Category: Blog Posts

In a society that tends to be immersed in the digital world, with our phones providing the vast majority of the entertainment and news we consume over the course of a day, it becomes increasingly important that we evaluate the sources of our knowledge.

It is incredibly easy to follow a Buzzfeed thread via Snapchat and accept every celebrity gossip or political commentary piece as fact, but in order to become informed, analytical members of society we must go deeper into the facets of the media we consume. 

• 

In an article entitled “What Went Wrong with the Pandemic in Florida,” the unfortunate status of the pandemic in Florida is analyzed from a variety of perspectives and attributed to a variety of  causes.  The national context of the pandemic narrows into a lens fixated on Florida as they discuss the methods and outcomes of the state’s COVID-19 response.  One of the primary sources used within the article is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is quoted and referenced multiple times throughout the article.  His proximity to the issue is medium because there are two different ways to address his proximity, and both lend themselves to different proximities.  If you look at the relevance of the pandemic to a public official in the sense that it is one of the primary issues someone holding office is forced to address in this current moment, then DeSantis’ proximity is high.  If you instead choose to view his proximity to the issue as a matter of access and priority, then it would be low because as a government official DeSantis is not struggling to get access to the vaccine in the same way the article discusses.  DeSantis’ independence is low because as a public official his statements are motivated and politicized to fit a certain agenda, and he is anything but impartial.  His expertise is medium because while he is forced to be somewhat knowledgeable about the issues he speaks on, there are medical experts and people who devote all of their time to analyzing and studying the pandemic who know far more.  

• 

Medical experts such as Natalie E. Dean, Dr. Stephen J. Nelson, Jason Salemi, and Dr. Peter Chin-Hong who are also referenced in the article have a high proximity to the pandemic and vaccine accessibility due to their profession.  Their independence would be medium as their profession allows them to have strong opinions and thoughts on how the pandemic is handled, but they are not affiliated with a predetermined political agenda or party.  Their expertise, however, is high as they are professionals working in the field that deals daily with the pandemic and its repercussions.

The motivation of the article is twofold.  Its primary motivation lies in the ability it has to spread awareness and educate the general public.  It is a very heavy, statistically dense article that refuses to dance around the realities of the pandemic.  Many people, especially in states such as Florida, have unanimously decided that the pandemic is over.  This article shows through the accessibility of vaccines, hospitalization rates, and even death counts that the pandemic is very much not over.  The tone of the article is stark and somber, and all of the experts that are consulted to speak on the topic reflect that tone as well.

The second motivation of this article is to act as a warning.  Florida is used and examined as a case study of what not to do.  Vaccine distribution and the functionality of society in light of the Delta Variant has been brutally mishandled in Florida.  The concluding sentence of the article highlights the fact that what has happened in Florida could easily happen in other states if precautions are not taken to avoid this.

• 

In order to highlight the severity of the pandemic in Florida, the article discusses the numbers in morgues and crematories across the state as well as the mortality rate.  They also look into the percentages of people in certain age brackets who are getting sick and dying in order to identify which age ranges are able and have been getting vaccinated versus age ranges where the vaccine is lacking.  The correlation between being vaccinated and getting sick and dying of the virus is what the article endeavors to identify and the statistics support this. 

• 

In addition to the raw data included in the article to support the idea that Florida has mishandled vaccinations, the quotes from medical professionals and even the Governor’s dismay at the current predicament work to paint a picture of the dire situation in Florida.  It does not seem that anything is missing from the article as it is very comprehensive.  If there was more data and additional claims being made, the article would be less impactful and distracting.

However, it is still interesting to consider the implications a piece of media can have while altering audience perspective and perception without being implicitly biased.  As a whole, this article does a great job of covering an issue with factual evidence and relevant insight to better inform its readers.

We as a society consider ourselves the influencers of social media and the digital world, and to some extent, we are. However, the toll social media takes on our lives, and the ways it influences us in return, is just as remarkable in both constructive and destructive way…

Social media has many consuming properties, and it almost seems as though in order to be relevant and productive in our modern era, you must engage in and develop a vast social media presence.  In just a day, I discovered my own personal reliance on it to fill those spare moments and to find and interact with nearly everyone I come across. Gone are the days where you can exclusively find someone on Instagram or Facebook. Public personas exist on Spotify, Pinterest, VSCO, Venmo, LinkedIn, Twitter, and essentially any other platform you could imagine. While many may consider this a useful facet of society, there are instances in which the obligations and pressures of being active and honing one’s presence can have negative implications.  

We base the entirety of our relationships on social media at times, relationships and friendships form and dissolve depending on posts, comments, and response times.  Such things force us to consider the repercussions of technology in spite of all its benefits. We take more social cues from our phones than we do the real people in our lives. I myself tried to avoid social media for the majority of high school because I saw that it was taking over the lives of my brothers and best friends, but inevitably I had been sucked into the toxic sphere of phone addiction by the end of my junior year.  

It has gotten to the point where social media is no longer an option.

Social media is certainly a valuable networking tool that exposes us to a whole new realm of career opportunities and different ways of meeting people, but it is also toxic backbone of our society.  We look at media through a lens of content we enjoy and assume people’s lives embody and reflect the content they produce. There is a sense of value and marketability to creating a career around social media influencing, but this culture we have created also breeds intense pressure in regards to our personal lives. When engaging in the influencer culture, one is presented with a certain set of expectations and pressures in order to keep up and maintain a sense of relevance…

• Consistently updating followers on a day-to-day basis via the Instagram Story
• Maintaining a brand or aesthetic through one’s account regardless of whether that portrays their reality
• Posting content with like/comment-to-follower ratios that are consistent
• Engaging with similar accounts and maintaining/creating community
• Accounting for any prolonged social media absences

There have been days where I have been intentional on not once responding to a single text or call or even engaging on social media and the consequences have been quite intriguing to look at. Text messages from friends and family members, classmates and instructors, all suggested that they either assumed something terrible had happened to me or that I was in an emotionally unstable place. We cannot step away from the digital world and seamlessly step back in at will. There are consequences for what we choose not to have on social media just as there are consequences for what we do put out there for the world to see.