The Price of Shame

With each advancement in technology come positive and negative repercussions. Unfortunately with the invention of the internet, and now with social media many people have been sucked onto a whole new level of obsessing with others lives and gossip. What was once private is now open to the entire world. Voyeurism is easy to get sucked into and even worse, now strangers around the world can also make hurtful comments without consequence. We are now faced with a new social problem called cyber bullying.

It first started with the internet, email, chat rooms, and gossip sites, and now has infiltrated into all social media. Virtually everyone has access to quick information, gossip, untruths and can openly make comments and still remain privately protected. In the past when young adults or teens would mess up, as all kids do, that knowledge stayed among a small circle of family and friends in a small community. Now that information can circulate globally overnight and people that don't know or care anything about you can viciously attack you. What would in the past be a few hurtful comments in a small town is now thousands of vicious attacks on young immature youth. It is often more than they can bare, leading to increased suicide rates. The more people shame others, the more desensitized and numb they become. In social media, the more shame a story includes, the more clicks it gets. Every click on social media puts money into advertisers hands. This encourages media to seek after the most embarrassing, shameful “news” that they can find. This viscous cycle is like a sick social disease that needs to be healed.

Compassion can replace shame. In the past hurtful comments that were made had accountability attachment. Comments made to another person, on the radio, tv or newspaper would include the identity of the speaker. If the comments made were out of line, people would correct that person and their hurtful comments. This attached identity would help keep peoples ugly hate comments in check. Now that people can anonymously lash out, there are no repercussions to their wrong behavior. Nothing can squelch out a fire better then love and compassion and empathy. This is how we can cure the disease of cyber bulling. The best way to find your own compassion and empathy, is to dig deep within and find empathy for others. To walk in their shoes. To put yourself in another persons position requires a moment of coming outside of yourself. To come outside yourself, you must abandon your attitudinal responses. One must actual give of their time to hear the other person and learn about their past. We have to imagine ourselves in that position and ask ourselves what we would do and how we would feel. We have to understand that everyone is fighting a battle different than our own. A person is made up of there past and their ancestors past. This history makes us who were are and everyone has a different history. One cannot judged others against how we were made up, and what molded our beliefs. We must conjure up thoughts, knowledge and information to help us feel empathy for those that are different then we are. We must have compassion and understanding for those who we do not understand. This empathy that we assemble from understanding, kills hate. It is easy to hate what we do not know or understand. By understanding others differences we can move past harsh feelings and replace those feelings with love and understanding.

What am I prepared to do to change this? The problem is overwhelming it is hard to imagine that one person can make a difference. A good starting point would be to ask myself that question daily. By simply even being aware, I can open myself up to search for the injustices around us. To ask myself this question often would bring thoughts and ideas into my mind of ways that we can help others. Once we are even more aware of those that are hurt, shamed, or cast out, we can then begin the process of mustering up feelings of compassion within ourselves. If we can even just change the way that we feel within ourselves, that would be a good place to start. I can stand up and speak out for others that feel shamed. A good place to start is with me, I can make a difference.

Social Media (FB) Campaign Part II (Analysis)

4. Executed Tactics
My Facebook campaign goal is to share images and information, to obtain interest, and to locate potential clients to buy and commission art.  Several tactics were used to accomplish these goals, for example: posting every week (up to three posts per week) to generate a following and interest.  Another tactic was using a paid campaign to generate ‘likes’ and to offer a specific product.  One specific item that generates a lot of sales are "vacation paintings", so this is the product and ad that I used for the paid campaign.

In attempting to locate a targeted audience, I sent my ad out to artsy towns in the southwest, in hopes of narrowing my ad reach to a more specific audience.  I narrowed the audience to a middle-aged to mature range of 35-65 years old, and targeted people with art interests. 

 

I also  used cross-promotion with my personal Facebook and Instagram accounts, and I posted single picture teasers to direct flow to my art Facebook account, where people could see more (such as finished paintings, more information about paintings, or the whole completed painting).   In addition, I created a URL and linked it to my Facebook page.  I tried to make my page compelling by showing the painting process in progression. People love to see the steps and makings of a finished painting.

