Incivility Research Paper

Incivility has always been a huge issue in society. Over the years it has only gotten much worse and sky rocketed. There are many people who believe that more needs to be done about it while others simply do not even care about this serious issue. It has gotten so out of hand that it has become difficult for people to control it. Incivility in popular culture has increased rapidly due to the influence of social media sites.

Twitter is a very popular site and millions of people use it every day. Incivility is often seen on this site on a daily basis. Twitter has over three hundred million users and it is difficult to keep track of all of the “trolls” on their site. Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo even talked about the matter in a very blunt way, "We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years, it's no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day." Twitter is finally facing up to the problem and its CEO had this to say to the employees, "We're going to start kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them." It is a very risky and bold move for the company because they could potentially lose up to half of their users. Twitter is focused on helping out the people being affected by this incivility and has more concern over them then themselves.

Incivility on social media has gotten so increasingly bad that cyber bullies are finding it easier to harass people. 77% of students have been bullied and only 35% reported it to their parents. “Perhaps cyber bullying through various social media outlets is on the rise because we are a civilization dependent on the ease of this form of communication. It’s easy to hide behind a laptop and post hurtful comments (Qualman 1). Social media is taking a stand and fighting back.

Incivility has gotten so bad that it has spread to schools. There have been a rising amount of students who have acted out in class. The students have acted in a nasty manner towards their teacher because they don’t want to put their cell phone away or whatever else they are doing. Some of these students have even gotten to the point of being aggressive and even walking out of class. They don’t respect the teacher and just do not care about the consequences of their hastily actions. There are several theories as to why campuses have become increasingly uncivil. Some blame the freewheeling media environment, including television, radio, and the Web, where obscenities and insults are popular forms of communication. Others believe that younger people have been raised without a sense of manners and common courtesy. “Psychologists say that uncivil behavior also might be caused by an underlying need for attention (Gilroy 1).” Colleges are working to do something about it and are establishing codes of conduct to control this. Although it has not worked out the way it intended to, many students are causing an uproar about it and lashing out saying that their freedom of speech is being infringed upon. Janet Hubbs, a campus civility team member said that, “Countering uncivil behavior with equally uncivil behavior is inflammatory and will have very predictable negative consequences.” She said instead of taking drastic measures to stop it that we must just set some guidelines for people to follow and not enforce it so it makes people have to follow it. Schools are doing the best they can to stop incivility but there is only so much that they are able to do.

The workplace is somewhere that many might not think incivility on social media spreads to but it does. In 2012 there was a survey done about incivility in the workplace and nearly one third experiences it. The survey also said that 23% quit their job because of it, 63% believe incivility is a huge issue in this country, 71% believe civility has declined in recent years and 55% expect that incivility is only going to continue to get worse. Bradley Honan, CEO of KRC Research laid out a plan that he says workplaces should follow to combat incivility. He says that they should do off-site retreats, training and role modeling. He says that this would help prevent incivility in the workplace. “Workplace incivility is a vicious cycle that is hard to stop, but no one benefits from incivility in the long term. Combating it is something everyone needs to participate in if there is to be any hope for changing this trend (Dr. Woody).” People in the workplace need to establish more civility so that their production at work is not affected.

 

Incivility on Social Media

Thesis Statement: Incivility in popular culture has increased rapidly due to the influence of social media and has spread widely to many places such as school, work and home. Research question: How much is incivility affecting people and what is being done about it? My research question hasn't really changed but I have done further research into it. I knew that incivility from social media had been spread to school and at home but I never thought about the workplace. Some people don't even show up to work because of how badly it has affected them and their production at work is hugely affected especially their attitude towards others in the workplace. I have learned exactly what about social media is affecting incivility and what is being done about preventing it. In my essay I will talk about cyber bullying. After that I will discuss how incivility is affected by people at work, home and school. I will then talk about what is causing such a rise in incivility. Then I will discuss what is being done to prevent it. I will also discuss some statistics I found about it. My topic seemed pretty broad at first but when I started researching about it more I found a number of things I can discuss and I have learned a lot about it in the process.

