Looks Matter

Though I was unable to attend the caucus last night, I did decide that I needed to begin to exercise my rights as a citizen eligible to vote. I will be the first to admit that I am enormously naive when it comes to politics; however, I decided that I wanted to rid myself of some of this inadequacy and #geteducated.
 




 Though I already knew that it would be, I was still taken aback by how difficult it is to find actual facts in this twisted reality called politics. We can debate about which news stations and reporters are less biased all you want, but I still am appalled by the lack of valid, sourced information.

I decided that my best way to start my research would be by looking at each of the candidates personal campaign webpages. I knew that these would be biased as well, but I hoped that I could at least get a grasp of their major beliefs and platforms. What I didn't expect, however, was how much the design of the webpages affected me. Sites that had a lot of annoying pop-ups requesting donations, or sites that were confusing to navigate, immediately seemed to damage the credibility of the candidate--at least in my mind.
However, webpages that were tastefully designed,
 visually appealing, and easy to search made me much more willing to read what the candidate had to say. I also noticed that some of the candidates published pictures of them with their families, and this appealed to my sense of pathos. As we discussed in class today, even though I was aware that techniques of propaganda and rhetoric were being used on me, they were still effective. And as frustrating as that may be, it doesn't discount the power of a good online identity.