Selena Gomez Breaks Her Silence

One of the biggest celebrity on our time right now is 24 year old, Selena Gomez.  This past year she was diagnosed with lupus.  Shortly after, Selena stated to have a hard time and struggled with depression.  Mid-October Gomez checked herself into rehab seeking for help.  This led to the star being absent from social for 14 weeks.  Just a few days ago, Gomez made a return to instagram to thank her fans for all of their love and support this year.  She posted this just a few days after her first public appearance since taking care of her physical and mental health.  Selena Gomez got almost half a million likes and counting.  Her message touched thousands of Americans and tons are supporting her through this time in her life.

-Josie Clark

Where is Kim K?!

As everyone knows, Kim Kardashian has a traumatic experience as she was robbed while in Paris.  Her use of social media is most likely what is to blame.  Kim made it easy to figure out where she was at all times by her constant Instagram and twitter updates.  After all of this went down, Kim decided to start scaling back from her social media usage.  Some people have been referring to it as "Blackout Period".  It is more like Kim Kardashian got a reality check and realized she has a lot at stake.  Kim is one to flaunt her wealth and where she is.  Kim admitted this makes her an easy target.  For the time being she has been laying low.  The latest news with her and social media is she was seen following 3 old friends of her.  People wonder if she will ever come back social media or if this "Blackout Period" is for good.

Josie Clark

Social Media and the Election

This year's election was like no other for various of different reasons.  However, one thing in particular changed this election.  This one thing being social media.  Social media took the election and made it into an entire different thing than it was.  It was a modern election.  Let's start by looking at facebook.  One could hardly scroll through their feed without seeing either a sponsored post about the election, or a friend/family member weighing in on their view towards a candidate.  This started some feuds among people.  Someone who you thought was your friend, you could no longer stand due to their views and constant need to share them.  Many people commenting things such as, "Unfriend me now" or "If you support *insert candiates name* we can no longer be friends."  It is safe to say social media created this new tension between the people.  Now moving onto twitter.  People constantly sharing articles about their favored candidate and then getting backlash and having a friend "subtweet them".  This leads to tweets such as "@ me next time!!"  Not to mention, twitter was a way for the presidential candidates to speak to the people directly.  However, this was not always in Donald Trump's favor.  Being the loose cannon he is, he was known to tweet things out spur of the moment.  Lastly, there is some false advertising with social media.  While scrolling through your feed on whatever is your social media app of choice, often times you come upon articles that appear to be legit.  However, there are many articles out there that are full inaccurate statements.  This leads people to believe the wrongs ideas.  In conclusion, elections as we knew it will forever be changed due to the use of social media.

Josie Clark

Did Media Bias Contribute to Trump's Astonishing Victory?

The results of last Tuesday's election were obviously not anticipated.  A huge factor in the entire nation's surprise was the overwhelming media coverage suggesting that Mr. Trump had virtually no chance of winning.  Some news sources gave Trump a measly 5% chance of winning, while the most generous of sources gave him no more than 35%.  This information begs the question, did the media's extreme amount of bias contribute to Hillary's loss?  The answer is almost definitely yes.  The fact that almost every news source besides Fox News was projecting a landslide victory by Hillary may have lessened some people's urgency to vote.  When you wake up every morning and all you hear is "Hillary is going to win, Hillary is going to win" you may not understand the importance of your own vote.  It is very possible that a number of citizens figured the rest of the country would handle it, after all, Hillary was going to win, right?  If the media portrayed a closer race than they did, perhaps more voters would have turned out to ensure Hillary's victory.  Alas, it was not so.  So the entire nation has learned two valuable lessons from this election.  Firstly, your vote matters, regardless of how one sided the race seems, you need to cast your vote anyways.  Secondly, do not always believe everything you see online and in the media, because your information bubble could quite possibly be your downfall.

Joey Arzeno

Social Media Backlash

Recently, celebrities have been indoctrinating themselves into the world of us regulars. They can be seen all over Snapchat, for instance. This makes it seem like they are one us, a regular person who does "normal" things bedside star on television or a movie. However, this is having significant repercussions. A few days ago, Rob Kardashian took to Twitter to discuss a recent feud with his wife, Blac Chyna, and his family. He was using the recent motive of celebrities exposing their personal lives to the public, except he was doing it to garner support for his family ignoring him and Blac Chyna. Perhaps this is a good move on his part to gain support for he and his wife against his family from fans on Twitter, but it also kind of throws them under the bus. I think that we will continue to see more personal problems of celebrities being shared publicly in the future. To me, Snapchat is the biggest indicator of what is to come in the future. I do not follow any celebrities, but most of them are on there and they are very public about their lives because it appeals to the fan who normally does not know what their favorite celebrity is up to. I predict that we will see more disputes go public like the one between Rob Kardashian with the rest of his family. This will be attempt on their part to gain fans on their side.

-Tyler Greener

Evolution of Politics

The way of politics has been changing over the years.  This election in particular has had a great influence through social media.  Social media has changed politics drastically.  Campaigns are going viral on all forms of media.  Donal Trump used twitter in particular.  He said, "I like it because I can get also my point of view out there, and my point of view is very important to a lot of people that are looking at me."  The candidates have direct access to voters.  While this may seem like a good thing, it also has its down sides.  Candidates are now hiring PR to manage what they say.  When candidates are able to send out unfiltered messages online it can land them in some sticky situations. (Cough cough, Trump.)  The best benefit that social media has had on politics is reaching the youth.  "Older" Americans are who typically make up the largest majority of who goes out and votes.  This is something that is changing due to the influence of social media.  Twitter and Facebook have intrigued the young people to go out and register to vote.  Barack Obama is the most known the have started with social media and be successful with it during two different occasions.  Social media has allowed to be to come together and learn, engage, and share their opinion about politics.  For good or worse social media has changed politics.

-Josie Clark

Snap Streaks

Snapchat is arguably the most used social media of today's day and age. Yes, Twitter and Instagram are extremely popular as well, but neither have the immediate gratification that makes Snapchat so alluring. Ever since the update that added snap streaks went live it seems as though people cannot stop snapping. We discussed the reason behind this phenomena last year in Comm 202. The underlying psychology behind snap streaks is pretty easy to understand, when someone sees an increasing number with the threat of dropping down to zero if you break the streak they are naturally going to want to continue the snapping. This urge to keep the number going leads to meaningless snaps being sent back and forth in order to check the box and not drop the streak. I have seen people who have multiple snap streaks over 500 days long, which is well over a year. I also have a friend who has been trying to start a snap streak with me, but instead of starting a conversation with substance she'll send me a picture of her ceiling in the hopes that I'll send one back and the streak will continue. Every 4 days or so I will purposefully not snap her back, just to mess with her. Snapchat even has a feature where if your streak is about to end an hour glass will appear next to the number just to let you know "HEY, you better snap this person or your large number will disappear!" There is nothing wrong with wanting to snap the same person repeatedly, but you have to acknowledge the fact that the masterminds behind snap streaks are preying on your innate desire to "keep the streak going."

-Joey Arzeno