Facebook Campaign

When I first started my page, I went through my own friends and invited many of them to like the page. I tried to only invite people who would be interested in the page, so it mostly included people who live in Anchorage or attend UAA. Through this strategy alone, I was able to gain a significant amount of quality likes on my page. I also shared the page using my personal account, which led other people to share the page, and that led to likes as well. The assistant coach also used the highly active Twitter account to tell people to go like the Facebook page, and I used the Facebook page to encourage people to follow the Twitter account. Additionally, the assistant coach shared some of the Facebook posts onto the Twitter account with links to guide traffic to the Facebook page, especially in the early stages. I used hashtags that were already designated by the Athletic Department, so many of my posts feature the hashtags "SeawolfMBB", "GoSeawolves", and "FearTheHowl". These hashtags helped group my posts together and made them more easily accessible. Also, since all of the sports teams use "GoSeawolves", fans of other sports (Hockey, volleyball, women's basketball, etc.) had a better chance of finding my page.

At the beginning of the semester, I needed to build a following. In order to make the page effective, I had to convince people to like the page. The most logical way to do that was to try to get the players' families and friends to like the page. The assistant coach of the basketball team decided he wanted to introduce this year's team with baby pictures. He would send me pictures of the players as babies, and I would post them and let people guess which player the picture was of, then after about a day I would post a side by side like the one above to introduce the player. I also made sure to tag the players in their respective pictures so their friends and families would see the picture. The one above ended up reaching over 2,000 people. The player, Curtis Ryan, is from Australia and thanks in part to that post, over 100 people from Australia ended up liking my page, which I found out through the insights tab.

Before I started my campaign, I also said I was going to ask the assistant coach of the women's basketball team to promote my page. Her page is very popular and has a lot of followers, and the audience is obviously very similar, so I knew it would be a good tactic. I went to school with her younger brother and sister, so I got her number, contacted her, and asked her to give my page a shoutout. She did, and that post is in the picture above. The post got my page several likes and helped get the word out about the page. 

About a week after giving my page a shoutout, the women's basketball coach texted me out of the blue with some very valuable advice. I had already planned on tagging the players in posts since I had seen her have success doing that on her page, but she told me about a feature I was unaware of. She told me that when people like my picture, I can click on the "likes" button under the picture and invite people to like the page. Many people who like the pictures have already liked the page, but since the players are often tagged, and since posts get shared, I got likes from people who hadn't liked the page yet and I was able to quickly invite them to do so. As you can see in the picture above, not everyone who was invited ended up liking the page, but I gained a significant number of likes through this 

method.

All of the above pictures are examples of posts from throughout the semester. As you can see, I always tagged at least one player in each post to try to increase post reach. The second picture goes along with the first picture. I wanted both pictures to show how many people have liked and shared that post, as well as the post reach. It has reached over 6,000 people and counting, and has nearly 100 likes. I have gotten a lot of new page likes through that post by inviting people who liked the picture to like the page. There were a lot of people for me to invite since the post got shared 36 times, which I was extremely happy about. Since one of my goals was to increase attendance at the games, I wanted to make sure to post on game days to remind people to go to the game, or tune in online if the game was in another state. I also hoped to increase interest in the team by posting about wins or other major accomplishments in hopes of enticing people to come see the team they've been reading about on Facebook.

Unsurprisingly, the largest number of likes came from people between the ages of 18 and 24. Since this is a college basketball team, I figured that college students would be the main audience for the page. Additionally, many of the people I invited are my age, so naturally many of the likes are from that demographic. Several other age groups constitute a significant amount of likes, which is also unsurprising since many players parents and relatives liked the page and shared the posts for their friends to see.

The people who liked my page are probably much more diverse than what most people will see in their "People" tab. I got likes from the United States, especially Anchorage, but I also got likes from Australia, Norway, Spain, etc. The likes from Australia and Norway may seem random, but the team has two players from Australia, and they signed another for next year (which I posted about), and they also have a player from Norway. I think this geographical diversity is amazing. I think I am doing something worthwhile with my time because I am updating and creating content for people who live all the way across the world and love to read updates about their sons or relatives.

