The blog that we have chosen is called Angry Bear and can be found at http://www.angrybearblog.com. On the banner the Angry Bear blog claims to be "Slightly left of center economic commentary on news, politics, and the economy." The blog cover a wide range of content. Some examples are taxes, wages, healthcare, laws and economics. Because of this blogs focus on the economic and political climate of today, subjects that undoubtably incite fear in many, we believe that this blog is appropriate for discussion in class given the subject of the rhetoric of fear.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment was written using the 7th prompt. After reading through several posts and comments on the "Fear, the Economy, and the Sociopolitical Climate", I do believe that this blog does something to the readers education and beliefs. For example, in "A Defense of a Working Program", the readers learn about Social Security and how big of an issue it was becoming due to our countries dept. As shown by the comments posted by Jazzbumpa and Bruce Krasting, depending on whether someone agrees to change Social Security benefits and or agrees for them to remain the same, determines weather a reader will defend Gregory or Senator Reid. Those who Social Security may already be provided to right now will probably not be as fearful of this situation because they are already getting their share of Social Security funding. What about adults that are my age though. Due to this troubled economy and the fact that anything could happen to someone at any given time, the thought of Social Security funding changing in my lifetime frightens me. Maybe it frightens other people as well. These posts found on this blog truly bring to attention the knowledge and ideas of problems and misfortune our generation may or is currently facing today. Therefore it does do something. It puts fear for ones future into the minds' of the readers.
ReplyDelete1. The home page of angrybear.com isn't much different from other blog-sites. It has posts on the left side of the page and advertisements and news on the top and right of the page. These ads, however, are not any random ads. These advertisements are all economically related. Some example of these ads are a social security ad, one for Columbus coupons,another about a senator creating jobs. There is even a standard college ad, advertising for a particular university. Because this ad appears to be on an economically knowledgeable, it implies that if you attend this university you could be economically successful. Other ads consist of links to other websites that contain economically related stories, such as "The Falling Dollar" and "2011 Market collapse." The site also claims, near the title, that the site is "Slightly left of center." This infers that the posts on this site will come from democrats (left of the spectrum is liberal and right is conservative). Therefore it can be concluded that this blog-site is a blog for liberal bloggers who wish to discuss the economic news.
ReplyDelete7. I found this blog extremely interesting…but do people find it credible and worthy? I read a post called “Prepping for the State of the Union Address” by Daniel Becker. In his post he talks about how he is not against the stimulus plan by any means but he is against “poorly implemented stimulus.” Commenter, CoRev, agrees with this. Becker says he had to experience the stimulus downturn at full effect because of his small business. He then includes a quote of Obama saying how he is going to create new “green” jobs that cannot be outsourced and all this great stuff. Becker thought this was a great idea, hitting on the environment, creating new jobs, all kinds of “left” things. It turns out that the plant with all the jobs was based in China. The worst part is that they’re now closing their American plant to keep the company centralized in China. In response to this, commenter, Coberly, states, “Hate to think that Obama's "failures" are being blamed on his being too liberal.” And in response to Coberly’s comment, Anna Lee says, “coberly, I don't see Obama as anything near a liberal but, on the other hand, I can't find enough consistency to label him as anything.” All in all, I believe that this blog isn’t necessarily credible, mostly due to the fact that it is a blog…of opinions. However, I do believe that it has an effect on people’s knowledge, thoughts, and beliefs. These people are discussing their opinions and as they do this, new ones arise. There are 34 comments on this certain article and I believe that number will continue to rise due to changed minds and opinions from other posts.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the mention.
ReplyDelete1)You will find op ed posts by some authors. However, Bruce Webb is a member of NASI (National Academy of Social Insurance), invitation only experts on Social Insurance. Rebecca Wilder is a finacial expert and economist who is followed by Nouriel Roubini and others with her interpretations of data. Spencer England is followed with his interpretations of data on the US economy. ETC.
If you researched a bit more you will find us in many business sites as well. Actual data and actual reading of legislation. Takes ten minutes.
Daniel Becker's piece is written from a real small business perspective as a guest.
Credibility usually takes more than one instance as a sample. Macro economics is the main business, simplified for more general readers but still pretty wonky.
2)AB IS a mixture of data and factual posts and opinion. Data has to drive opinion to some extent or is just smoke. Data can aslo be contrived to confirm opinion. One will always get both. Best to be upfront.
