Hot Spots in Journalism

• Journalism in Politics

When it comes to politics, there is a lot of controversy because politicians hold power and with power, comes responsibility. There is a lot of criticism that goes on because most people, when they think journalism, they think of the people who leak all of the gossip and secrets. Publishing quotes from people can cause chaos and for this reason, it is important to get the facts right and to not be persuaded by others or even popular opinion. It is often hard to find that balance. (see 

http://www.mediahelpingmedia.org/training-resources/advanced-journalism/712-the-relationship-between-journalists-and-politicians)

• Freedom of the Press

There is a lot of controversy about how far journalists can go with the word “freedom” when it comes to freedom of putting out words. It has become hard to tell where to draw the line. When it comes to the freedom of the press, Trump says that the problem is ignorance and not getting facts right. (see https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/05/opinion/trump-free-press.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FFreedom%20of%20The%20Press&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=collection for his opinion)

• Freedom of Speech

The question on what this means and if it means you can say anything is still pretty vague. As people freely express what they wish, there are problems created, but what do we do about this? The question is still out there.

(https://www.history.com/topics/united-states-constitution/freedom-of-speech)

As I read more about these headings I can't help, but think about how important self expression is. Sharing what you might deem as important and beneficial to an individual is inspiring, can be creative and can change perspectives. With all that and these bullets above, it isn't easy and with everything we do, we can do, but a lot of times, we must filter ourselves, but not filter our creativity.

Going into journalism myself, learning and studying more about all these things has opened up my mind in ways that I have not thought of. Moving forward and being aware of these things is important and I can see that now.

 

Photographing A Christening While Studying the Reformation

A couple of weekends ago I had the unique opportunity to attend and photograph a Christening in the Catholic Church. This was an interesting event to attend while learning about the Catholic Church and the reformation. Most of my exposure to the Catholic Church and to Catholic people came while serving my mission in Mexico where I’d always run into some very dedicated Catholics every where I went, but actually participating in a religious ceremony with them a couple days ago opened my eyes. Their decorum in this ordinance and love for Christ and their love for love is explicitly evident and that cannot be denied. Though, I do not agree with the religious practices in the baby baptism, I still feel that what happens in those churches is a way of acting in faith even if it isn’t the way that I believe in. Those people chose to be in that room and I think the Lord sees that and accepts that faith acted upon. All of this brings me back to Martin Luther and his thoughts on faith. In “Martin Luther’s Conversion,” he mentions that “The righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written: the righteous shall live by faith.” This stands out because we all were created by God and He loves us and accepts our types of devotion to Him no matter what they are. This concept of sola fide is interesting to me. I might have this wrong, but my understanding is that the Protestants believed in this concept with Martin Luther and the Catholics were more the works part of faith. If the catholics were works based people back in the reformation, I believe that this has shifted in a way. I can see that these people had a lot of faith in their practices, but then again the question is, “does that faith only happen within a religious ceremony?” I guess that is a question that we can all ask ourselves. Do we really live what we believe or is it all to merely look a certain way. The reformation, even though it was a hard time for some people, it was a time where all faiths and beliefs were challenged. It served as a reminder that whatever was believed in needed to be firmly believed in to be able to last the test of time and pressure from the outside sources that were surrounding the religious people of the time.
Art in this stained glass window brought me to a familiarity that I couldn't feel within the ceremony, but it did remind me of Christ. 

Hot Spots in Graphics and Design

Appropriation Art

Appropriation is taking possession of something (object and/or image) that already exists. Artists who use appropriation is in no way trying to pull one over anyone, but rather putting these objects and images in a new context without transforming their original concepts. The earliest form of appropriation art was in 1912 by Pablo Picasso who created a glass bottle and guitar out of newspaper clippings discovered this form of art and design, but this does not dismiss the fact that an artist runs the risk of accusation and lawsuits due to plagiarism, non-original and copyright infringement. This is one that Andy Warhol became much familiar with when he was sued by Campbell's Soup for his portrait of the Campbell's Soup Can. 