 

I included media events invitations, the Student/Faculty show in the Sears Gallery, and my own Senior Exhibition in the DSU North Plaza Gallery in my feed, including event photos.  

 

 

5. Facebook Analysis 

‘Likes’

 Over the last 13 weeks, the likes have grown from 0 to 150.  The first day I put up the Facebook page, I immediately got 116 likes, but the next day, when I posted the "figure album" (with undraped models), I lost 47 likes!  The likes slowly began increasing again on the third day when I did a paid ad campaign--my likes boosted up by 25.  Since then they have grown to 150. This week had four likes.

 

'Reach'

The reaches fluctuated with these main peaks: 

--the day I opened the account (98)

--the day I started my ad campaign (193)

--the day posted I posted "Pierced"(194)

--the Senior Show advertisement (182)

--the Senior Exhibition (409)

--and lastly, the student faculty show (95)

I am not sure exactly why some posts have a huge reach and others don't.  One show reached a lot of people, and the other didn’t.  In person, at the art show people loved "Sky" (an art piece), but on Facebook, it hardly had any reach.  The video of the modeled ecorche seems to get a lot of attention.  One thing that surprised me the most was that I had reaches in 33 different countries outside the US! 

 

Posts

My fans that are on Facebook spend about the same amount of time there each day.  There doesn't seem to be a day that has more or less activity.  The peaking times of activity are 9am and 9pm.   These are the times that I will aim to post near.  I posted five photo albums with multiple pictures, then later added an additional 20 pictures to these photo albums, then continued with 26 additional posts in the feed.  My goal was to have 3 posts a week, which I stuck to pretty well.

Audience

I have twice as many female followers as male followers which doesn't surprise me.  Art is emotional connection and generally speaking, stirs more of an interest with women.  I would like to try to find a way to connect more with a male audience.  The majority of the followers are in the 34-54 range which makes sense because that is the time when people are more settled in life and are able to purchase original art.  The majority of the followers are from the U.S., but there are 3 other foreign countries with followers in them.

 

6. Summary

Overall I feel like the Facebook art page and ad campaign was successful. I feel like a lot was accomplished in a 13 week period.  It was cool to see that I reached 33 people from foreign countries.  Things that sparked most interest were portraits, art shows, and also the video of a sculpted ecorche. Ways in which it was unsuccessful was that I did not drum up any new business from previously "non-friend" people.  But I understand that that will take time.  I did however get a few more "previous friends" to commission new work, so that was successful.  Overall, I don't know if the Facebook ad campaign worked, other than increasing the number of likes.  The people that liked my page due to the paid campaign appeared to be from a very different socioeconomic class then the three profiles I described.  They seemed very different from the typical client that generally purchases art.  They appeared to be new accounts, with few post and double post.  It made me wonder if Facebook hires people to set up phony accounts and like random pages to keep Facebook users that pay for advertising to continue to use their services.  Traffic and likes increased, so in that regard the campaign was successful. I also saw cross-promotion between my website and the Facebook page. 

7. Self Evaluation

I feel good about where this page has come.  I feel like the goals were executed and met.  I have a lot of ideas of where I would like this to go, and new goals that I would like to achieve.  I would still like to focus on custom vacation paintings. I would like to include paintings that friends have commissioned me to paint of their special vacation areas, telling why they chose to preserve their travel memories with a painting, and include photos of them holding their paintings.  I would like to promote my page to get more shares and tags by advertising a "give away painting, contest/drawing" for those that tag two people and share a page.  Also, even though I wasn't thrilled with the ad campaign results, I am curious about doing a page boost or a paid reach.  I might try this as well.  When I get all of my painting sizes and prices up,  I probably will run another ad campaign.  I learned a lot about social media advertising.  It was a interesting and fun project!