Comments on the comments demonstrate the culture encouraged at AB...you will find many different viewpoints, but it takes active monitoring to help this along, and often missing on blog comment sections.
3)The ads are a recent addition to help defray costs of maintaining the site but gain little cash return, as is true unless your site visit count is in the one or two million per month category. The ads are determined by Investingchannel and whatever they do to target our audience.
1. When I first hear of the homepage of angrybear.com I obviously knew it was going to be some type of blog website, but I just didn't know what kind. When I visited the site however, I got soemwhat of a negative perspective. A lot of it has to do with the name of the website being "Angrybear." First off, "angry" always implies bad news. Second, the word "bear" doesn't sound very appealing either. The words ANGRY BEAR appear at the very top left of the page in black bold lettering. This makes it the first thing that people notice. The backround color of the whole site is a dark kind of "yucky" green. There are no bright colors that make you feel good or happy. This can go along with all the information that is presented in the blogs about taxes, economy, politics, etc. People usually aren't exactly "happy" to discuss these topics. Another thing I noticed about the website was that it had a lot of advertisements/links to click on persauding you about certain topics on the page. One example of this is "9mm is no defense." It says Discover What Military Operatives & The Army Don't Want You To Know. This in iteself is fearful.
ReplyDelete1. In general, I find blog interfaces messy and scrambled. There is no organization or prompt to introduce new readers to the page. There are links and quotes and ads and pictures all over the place, I dont really know what I'm looking at. However, this seems to be the theme for blogs in general. This blog specifically draws the reader to no title in particular, as titles do not stand out very well against any other text. The only titles that stick out are the two that end in some sort of ??!?. That was probably the only visual aspect that got me a little excited. The green background, however, is not too busy and does not distract from the content of the blog.
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ReplyDelete7. It seems to me that mostly this blog is just informing the general population, or at least the population that reads the blog, of detailed financial (international and domestic) issues. It is in fact very useful and informative, if the reader has the time and attention span to peruse all the links and sources the authors add. One post, titled “Foreclosures and Key to Economic Upturn” was a whole seven lines long. However, it had 5 links to lengthy articles that went more in-depth into what the author was trying to say. Although this is useful and probably more reliable than just simply taking the author’s word that what they’re saying is true; in my opinion, a more effective way of doing this would be to use the articles throughout and then post the links at the end so if the readers want more information they can. I think a blog in its truest form is a short piece of writing in which the reader can obtain a little information and formulate (and then share) their opinion. I don’t personally think this blog does this. Other than giving the audience a lot of information they may or may not want, I don’t think this blog is especially effective.
ReplyDelete1. The homepage for the Angry Bear site is pretty boring. It is very plain. Basically the whole page is white and green. There is nothing that really stands out at mne or jumps off the page. You have blogs on one side and you have advertisements on the other. This webpage can have brighter colors, or a more creative homepage in my opinion.
ReplyDelete7. However, I think this site actually does something. I read "Internal Devaluation." It was pretty interesting. It was about cutting wages/ making the country's currency worth-less then it is. They said this would make the country's products cheaper for other countries to buy. Then the country's exports go up,and then they make more money. People seemed to have their opinions and seemed interested in what it was saying. People also when commenting had their own opinions and ideas. Since people are interested in what the blogs are saying, I believe this actually does something.
1. Overall, the blog has a pretty bland and boring appearance. I was not initially appealed to what the blog had to offer, and if I was not made to read to the blog, I definitely would not have. The site seems pretty ammature with the plain and simple two color scheme. I think that it would look a lot more official with an original and unique design that makes this specific blog stand out to the audience. Because the site explictly says that the blog leans slightly left, the article titles and ads that are presented on the page also demonstrate an implicit view on politics. Titles such as, "The Republicans have a savings plan. Gut the Nation's Personality," already in itself persuades readers to lean more towards the left before reading the article. In addition, the articles did not attract the audience with the course theme of fear in the media. They were pretty straight-forward and to the point of the article, not making me want to read what the message had to offer.
ReplyDelete1. I chose to look at Angry Bear from the visual aspect. The first think I noticed were the ads which after seeing that the blog is about economics, doesn’t surprise me given the current economic situation. I see the shades of green on the webpage which may have people thinking about money, but in any case I do not think it distracts from the content or substance the blog has to offer. Also, I think the articles on the blog are relating to economics but are not trying to induce fear. I think the aim of the blog is to inform people, not scare them. However, articles with titles such as “Life After Capitalism” may scare people because it means change of how things are currently. Also, the use of “wobble” and similar words in titles cause people to worry.