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A Literary​ Discipline

When an author writes, they face the task of creating characters which develop throughout the book. An editor then brings form into the writers' text like a carver brings form to a block of wood or stone. A graphic designer could add new layers of meaning to the text they are structuring —  they’re capable of permeating the immediacy of a single word, phrase or expression with narrative. Writers, editors and designers all speak the same language. 

An example of writers, editors and designers speaking the same language, I am currently reading Honoré de Balzac’s classic novella, “The Girl with the Golden Eyes”, the first 30 pages Balzac is basically walking the reader through Paris describing how horrific and awful it is. An artist name Eugene Delacroix created a painting called ‘The Death of Sardanapalus’ which depicts a society of chaos, giving Balzac’s textual description of Paris a new layer of meaning.

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Not Self-Expression

Self-expression is the way we declare our personalities, our feelings, thoughts and ideas in a variety of ways. Throughout my two years at Salt Lake Community College studying graphic design, most of my professors would constantly state that graphic design is a service rendered by you for other people and that your own design idea(s) were irrelevant. So, we were taught and trained to follow specific instructions given in the form of assignments and projects. 

Presentation days were the most boring and longest days of my life, not because I hate speaking in front of the class (I really do hate speaking in front of a large group of people), but enduring a whole two hours of students presenting on the same thing, using the same terminology only with a twist in sequence in the process of completing the assignment. This is true in the sense of a marketing profession or a product designer but not for graphic designers who draw inspiration from their own ideas and interests.  

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We are constantly surrounded by graphic design, whether we notice it or not. It is the visual communication through the combination of typography, photography and illustration which creates a symbolic representation of an idea or message. It is on the clothes we wear, the cars we drive and the candy wrappers we immediately discard after devouring its contents. Some of us may have drawn a mustache or two on an image on our handouts, added curly hair to a character in a book, filled in the holes in the letters p, o, capital A or even added serif and tails to printed text. You may have done this unconsciously, but you were able to add a new layer and idea to something even if boredom inspired you, it is a form of self-expression in the form of graphic design.

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Hot Spots in Computer Science and Animation

1) Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) has captivated the minds of authors and readers for years. With the day of super-intelligent AI fast approaching, concerns are quickly rising to the surface of research. AI offers the promise of a raised global standard of living, and also the threat of autonomous weapons and killing machines. More information about the future of AI can be found here : Benefits and Risks of Artificial Intelligence- Future of Life Institute

2) The Internet of Things
Smart homes, cars, fridges, and washing machines have proven their value to the world in significant ways in the past few years. Unfortunately, such items can also be hacked into by outsiders, endangering us and all that we own. As programmers and engineers push towards the future, they run the risk of going to far. At what point does progress become dangerous, and is it worth the risk? For more information follow this link to read about two security officials that took complete control of Chrysler vehicles. AFTER JEEP HACK, CHRYSLER RECALLS 1.4M VEHICLES FOR BUG FIX

3) Animating Genders
Animation is known for depicting characters emotions through proportion changes and facial distortion. While silly and unappealing, it has made characters seem real and very human. However, female leads often are not depicted this way however, because it risks sacrificing their aesthetic appeal. This gender-bias stems from long held rhetorical tradition. For years, people have associated exaggerated expressions with female villains and side characters, and not with heroines. It's been this way for so long that it's almost a rule of rhetorical decorum for animators. Follow this link to read about the controversy with the female leads of Disney's Frozen. “Frozen” Head of Animation Says Animating Women is “Really, Really Difficult”

As computer science and animation student, I'm concerned with depictions of women in animation. These persisting issues have deprived millions of people from relating to strong female leads. Don't these long standing traditions and expectations deserve to be challenged? It seems that everyone, both animator and viewer, would benefit from Immanuel Kant's advice to break free of tutelage and tradition and to "Sapere aude,"  "Dare to know", or in this case dare to try something that hasn't been done before.

Hot Spots in Psychology

Psychology and Neuroscience: Allies or Antagonists?

The relationship between psychology and neuroscience is a complicated one. An esteemed psychology professor once told me, “I think eventually the field of neuroscience will eat away at psychology until psychology becomes obsolete.” I disagree. These points of view raise some interesting questions: How are the mind and the brain different? How are they related? Can we really measure intangible things, like the mind? Should we stick to studying things we can see with our own eyes? How do these fields work together? Can they peacefully coexist?

