As you all know we discussed this week in Mass Media and Politics the question if media personalities are responsible for encouraging citizenship. Personally I don't think they should be responsible, but I think they should do it anyway.
If you didn't watch the video above it is Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, which I'm sure everyone knows. Zuckerberg is discussing the topic of immigration reform, some of his experiences and why he supports it. He was teaching a class and asked his students one thing they were most worried about. One student raised his hand and stated he was afraid he could not attend college because he is undocumented. Zuckerberg then asked the class how many students were undocumented and about half of the class raised their hands. Zuckerberg states that a lot of our undocumented immigrants are going to be the entrepreneurs and innovators of the future. Maybe not all of the 11 million of the undocumented immigrants will be, but there is a good chance that many of them will. He doesn't really go into depth about his website (fwd.us). Fwd.us is a lobbying group in support of immigration reform. I did find some information about it, he as well as Marissa Mayer, Bill Gates, and Eric Schmidt co wrote a letter to Congress supporting looser requirements for immigrants who have sought out science and technological backgrounds. They also support funds for improvement of math, science, and tech education. The letter also warns of the potential downside to the tech industry if immigration reform does not take place. The screen flashes to the audience once in a whole and you can see how big Zuckerbergs media personality is. The audience has their phones out taking pictures and recording his speech. It looks more like the announcement of a new apple product than a speech on immigration. People are interested because he is talking about it, versus their politicians.
A major thing that stood out to me when he introduced his friend Jose and him missing the deadline for the Dream Act by four months. The screen cuts to the opening slide of his documentary and illegal immigrant is crossed out and under that is undocumented American.
How do you feel about that?
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