Tag: assignment 2

2.1 Week 3 Class Reflection

2.2 Individual Research

2.3 Group Discussion

Group Research

Our groups have shared what we individually found and discussed together for further development on the project, and they found a lot of informations that is really interesting and helpful. Joseph provides an article that discuss how and why some vegans tend to approve of anti-vegan beliefs and proposals from the reasonable Vegan. The author also  criticizes the faction of veganism and approaches vaccines with a very rational and sensible approach. This article is useful since it is descriptive and objective, which gives a deeper understanding of particular vegans’ perspective of anti-vaccines.

Liv found that Trump has critical speech on vaccination through his Twitter account. He said that a lot of young kids suffer from autism because of vaccines. Trump is a public figure, he should be responsible for what he said. It is improper for him to say something without scientific proof in public — that is just his personal opinion. Obviously, lots of of netizens leave comments to against his speech, but there are still a large amount of people believe his word and reject vaccines. In fact, years of medical studies that have explored the alleged connection have found no evidence that vaccines are unsafe (Curry 2017).  Unfortunately, no all of people read the clarification; lots of people still being influenced by Trump and consider vaccination is harmful.

Overall, we are standing on the pro-vaccination side, but we don’t against vegan. Vaccination is an essential process to preventing diseases. Vegans should not impose lifestyles and diets upon their children. Veganism is a kind of lifestyle, but it should not be imposed on others that are unknowing and unwilling. In Kat Von D’s case, she rejects her child to be vaccinated. Her behavior is irresponsible because it is depriving the child’s right of choice. The child is forced to reject vaccination, which potentially destroying his health.

Here are some mocking points we wanna use:

• Vegan’s don’t trust science. Provide facts to rebut against these arguments. (100% eradication of measles, etc.) General distrust of scientists shared by vegans and anti-vaccines.
• Author of the original “vaccines cause autism” study later discredited his own work. Point out ignorance of those that still approve of his work and theories.
• “Lesser of two evils” argument. Choosing to give into the only option that happens to be non-vegan for the sake of your health > potentially exposing innocent others to contagious diseases because of vegan obligations.
• Trump’s Twitter, potentially influencing other parents that are on the fence about vaccinations.
• Where do those parents get their information? They should branch out to more sources.
• Imposing lifestyles and diets upon unknowing and unwilling children is a breach of ethics. You’re free to have your own beliefs but don’t forcefully impose them on your children. Borderline “abuse” since its jeopardizing their infant health.
• At some point use research by vegans that support vaccination. Reasonable and rational standpoints like this are very credible since they come from a different perspective.

In terms of our group topic, Vaccines vs. Vegans, I did some individual research on it. When I firstly saw the Instagram post of Kat Von D, I could understand why the groups of vegans reject vaccines. They consider that vaccinated behavior is against vegans’ regulations since vaccines have tested on animals or some of them contain animal ingredients. Kat Von D uses aggressive language to protest vaccinated, which causes many supports as well as criticisms.

There are some related resources I found. One article is about a mom who is vegan but approves her children accept vaccines. She claims veganism is a lifestyle that which making effort to avoid cruelty on animals. Although some vaccines do contain animal ingredients, it is acceptable morally for children to preventing diseases. She also points out that it is children’s right to be vaccinated, adults who refuse to be vaccinated should not deprive children’s right. I strongly agree with her argument, even children’s own parents do not have right to ask their children not to take vaccines. The author think it is essential to test on animals when producing drugs and vaccines; but as a vegan, she does consider that hurting animals is inhumane. Thus she gives out some methods that avoid hurting animals, such as by buying cruelty free products.

Another article is an example of the negative consequence of unvaccinated. The author is unvaccinated. She says she had a very healthy lifestyle but she always got sick. Her two children who were vaccinated are much healthier than her. She advocates people to be vaccinated through her personal experience. Her argument is persuasive since she has real experience. By comparing her vegan lifestyle without vaccines, her children is healthier after vaccinated. The above two articles illustrate the benefits of vaccines from both vegan and non-vegan mothers’ point of view.

After doing research, I found it is quiet easy to gather information about this topic, there are lots of people post their personal arguments on social platforms such as Youtube or blog. The information online indicates that both sides of supporters and are balanced. There are certain fans of Kat Von D support vaccines and they comment on her Ins that they will not purchase her products anymore for objecting her speech; some fans are supporting her. Both of views has reasonable argument that convince other people. For one thing, this topic is a good theme to be a comedy news because it is controversial. Besides, it doesn’t cause as much attention as it should be. Not many people concern about the vaccine issues among vegans — most of public are not vegans so they are hardly getting involved. In fact, it is a serious problem, which directly relates to human health. We should gain more concerns technically, I think comedy news is the best way to achieve this.

Why nowadays people (not only young guys) prefer to watch night talk show rather than news report at 7pm? After analyzing the features of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, I have better understanding of the reasons. One important element is interweaving discourse through production elements news and entertainment. Host usually presents the aggressive and sensitive contents by using funny expressions that makes audience laugh. We can say those jokes are entertaining; but speaking deeply, it contains or implicit more serious meanings under the jokes. As Jon Stewart said in his interview, “it was just exciting to see fake news catching on like that; we don’t make things up, we just distill it to most humorous nugget and in that sense it seems fake and skewed, just because we don’t have to be subjective or pretend to be objective — we can just put it out there” (Stewart 2004). The highlight of comedy show should be how the host present a news — they usually using satire to reject standard news conventions.

“We see exactly the same as journalists see. But for some reasons don’t analyze it in that manner or put it on the air in that manner” (Stewart 2004). Stewart outlines that what they do is watching news and spending time on how to make it fun, not judging the news or involved figures subjectively. Adding satire is a technique to make the news presenting entertainingly, instead of actually criticizing anyone. “No social or media critic, I am a comedian who has the pressure of writing jokes about things that I actually care about. If I really want to enact social change I have great respect for people who are in the front lines and the trenches of trying to enact social change, I am far lazier than that” (Stewart 2004).

Comedy news usually use satire to criticize the political or social issues of the United States, performing in form of parodying the news from mainstream media, which making a contrast of the mainstream media, and resonate with audience. The form of comedy news is “fake”, but the public consider it is “real” news. In The Daily Show, the editing techniques are used to enrich the program, which is collecting the news segments as well as adding exaggerated reporting and dubbing. We call it “fake”, but it is real. It is more interesting and acceptable for audience to knowing the truths.