A Public-Sphere Teaching Site
Dear Habermas: Current Issue
Don't Be bullied by Sound Bites and Hard Sell
University of Wisconsin, Parkside (UWP)
California State University, Dominguez Hills(CSUDH)
Created: April 12, 2011
Latest update: June 19, 2011
E-Mail to Jeanne in L.A.
E-Mail to Susan at UWP.
Don't be bullied, period. We're all bullied. In no other way, we're bullied by people with sound bites who want to sell us something. Sarah Palin offers a good example of someone using this technique as a candidate and as a paid speaker. People who are absolutely sure they're right about almost everything are arrogant bullies. Don't take it. Think it through for yourself. Or turn to those you know who will help you think it through. Paul Ryan offers another good example, and all those who are so darned sure they're right they consider their position non-negotiable. That's bullying, and you don't have to put up with it. Here's an example of one way to handle it. Go through what you're being offered or told or the advice you're being given critically. That means ask for the facts as well as the bully's conclusions. [Susan, I often I wish gang members could have this training. So many of them are just bullied when very young into a lot of stupid behavior that has dire costs as they grow up.]
Jeanne's e-mail to high pressure to include someone else's link:
Good morning,Harrumph!
First of all, it's 9:30 a.m. here, or was when I sat down to the computer. Susan, you will understand that I didn't quit till after 1 a.m, So I'm grumpy.
Given that contextual information, X1, whoever you are, I resent the hard sell. Normally, I would leave this up to Susan, who is the Dear Habermas team member deeply involved in criminal justice. But don't you dare suggest that your site is somehow even more worthy than Dear Habermas, because you don't have advertising. Dear Habermas has never in it's history had advertising. And it's never in its history tried to bully any other academic into using it as a source. We believe in collaborative work. We license our site under Creative Commons! That means no charge to those who wish to build on it and teach with it as another creative commons effort. The fact that you cover selling your site in your privacy statements suggests that this is a start-up business to you.
If you want to claim superior worthiness for your site, then do your readers the courtesy of posting your resume, of telling us what your qualifications are. Or even telling your readers who you are. I'm a lawyer, out of an elite school. I'm an Emeritus Professor, out of an underfunded, no way elite school, in the heart of Los Angeles. My background is on our site. So is Susan's. We have extensive experience in working with this area. What experience do you have that may have shaped your perspective on criminal justice? And what do you call brochure material on your site for an East Coast School, if not advertising? As a lawyer, I insist that you should establish your credentials, which would give me facts on which I could understand the context of your enthusiasm for yourself and your site, and give me more faith in your professionalism. Suggesting that I have a broken link on a fifteen-year old site doesn't impress me. Instead, I thought it was kind of snippy, given the most recent correspondence in which you've used an inappropriate hard sell, mixed with a bright-eyed eager student bid for an A. Maybe that works for you with the standards that prevail on some parts of the web. It does not work with well trained lawyers and academics, engaged in pure research unsullied by high gloss advertising. Susan, I know you haven't had the time to look at the site as I did this morning when I got this e-mail. I just looked at content the other day and figured you'd check out the rest if you wanted to use it for more than a casual link for those wanting job information. I grant that job information has become far more important for today's student, but this approach makes a good claim for further investigation of whether the site actually oversells the opportunities and makes them sound far more glamorous and remunerative than many of our undergraduates, or even graduates, are likely to find. The days in which such a sell might have been more feasible, when there were openings and career paths, is long, long gone. And predictions abound that recovery will take close to five years (though I don't have here on my desk detailed sources on that estimate).
