A Reflection on Black Lives Matter

On Thursday, February 23, 2017 I went to a rally at UVM's Davis Center. Black Lives Matter in the Era of Trump was a segment of the Will Miller Social Justice Lecture Series that UVM hosts in remembrance of Will Miller, a loved professor that empowered many students throughout UVM's campus in his 35 years of teaching there.

Miller's body passed away in 2005, but his strive for equality and social justice lives on through his soul and the people he left a mark on. The slogan for Miller's website reads, "He will always be remembered as a clear voice in a world of false words and disinformation." After attending the talk at UVM, it was clear that this idea and Miller's expressions were still alive in the opinions of the speaker, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.

Taylor is currently a professor at Princeton University in the Department of African American Studies. She is also the profound author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. Throughout her speech, Taylor referenced the issues that have been going on throughout America, not only in this most recent era of Donald Trump's reign, but in previous years as well. As Taylor was clearly outraged and concerned about the racism that surrounds us, she supported her emotions with facts that moved me. Taylor said Trump is not focusing on this issue at hand, and instead is leading up farther away and changing the topic to hide what really matters.
According to Taylor's research, there are rising shootings throughout the United States. Specifically in Chicago, 4,379 people were shot last year. Of those people, 797 of them were killed. Does this number have anything to do with the fact that the majority of those people were African American, and that 25% of African Americans in Chicago are unemployed? Chicago seems to be the most segregated city in the United States, and instead of doing anything about it, Trump is making the situation worse.
There are 400 billionaires in the United States and 45 million people in poverty. Taylor said, "We are told black criminals are the reason to poverty," but this is only because the 400 billionaires are running our country and are only being innocent bystanders.
Although I agreed with Taylor on the majority of her opinions throughout her speech, there were a few bits that triggered my opposing opinion. Yes, I think it is unfortunate that we have a president that seems to be racist and sexist amongst a bunch of other horrible things, but I do not believe that police officers are not helping the country like Taylor stated. She said, "Police are racist agents of the state; they don't help." I understand that with police shootings becoming increasingly newsworthy, there is controversy over this topic. However, I don't think they are to blame for this issue. I think that police are trying their hardest to help our country. It is their duty to keep us safe, so why would they try to hurt us? I think that police officers are doing their job, and therefore, I disagreed on this one bit that Taylor proclaimed.
Overall, I thought the speech was empowering and helped our society by gathering hundreds of people together to discuss one of many issues we are all facing together.

Four Theoretical Frameworks to Mass Media

Four Theoretical Frameworks

In Nancy Baym's book, Personal Connections in the Digital Age, she discusses how media affects our everyday lives both individually and as society in its entirety. In the second chapter of the book, she breaks down four theoretical frameworks that she uses to discuss the affect that mass media has on us and the affect that we have on mass media. Technological determinism, social construction of technology, social shaping of technology, and domestication of technology are the frameworks that she mentions. For me personally, the social shaping of technology has been the most prominent and influential of the frameworks.

Diving into Social Shaping

The social shaping of technology is a combination of technological determinism and social construction of technology, which is why I think it is the most influential. In class we compared the social shaping of technology to be similar to centrist beliefs. With that being said, it is important to think both short-term and long-term with the way that mass media shapes our social lives. The social shaping of technology not only refers to mass media shapes and affects us, but also how we shape and affect mass media. For example, mass media obviously affects our daily lives. Whether we're listening to the radio on the way to work, or watching the news before going to bed, the news that the media supplies us with is affecting our daily routine and outlook on life. In reverse, we are also affecting the media, the more we use it in different varieties of ways, causes the mass media to change; cellphones are always being updated in order to compete with other forms of media, and new technology is always arriving in order to give us something new to fathom over.

Mass Media's Affect on Us

Mass media feeds us everyday. As I like to think, there are now six main food groups: Fruits/Vegetables, Breads, Dairy Products, Meat/Fish/Alternatives, Fats/Sugars, and Social Media. 

In today's society we are built to feel as though we need social media just as we need food and water. At the end of the day when you look back on how everything went you think, Did I eat all of my fruits and vegetables today? How many glasses of water did I drink? Is another person in my graduating class really pregnant? Did I remember to write on Kristen's Facebook wall to say Happy Birthday?

In today's society, we live off of social media.

Although it is possible to get by without using social media, many people can't imagine a day without it. Technology has had so much of an affect on us today, that there have even been support groups that help people that are addicted to social media. As children today grow up, one of the biggest issues people are worried about, is the amount of time a child spends on technology each day because they are worried this problem will on get worse as they age.

Our Affect on Mass Media

We feed off of mass media. With this, mass media and the technology industry grows. Whether it's new filters on Snapchat, Twitter updates, or reactions to Facebook posts, mass media is changing based upon our feedback. The cycle of using mass media and mass media using us is continuous. The more we use social media platforms, the more we become familiar with them, the more we find things we want changed about them, and the more our feedback is used to better enhance the site, to get more users, that will then repeat the process. Mass media is constantly changing in order to fulfill our needs. 

I NEED to stream this basketball game live to my Facebook so that all of my friends can watch it and see how great my court side seats are. 

But do you actually NEED to do that? You're just going to end up watching the entire game through the screen on your phone instead of enjoying the opportunity that is right in front of you.

But how can we resist this urge? When the iPhone 7 just came out and has a better camera than we've ever owned in our entire life? With two lenses you can't go wrong now. Our use of technology 24/7 and desire to show everyone what we're doing, when we're doing it (including a snapchat picture of us going to the bathroom) has forced mass media to keep up with us.