahem…third person media effect), what celebrities do or buy does have an effect on us. But that doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. What about when a celeb uses their influence and power for the greater good? When they help draw attention to a social problem?

    Oprah Winfrey is probably one of the most famous philanthropic celebrities of our time. She has used her show to shed light on many social issues and world issues as well raise millions of dollars for charities across the globe. Her influence is so high that economists at the University of Maryland stated that when she publicly endorsed Obama in the 2008 election, she may have brought in up to one million votes with her. That’s a lot of power. Other celebrities have also started to take a public stance on social issues in order to gain public interest. Jennifer Aniston along with many  other celebrities do commercials for St. Jude’s or in support of animal adoption.  Or as seen in the picture, Justin Bieber has joined with PETA in an effort to get people to adopt animals from their local shelters. The list could go on and on.

    So there’s some food for thought. Although we usually discuss celebrity endorsements with an air of negativity, we should also look at how they help organizations and causes that we, as the general public, might not have noticed without them.

    -Alaethea Hensley, Jessica Kingman, & Lauren Phelps