A Rare Live Audience Public Radio Show

For my Media Writing class we had to select a radio show of interest to us and analyze it. In another one of my classes I was introduced to a genius radio show called "A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor." However this is not any old kind of radio show, but it's a radio show performed live to a live studio audience and broadcasted over the air. Back in the 50s and 60s radio shows with live audiences were popular, but with the invention of tv, this trend faded fast, but the art has not completely vanished yet. Radio before television had to of course be captivating and very descriptive so that people  could stir up images in their minds of whatever the radio host was broadcasting other than music, such as news or a bedtime story. With "A Prairie Home Companion," people may pay to see the cast perform the show live at a theatre. The show includes lots of real-life sound effects and is full of satirical humor. I personally love it! The show is a public radio broadcast in Minnesota. Today the show is heard by more than 4 million listeners each week on more than 600 public radio and abroad in places like Canada and Europe.
Here is a clip from one of their live shows in 2009 entitled "coffee." If you don't watch the entire thing you must fast-forward to the awesome song at the end--hilarious! The host has a very enticing voice and the cast is very talented. They can imitate different voices and sounds and sing!

Brad Paisley's New Song "Accidental Racist" is Genius to Me

Hello there :) It's been such a long time. April 8th feels like years ago. I've actually had a terrible sinus infection for the past two weeks. It's amazing how a cold can debilitate you from doing much else except give you the strong desire to want to sleep all the time, but I feel better now. The doctor gave me antibiotics. Anyways, I have a lot to share with you so let's get this train moving!

First thing first. I kept hearing things about a new song called "Accidental Racist" by Brad Paisley. I looked it up tonight, listened to it with the lyrics on Youtube and I am not offended at all. I thought the song was genius! It's about two perspectives...one from a proud, white southern man and one from a black rapping man. Both perspectives are honest and still felt by both sides today, however I know there's an even deeper meaning behind the song. The song sends the message of a desire to stop judging one another and get to know each other past the surface. Our ancestors started this country off on a crazy foot to say the least, but if we take off our judgement, we can heal. Here's the chorus.

I’m just a white man comin’ to you from the southland
Tryin’ to understand what it’s like not to be
I’m proud of where I’m from but not everything we’ve done
And it ain’t like you and me can re-write history
Our generation didn’t start this nation
We’re still pickin’ up the pieces, walkin’ on eggshells, fightin’ over yesterday
And caught between southern pride and southern blame


Please watch the video I made about it in more detail and let me know if you agree or disagree. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPJElRhH3uc&feature=youtu.be Are you offended by the song?
Here's the discussion the women on The View had and the Wendy Williams Show:

I'm Just A Pollster

Yes, it's that time again :) At Elon, one of my favorite jobs to do is the Elon Poll. There we conduct surveys and call randomly selected numbers in the state of North Carolina. We ask them questions about their opinions on politics--whether they approve or disapprove of the performances of certain political figures, along with questions about current issues, particularly in North Carolina, such as questions pertaining to gun control, immigration, gay marriage, education, etc. I tell you what...some people can just be plain rude on the phone with you. The common response is an immediate 'click' after my introduction. Some people are in such shock that we called they ask, "How did you get this number? This is my cell phone!" LOL Let me just let you all in on a little secret if you didn't know....NOTHING YOU DO IS 100% PRIVATE OR CONFIDENTIAL. Your emails, your text messages, your social media inbox messages, your phone numbers. There are organizations such as the FBI who keep all these kinds of things on file, so don't be surprised if you get a call from a solicitor or a poll. If you have lots of money, you can pretty much buy any information you desire/need.

I digress, anyhow, some will get extremely buck on the phone (meaning very nasty) and yell things like "DON'T YOU EVER CALL THIS NUMBER AGAIN!"
What they don't realize is that we are college students for crying out loud and we are doing a public service. The survey data is used to help politicians and law makers make decisions and gage the opinion of the public and also the data is released to news outlets so the people can know what's going on. We're your friends guys! Yet, there are always those sweet people who don't mind sacrificing only 10 or so minutes of there time. Out of those who say yes, a hand full simply give 'yes' and 'no' responses which are great, but then there is a smaller portion out of the hand full who will give you insightful opinons and they fascinate me. I love this job because I learn so much.