Susan, I think that the glossy subscription oversell on that site should make a great example for how to read carefully, contextually, and critically when trying to judge the validity of non-evidence based advice. Would you like a whole file set like that for your law and the media class? I couldn't do it till after the site restructuring is uploaded, but that might be in time for Fall, if you're teaching it this Fall. To look at what grabbed my attention this morning check out bloglines: 1. http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://www.criminology-degree.com/criminology-degree.xml How about the map and aerial views of the Southwest, with the only recommendations as online programs, and Maine Criminal Justice Academy and John Jay! Why do I have the feeling this site came out of a project in someone's communication class on how to sell a website. Either this wasn't their top student; or maybe the class wasn't too effective. Contrast the high gloss with the statements on accuracy and results in the privacy statement: http://www.criminology-degree.com/privacy-policy.htm - I review the privacy statement with some quotes b 2. http://www.criminology-degree.com/contact-me.html#SOUND On the "contact me" form there is a bright pink rectangular box that says WAKE UP. Amazed, I ran my cursor over it. It was a hot link. But nothing happened for several seconds when I clicked it. Then a female voice said "Wake Up." I hissed. Bad day for that message to me. I would be insulted that the author of that form had such a condescending opinion of those who contact him/her that they needed to be awakened. And to what? The arrogance speaks of an attitude I would NOT want conveyed to our students. OOPS! I just went back to give you instructions for how to find this "Wake Up" sound bit. I looked more carefully, to guide you and saw the sentence above it: "Please enter the word that you see below." Oh, my goodness; they're checking to be sure it's a real person and not a spam machine, or whatever you call those automatic send out things. I've never seen one of those on a plain white form with an actual word instead of a mix of random alphabet letters in caps and lower case letters . I'd also never seen one either where to color and presentation looked a a student version of an abstract art exercise. But the bright pink sure did get my attention. This time I also noted the rectangular box into which the contacting person was to write the "word". OK. They were consistent on that one. I'd just never encountered a word before in that context. But do compare that rectangular box to the rectangular box below the subscription box in the left-hand frame. You can't write in the left-hand frame box. I know. I tried. I thought it was another search box. Now, see, Susan, a similar king of exercise with a simple form like this, would make a great exercise for one of your communication courses. If you want to write one up, I'll program it. 3. http://www.criminology-degree.com/online-criminal-justice-degrees.html Gee whiz! When I said they had an online bias, I didn't realize how deep it went. Inappropriate plug for specific schools. Is coverage complete? Or biased? Why only The Maine Criminal Justice Academy and John Jay? Academy???? 4. http://www.criminology-degree.com/maine-criminal-justice-academy.html Amounts to a brochure for Maine Criminal Justice Academy. Hello! That's way inappropriate. 5. http://www.criminology-degree.com/privacy-policy.htm Yikes! Well so much for the "no advertising" bit. They use Google "cookies." And probably follow you around with a GPS link, too. A few quotes, in order of appearance, on privacy page: "We may serve third-party advertisements that use cookies and web beacons in the course of ads being served on our website to ascertain how many times you've seen an advertisement. No personally identifiable information you give us is provided to them for cookie or web beacon use, so they cannot personally identify you with that information on our web site. Some third-party advertisements may be provided by Google, which uses cookies to serve ads on this site. Google uses the DART cookie, which enables it to serve ads to our users based on their visits to this site and other sites on the Web." "We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. " "While the information contained within the site is periodically updated, no guarantee is given that the information provided in this website is correct, complete, and/or up-to-date." Of course, it's still the best source for anyone who wants to work in criminal justice. On the "About" page I found no identification of who this Allyson or the owner of the site is, but I come across a link that said. "Return back." That's redundant. RETURN is all you need. OK. I'm grumpy. Bad day for me. But someone who's paying for all this super fancy advertising, that's not even really subtle, needs to have a serious talk with whoever is making the decisions. Susan, I wouldn't give them a link; but file this. I just outlined another lecture series, and there must be a zillion examples on the Web. This will work for our public-sphere community project. Allyson, don't bother to reply. Thank goodness, I don't think you're one of our students. We won't be giving you a grade. But this kind of critical analysis is what we do. Thanks for nudging me forward to Susan's upcoming classes. Regards, and as our site always says, Susan: love and peace, jeanne
Online Reference Sources for Conversations that Matter
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PolitiFact.com will give you extensive information on what's truth and what's rumor and what's not in news reporting and viral vidoes and e-mails. This is offered as a Public Service by the St. Petersburg Times, for which we thank them profusely. These are times for checking your facts.
The script that lets you double click on any word you want defined is not working properly. But the dictionary works very effectively if you type in a word and enter it, either here or on its own site. I'll try to fix this some time this summer, but for now, we've placed it on the Home page and on the first page of each issue. That's so you can always get to the dictionary by going to Current or Previous Issue, or by going to Home. Susan and I need this tool always available. We hope you do too. jeanne and Susan.
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