Recognizing Default Responses

After our class lecture on Default Responses I left class like a dog with Its tail tucked realizing that I make judgements all day long!  I decided that I would try to see how long I could go without passing judgement on someone.  Well It didn't last long.  While driving on to the Boulevard a giant jacked up pimped out black truck pulled out quickly in front of me and forced me to slam on my breaks to avoid hitting him.  Automatically I thinking to myself "everyone that drives big truck are such egotistical narcissistic jerk wads!?" Its true I though that.  I reflected back to the time some friends and I were road biking by Veyo and an impatient driver of a very large truck flipped us off and smoked us out because he had to wait 20 seconds for my friend to move over before she reached the top of a hill. I fought the urge to have ill feelings towards the rude actions of this driver and thought, maybe he is in a hurry.   Not 5 minutes later, I was force to stop my car in the middle of the boulevard because another monster truck decided that he wanted to attempt to cross the road even though he could only get half way across, with as a result made everyone driving in the inner lane on the Boulevard have to stop and wait for the opposite side of traffic to clear so that he could continue on and move of of our lane.  Again, My auto response was “Another self centered idiot stop the world!” And so my day continued, I found myself correcting my thoughts all day long! Its easy to revert to our primary certitude, our quick judgment in our head, we all do it. And I don't think that is unnatural. I think moving forward with that though and turning it into a hidden assumption or ethnocentric assumption, where it is so ingrained that we don't question, is a problem.

My last “On the Media Post” was on Guantanamo Bay Detention Center (GTMO) where extraordinary dangerous (mostly terrorists) are interrogated for war crimes. I sided with the Americans and Leaders in favor of shutting down the camp for two main reasons. Some of the Prisoners that have been held for 25 years and not yet convicted criminals. Our country follows a law of “innocent until proven guilty”, and this is not the practice there. Secondly I feel that abuse and torture is inhumane and I would rather risk the chance not extracting information out of a tortured abused human, and the aftermath that may follow, then to have our county become like the inhumane monster that we are trying to stop. This was my conclusion to me post. As soon as I finished typing a little thought popped into my head, yes, but you have not directly suffered or lost someone at the hands of a terrorist. Would my view be different if I or a love one was injured, killed, or fought in war and had to view all of the death and inhuman acts cause by these monsters?

Yesterday in class I got a text that our friends son was one of the victims of the terrorist explosion in the brussels airpot. I sat in excruciating anxiety for almost an hour until I heard he would be getting surgery and would recover. The thoughts that went through my head were much different then when I previously wrote this paper. My primary certitude was under question. I don't believe that I ever had a strong enough view on GTMO that it would be classified as a hidden assumption or ethnocentric position, I'm just not sure where I stand on this issue. Despite that agonizing hour that I did not know the outcome of our friends son in the Brussels attack, I again feel peace knowing now that he is Ok. There are thousands of people out there that have suffered a different outcome from terrorist and their destruction, I have not been where these people have been psychologically, emotionally and psychically. I have not suffered and lost what they have lost. I guess my point is that I will continue to have to remind myself to be slow to make judgements, and try to understand walking in others shoes before criticizing and grouping and making blanket statements on groups of people.

Facebook Ad Copy

On the Media- Guantanamo

One the Media- "What Guantanamo Means to the American Public and for Jihadists."

If only right and wrong were black on white.  This disturbing podcast is a tough mess to unwind.  After 911 many different unfortunate changes took place in our country, this detention camp located with in the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is on of these changes.  The Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, also called Guantanamo or GTMO (pronounced  gitmo) was established in 2002 to detain extraordinarily dangerous people to interrogate and prosecute for war crimes.

The camp because it is in Cuba is considered outside US legal jurisdiction and as a result abuse and torture are reported.  Off the bat my personal moral feelings say that this is wrong and that no human being should be treated this way.  And that is not to make mention of one of the most sacred principles in the American criminal justice system, holding that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty. In other words, the prosecution must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, each essential element of the crime charged.

What if torturing one criminal could stop another attack of innocent American lives and prevent another 911?  Then is it justified?  If it means saving thousands of Innocent Men Women and children form another brutal attack is it Ok then?  I just don't know. It seems so simple in an episode of "24"   
where Jack Bauer (a fictional character) a member of the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) frequent use of torture to gather information has generated much controversy and discussion. I would find myself siding with him every time when emotional involved in the story line. One problem with this was that Jack Bauer haunch was always right.  What happens when the system is wrong and an innocent person is detained tortured and abused? 

