America’s Working-Class Issues

This thoughtful blog post about the pressures caused by poverty, unemployment and dehumanizing jobs on civic life is from James’ eportfolio. I’m glad he got to finish this piece, which should have been part of the civic engagement issue.

James Tello Portfolio

Living conditions are rough in some areas of America. An average working-class citizen may need to work multiple jobs to buy food and pay for rent. Essentials for living are getting more expensive, and mental health has become a major issue in the country. So, we must ask why does it have to be this way? Why are the exact issues and how can we change it?  

First, let’s look at the wages in America over the past decade. According to a CNN article by Lydia DePills published in 2019, “America’s base pay rate has remained at $7.25 an hour since July 24, 2009 — 3,614 days ago on Sunday. That will be the biggest time lapse since July 2007, when the wage hadn’t risen since September 1997.” The article also mentions research at MIT as shown that the average living wage would be $16.14 an hour. There are…

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Negative Data

This eye-opening piece about negative data is from Spencer’s eportfolio. I’m glad he expanded on his ideas in his unpublished draft!

Jouranlism 2.0 E-Portfolio

Photo by @nasa on unsplash

The data collected by users from sites like Google and Facebook are used to create algorithms that can auto- generate recommendations based on your past interactions. While algorithms are helpful in our daily internet use to help us get from point A to point B quicker, not knowing which of your data are being harvested for algorithms is uncomfortable for personal privacy. .

Unfortunately, “Over the entire length of time a user participates on social media or media sites, the small actions and digital interactions, such as likes, comments, ratings, reads, views, and shares, are accumulated into large mathematical database”. Even your watch time on videos is collected by sites like Facebook in order to track your internet habits. Even worse, social media and search sites collect negative data about users as well. Negative data is user’s data that wasn’t officially posted to a site…

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Civic Education in School Curricula Today: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

An inspiring story by Mia Len. This blog post from her eportfolio expands on her blog post earlier in the semester. The takeaway is all the stronger for it.

Mia Len's E-Portfolio

Mia Len

Photo byNathan DumlaoonUnsplash

The presidential election of 2016 – the moment in my life that changed the meaning and importance of the term “civic education” for me. In high school, I knew what it was, and I knew the “importance” of it, but I didn’t understand the importance of it. The election changed the meaning of civic education to me because I realized, first-hand, why it was so important. If my age group wants our kids to grow up in a world where rape cases are taken lightly, if at all, and where the energy of politicians is put into taking away the rights of pregnant woman who want to get abortions, then by all means, let’s continue to ignore this downward trend of civic engagement. But, if we want to live in a world where the color of your skin wouldn’t prevent you from

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Rebuilding Civic Communities: Editorial

In previous weeks we’ve discussed the decline of civic engagement and social connectedness.  But how can we rebuild those civic communities? Can we continue to rebuild them while we are encouraged to stay at home and distance ourselves from others?  This week our class blog posts aim to discuss rebuilding those civic communities and its …

Citizenship by Proxy

Upon examination of the term "citizenship by proxy," we begin to question its meaning. It has a somewhat broad array of significance in the context of United States citizenship, but could be simply defined as allowing another individual(s) to have some form of political or civic power to represent you on your/others behalf. The most common …

Rebuilding Civic Communities: Editorial

- Johnese Robertson  In previous weeks we’ve discussed the decline of civic engagement and social connectedness.  But how can we rebuild those civic communities? Can we continue to rebuild them while we are encouraged to stay at home and distance ourselves from others?  This week our class blog posts aim to discuss rebuilding those civic …

Does Democracy exist today?

The dictionary defines Democracy as, “a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.” The ‘eligible’ ones maintain democracy through voting. Voting plays a big role in Democracy. I recently watched a documentary called Suppressed: The Fight To Vote by Robert Greenwald which made …