Never Stay Silent.
It's the name of this course, and something I was always told to do. It drew me in, and I decided it would be an interesting class to take. This course centers around the History of American Journalism, famous contributors, companies, and moments. All of which not only interest me but are bound to come up in my future studies.
As a political science major, we read at least three to four different articles, from different news sources / journals a week for one of my classes (Enduring Issues in Political Thought). With all of this new background knowledge I feel as if I gained a deeper appreciation not only for the writing, but for my ability to question the ideas talked about.
Prior to this course, I knew about censorship and corruption in our government, I knew about how some news sources are more left or right leaning. But, I never took the time to think about what they could not be reporting on, or why they push certain narratives versus others. I think my interest mainly peaked during the Russia / Ukraine conflict because there were no straight answers as to what was going on.
Now I am especially exposed to the worldwide news, national news, and took a step back from worrying about local news. Oppositely, I have always been a rather frequent trafficker of sites like Variety, BBC, Vogue, People, and many more like them because I was and still am very interested in what is going on with my favorite artists and celebrities. When Candace Owens, a conservative American author, began showing up in my daily news stories about Harry Styles that I began seeking out more news sources and perspectives to one topic. I liked reading what different magazines or politicians, or just random news writers thought about the situation. Maybe it was because I had such a strong opinion and wanted to see why anyone was even siding with her, or maybe it was because I just wanted to see her proven wrong. I don't really know.
At the time of this big controversy, I was in my junior year of high school and we had a blog project in my AP Lang class. I decided to write about a topic I was passionate about and wanted to help others understand the complexity about. So naturally, I discussed the sexuality of Harry Styles and how he identifies as unlabeled. The more analysis I did of different sources whether it was youtube videos, lyrics, news stories about him, and interviews. I fell absolutely in love with this writing style, and getting to write about my opinion on these topics, it felt new, and exciting, and entirely different from what I was used to.
I think all of these different factors really shaped my decision in trying my hand at a journalism course, and considering it as a minor. Ironically, I decided to go in the direction sociology as my minor, but this course is still very much something I can be interested in, and would want to explore further later on in my academic or professional career.
Sources:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2020/11/16/candace-owens-criticizes-harry-styles-sparks-an-embarrassingly-outdated-culture-war/?sh=c7d14ae2128d
https://variety.com/2020/music/news/harry-styles-candace-owens-tweet-1234833146/
https://people.com/style/harry-styles-claps-back-at-candace-owens/
https://www.vogue.com/article/who-exactly-are-people-like-harry-styles
https://ajps.org/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/machiavellis-the-prince-is-looking-pretty-good-in-the-trump-era/2019/01/09/b78be016-1444-11e9-b6ad-9cfd62dbb0a8_story.html
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