In 2006 the United Nations called the camp to be closed, but it remains open to this day.  As of January 2016  93 detainees remain in GTMO. Obama has been pushing to close the camp and move the detainees to to main land.  Republican Nominees like Mark Rubio are pushing to keep it open.  Some fear that even if the camp is shut down and moved to the mainland, that the same inhumane practices will continue.  The George Bush doctrine was "forever prisoner of a forever war"  this thought process will not change anything wrong happening in GTMO other then the location. 

Some of the detainees have been detained for 35 years and still never charged, but are tortured and treated as if they are guilty.  Obama believes that GTMO is counterproductive and that the Jihadis use the camp as propaganda to recruit for their cause.  Isis has made mention of GTMO as did Osama Bin Laden.  Joe Biden claims that GTMO is the single greatest propaganda tool used for recruiting, and thus pushes his argument for closing down this camp. This may not be a strong argument for shutting down the camps alone.  In a 700 page declaration put out by ISIS the word Guantanamo was only mentioned 4 times.  where words like Zionism and crusade was mentioned 387 times. The Jihadist in fact use so very many platforms to evoke anger towards Americans such as global warming, alcohol, gambling, using and objectifying women for advertising, large corporations, deceitful media, breaking up of families, spreading obscenities, cluster bombs, Afghanistan, Iraq etc.  If GTMO is a tool to criticize Americas it is in a tool bag with countless other tools or complaints to criticize and evoke hatred toward Americans.  

 I feel more important then GTMO being counterproductive, which is arguable, a more decent and lawful and humane reason to shut down GTMO is to uphold the principles on which this country was established; Democracy, respect, ethical, honorable, lawful, and upright, decent and humane are the words in which I would like our country to be associated.  If the United Nations is against GTMo then that is a sad indicator of how low our country has gone.  Yes you could say that there is a chance that a future attack may take place because people were not abused and tortured that have not been proven guilty), but I would rather suffer and be upright then cling to false security and be the torturing abusing monster.  What good is protecting this great country if you become a monster like the enemies you are protecting it from?

Learning 2.0 - Privacy

I just got finished watching the Frontline "United States of Secrets" and I am literally sickened.  I knew that the Patriot Act was a bag of tricks when it was sold to the public back in 2001, but I guess I didn't realize exactly how much personal data is being sifted through daily on me and other US citizens in search of "unknown" terrorists.  I wanted to believe that the sifting was on targeted known terrorist, but if they WERE in fact known terrorist, a legal warrant could easily be attained, and this massive collection of US citizens would not be necessary.   I am equally shocked to hear that this program has not only grown to a 10 Billion program in 2010, but now this program is even more powerful under the FISA act. I am empathetic to the whistle blowers that thought when they risked everything to come out with the truth about this program,  that the American public would be appalled by this information, and that the NSA would be forced to shut down this program, but instead the public has been mislead and told only about the least invasive part of the program, protecting the domestic program, the larger program that tracks US citizens phone calls, email, internet searches, financial transactions and more.  It seems so strange to me that as the end of Bushes term approached Obama openly opposed the illegal spying of US citizens and promised to put a stop to it, but then after being put into office he signs the FISA act continuing the program and giving it even more power making all of the programs legal!

 

Further in the program after learning everything you google, every word of every email, all AT&T phone call are all being captured and stored, we learn that Gmail and the new social media information whore FaceBook are competing with each other to see who can gather the most information on you as possible.  Additionally a new program called Muscular begins breaking into other countries gathering marketing information on their citizens as well.  The beast just keeps growing.  Now all of the tracking "cookies" are used by the NSA as well.  The NSA sent out 56,000 letters to internet companies demanding them to not only turn all of their information over to them, and demanded a gag order, before one person from a small internet company contested.  People that stand up for their constitutional rights do so at great expenses and risks.  I am grateful to them for coming forward to bring this beast to light!  I am anxious to watch the documentary "Citizen Four" this weekend and learn more about Edward Snowden.  Some people would call him a traitor or criminal, but I applaud him for making the sacrifices he did to begin to bring this illegal program into the light.  When I think of a traitor I think of someone that is giving information to other countries that would hurt the USA, the information that he is bringing to light is Illegal activity within the National Security Agency that is hurting American citizens.  I do like the idea that Obama made a panel of people to investigate the programs and discuss where the fine line is between security and freedom.  I have to wonder though, who and how were these people chosen, and why didn't he use elected officials that have been voted in by the people like governors or senators make these decisions.  Obamas panel concluded that Prism program was acceptable but dragnet collection of mass information was overreaching and threaten our personal freedom.  The documentary never said what steps were taken as a consequence of the panels decisions if any, so we can assume that the same illegal activity is going on right now!  In defense of the NSA I did empathize with Micheal Haydens closing remarks that stated that the American people feel like not enough is being done when they feel endangered, but as soon as the feel safe again, they feel like the NSA is  doing too much.  

