Exploratory Podcast -Gun Control by Gun Control (anchor.fm)

Intro Music Sound: 10-sec clip

Melody: Good morning; I am Melody Evans.

Taylor: I am Taylor Branch.

Melody: Our podcast discussion will be about gun control in school shootings. Gun control has been an ongoing social issue when it comes to school shootings worldwide. We will look at the effects of a school shooting as it relates to gun control.

Taylor: Gun control is essential when dealing with school shootings because gun violence is a common cause of death for young children in grades k-12. Most kids are not exposed to guns at young ages, but they are taught about them because of school shootings. Keeping young students aware of these things will help them to prepare for them before it occurs.

Video Clip: What It’s Like Inside a School Shooting Drill – YouTube (2:08-2:23)

Melody: Since there are so many school shootings that occur each year, it makes gun control a rising issue. There should be tighter laws in place for a person to be able to buy a gun. They should check gun registrations monthly to make sure they are not stolen for the reason of school shootings.

Taylor: Are the school drills taught to students help prepare them to react to actual school shootings if they were to occur?

Melody: Yes, the school drills are taught to students to help them to react to an actual school shooting. Students are taught to brace themselves and take cover when the school sounds the alarm or hears shooting. If students were not given drills, they would probably panic and put themselves in a situation where they went towards the danger.

Taylor: I agree that school drills are taught to students to help them be aware because they would not see it coming without it. Initially, students do not think about the danger of being at school because they go to school to learn rather than thinking about their life being in danger.

Melody: According to Gius, Mark 2018 scholarly journal article, “The effects of state and federal gun control laws on school shootings” claims that assault weapon bans reduced the number of school shooting victims, but it is still unclear if gun control is the best approach to reduce school shootings. Suppose gun control laws are in effect, then they can reduce the number of guns people have, which should reduce the number of school shootings.

Taylor: Can potential age restrictions to carry a licensed weapon help to slow down school shootings?

Melody: Yes, potential age restrictions to carry a license help slow down school shootings. Most of the school shootings are usually caused by the younger age groups such as teens. They could have wanted to shoot up the school due to being bullied, which could cause them to have depression. That makes them want to inflict pain on others because they are not mentally stable to cope with the pain other students caused them.

 Taylor: There should be a gun control law that has an age restriction to be 25 years of age in order to carry a licensed weapon. It will make it more complicated for teens to think about getting a weapon to plan a school shooting because they would not legally be allowed to carry or buy one.

Video Clip: 4 injured in Texas school shooting, teen in custody l GMA – YouTube (1:10-1:25)

Melody: Based on the reading Heinrich, the argument tool logos, which is argument by logic, claims, “Logos isn’t just about following rules of logic; it’s a set of techniques that use what the audience is thinking.”

Taylor: This helps to form a straightforward approach and understanding to inform the readers about the topic. Forming questions and answers to the question can help the audience recognize what they could not interpret.

Melody: After reading our discussion about gun control in school shootings, we can predict that gun control laws can reduce the number of school shootings that occur banning assault weapons.

Taylor: We want to thank the listeners for listening to our podcast on Gun control.

Outro Music Sound: 10 sec-clip

Intro Music Sound: 10-sec clip

Melody: Good morning; I am Melody Evans.

Taylor: I am Taylor Branch.

Melody: Our podcast discussion will be about gun control in school shootings. Gun control has been an ongoing social issue when it comes to school shootings worldwide. We will look at the effects of a school shooting as it relates to gun control.

Taylor: Gun control is essential when dealing with school shootings because gun violence is a common cause of death for young children in grades k-12. At young ages, most kids are not exposed to guns, but they are taught about them because of school shootings. Keeping young students aware of these things will help them to prepare for it before it occurs.

Video Clip: What It’s Like Inside a School Shooting Drill – YouTube (2:08-2:23)

Melody: Since there are so many school shootings that occur each year, it makes gun control a rising issue. There should be tighter laws in place for a person to be able to buy a gun. They should check gun registrations monthly to make sure they are not stolen for the reason of school shootings.

Taylor: Are the school drills taught to students help prepare them to react to actual school shootings if they were to occur?

Melody: Yes, the school drills are taught to students to help them to react to an actual school shooting. They are taught to brace themselves and take cover when the school sounds the alarm, or they hear shooting. If students were not given drills, they would probably panic and put themselves in a situation where they went towards the danger.

