Thursday, January 28, 2010

President Barack Obama, He Understands The Media!

For my Electronic Media Writing class we watched the first 20min of President Barack Obama's State of the Union as seen here-



and then wrote down different observations we had relating to the triune brain, eight trends, seven principles, 29 techniques, his thesis, and "facts" he provides to support his thesis. In this blog I'll demonstrate some of the conclusions I came up with.


The Triune Brain
Because of the limited images to distract my brain, I was able to focus on President Obama as he spoke. His voice was nicely paced so I didnt get distracted and his tone and volume was very pleasant to hear. Any time that I found myself drifting away, my reptilian brain was shocked and my attention brought back by the clapping.


Eight Trends
1. Technological shift because we are able to watch The State of The Union online

2. Economical Shift that President Obama wants to make and references a lot

3. Cultural Shift that President Obama talks about, moving forward as a nation


Seven Principles
1. Pacing with slowed talk, pauses, clapping

2. Emotional Transfer that President Obama connects with the audience as if he's speaking to them one on one not an entire country

3. Production Techniques such as camera angles and cuts away to members of the audience

4. Reality Construction because he is reading of something scripted and the producers are calling the shots of the camera to show you the people who are having the biggest positive reaction to the speach


29 Techniques
1. Group Dynamic- uses words such as "our union" "we must" "this nation" ect.

2. Repetition- he says those group dynamic words several times to keep it in our mind that we are one nation

3. Strength- how we are a strong nation that has come over hard times "We prevailed, we moved forward"

4. Plane folks- he talks about the people in the nation who are having hard times, not the rich- "those who already know poverty"

5. Warm and fuzzies- he talks about children writing him letters asking serious adult questions

6. Symbols- he is wearing a tie that represents power and strength and an American Flag to represent patriotism

7. Defensive nationalism- talks about everyone in the country as a whole and that our country must overcome all the bad and troubling things


Thesis
American's have struggled during these hard economic times but we have started to make changes that are already helping and there are new ideas to put in place to make us a better, stronger nation and uphold our responsibility to other nations of the world.


"Facts"
1. Unemployment maybe double what it is today with out his actions
2. 18million Americans are benefiting
3. 65% of them have cheeper healthcare
4. 25% have tax cuts- first time homebuyers, small businesses, college students, ect.
5. 2million Americans working and are unemployed



I hope you enjoyed reading what I've learned and observed from watching President Obama's State of The Union feel free to comment if you would like to hear more about my opinions or discuss anything further with me!
~Laura

2 comments:

  1. Fine application of our media "power tools" to President Obama's State of the Union message, Laura.

    Do you think you would have had a different reaction to the speech if you just READ it in a newspaper, instead of WATCHING it?

    Blog back,

    Dr. W

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  2. I think that I would have had a very different reaction if i read it in a news paper. Firstly, I'm dyslexic and unless I'm reading the right thing for me, most of the time reading is hard for me to follow and I spend more time re-reading things than actually reading it all the way through smoothly. Also, the way that Obama speaks, uses pauses, and tone of voice, he is very captivating and easy to listen to. Lastly, reading the Stat of the Union in the news paper I feel would be hard to find a printed news paper that just had the speech with out any comment at the beginning of the end that would be used to try to influence me and then it would create a distraction from the speech itself, just like camera movements and cuts distract me. I believe the best way to listen to any speech would be on the radio or an audio recording of it.

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