(See: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-apes/201702/is-neuroscience-the-future-or-the-end-psychology)


Ethics in Psychology Research

The Institutional Review Board (IRB) is responsible for approving all of the potential studies that will be done in the field of psychology. Their purpose is to make sure that all of the research is ethical. The IRB has established several rules and guidelines that must be met in order to approve a study as ethical. However, this still leaves lots of gray areas in which subjective decisions are made, making it a critical issue of psychology today.

(See: https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20151212/MAGAZINE/312129979/policing-the-ethics-police-research-review-boards-face-scrutiny-as-feds-propose-new-rules)


Perceptions of Psychology

A lot of “flashy” and well known psychology topics, like Freud’s theories of the id, ego and superego; Rorschach tests; and Briggs-Meyers Personality Tests are not actually accepted as credible elements of modern psychology. Some claim that these theories or tests explain everything about people and their behaviors, while psychologists would be very skeptical. It is important to educate the public about the shortcomings of these theories and tests so they can understand psychology on a deeper level, and so they don’t believe in things that are unreliable or majorly flawed.

A video about Rorschach tests-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jRMOTjBPjI
An article about Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Test-https://www.medicaldaily.com/personality-tests-are-not-accurate-myers-briggs-personality-test-not-reliable-416652


I think the most interesting of these three issues is the public’s perception of psychology (but the relationship between psychology and neuroscience is a close second!) I think the way we present psychological research can sometimes be overcomplicated, resulting in a lack of interests from those who are not specialists in the field. I think if we can communicate modern research in an effective and interesting way (while still maintaining the core truths of the research), the public will be better educated about their mental health and the world around them.

Hot Spots in the Medical Field

·      State Regulation of Fast Food Chains

Policies that counter fast food consumption might offer governments a way to tackle the growing obesity epidemic. In a study I recently just read, nations with stronger government regulations—such as producer protection, price controls, intervention on competition, and taxes—experienced slower increases in fast food purchases and average BMIs. The lack of regulation of fast food could be fueling our country’s obesity epidemic. (See https://www.futurity.org/fast-food-need-government-regulation/)

·      Mandatory Child Vaccinations

No US federal laws mandate vaccination, but all 50 states require certain vaccinations for children entering public schools. Most states offer medical and religious exemptions; and some states allow philosophical exemptions.Each year, about 2.1 million people die from vaccine-preventable diseases. Many children may not receive their necessary first year vaccinations because of lack of availability, religious beliefs, and safety concerns. Vaccinations have significantly reduced the disease rate throughout the world. (See https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/global-immunization/diseases-and-vaccines-world-view)

·      The Right to Free Health Care

Proponents of the right to health care say that no one in one of the richest nations on earth should go without health care. They argue that a right to health care would stop medical bankruptcies, improve public health, reduce overall health care spending, help small businesses, and that health care should be an essential government service. Opponents argue that a right to health care amounts to socialism and that it should be an individual 's responsibility, not the government 's role, to secure health care. They say that government provision of health care would decrease the quality and availability of health care and would lead to larger government debt and deficits. (See https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/the-state-of-healthcare-in-the-united-states/health-care-as-a-human-right/)

Out of these three topics I feel like I am most passionate about the last. I personally believe that health care should be a basic human right. Because progress towards Universal Health Coverage involves a range of complex technical challenges, it is easy to forget that moving toward it is a political processthat involves negotiation between different interest groups in society over the allocation of health benefits and who should pay for these benefits. Although these are valid concerns, there are much more benefits to the U.S. adopting a dorm of national health care system than to keep its current system. This current health care debate hits close to home for every American.

Hot Spots in English Education

Validating Vernaculars

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Traditionally, English instruction has focused on the "correctness" of students' use of language and grammar, which has marginalized every child who has mastered one of the many English dialects, such as African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) or "Spanglish," for lack of a more official term. Educators and researchers are now learning that spending precious classroom time to rid students of their native vernaculars is harming their school and standardized test performance. In classrooms that teach towards comprehension rather than correctness, students enjoy their studies more, their grades pick up, and their standardized test scores rise. (See Moving Students Towards Acceptance of "Other" Englishes, NCTE 2016)