As you can see in the picture above, the time of day did not have a very big impact on post reach or post engagement. I think this is because the posts that did well got shared and distributed enough that they stayed relevant on peoples' timelines for more than just an hour or so. I think I can contribute that success to having tagged the players, as well. I knew that optimal posting times are 9 AM and 9 PM so I kept that in mind, but I didn't focus on it very much. Time of day was somewhat irrelevant for me because I could not dictate when games ended, when big news (like major awards) broke, or when games were scheduled. Also, as I talked about previously, my followers are very geographically diverse, so posting time is less important due to varying time zones.

Most of my page views were just to the home page. This isn't surprising since I didn't have a lot of other content other than pictures and videos, which are the only other tab that was visited. People did not necessarily need to go anywhere else, though, since all of my posts were easily accessible from the home page.

Post reach was sporadic throughout the semester. Some posts did better than others, illustrated by the drastic spikes in post reach in the graph above. I think this had to do with who was tagged and what the content of the post was. For example, my post about Suki Wiggs scoring a school-record 46 points achieved a post view of over 6,000, but posts reminding people to tune in to games got somewhere around 200-500 since they weren't as significant. My post reach appears to average roughly 1,000 though, which I am very proud of. 

My page likes increased steadily over the course of the semester. The large spike in likes in September corresponds to the time I spent inviting people to like the page. The other spikes in likes correspond to popular posts and significant updates. Additionally, I went back through my friends and invited more people from Anchorage to like the page, but I still tried to focus on people who I thought would be interested in the team, or at least the page.

Overall, I am very proud of my page. I started it from nothing and built and maintained it until it became a successful and useful source of information. I think that the baby picture campaign from the beginning of the semester was very useful for gathering likes before the season began. Since games had not started yet, I did not have a lot of content to post. I didn't want to have no likes once the season started, though, because then my posts about games wouldn't be very useful because few people would even see them. The baby picture campaign was successful because I tagged the players which led to their families liking the page. The families had a vested interest in the page because it provides updates about their family members' team. Additionally, UAA only has one player from Alaska, so the page was very valuable to many people who cannot make it to games for obvious geographical reasons. I am glad that I was able to provide this service to them, since Facebook is a very convenient source of information. I think that inviting people to like the page after they liked pictures was one of the most helpful strategies I employed. I am very thankful that Coach Afoa gave me that piece of advice, because it helped me out a lot throughout the semester. Of all the tactics I utilized, that was the most valuable and produced the most results.

Honestly, I don't think I would do anything differently if I had to do this campaign again. I think that it went very well for me. The page wasn't even existent when I started this semester, and now it has over 500 likes and is a vital source of information for an audience. I can't recall any part of my campaign that went poorly. I'm sure there is still plenty more for me to learn, but this was a very successful attempt for me considering I have never created a Facebook page before.

I wrote all of the posts for my page myself, using pictures and resources sent to me by the assistant coach and the Sports Information Director. This was a very beneficial experience for me because I want to work for a college athletic department. I've always thought of myself as a good writer, but writing sports articles and post game updates is a lot different than writing essays. This was a valuable opportunity for me to practice writing about events and updates that relate directly to the field I want to go into. The UAA Sports Information Director offered to be a reference for me if I need one for a job or internship, so I got a lot out of this campaign. I learned a lot and I found that I really enjoyed this experience. I have already told the coach and the SID that I would be happy to continue to run the Facebook page if they want me to. I am moving back to Anchorage next August and I hope to work for UAA, so this might actually serve as the "foot-in-the-door" I need to get a job. The SID has complimented me, not only directly to me but to other people who have relayed the information to me. He has said that I have done an awesome job and that they are very thankful since the men's basketball program was in desperate need of a Facebook presence. This is very important to me because if I get a job at UAA I want it to be a result of my own hard work and merit, not because of who my dad is.