Taylor: I agree that school drills are taught to students to help them be aware because they would not see it coming without it. Initially, students do not think about the danger of being at school because they go to school to learn rather than thinking about their life being in danger.

Melody: According to Gius, Mark 2018 scholarly journal article, “The effects of state and federal gun control laws on school shootings” claims that assault weapon bans reduced the number of school shooting victims, but it is still unclear if gun control is the best approach to reduce school shootings. Suppose gun control laws are in effect, then they can reduce the number of guns people have, which should reduce the number of school shootings.

Taylor: Can potential age restrictions to carry a licensed weapon help to slow down school shootings?

Melody: Yes, potential age restrictions to carry a license help slow down school shootings. Most of the school shootings are usually caused by the younger age groups such as teens. They could have wanted to shoot up the school due to being bullied, which could cause them to have depression. That makes them want to inflict pain on others because they are not mentally stable to cope with the pain other students caused them.

 Taylor: There should be a gun control law that has an age restriction to be 25 years of age in order to carry a licensed weapon. It will make it more complicated for teens to think about getting a weapon to plan a school shooting because they would not legally be allowed to carry or buy one.

Video Clip: 4 injured in Texas school shooting, teen in custody l GMA – YouTube (1:10-1:25)

Melody: Based on our discussion about gun control in school shootings, we can predict that gun control laws can reduce the number of school shootings that occur banning assault weapons.

Taylor: We want to thank the listeners for listening to our podcast on Gun control.

Outro Music Sound: 10 sec-clip

My group will structure our podcast by adding an Intro, Phase A, Phase B, Phase C, and Outro. The Intro is essential to catch the audience’s attention by telling them what’s in it for them. In phase A we will start the topic, Phase B will Hook the audience, and Phase C will Finish the topic. The Outro will make the audience want to come back for more, including a reflection, call to action, and tease. For the opening of our podcast, we will start it off with a quick 10-second theme song. We will introduce the participants by explaining their goals and the things getting in the way of reaching that goal. The major ideas will be presented in Phase A. We will write a script for the podcast using a chronological structure because it starts at the beginning, heads to the middle, and then comes to an end. Yes, there will be major talking points so that it is straightforward. No, it will not be a word-for-word script because the goal is to make it sound natural and not like we are talking out of a book.

In my podcast brainstorming, I choose to work with my classmate Taylor. We choose to work as a group because we feel it would be easier to complete the podcast assignment. First, we choose to develop a topic to use for this assignment that could relate to one of the readings. The topic that we chose is Gun control because it can be related to the reading Heinrich. The reading Heinrich can help us to use arguments such as logs, ethos, and pathos. Sounds that we will use in our podcast recording would be related to school shootings. For our podcast structure, we will consider the following questions: What is my story’s driving question? What is the story not about? How will I ensure my story is fair to the people and ideas it represents? How will I engage my audience and hold them? What are my dream ingredients? What will the audience remember when it’s over? We will use the Anchor app to record the podcast on our computer. 

Melody Evans

Dr. Andy Fentem

English 1101

11 November 2021

COVID-19 Travel Restrictions

Issues with travel restrictions have occurred since the coronavirus and still affect many countries around the U.S. today. It stays a social problem because cases of COVID-19 change all the time; therefore, travel restrictions will continue to change around the world. The world focuses on ensuring the public’s safety to stop the spread of the virus that affects their rules and travel routines daily. Before the coronavirus, travel restrictions were not in place; and there were people spreading the virus to multiple countries in different regions worldwide because everyone wanted to travel and did not take COVID-19 seriously. Everyone worldwide began to get scared once they heard how many people had caught the coronavirus and had also died from it. Then the vaccine came out to help people not to attract the virus from public places. It made some people feel safe, and some felt like the vaccine would not work. Many countries feel it is the stop of the coronavirus, so they made it mandatory that everyone takes the vaccine and wears a face mask to fly. It did start to slow cases down because now many people were not flying; therefore, fewer people were spreading the virus to other countries. Travel restriction’s primary purpose is to slow down the virus and make the world safe again because the United States cannot afford to shut completely down.

