Media Blackout on Wall Street

The media has a social responsibility to the public to provide fair and unbiased coverage of current events. Interestingly enough, there is a large protest occurring right now on Wall Street that is barely getting covered by the media. A lot of police brutality is involved in this case which is likely a large reason for the media’s blind eye toward this situation.

Occupy Wall Street is a resistance movement based on the Arab Spring tactic in an attempt to restore democracy to America. The Arab Spring protest used civil resistance including strikes, demonstrations, marches and rallies to get their point across in combination with the use of social media to organize, communicate and raise awareness of the demonstrations. Protesters hope to change social and economic inequality, corporate greed and the influence that corporations and lobbyists have over our government. Occupy Wall Street is supposed to be a peaceful protest in which citizens of America make a change that they feel it vital to our county.

For how peaceful the protesters have been, the police have reacted offensively. There have been multiple reports of brutality to protesters and police horses from the people who are supposed to be protecting our rights ad humans.

Twitter updates referencing the violence include:
- Ryan Devereaux, Democracy Now reporter: “They’re using the horses to push us back. People scream, ‘You’re gunna kill somebody!’ ‘There’s no room!’ They’re right!”
- Bill Buster, media relations specialist for the Occupy Wall Street movement: “#OWS Police are apparently preparing massive nets, possibly to kettle thousands of protesters in NYC.”
- Carol Falk, protester: “Arrests on Wall street. They are pepper spraying #ows #OccupyWallStreet remain peaceful.”

“Our nation, our species and our world are in crisis. The US has an important role to play in the situation, but we can no longer afford to let corporate greed and corrupt politics set the policies of our nation” states a press release from the leaders of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Every aspect of this event is newsworthy, and yet the media seems to not think it significant. The hundreds of people arrested, many wrongly so, have stories to tell that no one will get to hear. The protest has been going on for a month and it remains known to few.

If the reason behind this media blackout is an attempt to hide the wrongdoings of our nation’s police agencies, then the media is acting highly unethical. There is obviously a lot involved in this story that people are unaware of and as it is the moral responsibility of the American media to provide citizens of our nation information they seem to be doing an awful job of it.



Written By: Danielle Ruckert

We all love free stuff, and today starts an opportunity for you to receive a free Pepsi MAX when you tag the new Pepsi MAX commercial using IntoNow. PepsiCo has partnered with the televesion-tagging iPhone Application, IntoNow to reward users with a free soda when they tag the new Pepsi MAX commercial.

“The basic concept is to find the Pepsi MAX commercial, tag it and select a store,” IntoNow founder and CEO Adam Cahan explains.

The way it works is with each tag, IntoNow will generate a unique digital coupon for the first 50,000 users who tag the spot. The coupon works like a gift card and can be scanned right from your mobile phone, and redeemed at Target and CVS stores.
The Pepsi MAX commercial will begin airing today (April 20, 2011) and features past and present Major League Baseball Legends. This promotion and the commercial are centered on Pepsi MAX’s MLB sponsorship. IntoNow will be featured on promo cards that will be distributed by Pepsi during games at MLB stadiums, but is not featured in the ad itself.



This campaign is expected to be a hit due to the ease and convenience as well as the incentive of a free Pepsi MAX. In addition, the popularity of smart phones is hoped to bolster the success of this campaign because people want to use them to connect in the digital world with things that they are interested in.
“This is the first time where consumers can close the funnel between a brand experience on a TV commercial right down to a real world drink you can consume. That’s a really exciting first that opens the doors for advertising partners. We’re thrilled to be creating a new consumer experience with a brand like Pepsi MAX.” Cahan said.

IntoNow is a consumer technology company which focuses on enhancing the way people engage with television. IntoNow works for commercials like Shazam does for music; it listens to and identifies television shows.

Launched in late January, IntoNow is a free companion application that allows users to tag identified contends and find out what their friends are watching. During its first four weeks of availability, IntoNow recorded more than 1 million content tags; an average of one tag per second.

This partnership marks the first time than at automated technology like IntoNow has been used to bridge the gap between real world and television commercials. If this campaign is successful they hope to move on to movie studios, automotive brands and other consumer goods companies for similar commercial-tagging campaigns.

-Hannah Wilhide

Foursquare Meetup

A new social media trend has been taking on followers for both individual users and local businesses around the world, Foursquare. Don’t let the name fool you, it’s nothing like the childhood game you used to play with friends, this is a new social tool designed with smartphones in mind. The application allows the user to “check in” to the places they visit and allow friends to track where they frequent, if said friend allows the person to view where and when they were at the establishment. The application does allow privacy settings, so the user doesn’t have to let people know when a person is out of their house and how far away they are all the while allowing a little friendly competition to spice things up.
Foursquare application users can find themselves competing with other users to frequent certain establishments the most in order to become the “mayor” of that place. For instance, in Saint Augustine, at the Flagler College Proctor library, users of Foursquare can check in there as many times as they enter. The user who visits the library the most will become the” mayor” of that location, just until someone beats them with more visits, but that user has the bragging rights for the time being.
The application also allows users the opportunity to earn all sorts of different badges (over 200) from “Adventurer,” meaning you have checked into more than ten venues, to “local,” meaning you’ve checked into the same place more than 3 times in one week. To see a list of all the possible badges a user can earn, check out http://www.4squarebadges.com/foursquare-badge-list/ . Earning more badges will obviously give the user more bragging rights, offering an even bigger competition aspect to the application.
Foursquare isn’t just for users to try and beat their friends in badge counts, business are getting into it, too. Some businesses offer certain deals for “checking in” to their establishments. Some retail stores will offer discounts on merchandise for checking in on a certain weekend, while restaurants will offer discounts off the entire purchase to a free appetizer or drink for the application users. Foursquare even promoted their meet up day this year on April 16th this year.
The website promoted April 16th as their “Foursquare Meetup Day.” As a play on the title, the website chose 4/16 because 4 squared is 16 (April 16th). The site encouraged users to promote a local place in their city to meet up on that day and have a good time. Myself personally being a Foursquare member chose Local Heroes here in Saint Augustine as a meeting place, being that I’m the bartender over there so I could organize to give a free beer or soda out to members who checked into the bar. Although I did not receive a huge turnout on the day, I did get a few members of the site who came in with their smartphones ready to check in and receive their reward. It was funny to see people talk about where they have been and how many badges they’ve earned so far.

Although Foursquare is just catching on, I have a feeling it could be a new fun thing to do – even to get out of the house and try to earn some badges, while also serving as a great tool to promote local businesses and have fun while doing it.
Joey Metz
Flagler College