American Freedoms, But Do We Use Them?

 Blog #3

American Freedoms, But Do We Use Them?

First Amendment Values

Without the freedoms given to Americans in the first amendment, democracy cannot be achieved. The freedoms from religion and of religion; of speech and of press; and of assembly and petition allow the American people the ability to voice their opinions of the government. Without the first amendment, the Eight Values of Free Expression would be unable to exist. 

Eight Values of Free Expression-What is Most Important to Me?

I believe one of the most important values of free expression is that of protecting dissent. Protecting the ability of the American people to speak out against their government is essential for the popular values of the electorate to be reflected in how they are being governed (University of Chicago Law School). When the American people are unhappy with the functions of their government, their dissent must be protected for democracy to thrive. Protests and other major forms of dissent along these lines are the American People's most effective way to express their discontent with the United States Government. These displays are the main way the People can express their discontent without directly voting their representative out of office. This helps to give Americans an increase in power during a non-election year, but can also influence others to vote incumbents out of office if they agree with the issues that are being dissented upon. I believe that this is the main way that Americans still participate in their Eight Values of Free Expression. 

Another one of the most important values is the marketplace of ideas. Without the ability of the American people to seek the truth, the government would be able to tell the people whatever they wish and the people would have to take it at face value. The ability to then take these truths and spread them in print among the people allows for the electorate to remain informed and be able to make fully informed decisions in elections. An informed electorate is one of the most important prerequisites for democracy to thrive. 

What Values are Under Utilized?

I believe that the value of participation in self-government is being under utilized by the American people, especially those of my generation. I believe the American public, especially those that are just now coming of voting age, do not keep themselves as well-informed as they should between election cycles. When there is an upcoming election, the public turns their attention to the news and pays attention to the policies being lobbied for, however, I believe between election years, the electorate does not put in effort to remain informed. Young voters are also the largest voting population, however, they have the lowest rate of voter turnout, this is believed to be connected to the fact that the youngest voting population is not well-informed enough nor do they have the political efficacy to understand how to effectively participate in their democracy (Juelich, et. al., 2020). 

Technological Influence

Technology has influenced the eight values of free expression in a multitude of ways. First off, that the electorate has instant access to all news reports. In the age of the internet, we the people have access to all reported information at the simple click of a button (or more accurately, a google search). Not only do the American people have instant access to news at their pleasure, but the news also has further means of communicating stories with the people, and collecting information to report on. 

However, not all technology has a positive impact on the spread of information relevant to the electorate. I believe that social media, while in some regard keeps the younger generation of the electorate further informed, has the potential to do more harm than good in spreading information. On social media anyone can create an account that they use to spread news, however, from accounts that are not trusted news sources, there is nothing to say that these posts and the information they contain is true without doing further research. The only issue with this is that people will oftentimes take what is posted at face value and not do their own further research into the issues. So long that people do research to back up what they are seeing on social media, it can be a great way to inform the younger population of the political issues facing both their country and the world. 

Freedoms, Use Them

Overall, I believe the American people have begun to lose touch with the eight value of free expression. I believe that it is essential for the electorate, especially Americans that are coming of voting age, to reengage with these eight freedoms. These freedoms being used to their fullest advantage is essential to keeping American democracy alive as Generation Z continues to come of age. As a generation that is so large, we will soon have a great amount of power in the democratic system. My generation needs to reconnect with the freedoms for the American governmental system to be able to properly function. As Americans, we are tremendously lucky to live in a country that provides us with the ability to have these freedoms, it is our duty to utilize them in order to participate fully in our democracy and to not allow for these freedoms to go to waste when many others do not have the same ability to change their country as Americans do. 

On the Supreme Court

 Blog Post #2

On the Supreme Court

The Most Powerful Judicial Body on Earth

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the most powerful judicial body on the Earth due to the power of Judicial Review. This power stems from the Government's understanding of the importance of Checks and Balances. Judicial Review provides SCOTUS the ability to ensure Constitutionality of actions taken by the Legislative and Executive branches of the United States government. 

Videos one and two cover the background of the Supreme Court. In these videos we not only hear about the background of the court, but we hear from Justices themselves on their experience. These videos give great insight into the court, its functions, and the Justices, even for those that may already have a decent understanding of the Court. 