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Recognizing Default Responses

For my automatic attitudinal response, I want to own up to a predisposition that I've had for the majority of my life. My mom's side of the family is all LDS, so naturally they're very conservative and identify as Republicans. My dad's side of the family is also very conservative, and most of them live in Texas, a traditionally red state. Additionally, I was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, and when I graduated high school I came to St. George for school. Alaska and Utah are two deep red, or Republican, states. Do you see a pattern emerging? My entire life I've been exposed to conservative views and conservative values. Many of these conservative views stemmed into primary certitudes. Some people reading this may have an automatic attitudinal response of their own that causes them to think of bigotry because I said conservative, but I don't think that's the case. My family members are not hateful or bigoted people. While they are definitely fiscally conservative, and most of them identify as strong Republicans, none of them pushed their views about social issues on me. To be honest, I don't even know how many of my family members feel about some major social issues. For this reason, I didn't develop as many primary certitudes pertaining to issues like abortion or gay rights. Had my parents been vocally opposed to gay marriage, I still don't think it would've created a primary certitude. I have had gay friends growing up, and this exposure led me to believe in equal rights for everyone.

The reason I chose this automatic attitudinal response for my post is because it is relevant right now. Having grown up in a sea of red, I have very seldom heard anything good about Hillary Clinton. This created a predisposition in my head that causes me to scoff or roll my eyes at the very mention of Clinton. My blind, inherent hatred of Hillary Clinton is a hidden presumption that stems from my primary certitudes. As a result, a few of my posts were critical of Clinton. While I tried my best to base my posts only on factual statements, the fact that I chose to write about Clinton more than once is problematic. Thinking back, I jumped at the chance to write a blog post about why people don't trust Hillary Clinton. Even though it's a fair topic for discussion with plenty of research to cite as evidence, choosing to write about it is a bias in it's own right.

This election, I decided to be more open minded and try to form my own opinions. This is a very difficult task. A Gallup poll found that 71% of teens age 13-17 say their political views are almost the same as their parents'. This is a startlingly high statistic that lends itself to my argument. While I recognize that I have an automatic response when it comes to Clinton, I don't take full responsibility for the manifestation of that response. If I wasn't actively trying to ignore that response and educate myself from an objective vantage point, then I would be much more culpable in this situation. However, I have researched Clinton extensively throughout this election, and I have formed my own opinions. The effort I've put into research and higher levels of thinking is an attempt to combat my own ethnocentrism. I don't want to be the type of person that looks down on someone just because they support Hillary Clinton, or just because they are a Democrat, or just because they are fiscally liberal. I want to educate myself to the best of my ability so that my own preconceived notions of what's "right" don't cloud my ability to make rational judgments about other people.

I found, through reflection, that I dislike her because I think she is dishonest and I can't vote for someone that I can't trust, because even if I agree with her policies, there's no way of knowing if she even believes or supports the things she's saying. It is important to note, however, that even though I am much more educated than I used to be, any research I did is also biased. It is impossible to be completely objective. The phrasing of my Google searches, the sites I chose to visit, and the information I chose to acknowledge or ignore all contribute to an insurmountable automatic attitudinal response that I have been subjected to for as long as I can remember.

I don't blame anyone in particular for influencing me one way or another. I think that we are all subjected to certain political views depending on not only our family and social groups, but also our personal experiences and our cultural backgrounds. These two concepts combined to leave me with a disdain for a politician I knew nothing about. In all honesty, I disliked Hillary Clinton before I could possibly understand the issues at hand. My distaste began at a young age and continued into young adulthood. I've worked hard to try to curb my automatic response and think critically about each individual situation, but that automatic bias is never going to go away. I don't think I'll ever be able to fully rid myself of it. Once you've been conditioned to think a certain way, it's extremely difficult to completely reverse that conditioning. Moving forward, it will be important for me to recognize these automatic responses as they occur. That way, I can take a step back, think critically about the situation, and come to a more logical and well thought out conclusion.

