observation 15

"Beyond Multiculturalism: A Two-Way Transformation" gets to the heart of what really makes an American an American. What really makes an American when everyone in this country comes from different places? The author, Bharati Mukherjee talks about his journey of coming to the United States. He is from Calcutta and came here via airplane to Iowa. He is now a naturalized citizen was a certificate of citizen. The point is that everyone in this country comes from different places and the fact that we are all citizens and live in this country is what makes us all Americans.

observation 14

"Reinventing America. Call for  New Identity" starts off by saying a lot about what if racism and minority/majorities were reversed. It is definatley an interesting thing to start thinking about. One example that I thought was really interesting was when she used the example of the dick and jane books (the ones that little kids use to learn simple words and how to read) and how now a days there are people out there who would like to go back to those times when using the stereotypical white people were the clear cut version of what was right. Another interesting example was an ad for Time Magazine that is discussed. It is a bunch of babies in their hospital cribs, all of them black with the exception of one and a caption that says "Hey whitey! It's your turn at the back of the bus!" It is interesting to think about the possibility of all of that changing. To think that the current minority now could become the majority. I don't know if it it necessarily possible but it's cool to think about how much everything would change if that were the case.

observation 13

The reading and discussion of "Institutionalizing Our Demise: America vs. Multiculturalism" prompted an interesting discussion in class. This essay was about in essence, what makes a real american. Obviously people have their own view and their own opinion about all of that. The class discussion lasted the entire class time. The main thing being discussed was the fact that no matter what you believe, everyone has to agree and accept that everyone living in this country did come from somewhere else. People have been coming over to American from other places for forever. So what exactly constitutes an american. I think the bottom line is that no matter your opinion, everyone really is an american because people come from all places and they settle here and make it home.

observation 12

I thought that the cross campus blog project was a really cool idea. We got to comment and put forth our own opinion and input into song lyrics. The song that I had was a song about war and the writer of the song was saying that war is good for nothing basically. This was a really strong message to convey so it was cool to get to hear everyone's opinion on it. Most people brought it back to certain wars in particular, especially the Iraq war, and some people alluded to the Vietnam War. This was a really cool thing to do to be able to hear different people's opinion's on these topics. The people who commented and said their opinion were from a few different schools, had different backgrounds, and a variety of majors. It really opened my eyes to hear everyone's opinion on it. 

observation 11

Making a satire was, I'm sure, another hard project to put together. You have to fine the balance of making it silly, funny, and random, while still covering real stories. The main points of this group were to have anchors who had charisma and could pull out jokes at any moment, and to also present real stories with a twist in a funny way to keep the audience entertained through all of it.

observation 10

My group did our news project on news magazines. I really think that this was one of the harder ones to do because we had the task of finding a topic to discuss that was relevant for people, but at the same time, relevant to a huge group of people instead of just an isolated group. We ended up choosing to do our project on a follow up of Hurricane Katrina. Although the hurricane only hit one part of the country, all would easily admit that it affected everyone. Hearing a story cover all of the recent news would pull a wide range of audience in. Another main point we tried to make clear was the kind of anchors that do this show. Anchors on this type of show are very professional, and usually very serious. Our anchor wore a suit and tie. A lot of times these anchors are older than those of the evening news. 

observation 9

The evening news video clip I thought was a great representation of what most evening new stories cover. When I was watching the evening news group present their video, I automatically compare and contrast it to the evening news program I have watch almost my whole life at home. These 2 news programs had far more similarities than differences. On the evening news all of the broadcasters are seemingly approachable and nice people. A lot of the time they are young. They are also energetic and make you want to listen to what they are going to say. The stories are local issues that pertain to all of the people that are listening. It's not as more stuff that people will flip the channel about because it doesn't seem to be an issue in their life. The same is true for all of the commercials. The commercials are things that would be appealing to the audience and most of the time about local things as well.