Apr. 8 Weekly Article

Project GramGram is a satirical initiative to encourage millennials to communicate more regularly with their grandparents.

I think the website and campaign are genius, funny, and creative. My only qualm with the website is that it seems a bit misleading. Watching the video leads me to believe that the service is actually available. I think that the group needs to be more explicit as to whether or not the product will actually be available, and if it will be when. Otherwise viewers will be disappointed when they find out this service is not, or not yet actually available.

Source: http://projectgramgram.com/#firstPage

Apr. 1 Application Log

This week in class we had an awesome lesson about giffs from Gabe. I thought it was very informative. One of my favorite things about this class is learning that fun and interesting things like giffs, picture quotes, and more are actually really simple to make. The more I learn, the more manageable a career in communications in this digital era seems to be. It has been empowering to see so many people my age creating fun, professional looking content with the intent of doing something good and positive for the world around them. I have seen things like giffs and picture quotes all over the place for a long time now, but after taking this class I look at them more analytically than before. It's exciting to think about the things I can create in the future.

Mar. 25 Application Log

My sister just got home from her mission on Wednesday. My brother just went through the temple last night, in preparation of going on his mission in a little over a month. We took picture and posted them on social media for both events, and they got sooo many likes and comments! This has got me thinking about why certain posts do so much better than others. The biggest thing that comes to mind is authenticity. The things we posted were truly significant moments for us. They brought us great joy. The message is simple, we love our family members and are proud of all the great things they are doing. People all want to connect with joy and love. However, I feel that sometimes people create content that can have a tendency to feel pandering or manipulative of these emotions. Nowadays, as people become more and more technologically savvy and social media literate, it can become easy to see through content that is not genuine. When it comes to the posts I most recently posted, and much of the content that I like, even if it isn’t necessarily and family member’s or friend’s achievement, authenticity is often a central part of the content.

Mar. 18 Weekly Article

An elementary school teacher has witnessed a surprised trend of hate speech among his first graders. He believes that Donald Trump’s popularity, and the culture of hate that has become associated and, sadly, popularized with it, is what cause this. He has caught his kids using the N word, and mocking kids for being Muslim. He found through some research that the parents of these trouble makers were supporters of Trump.

Sadly our group’s mission is going head-to-head with one of the most popular figures currently in the media, Donald Trump. When I say popular, I don’t mean he is praised by all, I mean that he is getting the most publicity, and occupying much of the population’s attention. We are attempting to combat the hateful culture that is being propagated by him and his speeches. I hope that our articles, and more importantly the viewpoints we are trying to popularize can disseminate into the minds of the kids of America, so we can create a better future for our kids.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/NowThisElection/videos/1128080470556775/

Mar. 18 Application Log

After discussing Narrative Theory in class I was brought again to reflect on the videos of my favorite YouTuber, Olan Rogers. He as a series of videos where we simply recounts stories from his youth. They are hilarious from a number of reasons. Even though his stories are unique to him the feelings he describes are extremely relatable. The fear, sadness, excitement, embodied in these videos have been felt by all of us in one way or another. The way he pokes fun at himself makes it even more endearing. Like we discussed in class, we love to be taken on a journey, we love when we are made to feel something. I believe that Olan Rogers’ ability to implement these things in an honest way his contributed to his success.

Mar. 11 Weekly Article

This week I will be looking over and evaluating the website of some of my classmates, Vote With Your Voice. Their campaign is targeted at millennials, a group who have traditionally been the most apathetic about voting. The goal of their campaign is to get these people out to vote. They have created entertaining videos to help people realize how important it is for us to be informed about current events. They also are keeping a blog about the history of voting, and about ways millennials, and citizens as a whole can get involved in the political process. Their website is very professionaly looking and easy to navigate.

One improvement I have for them is the addition of a ‘pledge’ section on their website. While it isn’t too difficult to use the web-traffic tools we’ve been presented with in class, a pledge section will make it even easier to measure the reach and success of their campaign. This pledge section could also prove a perfect opportunity to invite people to subscribe to receive updates on future content they release, helping them maintain a consistent audience for the media that they will continue pushing. Lastly, this pledge is a clear invitation for anyone visiting the website to act.

Source: http://votewithyourvoice.wix.com/vote

Mar. 11 Application Log

This past week in class has provided us with the opportunity to hear from many of our classmates as they have instructed us on their areas of expertise. I was especially impressed by Brad’s lesson on utilized advertising in social media. This advertising is pretty easy to use, relatively inexpensive, and can apparently play a big role in getting an individual or organization the publicity that they want. He also taught us about reddit. Sadly I was completely ignorant of this website prior to his lesson. I hope to use this new-found knowledge in my advertising class. We have a personal project we are supposed to be working on. I will be setting up a guided meditation service of sorts and hope that I can utilize these tools to get the reach that I want.

