Today in
class we watched Jenna’s YouTube video of “Man” and we listened to Gavin’s
recap of class last Friday. We also got to spend some time doing our first peer
review on our first book entry. Li-Chin expressed the importance that each
student needs to come prepared for class and to not develop “excusitis”. I
would like to share that technically “excusitis” is not a word. But according
to Urban Dictionary the official definition for excusitis is-the
tendency/disease/regular behavior of making an excuse for every poor
performance. In simpler words, giving excuses for everything and trying to back
their faults. I found this to be quite amusing! So…get your shit together
people! She also explained the social force that affects people can be as small
as not showing up to class and as big as the laws passed by the supreme
court.
We learned
that the French social thinker Auguste Comte coined the term sociology in 1838.
Comte was interested in how society could be improved, but his main objective
was to learn how society actually operates. We also discussed how education can
change the world, how society should be more transparent. For example, internet
censorship in China is among the highest in the world. What I take away from
that is the Chines government doesn’t want any citizen to really understand how
they run their government. That way no citizen will show any resistance or
disagree with how the Chinese government runs their country. It’s how they
control their society. Knowledge is power and the Chinese take away that power
by restricting knowledge. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! (in my opinion!)
One of the
areas that I am most excited to learn about is the sociological theories.
Li-Chin explained that learning these will help your mind-eyes to open.
·
Seeing the general in the particular
·
Seeing the strange in the familiar
·
Seeing society in our everyday
lives-seeing personal life choices from the social context
·
Seeing sociologically: Marginality
and Crisis
Our reading
assignment is Chapter 7 Mass Media and Social Media. It explained how social
media has brought change to the workplace, transformed politics, and has given
new life and power to social movements.
I would like
to talk about my experience with mass media and social media. I was born in the
early 80’s, so I grew up without the internet and without cell phones. I didn’t
own a cell phone or have a computer in my home until I was 18. I wonder what my
high school experience would have been like if social media was around such as
Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat. Hmm…
I enjoyed
reading about the history of newspapers which were the first medium of mass
communication. Newspapers use what is called “sensationalism”, this tactic
involves selecting stories and making use of graphic language and images to
inflame public interest with the goal of selling more papers. I also like
learning that German physicist Heinrich Hertz was the first to transmit sound
waves without wires (wireless) and the term “Hertz” is used as a measure of
radio; even the speed of today’s computer processors is measured in “Hertz”.
How cool is that?!?
In this video they go over what puts the “science” in social science? Today we’ll explore positivist sociology and how sociologists use empirical evidence to explore questions about the social world. We’ll also introduce two alternatives: interpretative sociology and critical sociology.
One thing I
can do to benefit myself and society is to be more consciously aware of what I
post on Facebook and what effect it may have.
One thing
that I could do to affect myself and society in a negative way would be to
promote or post things on Facebook that could have a negative on society such
as fake news.
Society
could affect me in a positive way if the news presented more positive stories.
Society
could influence me in a negative way if the new stayed on track with its fear
based stories.
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