Week 8

I don't really have much to say this week for some reason, but I'll give it a shot...
Great job to all of the groups, as everyone else has already said! I enjoyed hearing about the other projects and all of their nuances. Can't wait to see the final products! Hopefully we will be able to gather more info. this weekend for the Walking School Bus target audience. Funny how they say they want our help, but they are really not making a big effort to let us in to be able to figure out how to help. Hmmm.... We want to walk the walk, not just talk the talk!
The exercise on making the decision about saving people or allowing them to die was definitely an example of how semantics can change people's perceptions of and decisions about issues. While our examples in class are health-related, many other realms could easily be used to generate examples. For instance, the odds of winning the lottery are slim at best, but they can be phrased in such a way as to give thousands of people enough hope to spend their money on a ticket. My personal example is of my obsession with The Price is Right (during the Bob Barker era - Drew Carey is not cutting it). Although the chance of winning big - or even being selected to "Come on Down" - is tiny, I still had enough hope to wait in line overnight multiple times in attempt to capitalize on that chance. Somehow the message was framed in my mind that I would be the one to make it to the showcase showdown to spin the big wheel - how exciting! Another real world example is politics in general; the way messages are framed definitely influences the way people perceive politicians, policies, laws, etc.