http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKFKGrmsBDk
Without looking at the info on the side, can you tell who the person in this video is? If you didn’t know, it is Thomas Paine (well, a man dressed up as Thomas Paine) and he is dressed up like this for a reason. This piece provides a good combination of media convergence, grassroots movement, and collective intelligence. This grassroots video was made by a group of people who are trying to reach the American people. According to them, America is being pulled right out from under them. Things such as offering Spanish in all scripts. The fact that the man is dressed up as Thomas Paine is very significant. It is an attempt to show how important it is that the American people need to do something soon before it is too late. This grassroots video is very popular and very influential. Videos of this sort are so influential that institutions are taking their models from grassroots videos, such as this one (Jenkins 219). This video is certainly not for everyone though and certainly didn’t have the same viral effect as the true majority group. With websites like YouTube existing today, it is so much easier to broadcast the videos you post, especially politically significant videos like this. This video is part of media convergence for the because part of media convergence is that every important story or opinion gets told (Jenkins 3).
http://img444.imageshack.us/i/birtdees12107747ur0.jpg/
Do you think Barack Obama was legitimately born in the United States? This political cartoon addresses the Barack Obama birth certificate controversy in a humorous way. In my opinion, I want to believe he was born in the United States. As one of the three rules for being president, you have to have been born in the United States. I find it fishy that there is even a question that he might not have been born in the United States. Anyway, the whole thing is entirely speculation. If he was born in the United States, what is the problem with simply showing your birth certificate? This argument really appeals to people’s logic, or logos. Why can’t the president just simply present his certificate? In the political cartoon, the picture supports the speculations that Barack was actually born in Kenya. If this were the case, he isn’t eligible to be our president. (Much evidence to reinforce my claims needed) The creator of this political cartoon is simply trying to express his opinion and influence others to look into the controversy. Anyone who doesn’t live under a rock has heard about the Obama birth certificate controversy. This is part of media convergence because, according to Jenkins and his definition of media convergence, every important story gets told.
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See I think you made a valid point about the political cartoon. However, the one thing I would like to stress is that Obama would not be eligible for president if he was not born in the us at all. However, since he was born in Hawaii, he is eligible for president. Yes, there might be controversy, but if it was entirely true then the government would not let him run, that would be breaching the constitution.
ReplyDeleteI love the questions you pose to introduce your blog and draw readers in. I actually did know that the man in the video was Thomas Paine; i am a huge fan of his work. The video you picked touched on everything this blog was supposed to be about. It touched on not just cinema fandom and convergence, but also the grassroots movement, and you did an excellent job of showing us this through evidence from the video and from Jenkins book. Bravo. The political cartoon, however, was not as effective, though, eight months ago, when the election race was a toss up, it would have been. Like Kirsten said, there is actually no question wether or not Obama was born in the US, because if there actually was a doubt, he would not be our president now. Overall, a good post though.
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