AUBSpring12-MCOM251

A super PAC supporting Rick Santorum announced Thursday that it bought $310,000 in ads in Illinois in advance of that state's primary next week. The target: Mitt Romney. Santorum racked up a pair of wins earlier this week in Mississippi and Alabama, but trails far behind Romney in the delegate count.

Tastemakers, Participation, Unexpectedness

Pretty interesting :)

Primary elections in Mississippi and Alabama Tuesday are giving Mitt Romney an opportunity to extend his lead in the Republican presidential race by winning in Southern contests that he has characterized as "a bit of an away game." Voting was under way Tuesday in the two states, with polls set to close at 8 p.m.

REUTERS - President Nicolas Sarkozy leads his Socialist challenger Francois Hollande for the first time in an opinion poll on Tuesday for round one of France's presidential election, but is still shown losing in the second round. The Ifop/Fiducial poll put support for Sarkozy at 28.5 percent in the first round on April 22, up from 27 percent at the end of February.

Thank God.

Bacha discusses the U.S. media, confirmation bias, and methods of expanding people's belief systems through film. Also, her documentary Budrus is definitely worth watching if you haven't already.

I don't want anyone to think that i'm with Kony or against saving these children..but just a thought

Interesting comparison between Russian Elections and Kony 2012!

Oh come on!! the only valid criticism from this long long list is that Invisible Children exaggerated the facts and inflated the numbers, which does undermine its legitimacy but does not ruin the campaign. The other arguments are so easy to shoot down that I won't even bother.

Interesting analysis of the US motives from the Kony intervention

Actually, it doesn't necessarily mean "dishonest" at least in the way the campaign developed. Just because the NGO didn't roll out their entire agenda in a video doesn't mean they're hiding anything. The video itself was aimed at a component of their objective in Uganda: Make Kony a household name. Dishonest here is a matter of opinion, in terms of how the campaign construction and evolution (encoding) is done. Calling it a scam is like saying advertisers are trying to steal your money, they don't tell you we want to make profit, but rather you need to consume our product. If you choose to participate and donate, it is your job as an activist to do the necessary research, at least in my opinion. The rest can be chalked up to the debate: should campaigners give its audience all of the information or should they give them enough and have them make a decision (lethargic & informed vs. active & smart). Then we seek to define how much is enough, which gets down to opinion. The bottom line however is over such a short period of time and the quick rise of the deviant opinion is something we should definitely examine. The "hidden" motives are basically the motives that weren't included in the video KONY2012 video. However it fulfilled its purpose as a medium, raise awareness about the cause (itself, but not the NGO's agenda), involve as many people as possible. In the end it comes down to framing the issue. As for Invisible Children as an organization, it has its Vision and Mission Statement set clear on its website. There were very broad headlines concerning their Kony initiative, they offered a step by step plan when major criticism began to surface. They have updated their page accordingly: http://www.invisiblechildren.com/critiques.html - and cracking down because of their funding of the Ugandan army is a matter of political debate. Either you prefer to arm the Ugandans (past human rights abusers) and have them expel the threat themselves, allow the threat of the L

RA to grow, or allow foreign intervention to deal with the issue. From here it's a matter of perspective, and which proponent is thinking of the case of Uganda.

This article is pretty interesting in the sense that it gives some answers to most of the questions you all raised in the discussion topic on "Kony? What about America's war criminals" 

I don't agree on everything but the main idea of the song is exactly my opinion: He is a bad guy but Invisible Children don't necessary tell all the truth

Interesting how both articles are published by the same source. Even more interesting is the gap between the articles. This one is far better argued and developed than "10 Reasons O will NOT be re-elected"

The map is a great way to keep up with the race

Re-branding Sarkozy's image?

A re-branding definitely reader I think. I've read a lot of critics about the "Bling Bling" life of Sarkozy.

Let me apologize in advance for the obscenity in this article, however I feel it's important to see how the relationship between a candidate's platform and constituents is a two-way street. After portraying an anti-gay stance in 2003, a sex columnist and gay rights activist called for a competition to give new meaning to the word "Santorum", which they did. The article follows the consequences of Santorum's statement.

Can someone PLEASE explain to me why gay rights are still a matter of DEBATE!? Especially in political campaigns... WHY do people care so much about taking a firm stand against homosexuality? What difference does it make in their lives? ça me dépasse...

Religion for one: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hLdbKexBmnUocZs2bIf2PZhnfK5w?docId=9cc9c843b9014ed585c62d0343071876