On the Media 3: Under the Wall

I decided to listen to the podcast "Under the Wall", which was about CBS and NBC's coverage of people from Wast Berlin who were attempting to tunnel under the Berlin Wall to get to East Berlin and free their friends and families. The podcast also discusses the Kennedy Administration's attempts at stifling the story and preventing the journalists from publishing their stories. NBC and CBS both sent journalists to Berlin to video tape the tunneling and get live action of the events as they were transpiring. The news organizations funded two tunnels in exchange for exclusive rights for video of the escapes.

The main ethical issues that arose from the podcast were whether or not it was justifiable for the journalists to try to help these people escape, and whether or not to air their footage. Additionally, the Kennedy administration's attempts to suppress the journalists raises questions. The physical context of the podcast is, most notably, Berlin, Germany, and more specifically, under the Berlin Wall. The psychological context is, in my opinion, the most important context to consider in this case. At the time, fear was widespread. Nuclear war was a very real possibility, and people, including John F. Kennedy, feared anything that might cause conflict between the United States and the Soviets, as the wall was located deep within Soviet territory. The cultural context is also important. The journalists, as Americans, represented the United States, in a sense. Documentaries of these journalists aiding tunnelers in Berlin were seen as dangerous because they could incite tension and lead to a nuclear war. The cultural context of Greg Mitchell, who Bob Garfield talks to in the podcast, is also important because Mitchell wrote a book about the Tunnels, which boosts his credibility. Further, his background as a journalist could lead to an inherent bias that would result in him advocating for journalistic freedom and against prior constraint by the government.

Whenever nuclear warfare is a serious threat, the government has to take extra precautions when it comes to international relations. The proposed documentaries could have been extremely dangerous if released to the public. While I wouldn't normally advocate for prior constraint, I think that war and international relations warrant different rules. In 1961, both the United States and the Soviets were testing nuclear weapons. This was a crucial point in history and desperate times call for desperate measures. I can see why the Kennedy administration thought it was best to stifle American journalists in Berlin. Even though the journalists' primary goal was to get footage of the tunnelers for documentaries, they were part of the movement and they were essentially aiding and abetting people who were participating in criminal activity (criminal in the eyes of the Soviets, that is). To play devil's advocate against my own argument, these people were just trying to be reunited with their families and friends. As the podcast pointed out, tunneling under the wall was the difference between enslavement and freedom for some. These were the grounds on which the journalists justified their behavior. I would argue that in the eyes of the President of the United States, the welfare of a small number of people in Berlin is not worth compromising the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. President Kennedy took an oath to serve the people of the United States, not the people of East Berlin, Germany.

Hindsight is always 20-20. I think this phrase is relevant in this situation because the documentary "The Tunnel", made by NBC, went on to win Emmy awards. Most notably, it was the first documentary to win the Program of the Year Emmy. The release of the documentary did not end up fueling a nuclear war, so it's easy to say that the Kennedy Administration was wrong as we look back in history. At the time, however, the threat of nuclear war was very real. In a blog article on ScientificAmerican.com, David Ropeik details the rise of "Nuclear Fear" in the early 1960's. This fear made some people irrational, but I think that whether or not the threat was real is irrelevant, because the fear was very real. People wanted to feel safe and secure, and although Kennedy may have sequestered journalistic freedom, I think his stance was justifiable and defensible.

Well-Informed: Radicalization and Religion

In the United States, when we hear the term "radicalization", Islam is probably the next word that comes to mind. Radicalization also connotes terrorism, especially when used by the news media in the contemporary United States.

An essay that I found listed technology as a major source of enablement for radicalization. The internet provides a platform for like minded individuals to meet and connect. Before the internet and other modern forms of communication, someone with radical beliefs was much more likely to feel isolated and alone. This feeling of isolation prevented them, in many cases, from actually turning their radical ideas into radical actions. The internet makes it possible for radical individuals to find other radical individuals, and suddenly they are a radical group, rather than isolated radical individuals.