Justice Ginsburg states "The first thing we do is shake hands" because if they have all made physical contact with one another, it increases the level of respect when there is a disagreement between Justices. This is an extremely important part of the operation of the Court as there are often disagreements among Justices that could carry high levels of tension. The cases being brought before the Supreme Court are ones of great value, when a case is decided it sets a precedent that sets a rule or doctrine for other similar cases to follow. These precedents are followed with adjustments only being made through incremental change (small changes in precedent) or through overturning the Supreme Court's original decision, which entirely changes the precedent. 

Many people believe the Supreme Court to be secretive, in fact when Justices are making a decision on a case, they are the only people present in the room, however, the Court is not truly secretive, they share everything. One of the Justices on the side of the majority opinion will write the opinion. In this process, the Justice writing the opinion will send it out to the other Justices of the Court, they give input on reasoning for the decision, as even when they agree on the decision of the case, many times they believe that to be the correct decision based on different Constitutional backings. Justices on the side of the minority opinion then will publish a decent to explain their take of the Constitutional backing that they believe supports the side the argued for. 

Overall, SCOTUS is often overlooked by the citizens of the United States (probably due to the fact that Justices are appointed rather than elected by the people), however, their power is extremely important. The Supreme Court carries with it the weight of maintaining Constitutionality among the entire United States Government and ensuring the freedoms guaranteed to the people of the United States are upheld. 

News! How do I Get It?

Blog Post #1

News! How do I Get It?

Sports Business

As a Sport Management major, one of my most used sources of news is to connect with sport business. The source I use the most for this is Front Office Sports as they have the option to sign up for twice daily emails with the most important headlines from the business of sport across all sports and countries. This platform keeps me connected to the current events of the industry that I am just months away from entering as a full-time worker. There are other sources for this type of niche news such as The Sports Business Journal and The Athletic, however, I believe Front Office Sports to be the most thorough and accurate of the free to use sports business platforms. While this may be a niche form of news, due to where my passions lie and what will be most relevant to the industry I am about to enter, it is the source of news I use the most frequently. 

Google News

Google News offers the ability to see a multitude of headlines, covering a large variety of topics, from all types of media outlets in an easy-to-access format. This platform allows for all of what is considered to be the most important headlines at any given time to come to the forefront of your news search. This also bring headlines for a wide variety of news sources, allowing perspectives from all viewpoints to be easily accessed on each individual story. Using Google News has allowed me to find myself in a better position for how I can most effectively take in the news and how I can ensure I am getting all points-of-view available on a story when I am taking into consideration what is occurring. 

Snapchat

It will be repeated again, but social media is not the best way to consume news. However, Snapchat offers companies the ability to post "Discover" stories that have real substance behind them. This Discover platform on Snapchat allows for any company to pay to promote their stories to the users of Snapchat. This means that multiple news sources are able to use catchy headlines to attempt to get users to read their most important news stories of the day. News companies from all over the world use this platform to reach users and readers, to share their news. Now, this does also allow for platforms that are sharing seemingly "unimportant" or tabloid news, which I am sure many Snapchat users are quite interested in, however, true reputable news agencies also use this feature as well.

Instagram

Social media is by far not the best place to learn about the news, full of misinformation and the ability to say whatever an individual wishes. However, with all of the faults that getting news from social media can provide, it does give me the ability to see a headline or snippet of a news story shared by someone I am friends with, and in turn do my own research on the story. So while getting news from Instagram is not ideal, being able to see what is happening and what is a major news headline on Instagram allows me to then know what I want to look into further in depth and collect well-vetted and true information on the issue by using reliable news sources through Google News. 

Television

Unlike many nowadays, my family still has cable. This means when I am at home, the television is generally on. If there is one thing my family likes to keep on ideally as we go about our days for it to play in the background, it is news. Just like many of my friends, I grew up watching TV before school as I ate breakfast and got ready in elementary school, unlike many of my friends who would be watching cartoons, my morning television programing was "Fox and Friends". Needless to say, the news has always been a large part of my life. Television is an interesting way to consume news in today's climate. Journalists and television programming has become partisan. Therefore, I believe that this is one of the most difficult sources of news to get unbiased reporting from, without constantly switching channels and hearing the same stories from multiple perspectives, whereas, on Google News, it is possible to do this in a matter of clicks.