On Saturday conducting the poll I talked to one male and one female who gave me some amazing opinons. For example one question asks if a you are in support of a legislative proposal to decrease the early voting period from 2 1/2 weeks to 1 1/2. The man told me, "I believe that there should be one grand day for voting and that should be a holiday. Everyone should have work off, we have holidays for everything else, but we don't have a holiday for the most important day in the country." Now that sounds reasonable right, but one woman said to me, "Well, if two weeks are as long as it takes for our soldiers and service men abroad to vote, then that's how long it should be." Another question was whether you believe that NC laws should make it easier or harder to obtain an abortion. Of course some people said that if a woman is raped, it should not be hard for her to get one; some said that if it's too easy to obtain young people will feel that it's okay to have fun and not take any precautionary measures and that's not right. Those with strong religious beliefs also agreed to make it harder or even impossible to obtain. When a question came up about education, the man I mentioned said to me, "So many parents use school essentially as a daycare and abuse the system because they feel that education is a right. Well, I believe education is a privilege and if I child is misbehaving in school, then they should be removed." Immigration and gun control are other topics in which I get a lot of insightful perspectives about.

I could go on and on for days about the things people have said but all in all, the poll has taught me not to discriminate people based on their political party affiliations or religious beliefs (not that I did before, but I've even more open minded then I was before). I find that not matter the party affiliations of religious beliefs, most people think rather rationally and want the best for their families and loved ones. For example, when I was young I was taught by society to think that all white Republicans hate black people and are usually rich and greedy. That is terribly far from the truth and in my history classes as even Hispanics, blacks and other minorities are identify as Republicans as well. I've learned that political parties in the U.S. and abroad are constantly changing their overall platforms. What do I mean, so the Republican party today in the U.S. is not what it what was 50 or some 100 years ago and vice versa. The Tea Party now, is definitely not what is was some 100 years ago. The democratic party today was not always are liberal as it is now. A professor taught us that the party symbols were made to make obvious statements. The orignal use of the donkey as a symbol was not a good thing, as Andrew Jackson was considered by some a jackass. The elephant was meant to symbolize majesty and strength. Though there are different versions of the story behind the symbols, now we give these symbols positive meanings for the most part, which was not always the case.

So what's the big picture here?...I suppose from observation and hearing hundreds of people's perspectives that thought processes evolve overtime and change. We can only hope that our thought processes and government will continue to evolve in the right direction. This without a doubt means compromise, because people will naturally have different viewpoints on issues and we can only come to reasonable solutions if both sides are willing to compromise. But after all what do I know....I'm just a pollster :) lol

PR Propaganda Unyielding during WWII

Public Relations is still a fairly new field and idea that dates back to the 20th century. Edward Bernays and Ivy Lee are considered the founding fathers of the field of public relations. The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) defines it as "a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics." Berneys helped President Woodrow Wilson propagandize to rally American support of allied war aims during World War I. He is most popularly known for organizing a march called the "Torches of Freedom," which was a public relations stunt to increase the [female] demand for Lucky Strike cigarettes. A group of young women, with their males companions, marched in a parade all lighting Lucky Strike cigarettes, which was a symbolic gesture of female liberation. Form that point forward, it was no longer a taboo for women to smoke in public. Bernays was also behind the 1930s Dixie Cup campaign...you know those red plastic cups you see everywhere? The campaign was designed to convince people not to reuse bottles/cups but that disposable cups were more sanitary.

Ivy Lee is best known for taking the rotten image of the Rockefellers [Oil Company monopoly] and making the public fall in love with them, by depicting them as philanthropists invested in the lives of their workers. Before that point, the Rockefellers were always depicted in newspaper comics as fat, greedy, mean, money-hungry people. Because Ivy Lee took the image of a corrupt family and turned it into gold, many adopted the nickname for him, Poison Ivy.

These two men were masterminds when it came to knowing how to shape public opinion about ideas, people, and products. There is an art and strategy to the madness :) For a PR professional, if the reputation/image of the company, person, or product is sour then it is their job to figure out how to reverse it.

In my History since 1865 class, we are now analyzing WWII and since we're on the topic of PR, an article that was published in LIFE magazine September 20, 1943, embodies the shock value/emotion that effective PR can stir up. The article was about three young men who died in the war and beside the article was a picture of the three American soldiers (killed by Japanese) lying dead. This was unusual and shocking to readers because before this point, magazines and newspapers did not publish real images from the war because they thought showing raw images or the war was too inappropriate and harsh for the people to see. Yet it caused many people to support the war in opposition of the Japanese and Germans and feel a strong sense of pride in U.S. ideals of democracy and freedom.

Despite their deaths, the article depicts these young men as heros. It used their deaths to promote Americans to action in the war...“And yet, miraculously it is not too late; miraculously the battle still goes on, and we can still see, in every line of action, why it is that American boys win…We can still sense the high optimism of men who have never know oppression.”