Incivility in New Media

The topic I was planning on doing for my essay was incivility in new media. I know it is a broad topic and I had different ideas on how to narrow it down. I was thinking about talking about popular social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I was really focusing on Twitter because more people tend to use that site more than Facebook and it seems more popular. I was looking at some research for my paper and I came across one article that was about Twitter curbing incivility. The CEO of Twitter was talking about how he plans on kicking people off his site who spam other users and are threatening towards them. He also says how it is going to be difficult to do so because he knows that people do have the right to free speech and that he could lose a vast majority of users on the site because of it. I think this article will be very useful to my essay because I want to focus on what is being done by these social media sites to help stop incivility. I also want to focus on not only how much effect it has on the people using the site but also on the company themselves. I think as new media has gotten more popular and the people using the social media sites has grown incivility has only gotten much worse. It has gotten so much easier for people to just hide behind a computer screen and feel so much power to do what they want. They will say whatever comes to their mind and not think about the consequences it might have. I always thought about how it is affecting the people using these sites but not the other way around on how it is affecting the companies. I think my research question will be how much is incivility affecting these companies?

Chicago Fire

There is a show I watch called Chicago Fire that comes on Tuesday night on NBC. It is a show about firefighters and paramedics who face dangerous tasks to save people's lives. It also shows what goes on in their personal lives. I usually wouldn't watch shows like this because they are often very unrealistic about what firefighters and paramedics go through on a day to day basis. But this show is unlike those other shows and many who watch it can relate to it even if they are not a paramedic or firefighter. My mom got me to start watching it and we love watching it together. I find "pleasure and escape" when I watch it because it is always very intense from start to finish. It always leaves me wondering what's going to happen next. The show always leaves me wanting more and more. I feel that the more intensity and drama that a show has it is going to make it more popular than other shows and get more people to watch it. I believe the purpose of entertainment in popular culture is to get people completely sucked into it and have them absolutely addicted. They want people to basically dedicate themselves to it and not do anything else except immerse themselves in entertainment. I feel that they do whatever they can to control people into believing that they absolutely need it when in reality it is not a necessity for people to have.

Advertising Trends

Consumers are less in control of their privacy has become more increasingly popular. As new technology comes out more people give out their personal information without even realizing it. The new Apple app that allows you to pay with your iphone with just the touch of your thumb is used by many people. They link their credit/debit information along with their personal information to use their phone to pay for items. With millions and millions of people’s personal information being hacked in the past year for having an iphone you would think that people would be more careful and not want to link that kind of information to their phone. People got really upset at Apple for being hacked, especially if you had an iphone but it was not all their fault. People put just about everything on their phone without even thinking if it’s safe to or not. It is Apple’s responsibility to protect their customers but it is also up to the people to be careful with how they put out their information. Many people are not aware of internet tracking but when their information gets hacked that’s when they start caring when it’s too late. If you don’t want to get tracked then you shouldn’t have rewards programs or certain apps but you still can get tracked no matter how careful you may be. Companies share certain information with other companies that they are associated with to sell you something. I believe that these companies you give your information to should tell you who they’re sharing it with so people can know who has it and to better track where it’s going to. I feel that more needs to be done to protect people so that more hackings can be stopped sooner so that there’s not that much damage done.

Make It Happy Coca-Cola

The advertisement that I chose was the Coca-Cola Make It Happy Commercial that aired this year during superbowl. In the commercial there are people who are upset and crying at the things that are being said to them over social media. There is a guy who is working and he sets his Coke on top of one of the servers and he accidentally knocks it over. He frantically tries to clean it up. As people are reading these hateful messages towards them it changes to positive ones because of the Coke. I think what Coca-Cola was trying to do with this advertisement was make people feel good about themselves and to not let negativity get to you. I think they were trying to encourage people to take a stand against bullying and do something about it. The advertisement is persuasive because it relates to many people who have gone through bullying. I think Coca-Cola was also trying to get people to buy more of their soda even though it is not necessary to and they don't really need it. The cultural myths that are embedded with this advertisement is that if you spill Coca-Cola over a server it will change the bad messages with good ones when in reality it will not happen. People need to make that change themselves. I personally enjoyed the commercial. I think it had a good message for consumers to pay attention to.

http://www.popsugar.com/tech/Coca-Cola-MakeItHappy-Super-Bowl-Commercial-2015-36762906

The Rise of Popular Culture

In the article television was a big influence in the rise of popular culture. It was viewed negatively by many and was looked at as a threat to high culture. Reinhold Niebuhr wrote that, "Television may represent a threat to our culture analogous to the threat of atomic weapons to our civilization". I think this was a pretty dramatic comment to make about television. Not everyone thought that television was bad especially when entertainment became more widely exposed on the television. People became more exposed to it and started to accept it more. I think television was a bad impact on African Americans especially in 1958 when public schools were closed down so that they couldn't go to school. Books were also published about what popular culture was and how it influenced society. There were many different theories and arguments about what it was. Even today not everyone agrees with them and choose not to participate in it. My conception of popular culture hasn't changed but I am paying more close attention to it.