Kony 2012

The Kony movement in 2012 to try and save the invisible children was highly viewed once the documentary went viral on twitter and Facebook.  In a two day span, there had been over 7 million views of this video making people more aware.  One thing that many people did not realize was that this had been going on for many years prior to the spread on social medias sites.  The movements wanted people to donate money to random organizations which people put trust in these movements which some of the funds were being embezzled by the organizations.  Individuals put their faith in these organizations which is hard to build trust over the internet.  The video pulled on people's heart strings and made they victimize these invisible children and make Kony an infamous leader.  Invisible children became a known term and was no stranger to the social media campaigns.  One of the biggest contributors to the publicity of Kony was twitter and Facebook which had almost one million fans.  This was an active and engaging way for people to get the message out their and make people world wide aware of the atrocities going on.  The hashtag #LRA was a common and very well known on Twitter and helped spread the word to people and make this campaign well known.  People posted many videos on twitter or would tweet "for all of those who know who Joseph Kony this one goes out to you all and if you don't watch this video."  People had to trust others on the information being given out and many people conformed to the views that were publicized.  Social media sites have been making it easier to make the world smaller and know the many events or movements going on around the world like the Arab Spring and Occupy Movement.  The social media sites helped keep everyone up to date but also had to put a lot of faith in the information that people were posting.

Groupon

Groupon is a site that had a lot of potential to be very beneficial to individuals looking for deals but to boost small business this site was not as effective.  Groupon should be projected to everyone and be universally friendly.  By universally friendly, I mean that it is not gender specific and is appealing to all types of people.  Being openly diverse like this is extremely important so that different groups do not feel this site is meant for a certain "gender".  Also, promoting small business is important in the economic system today and is a ideology that groupon wanted to promote but unsuccessfully did.  If I were to run a site to promote small business, I would broadcast it to different social media sites including pintrest, twitter, and facebook but not exclusive to these sites.  the use of twitter would be to show deals that are being promoted at the time instead of irrelevant information that is posted on the Groupon website.  Twitter is a great way to get little blurbs of information out and have people look more in-depth into information.  To gain new viewers or members would be utilizing pintrest.  This site would gain probably a more female basis.  To gain more male viewers, putting advertisements on sports blogs would probably be the best bet for this.   These social media sites must be viewed a few times a week so that it is a common viewing and not just for boredom.  This is because people are more willing to look more into items if they are actually interested in it instead of just quickly scanning over things.  The only problem would be keeping people coming back and repeatedly using the site but keeping people updated on deals through social media sites like Twitter could help with this cause.   

Politics and Social Media

Social media has become more and more important in the role in political campaigns.  This was prevalent in the 2008 and 2012 elections. Candidates utilized social media to reach out to groups that not always has a high percentage of turnout voting rates.  http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/11/19/barack-obama-and-the-facebook-election Is an article that shows that Obama had gained much of his vote from the under 25 age group which is astounding seeing that not this was the highest percentage since exit polling began in 1976.  He reached out through using Facebook mainly.  A fact from this site said "Some 35 percent of Americans said they'd watched online political videos—three times as many as during the 2004 presidential election. And roughly 10 percent said they'd logged on to social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to engage in the election." This just goes to show how we have evolved in the world and have put more emphasis on social media sites to get a point out into the world.  In a different article a source had said in the 2012 had utilized social media for the worse.  Candidates used social media sites to bash their opponents and post inappropriate adds about their counterpart.  So, the article had said that people will be pushing away from using social media in the next election if they know what is best for them or at least use it in a beneficial and publicly correct manor.  I believe that the social media sites put out a good representation of what a presidents stance may be or even give the public a chance to get to know them.  Twitter in this past election helped people put the presidential debates under a scope and have allowed us to move forward in understanding the presidential elections.  In 2016, I feel like the campaigns will still use sites as such to get the point across.  

Spring Break 2013: For 244

Breaking News,

Knox, Maine:  There was an incident in Knox over spring break 2013.  There was a drunken man on Belfast road who drove into a tree or supposedly drunken man.  This does not seem that out of the usual but the man happened to be naked... and not drunk.  This man was just lost and confused seeing he was 80.  Jennifer Lapointe and Daniel Lapointe had walked up our hill of a driveway to check on said man and he was fine and the state troopers brought him home.  This was a very strange event to happen in the middle of nowhere Maine.  This man had traveled all the way from Paris, Maine which is about a two hour drive. After this unusual event there was not too much else interesting happening over spring break.  One thing that was also mention worthy would be the blizzard that created many traveling problems.  After this happened, I went to the Hollywood Slots in Bangor just to find out that I could not even enter the building due to being a teeny bopper. So, while my mother was out enjoying her good ole sweet time, I was locked in the mall and scared for my safety.  I walked around the mall after hours for an hour trying to find my way out.  Clearly the minimal sense of direction that I had or common sense to leave the mall by the correct hours was what led to being stuck in the mall.  This was quite the task.   After this, I attempted to find my way back to the casino and ended up in the next town over.  I guess the big sign that said "Hollywood Casino" was no indication to make a turn.  Ended up an hour away and had to drive back to pick up my mother.  In other words, Knox was uneventful and a blade of grass growing would of been a lot more interesting than either of these breaking news events. 