The concept of technology as an enabler brings me to an interesting article published by the Washington Post. The article asserts, with facts and studies as support, that engineers are unusually likely to become members of violent terrorist organizations. The study cited by the Post states that nearly twice as many members of violent terrorist organizations had degrees in engineering than did in Islamic studies. The study also shows that nine times as many terrorists were engineers as would be expected by chance. My point in bringing up this study wasn't to say that I think engineers are terrorists. The point was to show that not all terrorists are Muslim. I think that most intelligent people know that terrorism and Islam aren't synonymous, but Islam definitely has a negative connotation because of its connection to terrorism. In this post, I hope to shed light on the idea that someone can be Muslim and not be a terrorist (which should be obvious, but unfortunately there are people who actually believe the two are interchangeable terms).

A Huffington Post article outlines several key concepts to understand about Islam and terrorism. The article states that according to the FBI, 94% of terrorist attacks on the United States between the years of 1980 and 2005 were carried out by non-Muslims. This is an incredibly powerful statistic. Out of every ten terrorist attacks on the United States, nine of them would have been committed by individuals or groups who were not Muslim. The article goes on the explain that even if every single one of the terrorist attacks studied had been carried out by Muslims, those individuals would still only represent 0.00009% of all Muslims.

These statistics were eye opening for me. I don't think I am a prejudicial person, yet I was still under the impression that the vast majority of terrorist attacks were committed by people of Islamic faith. I am grateful to have read this article and done some research on this topic, because my findings put a lot of issues into perspective, and many of these issues are pivotal at this point in history.

Well-Informed: Privacy and Security

Privacy is a very controversial topic in the United States because not everyone agrees on what should be considered private. One side of the argument says that our right to privacy is protected by the Fourth Amendment, and that any infringement of privacy, especially by the government, should be deemed unconstitutional. 54% of Americans disapprove of the government collecting phone and internet data, according to a 2015 Pew Research poll. 42%, however, said that they approve (the remaining percent is attributed to people who refused to respond or said they did not know). These percentages illustrate the first major dilemma. The definition of privacy is extremely relative. Some people believe that governmental overreach is necessary for national security, among other things. They would argue that the government can't protect the citizens if they know nothing about them.

In an opinion article published on CNN.com, Glenn Sulmasy writes that, "what might have been reasonable 10 years ago is not the same any longer." He is referring to the "jihadist" threat being more imminent than ever. He also touches on how the rapid development and innovation of the technology industry has led to more platforms for "home grown" terrorism. He also states that technology has been beneficial for the purpose of gathering intelligence. I think this statement reflects a general trend of fear that has caused privacy to take a back seat to national security.

Many people are terrified of the Internet and other technological forms of communication. They think that the government can monitor their every move, from their cell phone to their computer activity. This is essentially true, though we cannot know for sure how extensively they can monitor our activity. Being a member of a younger generation, I've given up on anything I do being private, especially when technology is involved. This topic always reminds me of the uproar that resulted after Facebook started giving data about users to advertisers. Even though the data was impersonal and had more to do with demographic information than it did personal details, people were distraught. This example, however, shows how nothing is really private nowadays, especially not online. Every click, every search, and every "like" is stored somewhere and seen by someone.

Privacy is a peculiar topic to me because there are people who preach the Fourth Amendment, yet they post their entire lives on social media. Every time you search for Donald Trump, you are setting yourself up to be bombarded by his ads. Every time you buy Nike shoes on Amazon, you can expect to see Nike ads and commercials on every site you visit. Behavioral targeting has become a common practice, but to some it is considered a complete breach of privacy. After all, websites are essentially selling your activity to advertisers so that they can profit off of you. This concept often goes unnoticed, though, since we live in such a commercialized society. That leads back to the disinterest that I mentioned before. People are so dependent on technology, and that trend is a gold mine as far as government intelligence agencies are concerned. If we are putting all of our information into technology anyway, I don't understand why people are up in arms about the government using this information to protect us. There is definitely a line, and the government might be walking on it at some times, but I don't think they've crossed it yet.