Before COVID-19 was an issue, travel restriction did not impact the world profoundly as it does today. There was no social distancing, mask mandates, and a shortage in plane flights because there was no suspicion or fear of this deadly virus in years. Travel restrictions have socially harmed people who cannot travel for family matters or other issues and problems. Since there have been cases where people have died from contracting this deadly virus if they had family in other states or countries, they most likely could not attend the funeral due to the new restrictions. Both the coronavirus and the new travel restrictions that have been in place have impacted the world significantly due to the frustration it continues to cause. It has also made the tourism industry income drop which causes economic harm because fewer people can travel. The United States believed travel bans were necessary on outside countries because they felt that the virus did not start here, and other countries brought it among us. Therefore, they want society to be fully protected from the virus because to re-enter the United States, and everyone must come back with negative test results or documentation stating they have recovered from the coronavirus, whether they are a U.S. citizen or not. Travel restrictions make society aware that it is essential to take better precautions to keep everyone safe. Not only does the U.S. hold travel restrictions, but many counties around the world have also adopted the same restrictions and made some of their own. If someone does not agree or comply with their travel restrictions, they will not be allowed to fly until they follow all necessary precautions. There will be three scholarly articles introduced that discuss or relate to Covid-19 travel precautions.

Travel restrictions have been a relevant social issue in 2021 because people like to travel all year round and the restrictions change all the time. It is important to have restrictions in order to keep the world in order and safe. Due to covid 19, it has affected our travel routines and rules to ensure the safety of the public and the stop of the spread of covid 19. The first scholarly source that I will use in the expository research essay is titled “Travel Restrictions Hampering COVID-19 Response” which this article will discuss how countries limit travel to take measures to limit the spread of the virus to save lives. The second scholarly source that I will use in the expository research essay is titled “Outbreak Dynamics of Covid-19 In Europe And The Effect Of Travel Restrictions” which this article will discuss their attempt to control the spreading of the virus through their external borders. The third scholarly source that I will use in the expository research essay is titled “Is It Safe To Lift COVID-19 Travel Bans? The Newfoundland Story” which this article claims there should be a restriction on incoming travel to prevent local outbreaks. The verifiable source that I will use in the expository research essay is titled “What To Know About California’s COVID-19 Restrictions” in which they discuss they want to restrict full compacity in business and events as well as different gatherings to be held outdoor only and are against traveling out of state.

I plan to reference the MLA Formatting Checklist, MLA 8 Style Worksheet Fall 2018, and MLA Page Layout Template documents which all can be located from the readings on iCollege to ensure that I follow perfect MLA page formatting in the expository essay. I plan to properly use MLA citations by referencing the Synthesizing sources link, Purdue OWL, which can be found from the links on iCollege. To ensure that I use correct grammar and have a concise style I plan to reference Grammarly because it will show all of the grammatical errors for me to correct as well as use The Elements of Academic Style link from the links page on iCollege. I plan to reference the Content and Analysis Prezi to show effective reading comprehension when writing how the prompt desires. Additional tools, readings, or resources that I will be using or plan on using to meet these expectations is the Style Preferences document from the readings section on iCollege.

Relevant struggles that I am experiencing with Major Assignment 3 is stressing over the idea of me missing the important points of this essay. I want to make sure that I follow everything that is required to complete the expository essay. I think the 1,000 word-length minimum for the expository essay will be a new challenge. I am not sure if it will be too much or too little for me until I am actually in the process of completing the assignment because I have never had to write an essay that required that many words although I do have confidence in myself. I feel that as long as I have sources to use, it will be easier for me to figure out what information to use with them. When I am normally writing an essay it usually is not hard for me to make the word length. I think that I won’t have any troubles squeezing 4 sources within the essay because for one the minimum requirement is extended long enough to not run out of space. The only pitfall I have with the writing process is anxiety because sometimes I get overwhelmed with trying to make sure I am doing everything right.

Melody Evans

Dr. Andy Fentem

English 1101

8 October 2021

Dealing with social media Bullying

Agrawal, S. and Awekar, A. (2018). Deep learning for detecting cyberbullying across multiple social                            media platforms. In European Conference on Information Retrieval, Grenoble, France.                               Cham, Switzerland: Springer, pp. 141–153.10.1007/978-3-319-76941-7_11

                Based on this 2018 scholarly article, “Deep learning for detecting cyberbullying across multiple social media platforms” Agrawal, S. and Awekar argue that harassment by cyberbullies is a significant phenomenon on the social media. The author’s support their argument by performing extensive experiments using three real-world datasets: Form spring (∼∼12k posts), Twitter (∼∼16k posts), and Wikipedia (∼∼100k posts). This article contributes to the topic because it systematically analyzes cyberbullying detection on various topics across multiple SMPs using deep learning-based models and transfer learning.