First experience with Dating Sites

Plenty of Fish is a very interesting website to say the least.  I can not say that it wasn't amusing sitting on the website; there are many characters out there in the world and this was a good chance to see what there is out there to offer.  Well an interesting first experience with dating sites is an understatement.  In less than five minutes of having it I had 8 messages from 30-40 year olds who gave me their number and asked to meet up.  When I did not respond these people insistently messaged me and seemed very desperate.  Not to be rude but most people on this site seemed needy and in desperation to find love.  One man messaged me four times in a row to try and meet up at his uncles pub.  Only problem with that one is I'm a 19 year old infantile girl.  I think their is a stigma that online dating is for "strange" people because one person said "you are too pretty and normal to be on and online dating site."  I mean I was flattered but still this was something that kind of made me more weary about being on the site.  At this point, I will probably stay away from online dating sites after this assignment but it seems to be beneficial to people who do not feel comfortable in social situations or are not outgoing enough to try and meet people.  Later on in life, I would probably rather live alone with many cats or animals than try an online dating site again.  This may be a little harsh but it really is not for me; especially being a 19 year old girl.  Can't say I am really into 40 year old men but who knows maybe one day that will change but for now probably not.

Barstool Sports

Trying to find sites that appeal to both men and women seems to be a task in today's world. This is something that page designers have started to take into account.  Making sites that are meant for individual genders and certain demographics have come out in the two sites that I talk about in this blog.  Pintrest is what people usually see as a females site; while sites like barstool sports and menterest are more focused towards males.  This is said to be because of how the site is set up and key words and layouts used.  Pintrest was more focused towards females because it has more words like cute and the set up is more appealing to women.  Also, the items that you read on pintrest are focused towards female like with formulas and posting "attractive" male celebrities or athletes.  This is completely opposite for Barstool sports.  This site has many of the articles focused on sports; whether if be high school sports or professional sports. They take a different take on the sports.  The other aspect where it is more male focused is the "smokeshow of the week" which is a female that people send photos in every week to be chosen as the weekly smokeshow.  This is based off of looks and nothing else that comes into play.  This is not really a topic that is appealing to women but to each their own.  These sites are purposefully focused towards a certain demographic and which makes them such popular sites to people.  This is something that page designers take into account when creating the layout of these sites.

Google Reader

Using any new social media can be stressful for anyone.  Change is always very difficult for me, with no exception Google reader was one of them that gave me anxiety trying to figure out.  Even though this was a stressful process it is good to broaden my horizons and try new social media sites.  Google reader offers many benefits to any person.  By this I mean that any person could find at least one thing to help them out with a project or to acquire information which could help.  For me personally, I subscribed to certain sites that will help me out with my majors.  I am a political science and business major; so knowing what is going on in the world is essential.  I subscribed to Aljazeera which is a news paper published in the middle east.  Also, I am interested in foreign policy so I also subscribed to the council on foreign policy.  These may not intrigue anyone else, but it is a good helping tool for my studies.  Google reader is almost like the flip board app but I feel like the reader gives you a more well rounded amount of stories and information.  I still prefer using my Iphone apps to find out news but while on a computer Google reader seems to be a helpful tool.  It took a little while to understand how to navigate on this site but once I figured it out it was not too difficult.  This site will help when I have to research for my foreign policy projects and help keep me updated on what is going on in the world.   

Online Activitiesz

In a recent class we discussed what role does gender play with online activities of people.  I have come to realize that females tend to push more towards the social aspect of the internet while the males have a tendency to put more emphasis on sports and news.  This does not hold true for me though.  I spend much more time online checking the news because of my major and trying to stay worldly.  By worldly I try and keep up with what is going on around the world and trying to not be ignorant to different events going on.  I rather spend my time reading aljazeera than sitting on pintrest.  This isn't the case for most people though; my roommate for example could sit on pintrest all day and not get bored.  If it wasn't for relatives on Facebook that would be the first thing to go.  As we discussed in class, I find the only use for social media sites like Twitter or Facebook is to make things more accessible and allow people to communicate in a timely fashion.  Which to me is the purpose of having a cell phone, but in today's world you can have all in one and trying to get a hold of someone is still a process.  I feel social media has taken away from personal interaction which is a shame.  Even though I can say all these negative things about social media sites, the likeliness of me getting rid of mine would be slim.  I tweet an obscene amount each day which after only having twitter for around a year, I have completed almost 10,000 tweets... to say the least I abuse twitter. 

Social Medialess

Getting rid of someones phone for a few hours was a decent experience.   I went 8 hours without my Iphone and this was such a process.  This forced people to communicate face to face and actually interact.  Some people say that the feeling of disassociation from the social world is overwhelming but this was not really the case for me; this gave me time to myself and not worrying about what everyone else was doing with their time.  My focus was no longer, "what is everyone doing" or "am I missing out on something" I just did my own thing and still hung out with people.  I found out that if people really want to get a hold of me they will make the effort to find me.  The only bad part about this assignment was that I missed a phone call from my brother during that time.  This really doesn't seem like a big deal but seeing he heads out for his second deployment Thursday, any time I can talk to him I try to.  Also, my mom went off on me for not wishing my sister a happy birthday via Facebook because that is clearly a deciding factor on whether or not you care about someone in my household.  On a brighter note, I didn't lose any twitter followers due to over tweeting that day.   Putting my social media life on the side was not a life ruining experience, like I had said it was a pretty relieving experience which now I find myself leaving my phone at home when I go out for short periods of time.  

About Me

My names Megan Lapointe and I am 19 years old.  I am a sophomore here at UNE and am a Political Science and Business major.  I grew up in a little town named Gorham, located in Northern New Hampshire.  I lived there for 17 years until recently my family moved to the middle of nowhere Maine to a little town called Knox.  I am the youngest in my family following My brother who is 21 and I have a sister that is 25.  I have a niece who is 2 and a nephew that is 3. Some fun facts about my self are: I love John Mayer, my favorite color is blue, I love to play soccer, snowboard, and go hiking, my parents sold my goat, I have two horses named Autumn and Misty.  My most prized possession would have to be my fish Marvin.  Living in Maine is not always the most desirable but to me I wouldn't want to trade it for anything in the world.