Public Discourse Blog (JackieG)

I hadn’t even heard about Senator Davis’ filibuster until reading Roxane Gay’s article. I don’t recall seeing any coverage about this very important event at all. This proves her point perfectly. Mainstream media only shows us what they deem to be important and significant while the events that actually matter get swept under the rug. Clearly this was very important to a lot of people and should have been covered. Gay points out that over 180,000 people from around the world were watching the YouTube stream at one point. If Twitter and YouTube didn’t exist, very few people would have even known this has happened. I’ll be honest. I find out about a lot of things from platforms like Twitter and Reddit. I always learn about things on Reddit first. Sometimes Twitter if it’s something I’m following specifically. I don’t like watching mainstream news because it’s so clearly biased and pushes an agenda on people. Our citizens are free agents who need unbiased information to make decisions f

Everyone’s been there. You decide to have a date night at your favorite local movie theatre. You take settle down into a moderately comfortable seat after spending entirely too much money on tickets and popcorn, and something kills your mood. A baby starts screaming banshees. We’re all entitled to see movies, as long as we can afford the ticket price. But should babies really be part of this experience? Who benefits from having very small children at the movies? Most movie theatres do not charge for kids under the age of 2, which may entice parents into just bringing their little ones with them. Still, parents usually end up having to buy snacks to keep their kids happy enough throughout the show. This is money that parents would likely be better off spending on more important things. Things like educational toys or new clothes that their baby is constantly growing out of. Young children usually do not even want to have the movie-going experience. They find it hard to sit

One of my op-eds highlights why declawing, cropping ears, and docking tails on pets is cruel and unnecessary. These surgeries are purely cosmetic and have no actual benefit for cats or dogs.

Shows such as The Colbert Report and The Daily Show allow a more general audience to understand and access politics in a way they couldn’t before. They are very easy to grasp and encourage everyday people to have a political opinion. It does further polarization in a way though. These shows are clearly very democratic or very republican in their views. Most people probably only watch the shows that most closely match their political views. This causes them to become further wrapped up in those views and to believe they are right. Instead, people should listen to the other side’s rational argument and formulate their own ideas.

It seems that most of what is represented in the media today is political or historical. Fields such as sociology and psychology do not get much attention at all by mainstream media commentators. Politics is extremely important, especially with how the climate of America following the 2016 presidential election; however, it would be refreshing to see a variety of intellectual topics covered. It seems to either be political in some way or more like entertainment than news. Most media commentators appear to have either a very liberal or conservative view, with few moderate mainstream media commentators existing. Either they talk about abortion being absolutely wrong no matter what or being a woman’s choice. Immigrants are terrible and need to leave or they are lifting this country up. Our citizens need to hear more balanced perspectives in order to really form their own opinion on such matters.

I'm actually having a hard time coming up with who I consider to be the leading public intellectuals living today. The readings just seem to be further confusing me on what exactly a public intellectual is. When I hear public intellectual, I think of people from the past rather than the present. Machiavelli, Marx, Locke, and all those other intellectuals we read so much about. To me, people like Stephen Colbert, Bill Nye, and Muhammad Yunus. These are individuals that definitely direct their work toward the general public. They are very accessible and work hard to keep their work understandable.

I believe public spheres are still very much alive in contemporary America. It seems that much of our public discourse has moved online in recent years, which can be both good and bad. Anyone can post their opinion about some event or political view on their blog, twitter, or facebook for the whole world to see. Everyone has some sort of audience to react to their post, whether it be in the form of likes, retweets, or comments. If someone disagrees with the post or has a different take on it, they can start a discussion. Anyone can jump in with their own ideas. This is the ideal online public sphere. However, this isn’t usually what ends up happening. I would say that most people would rather ignore a post they disagree with, post a comment that starts more of a fight than a discussion, unfollow that person, or unfriend them. Having these conversations online makes doing such things safe. You can say anything you want and ignore everything else. In this way, having multiple public sp