This poll would seem to suggest this argument is correct.  This thought from Micheal Hayden may be true but that doesn't justify them doing what ever they want tillegally and bullying companies to comply with a gag orders.  Many others could argue the same complaint.  Insurances is too expensive and you don't like paying it until you are in a wreck.   The defense department spends too much money on defense until war breaks out etc.. This argument doesn't make this enormous wrong justifiable.  We need to applaud whistle blowers, bring all of the actions of the NSA out into the open vote and decide through elected leaders where we want the line to be.  We need to shut down all of the Spy programs and destroy all of the information illegally obtained.  Right now the programs are spinning out of control and growing so fast that we don't even know how much we are being watch and and by whom?  It needs to end. 

Learning 2.0

When it comes to learning, I think we can all agree to a point that different people learn better in different environments and different ways.  There are many different beliefs about the varying styles of learning that are more beneficial to students.  One of the current beliefs is the Seven Major learning styles. 

1. Visual: These people prefer to use pictures, images, diagrams, colors, and mind maps.
2. Physical: These are the “learn by doing” people that use their body to assist in their learning. Drawing diagrams, using physical objects, or role playing are all strategies of the Physical learner.
3. Aural: People who prefer using sound (obviously), rhythms, music, recordings, clever rhymes, and so on.
4. Verbal: The verbal learner is someone who prefers using words, both in speech and in writing to assist in their learning. They make the most of word based techniques, scripting, and reading content aloud.
5. Logical: The people who prefer using logic, reasoning, and “systems” to explain or understand concepts. They aim to understand the reasons behind the learning, and have a good ability to understand the bigger picture.
6. Social: These people are the ones who enjoy learning in groups or with other people, and aim to work with others as much as possible.
7. Solitary: The solitary learner prefers to learn alone and through self-study.

These different learning styles are a step in the right direction, although I believe that it is much more complicated then this.  One could thrive in several different learning styles and there may even be more styles then these.  The good news is we are starting to realize that education is not "one size fits all."   I have three children and have tried just about every type of school available.  Public schools, academic charter, school of arts charter and I have even tried homeschooling.  Each one of my children does better in a different learning system and thrives with different learning styles.  I am grateful that there are now several different options for children.  I think we are heading in the right direction but I feel like there is a long way to go to discover how to cater to different children and build on there existing strengths. 

In the Huffington Post there is a article that criticizes the seven styles of learning called "Learning- Styles Theory Questioned By Researchers"  They claim that a large industry has developed that has profited by selling materials that teach in these different ways, however the research shows that test taking by using these learning tools doesn't yield any higher results.

 “Clearly, people have distinctive abilities and aptitudes. Some people have higher visual ability, and some have higher auditory ability,” said UCSD professor Hal Pashler, lead author on the report. “But the question is whether that predicts anything about the most effective way to teach them. … There is a complete lack of evidence of the sort.”

I agree with this article in that I don't think I would invest a lot of money into learning tools that claim to specifically cater to one learning style, and I do believe that a study would be very difficult  to chart differences in learning with and without these different styles because everyone's style and intelligence varies completely.  But I do know from personal experience that I learn best by doing something myself (as opposed to watching or listening)  and I remember visual images more then written information.  Regardless of which side you choose to believe I know that Both sides agree on one thing: Using a diverse range of teaching styles and institutions is beneficial for all students.