Monday, February 21, 2011
Fear and Politics
The blog we chose was http://hotair.com because it seemed to make things sound worse than they truly are. The blog is mostly political but some of the titles seemed to aim to stir up the readers' emotions, especially fear. We think the blog tends to play up the stories or issues a little more than they need to be which is why we think the blog fits into our overall course theme of fear.
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#7 This blog does not really do anything for its viewers. All the blog posts really do is give the audience a chance to voice their opinions and their feelings. It's nothing that they don't already know. I read through "Poll: Obama 43, Trump 41?" For example one commenter, Cryptoad said "Hey Iv'e got an idea...lets turn the election of our President into a reality show..... we can call it "American Idiot"...think of the voter participation. All the glamour and glits...wow!" Another commented "Schoen is a tea party tool. Trump for president: I can't stop laughing but then again we had Bush." As you can see it is very sarcastic and informal. Nowhere in the comments does it say anything about the information being helpful.
ReplyDelete1. When I first looked at this site, I noticed that the color was a white background. There were plenty of pictures underneath the links to various blog topics. There was a large Nike ad up by the title of the site: Hot Air. The i in Hot Air was dotted with fire. There were also links to headlining stories at the top, underneath the title. I then noticed that the links to the headlines were red, along with the selection bar at the top of the screen and the links to the comments of various stories throughout the page. I also saw that the stories on this blog site were all political, such as "Obamatuerism of the Day" and "Palin to Wisconsin: Do not let unions bully you." Due to the red color of the interface and the political stories like the ones shown above, it appears that this site is a blog site design with Republican beliefs.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment was written using prompt 1. After observing the visual elements on this page, it becomes clear that this is probably a pro-Republican sight. Articles such as "Confirmed: Obama administration sunk $535 million in Porkulus funds in green-energy Turkey" and "Obamateurism of the Day" are what implicitly suggest that republicanism is a central theme throughout this blog page. Also some of the pictures and videos are very interesting, however, I do agree that they make certain issues seem worse than they truly are. Therefore, they do create a fear in people who read these articles and comments.
ReplyDelete7. This blog does not actually "do" anything. It attempts to inform readers, but exaggerates information and is biased for Republicans. This is seen in the red color all over the blog's home page, as well as in the titles of the articles. The article "Former Palin aide hawking tell-all book" was just an article speaking about an attempt at someone selling a tell-all book about Sarah Palin. The article does not encourage, or give one the information to change their behavior or attitudes about anything. The comments on the blog also support that this blog does not "do" anything. Comments on the Palin book article consist of things such as, "Who cares about this nut head. Not many will be sold anyway" and "Yawn." Not only does it seem that this blog doesn't do anything, but that people do not really care about the information being shared.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that this blog serves more as a discussion board for debate and commenting rather than actually relaying information. It seems that the audience uses the discussion part of the blog to make jokes about the articles instead of having an actual political debate. I also noticed that this blog is very republican. For example, there are a lot of anti-Obama posts such as "Obamateurism of the Day." A good political blog should represent both sides to keep from being biased. The fact that the blog serves more as a joke board than a discussion board and its lack of giving both sides to every story questions its validity.
ReplyDelete1. When I went to the homepage my first impression was: wow, there is a lot of things going on. There are so many advertisements. In addition, there are so many articles to chose from. Also, i noticed that there were a lot of articles about politics, however i also saw an article about the trailer for the movie Hangover 2. After reading the titles of the articles, this looks like a republican blog site. I think if they want to be a true political site, they should get rid of advertisements about movies, and concentrate on political things. That would make their site look more credible.
ReplyDelete6. One of the features of this site is the "Obamateurism of the Day." It features a "foul-up by Barack Obama", an instance in which the president makes a mistake. The image that goes with this section is a banner showing Obama bowing. It references how he accidentally bowed too low when meeting the Emperor of Japan. The word "Obamaeurism" looks like the word "amateur". This section therefore implies that Obama is an amateur and not experienced enough to be president. Today's article is about how Obama said that by shutting down the government, people would not get Social Security. Others point out that in a similar incident in 1995, there were no such consequences. Therefore, Obama did not do his research in making this statement. Those writing in the comments section are quick to insult Obama and call him a fearmonger. The blog is therefore effective in trying to make people wary of Obama and the liberal government, and the "Hot Air" they release as they lie about the government (intentionally or otherwise).
