MM2003 - Anna McGough

 Anna McGough Classmate Blog Critique     As an art student, I am very familiar  with class critiques. Most of the time, they consist of telling the person highlighted what they could do better and not so much of telling them what they did right. However, this critique will mainly consist of what the highlighted person did right because I see very few flaws.     The classmate I am going to be highlighting is Brittany Hatter. I have had her in quite a few of my classes and I find her to be an excellent person. This, however, should focus on her blogs which I also find to be excellent.      I absolutely love her blog page. The colors that she used are so beautiful along with the picture she used as her cover photo. The aesthetic she used matches her and her personality so well and captures her beautiful personality.      I, more often than not, go to Brittany's page to see what she did and to get an idea of what the assignments ...

 Anna McGough New App Critique     While Cash App is not necessarily a "new" app, it is new to me. I got it about a month ago and it was only because I was buying food for a birthday party and wanted people to chip in. Due to the fact that no one carries money around anymore as everything is digital, it was always hard to ask people to chip in for food. I had already spent a lot on party decorations and there were a lot of people who wanted to eat the pizza I was going to buy so I decided to get Cash App.     I had seen many of my friends use it before. We would normally ask people if they needed anything before, we left for like a gas station or Walmart, but they could never pay me  personally back if I bought them something due to the lack of cash on hand. This meant that my friends would have to Cash App my roommate money and she would have to get it for them if she was going with us.      I got the app the ni...

 Anna McGough Opinion - Local Issue     An opinion I have as a resident of Pine Bluff, AR , is that the new " boycott  violence" program is simply not going to work. This program is to incentivize  kids and teens to "boycott violence " in all aspects of their lives whether  it be on school campus or at home.      The way they are trying to incentivize these kids to act in this program is to, per school grade, reward them when they avoid violence. The grade that has avoided it the most gets a pizza party, motivation speaker, and or a talking and plaque from the mayor.      Now my biggest issue with this is that what kid wants a motivational speaker as a prize. Pizza party I can understand and would also be excited for but not a motivational speaker. I would not even be excited for the mayor because personally , she is not even that good of a mayor.      You can teach kids other routs to solutions other than violen...

 Anna McGough Entertainment and Popular Culture     Entertainment and popular culture shapes our society and us as individuals. Tv and media shaped who each of us are as individuals making us who we are today. Shows we watched and games we played when we were younger built bits and pieces of us and our characters.      As a person who was born in the very early 2000's (specifically 2002), I did not get into YouTube until I had an iPod Touch at the age of 10 or 11. Up until then, I had tv and Nintendo DS to keep me entertained. I know it sounds dramatic but when I found Markiplier on YouTube, it changed my life.      Markiplier is a YouTuber who started making videos in 2012 who is now one of the biggest YouTube content creators. He was even nominated for gamer of the year in 2022. He became famous for his Let's Plays and playing horror games, one of which being Five Nights at Freddy's.      When I and a few other mill...

 Anna McGough International Hard News     Some news is hard to take in but sometimes is the news we need to hear most. In today's era, most do not want to know how bad everything around them is because it is so hard to just survive knowing our own lives much less knowing the atrocities going on around us in the world. However, we need to know these things to be aware of our surroundings and climate because what effects other parts of the world will usually effect our lives as well.      Some disturbing news that was personally hard to take in, was the news that is coming out about the atrocities caused by the Hamas which is a terrorist group in Palestine.  In October of this year, the Hamas went into a music festival that was being held in Israel  and committed  many terrible acts. It was released shortly after that people were being taken captive, killed, and maimed. It was reported that many were shot in the back as they tried to flee the h...

 Anna McGough Trending on Social Media     We all see videos and articles trending on social media and some are so popular that most people know about them. However, usually what is trending on social media varies from user to user. This is because there are certain circles and sections  of social media that different users are in where something specific to those sections  are trending.       For instance, in the gaming community mostly, GTA 6 is a trending topic at the moment. Now this game's release is getting to where it is so big that it is overflowing outside of just the gaming community and over into the general public. When asked if one has seen the GTA 6 trailer, the answer is likely yes due to the popularity of it.      On another side of the gaming community on social media is a game called Lethal Company. This game is very popular for just being an early access indie game. It has been all over my personal YouTu...

 Anna McGough Civics     One may ask how civics is  related to journalism because  normally when one thinks of civics, the class taken in college or high school  comes to mind. The definition of the civics we learn of in civics courses as stated by Merriam Webster is " a social science dealing with the rights and duties of citizens. "       This, however, is not far off from the civics that is connected with journalism. Journalism civics deal with the same thing in the sense of dealing with the rights of citizens. The Britannica definition of Journalism Civics is that it is "journalism  that is conducted by people who are not professional journalists but who  disseminate  information using  Web sites ,  blogs , and  social media ."        An example that Britannica gives us is that journalism civics can look like " Citizens in disaster zones have provided instant text and visual reporting...

 Anna McGough Listening Post      The definition of a listening  post seems to vary depending on  who you ask or where you look. The way I have best understood  it is that it is information one gets from just hearing those around them talk about things that are happening. For instance, one could be in the cafeteria  on campus and hear a group of people talking about the police showing  up at one of the dorms because a violent incident broke out.       An example of this in my own life would be the leaving of Dean Trey Barry from SAU. I woke up and had seen the email but ignored it. Later my roommate's boyfriend walks in and announces  the news to us. I would have probably never looked at that email or have known till much later that he was leaving our campus. Throughout the day in every class, someone would have more information of the matter and we would all share what we knew, including the teachers. I get a lot of ...

 Anna McGough Public Records (State and National)     Public records are more than just for local matters but extend to state and national levels. Just like local records, however, you can find property records, state inmate records, and tax records for large international companies. Some of these are even posted in state newspapers and other large newspapers. One of these things that can often be found in state newspapers are delinquency of taxes. If one has failed to pay taxes, it can be posted in the paper. I personally have seen this happen in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette where they post names of the people who have not paid property tax and the area they are in.      These public records are also useful for finding public filings and contributions to public officials such as state senators.  My father works in adjusting for insurance companies. I say "companies" because he has worked for a few. As part of my father's job, he u...

 Anna McGough Public Records      By definition of Merriam Webster dictionary, public records are "a record made by a public officer or a government agency in the course of the performance of a duty. " Public records are normally fairly easy to find and get. Sometimes, in order to obtain them, you must pay a small fee,  but most are free. Examples of these would include things such as inmate rosters, bankruptcies , birth and death certificates, property  records and much more. When physical copies of newspapers were sent out, the bankruptcies were published on one of the pages as well as the new entities founded in the area.       My family would always look at the bankruptcies and LLCs to see if they knew any of them or to check the goofy names people named their entities. My mom worked for a public accounting firm and would check for client names in those sections of the paper due to them often being published before they could actuall...