Social Media Demands an Economic Reform

Christopher Gutierrez, Sandra Millington, Santiana Hill

Mr. DeWit

English DA4

October 25, 2013

 

“Social media is not about the exploitation of technology but service to community.” - Simon Mainwaring

 

            Social Media Demands an Economic Reform

 

In 2oo8 Barack Obama was the first presidential candidate to appeal to young adults through social media across America. His widespread campaign used social media and it led to a successful victory. Social media so far is the best. It consists of Twitter, Blogs, Facebook, My space, Podcasting, and YouTube. The polling statistics of the 2008 presidential election was astronomical because there were millions of young followers and friends on social media and for the very first time young people paid attention to politics and went out to vote. The same strategy can be implemented as a driving force to keep the young adults informed of the current state of affair in America and situate them as engaged citizens. Generating virtual programs on social media to educate, empower, and instill good morals or preach success stories can teach the youth to act honestly and think clearly in order to contribute constructively to this nation. As current events unfold in America, it is relevant to inform young people of the causes of important issues like outsourcing, ageism, the government shutdown and the effects on health care, dismantling the safety net, corporate welfare and the mortgage crisis. Travis Smiley and Cornell West, authors of The Rich and the Rest of Us, have already begun a tour called: A Call to Conscience. Likewise, this information should be brought on social networking services to keep young adults updated at every second in every matter of the second.

To paraphrase, Colette Meehan in The Advantages and Disadvantages of Outscoring IT, in the 21st century outsourcing became very popular among employers who refused to pay higher wages because it need not provide healthcare, dental coverage, vacation, sick pay and other employee benefits. Some reasons for outsourcing are prices for production are cheaper, great financial saving, and motivation for lower international rates. To put it in a cross cultural perspective, a ten dollar bill may seem like a fortune for someone living outside the U.S.A. when in the U.S. really capable of purchasing a case of soft drinks. The retention rate in America is really low and companies spend more on employees who are indecisive about working at a certain place. Some examples of companies that outsource call centers such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and T-Mobile. Credit Card companies such as Visa, Master card, Discover card, and American Express. Food and cafeteria service such as General Mills, Kraft foods and PepsiCo. The biggest aspect of customer is handled correctly and promptly. Big companies are more likely to outsource the qualified American Workers such as certified public accountants because they want to cut cost. Many Facebook and My space users use the “like” function to follow Fan pages. If the youth of today were to spell out their thoughts and unsatisfied feelings about the corruption behind outsourcing, it would make a dramatic change to these companies existence and probably decrease the amount of reputation.

Unlike racial or gender discrimination, ageism is also a social attitude. It is a way of discriminating and stereotyping people age 40 and older that become victims of this crime. Older adults are often perceived as incapable of thinking clearly, learning new things, and are irresponsible of holding jobs. To summarize Mellissa Dittman in the American Psychological Association publication, some signs of prove ageism are bias comments, comparisons, disparate discipline, favoritisms, promotions, harassments, hiring younger people, refusal of jobs because of age, being denied access and membership to join clubs and organizations. On Facebook and LinkedIn, one could post work history and or a lengthy résumé without ever having to divulge an age. A method of applying online and being hired based on experience rather than the immediate need of the companies would greatly benefit the people in the community.

An asset to inform our youth about the Affordable Health Care Act (Obama Care) would be to create a YouTube tutorial video on what Obama Care is, why it is important and how you can get it. If such a video existed, the eyes of our youth would be widely opened. Not only will they be able to understand the Affordable Healthcare Act but also other affairs such as the safety net that is being dismantled by our government. This YouTube video would be plutonic, about 3-5 minutes long and could be hosted by famous You Tubers (like celebrities), and would grab the attention of the youth and gain thousands of views within hours due to the thousands of people subscribed to that individual. This would be a great way to bring important topics to light nationwide.

The seriousness of having Obama Care for the upcoming year would be able to be viewed on this video clearly. It is important to understand that if you do not sign up for heath care by the deadline (December 14) you will have it listed on your 2014 tax return. There is an annual fee of $95 a month for adults and $47 a month for children, for the first year. After that first year is up the fee will keep rising. Surely an added monthly bill is not needed nor is it wanted. First things first, to secure your health care, a great website to use is Healthcare.gov. On this site there is a tab that says,”get insurance”. You want to click that tab and then follow the step-by-step directions. It is mainly self-explanatory. While signing up you will see that some of the states have their own health care insurances, as for the rest of them; government ran. Healthcare.gov is an important asset because it helps you search for health care options that are more affordable for your income and that have great coverage. “Nearly 45,000 people die because they lack health insurance” (TRRU, 181). We should take this opportunity to apply for Obama Care and take advantage of the situation. It is probably easier to sign up for Obama Care electronically; however you can also sign up through mail.

Obama Care is a great example of a safety net program. It helps those in need of health care find health insurances that are more affordable to them. There are other safety net programs out there such as: Social Security, WIC, Welfare, Food Stamps, Federal Housing, and Unemployment. Many of these programs can be found on social media like Tumbler. Tumbler is another great way to engage the youth on important topics such as the safety net and how the government dismantles it. One could write an article on the struggle of obtaining these programs, post photographs of the poverty due to the lack of help that these programs are supposed to provide, or even make a comic strip. All these things are quick, easy and useful.