Mar. 4 Weekly Article

The International Olympic Committee has just approved a team for refugees! They are looking to help the refugees feel a sense of hope. They will be competing under the Olympic flag. They have selected 43 athletes to compete for up to ten spots in the Olympics. Hopefuls are looking to compete in events such as Tae Kwon Do, and swimming.

Videos like this are inspiring. It is great to see large organizations like reaching out and trying to make these marginalized people feel welcome, and more importantly make sure they know they are contributing members of society. I feel that articles like this are important, perhaps more important than the ones that illustrate the dire discrimination Muslims and refugees are facing. I hope that we can inspire people to see Muslims in a different light like the Olympic committee.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/NowThisNews/videos/vb.341163402640457/1006217476135043/?type=2&theater

Mar. 4 Application Log

This week I have noticed how important music is to watching videos. One of my favorite YouTubers, Olan Rogers, often posts life update vlogs of sorts. There is always music in the videos, though it is usually very subtle. After my class mates presentation on the importance of matching the appropriate music to your video I went back and watched his videos and really appreciated the music he chose. The music added another, reflective element to his video that was absolutely necessary. I hope that as we prepare our video for Islamophobia we will be able to find a song to match it.

Feb. 26 Weekly Article

A Syrian comedian/filmmaker named Firas Alshater is trying to use humor to communicate what life for a Syrian refugee is like in Europe. He was recently granted asylum in Germany, a country that has already accepted 1.1 million refugees so far. Alshater has been a voice against the Syrian regime. He hopes that though his videos he can bridge the gap between Germans and refugees. He even had to serve 9 years of jail time for his bold, and open critiques.

This is another powerful real life account that can only strengthen the position of our campaign. As this man strives to break down barriers in his new home of journey, we hope that this message can carry to citizens all over the globe, especially here in the United States of America. This mega public platform of YouTube is a great way for him to spread his message. I am proud that our twitter feed can be another platform sharing his story and building bridges between us and refugees from the Middle East.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/NowThisNews/videos/vb.341163402640457/1001533039936820/?type=2&theater

Feb. 26 Application Log

This week we continued our conversations on what creates social currency most effectively. It was interesting to me that this principle, though perhaps in different words, came up in my Comms 330 class. On Thursday we began our discussion on ambient advertising. This type of advertising strays from the classic, popular forms of advertising such as commercials, radio spots, billboards, and print ads in newspaper and magazines. Aside from this list of things that they aren’t, it is hard to perfectly describe what ambient advertising actually is. This type of advertising is, by definition, different. One great example is a large sticker of a hand placed on the ground on a parking spot, making whatever car parked there look like a toy car, done by hot wheels. The overall idea of ambient ads is to catch people by surprise, and get them talking. This type of advertising makes people want to share, and become free channels of distribution. In other words, this form of advertising is very effective at creating social currency.

Feb. 19 Weekly Article

Out the city of Raqqa, a city widely known as the strong hold of ISIS, a hero willing to stand against the terrorist organization has risen. After fleeing Syria, Abdalaziz Alhamza became founded RBSS (Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently). Dedicated to spreading awareness of ISIS’s crimes against humanity, RBSS presses forward despite the obvious dangers and having already lost 4 of its members. This group is reminiscent of another young group of rebels during World War II, who courageously spoke out against the Nazi party. While it is a sorry situation for a hero to have to rise in, it brings us great hope to recognize yet another voice against terror, another voice for peace.

I believe this story is a perfect thing to relate in out Islamophobia campaign. Every voice against radical Islam, especially one from so close to their stronghold is a realization that we can be united against terror without being united against a people or the religion as a whole. It is inspiring to see heroes speak up for what they believe, and I hope that the groups in our class can have that same courage.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/opinion/one-mans-syrian-resistance.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

Feb. 19 Application Log

Despite not having class this week, I was able to find some application to class principles previously discussed in a project I am working on in the AdLab. I am currently helping craft a launch campaign for a women’s clothing company that will help them to create their brand image and hopefully a community in the process. My group has planned to try and make the brand about empowering women. I feel that we are creating has the potential to explode in to a great social media conversation. A consistent theme in our class has been to create content you believe in and something that a lot of people can get behind. There is always more room on the internet for uplifting and empowering others, and I am excited for the opportunity to do just that through this project.