Covello's Blogs

       I have always really enjoyed listening to podcasts so when we were assigned this project I knew I wanted to talk about the history of podcasts. It all started in 2004 by Adam Curry and Dave Winer who developed the software. He made a program that allowed them to download the podcast onto their iPods. This was very beneficial to them and by the next year, there were a lot of companies that started to recognize them and saw how much potential podcasting could be. One of the biggest companies that recognized them was Apple and they put out their iTunes 4.9 update which allowed people to listen to podcasts. Podcast development started to continue to grow and became a great source of information throughout the years. Moving all the way to 2013 Apple said that they had 1 billion podcast subscriptions which is a very impressive number. Podcasting continues to keep growing and as of 2019, there had been around 90 million Americans were listening to podcasts daily and ...

    The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) was established by the Constitution as an essential part of the checks and balances system. It is the highest court in the country and the head of the judicial branch of government (1). The Supreme Court has the responsibility of ruling on the constitutionality of laws passed by Congress. It also has the power to check on the other two branches of government, the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch (2). The Court holds the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution. (3).  When first established, the Supreme Court judges were also responsible for serving on circuit courts in the thirteen states. There are presently nine Supreme Court justices, which has been a consistent number since 1869. With all the current buzz about the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett and the idea of Democrats, in retaliation, packing the court, I decided to take a look to see if this was an issue i...

Instagram is a popular social media platform used for sharing photos and videos that was released in October of 2010. Ever since its release date, it has grown immensely and was bought by Facebook in April of 2012 for one billion dollars. The app has gained my new features since it first came out as well. You can post “stories” that only stay up for 24 hours, you can use filters, tag your location, add captions, hashtags and much more. As popular as the app is, there are many pros and cons of the platform. For the pros, it is a very visual medium, since you can share a lot about yourself on the platform, and you can always see what your friends and family are doing. There are many marketing opportunities within the app to promote brands and companies. Lastly, the app has a very clean interface. The app is easy to use and is very organized. For the cons, it makes people's lives seem much more interesting than they really are. People only post the exciting things that happen in their...

  When I dive more into these Eight Values of Free Expression I see how important they really are. There are a bunch of great expressions, but a few really stick out to me the most. I don’t really notice these eight values of free expression that I have on a day to day basis but I feel that it is important to understand how valuable these are in our lives. The first one that really caught my attention was the Market Place of Ideas which talked about how in the end the truth will always win. I feel like this allows people to discussed ideas freely and it gives everyone a chance to have a say but in the end, the idea that is the truth will always win. Also, I feel like this relates to not lying and always being honest because someday those lies will catch up with you and the truth will come out. This is why I think this is so significant because honesty is really the best way to go about your life.  The other free expression that caught my attention was Individual Self-Fulfillme...

I was kind of caught off guard when first clicking onto the Antiwar.com website. The reason I say this is because I had no idea that these types of websites existed. This website is a way for people that are for the antiwar movement to connect, talk, and discuss. However, in my opinion, it’s kind of extreme in it’s messaging. I don’t think that many Americans are in favor of waging war but I also don’t think America is an evil imperialist country. It’s interesting to read this point of view but we also need to read other points of view to make our own conclusions. The second website I looked at was American Conservative. This website has a much more polished, professional look than Antiwar.com. Because of it’s upgraded presentation, people may think it has more reliable information. However, in my opinion, it’s also kind of extreme in it’s messaging. This website is also antiwar with a different twist. They promote a strong military but are against intervening in other countries proble...

Recently there has been a lot of news on Black Lives Matter. It has been all over social media about trying to bring justice to the world. This movement has a lot of controversies surrounding it. Some of those controversies are, is it really a peaceful protest or is it just political. A lot of people are protesting peacefully but some are not and are burning flags and destroying statues. Buring of the flags is still allowed as it doesn't harm anyone and is a freedom of speech. However anybody that chooses to destroy statues or vandalized them will be arrested. I can see that a lot of people are protesting peacefully but then there are other people that are destroying people's businesses by lighting them on fire and looting. This is very dangerous and whoever does this is violating their first amendment right.  A lot of people think its just politics. Black Lives Matter could potentially change the way the election goes as we come closer to that time. In recent news articles tha...

My top five news sources  Throughout my life, I haven't been really involved with watching the news but in these unprecedented times, I find it hard not to be concerned with what going on in the world. So I started getting more involved with a couple of news sources that helped me gain a little more knowledge on what's going on these days.  Fox News Whenever I do put the news on I typically watch Fox News because this is what I was most familiar with. I enjoy watching Fox news because it gives me reliable information and it keeps me engaged the whole time, unlike some other news stations. Another reason why I chose Fox is that I enjoy the news anchors. Twitter  I get a lot of my news from Twitter and this is really the only reason why I use this application. The reason I like Twitter is because I can choose who I want to follow and get the information straight from that person or news station. It's also convenient because it's right on my phone and I ...