Each of these programs has benefits and some of them also have downsides; the government places these to hinder you from obtaining all of the benefits. Social Security helps all Americans especially those who have become disabled, have retired, even relatives or close friends of employees that live in the same zip code area as the individual receiving aid. When you work, taxes are taken out of your paycheck that o toward social security. However, the downside to this is that you are not saving that money in a personal piggy bank that money is going to those people listed above at that time. You may find this to be unfair, that your money is going to someone else's needs, but if you were put in that situation you would want that social security to help you.

WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) is a program that helps women/mothers who are pregnant, breastfeeding a child that is under a year old, a mother who recently had a child and if you have a child under 5 years of age. What this program does is help these individuals stretch the money they have, get food that is health and nutritious for their family, it can also get your children started on a good health plan. This program is great and is something that, sadly to say, our youth needs to know about.

Instagram and Twitter both are popular social media tools used to communicate effectively and or promote current news. To review briefly, mortgage crises are payments that are made to the bank for loans and taken out to get a house; a banker, by law, is not allowed to give a client a loan he or she cannot afford but it happens nonetheless. Instagram could function as a vehicle to carry out comprehensive and analytical information about the U.S. government and its overlooked effects. Ancillary to the basic options in choosing to post or share photos on Instagram, users can break down these messages in an easily understood fashion to the youth with photos of pie graphs, charts, diagrams, and other statistic each conveying illustrations on how the young adults are being affected on a day-to-day basis. For example, authors Smiley and West allude to the mortgage crisis in factual statistics, stating, “According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), homeless families increased 28 percent, from 131,000 in 2007 to 168,000 in 2010” (pg. 47). With this quotation, an Instagram user could create a before-and-after image with millions of tiny squares representing houses that were owned in 2007 and show the absence of houses in 2010. Then the image can be reposted on his or her account so that it could reach other peoples news feed.

Another example that the authors use in The Rich and the Rest of Us is when they review Obama’s announcement in his State of the Union speech, saying, “A federal program to help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosures and save about $3,000 per year on their mortgages.” The authors continue dissecting the quote realizing that in several polls most Americans favor this sort government intervention to prevent them from losing thier home. Why is it that politicians that run for office pull in most of their votes through social media but abandon their supporters once elected? I believe that if West and Smiley created a Twitter account, if they haven’t already, they would receive countless strings of notifications and emails asking questions in regard to information on a payable home mortgages and the two gentlemen would never abandon their followers. The purpose of activating one of these accounts is to better inform the public about governmental issues. Smiley and West would hold short conversations with young adults and grown adults on posts. Most people use hash tags in tweets (twitter posts) when something really drastic happens or goes viral—usually when it’s something related to pop culture or politics comes up. Hash tags could be used to narrow down a search, or in this case, to find a common place in which the user can relate to many other poor classes American that is struggling; thus creating a need for mobilization and demonstration in the newsfeed.

Furthermore, moving on to corporate welfare, imagine the hostile reactions that the youth would produce if they were to see an image on Instagram or a statement on Twitter that said, “$92 billion is spent on corporate subsidies. So, the government spent 50% more on corporate welfare …” (Butterfield). All of the poor middle class and lower middle class young Americans would rage and cause turmoil, complaining about the tax dollars being spent on a so-called needy corporation. They younglings in college would feel cheated knowing their tax dollars are not directly benefitting them, especially when merchandise and commodities sold by corporations are heavily overpriced.

            On February 11, 2011 late in the evening, well over 18 million voices in Cairo, Egypt belted out vigorous cheers of independence right after president Hosni Mubarak stepped down from office. It has been documented in history that social media outlets like Facebook are popular tools of activism and are helpful in recruiting millions of followers at exponential rates. Supplementary, in an article titled Spring Awakening published by the New York Times, Jose Antonio Vargas reveals a shocking statistic that relates directly to Smiley and West’s plan, “In 2011, out of Egypt’s more than 80 million people, some 48 million were poor and 2.5 million lived in extreme poverty.” In studying the powerful effects that corporations and the United States government has on its citizens nationwide, the solution that has is been in place and has succeeded in other countries, as well, is that the youth needs to be informed about national economic issues such as outsourcing, ageism, dismantling the safety net, mortgage crisis, affordable Healthcare act, corporate welfare through social media.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Smith, Catharine. "Egypt's Facebook Revolution: Wael Ghonim Thanks The Social Network." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 11 Feb. 2011. Web. 25 Oct. 2013.

 

Snyder, Whitney. "Mubarak Resigns As Egypt's President; Armed Forces To Take Control." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 11 Feb. 2011. Web. 25 Oct. 2013.

 

Smiley, Tavis, and Cornel West. The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto. New York: Smiley, 2012. Print.

 

Nations, Daniel. "How Barack Obama Is Using Web 2.0 to Run for President."About.com Web Trends. About.com, 22 Mar. 2008. Web. 27 Oct. 2013.

 

Butterfield, Bobby. "Government Spends More on Corporate Welfare Subsidies than Social Welfare Programs." Think by Numbers. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.

 

Strickland, Jonathan. "How Twitter Works." HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks, Inc, 12 May 2012. Web. 26 Oct. 2013.

 

Clifton, Jacob. "How Instagram Works." HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks, Inc, 3 Feb. 14. Web. 26 Oct. 2013.

 

Rouse, Margaret. "Outsourcing." What Is ? SearchCio, 4 June 2007. Web. 25 Oct. 2013.

 

Meehan, Colette L. "Advantages & Disadvantages to Outsourcing IT." Small Business. Demand Media, 24 July 2010. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.

Dittmann, Melissa. "Fighting Ageism." Http://www.apa.org. American Psychological Association, 3 May 2003. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.