Bastiaensens, S., Vandebosch, H., Poels, K., Van Cleemput, K., DeSmet, A. and De                                                         Bourdeaudhuij, (2014). Cyberbullying on social network sites. An experimental study into                            bystanders’ behavioural intentions to help the victim or reinforce the bully. Computers in                            Human Behavior 31, 259–271.10.1016/j.chb.2013.10.036

               Bastiaensens, S., Vandebosch, H., Poels, K., Van Cleemput, K., DeSmet, A., and De Bourdeaudhuij 2014 scholarly article, “Cyberbullying on social network sites and an experimental study into bystanders’ behavioral intentions to help the victim or reinforce the bully” implies that cyberbullying on social network sites poses a significant threat to the mental and physical health of victimized adolescents. The author’s support their claim by setting up an experimental scenario study in order to examine the influence of contextual factors (severity of the incident, identity and behavior of other bystanders) on bystanders’ behavioral intentions to help the victim or reinforce the bully in cases of harassment on Facebook. This article contributes to the topic because an interaction effect was found between other bystanders’ identity and behavior on behavioral intentions to join in the bullying where both helped and reinforcing behavioral intentions differed according to gender.

Cowie, H. (2013). Cyberbullying and its impact on young people’s emotional health and well-being. The                 Psychiatrist 37(5), 167–170.

             Based on this 2013 scholarly article, “Cyberbullying and its impact on young people’s emotional health and well-being” Cowie, H., argues that the upsurge of cyberbullying is a frequent cause of emotional disturbance in children and young people. The author supports her claim through research that indicates the importance of tackling bullying early before it escalates into something much more serious. This article contributes to the topic because it examines the effectiveness of common responses to cyberbullying.

Kumar, R., Ojha, A.K., Malmasi, S. and Zampieri, M. (2018). Benchmarking aggression identification in              social media. In Proceedings of the First Workshop on Trolling,  Aggression and Cyberbullying                 (TRAC-2018). Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA: Association for Computational Linguistics, pp. 1–11.

             Kumar, R., Ojha, A.K., Malmasi, S., and Zampieri 2018 scholarly article, “Benchmarking aggression identification in social media” implies that it is important that preventative measures be taken to cope with abusive behavior aggression online. The author’s support their claim through a task to develop a classifier that could discriminate between Overtly Aggressive, Covertly Aggressive, and Non-aggressive texts. This article contributes to the topic because the positive response from the community and the great levels of participation in the first edition of this shared task also highlights the interest.

Salmivalli, C. and Pöyhönen, V. (2012). Cyberbullying in Finland. In Cyberbullying in the Global                                 Playground: Research from International Perspectives, pp. 5772.10.1002/9781119954484.ch4

                 Based on this 2012 scholarly article, “Cyberbullying in Finland” Salmivalli, C., and Poyhonen, V., argue that empirical studies on the phenomenon are scarce, and are almost exclusively based on web-based surveys with possibly highly selected samples. The author’s supported their claim by presenting results from a large-scale study conducted in the context of the Daphne project, “an investigation into forms of peer-peer bullying at school in preadolescents and adolescent groups: New instruments and preventing strategies (2006-2009)”. This article contributes to the topic because the study concerned the prevalence, sex, and age differences in cyberbullying and cybervictimization, the most typical devices utilized (the internet versus mobile phones), and the associations between traditional and cyberbullying/victimization.

Zhang, X., Tong, J., Vishwamitra, N., Whittaker, E., Mazer, J.P., Kowalski, R., Hu, H., Luo, F., Macbeth,                 J. and Dillon, E. (2016). Cyberbullying detection with a pronunciation based convolutional                           neural network. In 2016 15th IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and                               Applications (ICMLA). Anaheim, CA: IEEE, pp. 740–745.

