Tag Archives: society

Academia, Culture, Emergency Management, Emergency Medical Services, Health Care, Public Health, Society

Volunteerism

Living in such a small community as I do, there is little need for grassroots organizations to assist in the health and welfare of the community. Most of the organizations that are available in my community are business-based, healthcare focused institutions.

Day-Kimball Hospital (http://www.daykimball.org) is the center of healthcare and wellness in Northeastern Connecticut. Partnering with the community, Day-Kimball Hospital provides a host of services through its many facilities to provide outreach programs which help to make a healthier community. Employment and volunteer opportunities are available within the hospital for those with a desire to help promote health and wellness within the community.

There are two other local agencies, United Services (http://www.unitedservicesct.org) and Quinebaug Valley Youth and Family Services, which have partnered to provide a community-centered approach to the psychological welfare of adults, adolescents, youths, and their families. United Services, Inc. also provides employee assistance programs to workers of participating local businesses. Providing psychiatric consultation services for addiction and recovery, family violence, and family structure support, these agencies promote social change as both entities themselves and through their contact with members of our community.

The town of Killingly, Connecticut, also offers a Little League program where children can learn to play baseball and softball while learning the values of sportsmanship, loyalty, courage, and commitment. This program helps to promote social change through encouraging positive mentor relationships at a young and impressionable age. Little League is also an outlet where interested parties can help through sponsorships, umpiring, coaching, or just attending games and showing support for the program and the kids.

I have volunteered most of my life through the volunteer fire departments in my area, and I still do. I am an active member of the South Killingly Fire Department where I serve as a mentor and instructor in Emergency Medical Services. As an experienced paramedic, the least that I can do for my community is to ensure that those who will come after me are trained appropriately and to a high standard. Though my full-time job requires me to provide the same service in the same area, I enjoy a different role with South Killingly Fire Department which allows me the freedom to help others in a different manner than usual within the same occupational field.

Volunteering with others instills teamwork, dedication, and other core values that lend especially well to the promotion of positive social change. I am glad to help.

Criminal Justice, Society, Technology

An Essay on the Value of Television on Society

Television plays a critical role in providing information to its viewers in a timely manner, though this responsibility could be detrimental if the format of delivery is not in line with the needs of the viewers. There are many questions and theories regarding the usefulness or appropriateness of television in American society today. A research review (Huston, et al., 1992) of television watching habits in regards to violence, sexuality and health shows that television program choices are as formative for adults as they are adolescents, though younger children may be spared from this effect due to their “insufficient emotional and cognitive capacities to comprehend the message.” With this in mind, some people feel that television broadcasts should be well-regulated and censored to a level that society finds appropriate (Hoffner, et al., 1999), and though much of television is, in fact, regulated to some degree, Anderson (1997) found that commercials which air during family-centered broadcasting contained violence which may not be suitable for all ages. In addition to violence, many programs aired today contain sociopolitical biases that threaten the very message meant to be conveyed. In addition to content, expertise is called into question as local and national news outlets are viewed with a sense of authority, when in fact they may not be. A recent survey (Wilson, 2008) of weathercasters showed that in 2002 only 8% of stations employed a science or environment reporter. Many weathercasters do not have the scientific background in order to accurately forecast severe weather, yet they serve as the authoritative source for this information. These are not symptoms common only to network television broadcasting but are prominent in all media, including print and radio.

In order for the media to maintain its credibility, it must take the responsibility of broadcasting seriously. Television broadcasters must maintain an air of unbiased, expert reporting interested in delivering fact and opposing viewpoints if necessary. Broadcast outlets must also take on the responsibility of the content of each program keeping in mind the intended audience. There is a social contract between viewers and broadcasters, and though I am not one to suggest government censorship, responsible self-censorship by each media outlet may be ethical and appropriate to promote good habits and healthy lifestyles.

With society’s reliance on television to provide entertainment and information, the programs and information offered can certainly alter society’s perceptions of acceptability and necessity within our culture. With rights comes responsibility. We enjoy a certain freedom of our press, but when that freedom is without responsibility, misinformation is promulgated to the masses having dire consequences on society. As an example, the media’s reliance on violence for profits has greatly diminished our society’s abhorrence of such. This coupled with poor and inaccurate reporting on gun violence has led to an unhealthy promotion of guns to solve the most minuscule of problems (Omaar, 2007). Essentially, the media created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Looking at society today, this has effectively removed guns from the hands of lawful citizens and placed them with criminals. Many politicians are to blame for their ignorance on this matter, but television is to blame for providing these politicians the education of ignorance. Television can shape society. What shape do we want to be in?

References

Anderson, C. (1997). Violence in Television Commercials During Nonviolent Programming: The 1996 Major League Baseball Playoffs. JAMA, 278(13), 1045-1046.

Hoffner, C., Buchanan, M., Anderson, J. D., Hubbs, L. A., Kamigaki, S. K., Kowalczyk, L., et al. (1999). Support for censorship of television violence: The role of the third-person effect and news exposure. Communication Research, 26(6), 726-742. DOI: 10.1177/009365099026006004

Huston, A. C., Donnerstein, E., Fairchild, H., Feshbach, N. D., Katz, P.A., Murray, J. P., et al. (1992). The role of television in American society. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Omaar, R. (3 September 2007). Why our children carry guns. New Statesman, 137(4860), 20. AN: 26417804

Wilson, K. (2008). Television weathercasters as station scientists. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 89(12), 1926-1927

Academia, Society, Technology

Science as a Social Construction

In order to understand the differences and similarities of social versus cultural construction and to apply this to the field of science, we should first investigate the terms and understand the definitions of each. At center, we have “science”. Merriam-Webster (2009) defines science as “knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths [which can be] tested” in specific manner. For ease of transition, I will keep it simply as “knowledge”. Next is construction. Construction is defined, in this context, as “the act or result of construing, interpreting, or explaining”. Thus far, we have an act of interpreting or explaining knowledge, but is this construed socially, culturally or both? Hall (1994) delineates social and cultural abstracts, “[Culture] is threaded through all social practices, and is the sum of their interrelationship.” (p. 523) More generally speaking, society builds culture. As interrelated as these terms are, one can only posit that if a construct is social, then it must also be cultural. The inverse should also hold true.

Science, in one form or another, has been around since mankind perfected the first thing that was perfected. I do not feel that it is important to know what it was that we first perfected, but that we eventually perfected some kind of act or skill and sought to learn more. This want for knowledge, I will say would be the birth of science. From this time forward, I would argue that science was deeply social and cultural. The welfare of societies depended on the science of the time. Until the Age of Enlightenment, it did not matter if the knowledge was fully understood. “Enlightenment thinkers placed a great premium on the discovery of truth through the observation of nature, rather than through the study of authoritative sources, such as Aristotle and the Bible” (“Age of Enlightenment,” 2009). This was a time that mysticism and magic were set aside for experimentation and the scientific method. It is my opinion that, after the Age of Enlightenment, science became less socially or culturally oriented, though the impact was no less dramatic. It is this separation of emotion, the suspension of belief, that drives a true search for scientific fact.

References

Age of Enlightenment. (2009). In Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia. Retrieved September 10, 2009, from http://encarta.msn.com

Construction. (2009). In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved September 10, 2009, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/construction

Hall, S. (1994). Cultural studies: Two paradigms. In N. B. Dirks, G. Eley & S. B. Ortner (Eds.), Culture/power/history: a reader in contemporary social theory (pp. 520-538). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Science. (2009). In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved September 10, 2009, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science