Voter Concern Graph Effective ?

The graphs used in the USA Today Article,Voter Turnouts ,the author uses a graph from the American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate to help reinforce the idea that the turnout for the primaries are something to be concerned about.

The picture is of two graphs. One is for the Republican turnout and the other is for the Democratic voter turnout, both from 1962.

The graphs at first glance both seem to reinforce the authors concern. They both show a sharp declining line. If a person was to glance at this then they would assume there is a something to panic about as it looks like voter participation is at speedy decline.

But if one was to look again at the graph in more detail, it shows that voter turn out for the primaries was never really high. Looking at the Republican one, in 1962 the turnout was above 10%t. At the end of 2006 it is maybe 8%. So in a span of 44 years the participation maybe dropped 4%. Is that really bad? Sure it's declining. But not as rapidly or concerning as the author would have you think.

The Democrat one is slightly worse. Its dropped 11% in 44 years. But considering the lengthy span of time, its not that threatening, or at least not unpredictable.

The graphs are effective only as a picture of lines showing a drop in voter turnout to give a quick visual summary of the problem. In depth they don't really offer any real value, except to show a slight decline in political interest in the last decades. If anything it gives the reader something flashy to look at and that is about it.

A Dog of a Graphic

I feel like a lot of people might want to choose this guy but I couldn't resist writing on this "hard-hitting" graphic I found from USA Today (*if you press the next button, this graphic is number seven out of 20). The first thing that struck me was that I found it under the 'news' tab, which seems like either a gross miscalculation or a joke. By all technical standards, this does qualify as news, but why anyone would care if dogs are more or less smart than we think-- well it's beyond me. Speaking of which: the topic of the survey itself is extremely confusing. It took me a few good reads to understand what it was trying to say, and it wasn't until the third whirl around I realized that the bar graph I was looking for is on the dog's belly. Im not sure whether this was due to how cluttered it is, or how they just chose different shades of the same color to represent the bars, but it was a task nonetheless.

In it's defense, USA Today does not claim to be America's most serious publication, but there's a fine line between entertaining and insulting. If this is truly what the American public wants from it's newspapers... well I guess I'm one citizen who doesn't belong here. If I was flipping through the paper and picked this up I know exactly what my reaction would be after reading just the title: "'Are dogs more or less intelligent than we think they are?' ... WHO CARES?!"

The graphic isn't total crap, though. I liked that the artist (are we calling them artists now?) posted both the opinions of dog owners as well as non-dog owners. The picture is endearing in its color and goofy cartoon dog faces, too. These two jolly pups tell me that USA Today isn't trying to fool anyone- no one's life has been changed by this poll. Also, the bolded sentence to the left was a real lifesaver as far as deciphering this beast went.

-Roxanne Nickolie

Creating Links

In order to create a link, you can use a simple hypertext markup language (HTML) technique. If you were writing about newspapers and wanted to reference the Journal Sentinel, you could add a link like this:

"People often say that newspapers are dying off, but the Journal Sentinel still reaches 160,000 readers everyday."

You do this by including an exact array of jargon, which Stovall illustrates on page 173 in the book. Basically, you write your sentence, decide where you would like to direct the reader, decide what word you want to take them there, and then add the dashes and letters. In the example Stovall gives, the fictional website is a widget manufacturing outlet, and the word that takes you there is "widget."

If this way does not appeal to you, there is an automatic linking command on Blogger. Simply highlight the word that you want to serve as the link and click on the green circle thing at the top of the post. It will then give you the option of entering the website you want the link to go to.

JMC 201 Blog

Here is where you can post commentary on the visual representations in a news story of your choosing. Remember that you have to provide 2 posts: an original one, and a second that responds to the posting of another student. Also, please provide a link to the news story with the visual content you will be analyzing.