               Zhang, X., Tong, J., Vishwamitra, N., Whittaker, E., Mazer, J.P., Kowalski, R., Hu., Luo, F., 2016 scholarly article, “Cyberbullying detection with a pronunciation based convolutional neutral network” implies that accurately detecting cyberbullying helps prevent a deep and long-lasting effect on victims but the noise and errors in social media posts and messages make it very challenging. The author’s support their claim because they proposed a novel pronunciation based convolutional neural network (PCNN) to address this challenge. This article contributes to the topic because they evaluate the performance of their models using two cyberbullying datasets collected from Twitter and Formspring.me.

The socially relevant topic that I chose is “Dealing with Social Media Bullying”. Another term used for social media bullying would be cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is when someone repeatedly makes fun of another person online or repeatedly picks on another person through e-mail or text message or when someone posts something online about another person that they don’t like. While all bullying is characterized by intentional, often repetitive, hurtful behavior towards another person or group, there are distinguishing elements when it happens online or via smartphone. One million children were harassed, threatened, or subjected to other forms of cyberbullying on Facebook during the past year.

The first source I found is Agrawal, S. and Awekar, A. (2018). Deep learning for detecting cyberbullying across multiple media platforms. In European Conference on Information Retrieval, Grenoble, France. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, pp. 141–153.10.1007/978-3-319-76941-7_11. Based on this 2018 scholarly article, “Deep learning for detecting cyberbullying across multiple social media platforms” Agrawal, S., and Awekar argue that harassment by cyberbullies is a significant phenomenon on social media. The authors support their argument by performing extensive experiments using three real-world datasets: Formspring (∼“>∼∼16k posts), and Wikipedia (∼∼100k posts). This article contributes to the topic because it systematically analyzes cyberbullying detection on various topics across multiple SMPs using deep learning-based models and transfers learning.

The second source I found is Bastiaensens, S., Vandebosch, H., Poels, K., Van Cleemput, K., DeSmet, A. and De Bourdeaudhuij, (2014). Cyberbullying on social network sites. An experimental study into bystanders’ behavioral intentions to help the victim or reinforce the bully. Computers in Human Behavior 31, 259–271.10.1016/j.chb.2013.10.036 Bastiaensens, S., Vandebosch, H., Poels, K., Van Cleemput, K., DeSmet, A., and De Bourdeaudhuij 2014 scholarly article, “Cyberbullying on social network sites and an experimental study into bystanders’ behavioral intentions to help the victim or reinforce the bully” implies that cyberbullying on social network sites poses a significant threat to the mental and physical health of victimized adolescents. The authors support their claim by setting up an experimental scenario study in order to examine the influence of contextual factors (severity of the incident, identity, and behavior of other bystanders) on bystanders’ behavioral intentions to help the victim or reinforce the bully in cases of harassment on Facebook. This article contributes to the topic because an interaction effect was found between other bystanders’ identity and behavior on behavioral intentions to join in the bullying where both helped and reinforcing behavioral intentions differed according to gender.

The third source I found is Cowie, H. (2013). Cyberbullying and its impact on young people’s emotional health and well-being. The Psychiatrist 37(5), 167–170. Based on this 2013 scholarly article, “Cyberbullying and its impact on young people’s emotional health and well-being” Cowie, H., argues that the upsurge of cyberbullying is a frequent cause of emotional disturbance in children and young people. The author supports her claim through research that indicates the importance of tackling bullying early before it escalates into something much more serious. This article contributes to the topic because it examines the effectiveness of common responses to cyberbullying.

The fourth source I found is Kumar, R., Ojha, A.K., Malmasi, S., and Zampieri, M. (2018). Benchmarking aggression identification in social media. In Proceedings of the First Workshop on Trolling, Aggression, and Cyberbullying (TRAC-2018). Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA: Association for Computational Linguistics, pp. 1–11. Kumar, R., Ojha, A.K., Malmasi, S., and Zampieri 2018 scholarly article, “Benchmarking aggression identification in social media” implies that it is important that preventative measures be taken to cope with abusive behavior aggression online. The authors support their claim through a task to develop a classifier that could discriminate between Overtly Aggressive, Covertly Aggressive, and Non-aggressive texts. This article contributes to the topic because the positive response from the community and the great levels of participation in the first edition of this shared task also highlights the interest.

https://create.piktochart.com/output/55867472-annotated-inforgraphic