ReplyDelete1. It is immediately obvious that this site is politically charged. On the top and right side of the website ads meant to make money off of the reader's fear of political change is striking. The top ad is from reputation.com. It is plain with the exception of the website, a button with the words learn more, and the large most obvious task of the banner "KEEP YOUR INFORMATION PRIVATE". This implies that your reputation is at stake. This is considered very important in the world of politics so people who are more politically involved would be more inclined to click on this banner. On the right side are ads that say "Using your debit card is about to get more expensive." It goes onto say at the bottom of the ad "TELL CONGRESS NO!". The website is DONTMAKEUSPAY.ORG. This plays off of many Americans fear of the ecnomic crisis that has so recently occured. The next, and most noticable aspect of the website is the logo in the top left hand corner of the webpage. The text is Hot Air in all caps with a flame for the i's dot. Flame is recognized today as a symbol of distruction and anger. This is an attempt create fear within the audience and then redirect that fear into anger towards whoever the authors of the website deem to be an enemy. The audience of this website is inevitably turned into a weapon that the authors can wield.
ReplyDelete1. This blog uses a red and black color scheme. There are lots of pictures of politicians and political analysts underneath the titles of articles. It is clear from titles like "Mitch Daniels to Indiana’s fleebagger Democrats: Come home, chumps" and "Sweet: Illinois Republican wants fugitive Wisconsin Dems to pay state income tax" that this is a very republican blog website. The black and red shows it's political nature. It is clear that this was meant to persuade people to take the republican point of view.
ReplyDelete1. Just from the design of the webpage, i can tell that this blog is designed to show why people should be republicans and the danger that is in politics right now. First, the color scheme. The blog uses a white background and puts important things in red and black. The white makes these stand out. In the title of the blog, "Hot Air", the 'I' is dotted with a red flame. This shows that the blog discusses hot, or popular, and possibly dangerous issues. Blog posts such as "Obamateurism of the Day" and "Breaking: Obama to abandon DOMA defense" really show who the blog is aimed at. This blog does want people to see the political situation from the republican point of view.
ReplyDelete1. After looking at the blog's visuals, I thought they did a better job than previous sites I have viewed before. With the white, plain background, the red letters stand out much more and catch the viewers' attention. I thought it was really interesting how they put highlights of news stories on the top the page. This made the articles seems important and interesting for the audience to read. Along with this, they posted top videos and blogs of the day. The video is a neat approach because it also gives a visual, realistic perspective to the the message it's trying to give. The only thing that I did not like about the site was the fact that the purpose and the point about the blog wasn't blatently stated for viewers to understand what people were blogging about. However, I think overall that the visuals the color schemes were effective for the site.
ReplyDelete6. After I have read the featured blog HOT AIR, I found that some authors are making so many claims. On one of the TOP PICKS which talks about President Obama’s pledge in 2007. He was still trying to get the supports from people by doing his famous speech. However, the writer is being sarcasm and titles “Whatever happened to Obama’s comfy shoes?” First of all, as a outsider or a foreigner, I do not have too much knowledge about how much the people like to blame the government for whatever is not going well. On the other hand, Obama apparently had so many supports that he could be elected as president. Therefore, the idea of accusing Obama not doing the job that he has promised few years ago is quite controversial. The author uses a video for which Obama said the pledge to prove Obama indeed has promised the workers. Holding Obama responsible for the low employment, the author posts another video after a brief discussion saying there are excuses for Obama not doing his job well enough. Controversially, there are two video clips for Obama. Against the president on one of them, helping him to get out of the doubt on the other. The writer is definitely using the difference and controversial idea to tell people that there are still hope for change.
ReplyDelete1. After looking at the visual aspects of this blog, the first thing that I noticed was it was very busy. Unlike other blogs that seemed to be a little to plain and maybe needed to spice up their homepage. This blog represents the other end of the spectrum, that being way too clustered and having too much going on. I like the use of the color red, it is an attention grabber and gets the readers attention quickly. The next thing I noticed was that there were a lot of advertisements, one of which, the Neiman Marcus ad at the top, overshadows the title, "Hot Air." Below the title are many different blogs to choose from, and although the blog titles are in red to grad the attention of the reader, there are so many articles to choose from and they are so close together that it can easily confuse the reader. I think with a little more organization and spreading out the blog more this blog could pull in many more readers and really get its points and views across.
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ReplyDelete5. I thought the blog post "Good News! New Smog Regulations Could Cost 7.3 Million Jobs" was subtle, but still definitely made an appeal to the audience. The author is simply going for the shock factor here, appealing to their audience of everyday working Americans. They know that if someone reads that 7.3 million jobs will be lost, they might take the time to read it. It's also important to notice the use of "could", not "will", anything COULD happen! The relationship between the author and their audience isn't to inform and protect but to scare and threaten.
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