ReplyDelete1. The interface of the Angry Bear Blog is pretty standard. The layout is simple and crude(like many blog sites) due to the fact that they are most focused on issues and likely lack proper funding. The simple background only consists of two shades of the same color; green. The green theme makes sense given that money is green and the blogs main topic of focus is the economy. The ads regarding taxes, insurance, etc. seen around the edges of the blog are also understandable given the blogs ideology. The tabs at the top of the page show that the blog has accessibility and when you click on the "Contact Us" tab, you see that the blog is not run by a fanatic idealist but instead a handful of contributors.
ReplyDeleteThere is an article called "Prepping for the State of the Union Adress" where the author points out how the increase of green technology development does not mean that there will be an increase of jobs in the US. The overall post is about how Obama made certain promises in previous speeches and has not followed through. For this argument, he starts by citing a quote from Obama used in a previous post about how he would invest money into green technology, creating jobs that "can't be outsourced". This quote is contrasted with an article about how the government of Massachusetts is spending millions of dollars to develop green technology jobs in China. The readers tend to agree with the author. The audience is liberal, although they did not necessarily support Obama in the 2008 election. They criticize him for trying to be too middle-oriented. The comments are interesting because while the author takes care to back up his statements with evidence from articles and other blogs, the commenters are more likely to state their opinions and use analogies to get their point across. The author also encourages readers to look at a post from 2008 to compare what Obama promised then to what is happening now. The message of this post is to be cautious of what Obama is promising now.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I am not a big fan of this blog. From a visual perspective, the blog is pretty boring looking and uninviting. The interface is also very standard and it features numerous walls of text. When I read the articles the topics did not seem to scare readers about the economy but rather inform them. Although I did like the post "The Republicans have a Savings Plan. Gut the Nation's Personality." I thought the title was clever and the irony in the post. Its also now clear that the blog's author is a democrat because of posts that trash republicans.
ReplyDeleteAfter studying the visual aspects of this blog i concluded that it was boring and cluttered. The titles is in the upper left hand of the page and is in small black font, hardly jumping out to reader considering the ad for Turbotax right next to it is bigger then the title. If you ignore the colorful advertisements, the blog is lacking color with the exception of a less then exciting green background, but the blog is more or less white and black. On the left side of the page, is where you will find the various posts, which include links to other sites and an option to post or read comments made on the article. The right side however is a mess featuring advertisements, and a small section of the contributors to the blog. It could be much more spread out and organized. I did enjoy reading through some of the articles and I liked that they do not hide the fact that they lean to the left, since they stated it right under the title. The titles of some of the articles also make it clear as to the mindset and views of the blog, such as the article titled, "The Republicans Have a Savings Plan. Gut The Nations Personality." In conclusion, I enjoyed reading through the articles and content of the blog, but was not a fan of how the blog looks from a visual standpoint, I believe that aspect of the blog could be much improved.
ReplyDeleteI think Angry Bear does a pretty good job of providing the reader with knowledge. In some cases the posts are pretty irrelevant like "The Jets upset the New England Patriots." Which just gives the reader the score of the game and his feelings about the result. The post "A defense of a working program" does a great job of educating the reader on the topic of social security or at least how senator Harry Reid thinks it is doing. This provoked a debate amongst the readers to showing that they are informed. They spread their knowledge in these posts so this post seems to do a good job of being very informative.
ReplyDelete1. The first impression the blog Angry Bear give me is dull. However, the name of the blog somehow interested me to explore it more. I wonder why does it call Angry Bear. Apparently, there is a brief explanation under the huge title in bolt letters. It also tells on the homepage that the blog does have some influence on the Internet society because it gives the major slot for a advertisement post. The region is even bigger than the blog’s name. I totally understand how the economic is frightening us. No matter how low the profit is as long as it is profit, we should grab it. It does seem like the blog touches down on many social issues, especially on the economics sides. Additionally, the regular blog setting makes people easy to find what they want, but it does not stand out that much from the perspective of fear. Perhaps the name of the blog could be a frightening feature to someone who really saw an angry bear, but for those who have not even seen a bear before, there is not anything to be afraid of. The author also provides many numbers to show how scary the economic is right now, then again, does it really have the accuracy that people are seeking?
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