Technology

The main goal behind my mentorship was advertising, and a lot of technology was involved. However it wasn't very advanced or hard to obtain technology. The thing I noticed was Mrs. Cooley's most valuable resource was email. Running a campaign is all about appealing to people and the best way to do that is by building a relationship with them. Email gave Mrs. Cooley the ability to build that relationship without using much time and it allowed her to reach a lot more people. She would keep potential voters updated on events and the benefits of voting Cooley with a quick two minute informational email sent to a mail group of as many people as she wanted to include. Another valuable communication device was her iPhone, with it she could not only call people, which was her preferred method of communications because it was more personal, but also stay up to date with her mail, and use a variety of nifty apps. Social Media also played an important role in the campaign. Websites like Facebook and Twitter allowed Mr. Cooley's name to become more popular and brought in some more supporters, plus it kept people informed on the Campaign. Supporters could share the Cooley for Congress posts or tag the page and inform their followers/friends of Cooley. Towards the latter part of the campaign we expanded to radio advertising which was really convenient, because the radio stations gave reports on the most successful ad, and played it the most.

A program that I learned about was Vote Builder. It wasn't used in Cooley's campaign because it wasn't very cost efficient, but I personally think it's a very useful program. Vote Builder is used by the Georgia Democratic party to attract more votes. It is basically a record of all registered Georgia voters, and it includes details that could be used to target voters. For example it includes the voter's Religion, Age, Party Affiliation, number of people in household and their ages, voting record, and a lot of other personal details. It also allows for Robocalls to be made and mass mailing lists based on the detail of your choice, for example you could send a letter to all African American twenty-three year old males in District 9. The information on Vote Builder can be extremely valuable if used intelligently and with a manipulative goal.

I think any future technological innovations would be beneficial to campaigns. Politics is a game of charm and being able to relate to the public. The best innovations in the political field is anything that improves communication, but that involves a wide range of things. Improved planes and cars means an improvement for politicians to travel to the people, Social Media offers cheap advertisement, and web cams allow human interaction without physical presence; an adaptable candidate will be able to use whatever technology is developed to his or her favor.

I'm still not sure about the specifics of my project presentation but I know that computers will be involved. Right now I am leaning towards a video project because I find a movie like presentation that allows me to make creative cuts, add sound effect/music, and present information in a visually exciting way is an effective way for me to present my research. A video also allows me more exposure opportunities because if I do it correctly I should be able to just send a link to people without me having to explain anything in person. Another perk is that I can satisfy the performing art geek in me by creating a video. :)

Broken Society

  I have always considered myself a successful person, and I have often been recognized for my success which is something I greatly enjoy. However in eighth grade a broken system caused me to lose an opportunity. Every year the counselors would pick the top Hispanic students in the eighth grade and take them on a trip to visit the University of Georgia. UGA tries to diversify their campus by offering this opportunities to outstanding Hispanics, and giving them scholarship and college applications information, and allowing them to tour the school. I was more than confident that I would be chosen to go because I was definitely in the top of my class, and that was including all races, once it was lowered to just Hispanics I'm sure I was like first or second. However I noticed that I wasn't getting called up to meet with the counselors. I assumed that they just hadn't gotten to my name yet or been able to reach me so I just continued on with life and figured I would eventually get chosen. Well the day came when all the chosen students went on the trip and I was never invited. I was shocked to say the least and so were my teachers and classmates, I started to doubt my abilities and was depressed most of the day. Anyways later I found out that, while I hadn't been called up a Filipino friend of mine had been invited but she told them she wasn't Hispanic so she wasn't taken. That immediately made my suspicious and I put two and two together and realized I wasn't invited because they assumed I was white! When I talked to the counselor about it she even told me it was only for Hispanic students, at which point I informed her I was Hispanic but by then it was too late. This fits right under Godin's "I didn't know" model because the fact that I don't fit the stereotypical Hispanic profile, therefore preventing them from knowing my race caused me to miss out on an opportunity to prepare for my future. I'm sure the counselors were trying to save time by not looking at records but if they had looked they would have known I was qualified rather than just assume that since I "look" white and "act" white I was white. This actually happens to me a lot, I am constantly having to explain to people that I am Hispanic, but this is one of the few times when I have actually lost something because of people's assumptions.
   That's one of society's greatest problems, stereotypes and assumptions. I believe schools should try to teach our students to not judge or assume about others, because in today's global age we all need to learn to be open-minded about different people. Globalization means future generations will interact with diversity even more than we do today, and as educators schools need to invoke students with the social skills necessary to succeed in a global market and not categorize people through inaccurate generalizations and stereotypes. I believe it's human nature to judge and try to categorize strangers however, people need to learn to ignore that part of the brain and to not let first impressions inhibit them from learning the truth about a person. Tolerance is an important key to success and values like that are best taught at young ages and the best way to become tolerant is to become informed. If schools taught more about other cultures then students would be more likely to accept them because it would be familiar to them.
  I am not implying that I was judged or discriminated against, I know it was an honest mistake. However, the system was broken because information was lacking, so an assumption based on a stereotype to save time was made.

My Essential Question

 Examine and explain how large contributions by corporations and wealthy individuals to politicians influence laws, political decisions, campaigns, and my rights as a citizen, and evaluate the level of power large contributors hold compared to average citizens like me in recent and past decades? Report whether my research changed my views and plans, and predict the effect it could have on my political campaign if I run for office.

I first learned about Political Action Committees first semester of my junior year in AP Government, since that first lesson I have been interested in the role money has in government. I have never really taken the time to thoroughly research the subject, most of what I know has been from class or from looking stuff up after watching The Colbert Report. However this project gives me an excuse to finally find out more about how money shapes our society especially in recent years and just how deep of a hole we're in. What makes me most excited is the potential of what I could do with the knowledge from this research. Hopefully I will be able to find out things that aren't publicly known and I will be able to inform about and if I'm super lucky discover some corruption or surprising lack of corruption in Politics. Many people are oblivious to how much political contributions are influencing our country and the amount of power these contributors have and finding answers to my question, will hopefully enlighten enough people to encourage them to make a change. Another reason I'm excited is because I'm a very curious person and the amount of investigation opportunities researching this project will offer will make me feel like a secret agent/journalist, which were two careers I used to be interested in, plus ease my mind. I thought a lot about how to word my question so that it would show most of what I wanted to discover through my project. I believe that I created a question that meets my needs as best as I could do without it getting too lengthy or confusing. My main goal is to find out who is controlling our country (people or money?) and I'm confident my question will satisfy that goal. Rubric