Caitlin O'Byrne

Mr. Brian Brooks

HJ1010 - Final Paper

December 9, 2007

Journalism has been embedded in my mind as well as my heart since I was born.

My mother was a graduate of the finest Journalism school in the country. She was proud

of her Mizzou education and she majored in Broadcast. Shortly after graduating college,

she found work in radio as well as television. However, she found her true passion to be

on the business side of journalism. She followed her heart and found that media sales fit

her perfectly. She has become very successful and has inspired me to consider a career in

journalism as well. I have always learned to write and I am pretty sure my first sentence

was “What’s in it for me?” I have grown up on journalistic ideals and I am proud of that.

However, I have a sort of different dream than my mother. When she was a freshman, she

wanted to be a TV anchor on a national station. In her own words, she wanted “to be

Katie Couric, before Katie Couric was Katie Couric”. I do not want to do broadcast.

I have found my passion. And that is my voice. My voice shines through in two

main areas of my life: politics and writing. Therefore, I have decided to combine my two

passions into one messy and exciting career. I have chosen to declare my major as

Journalism (Strategic Communications) and Communications (Political

Communications), with a minor in Philosophy or Business. This has changed slightly

even since I came to Missouri in August. At first I was going to double major Journalism

(Strategic Communications) and Political Science with a minor in Business. But Dr.

Porter really impressed me. I have become more interested in Communications with an
emphasis on Political Communications. I did not even know Missouri offered that

program, and I became very excited when I heard they did. The reason for the maybe

proposed change in minor happened this semester in two of my other classes. First of all,

I am taking microeconomics and absolutely hate it. I am not one of those math or science

people. I don’t know how to budget and have no idea how the market works. But I have

always had a firm belief that no matter what you do in life, you must be a good

businessman or woman. I believe that a minor in Business would allow me to have a

solid foundation for whatever profession I choose. However, I did take an Ethics

Philosophy class and loved it. If I decide to go to law school, I will most likely minor in

Philosophy to give me more of a background on the logic and argument aspect of law.

However, I have not decided to go to law school. Therefore, Business is still my proposed

minor.

My dream job would be the press secretary of the President. As awful as it

sounds, I would love to do damage control, and I believe being a press secretary for

someone as criticized at the President (or maybe it is just Bush) there would be plenty of

opportunities to do that. I am calm, cool and collected when faced with an urgent

problem. I work well under pressure and I enjoy writing and reciting speeches. Therefore,

I think I am made for this job. I enjoy public relations work as well. One of the earliest

definitions of PR was created by Edward Bernays. According to him, "Public Relations is

a management function which tabulates public attitudes, defines the policies, procedures

and interest of an organization followed by executing a program of action to earn public

understanding and acceptance." This sounds exciting and presents a constant challenge to

myself. I also am very interested in advertising (I’ll credit my mother for that). I want to
take more classes where I could explore these two worlds to see if that is a possible

career choice for myself. I consider myself pretty technologically savvy, which is always

important in the journalism realm. I think my knack for computers will help as the

technology continues to progress.

According to Shari Graydon, The impact of advertising has been a matter of

considerable debate and many different claims have been made in different contexts.

During debates about the banning of cigarette advertising, a common claim from

cigarette manufacturers was that cigarette advertising does not encourage people to

smoke who would not otherwise. The (eventually successful) opponents of advertising,

on the other hand, claim that advertising does in fact increase consumption.

According to many sources, the past experience and state of mind of the person

subjected to advertising may determine the impact that advertising has (Graydon).

Children under the age of four may be unable to distinguish advertising from other

television programs, while the ability to determine the truthfulness of the message may

not be developed until the age of 8.

Over the past fifteen years a whole science of marketing analytics and marketing

effectiveness has been developed to determine the impact of marketing actions on

consumers, sales, profit and market share. Marketing Mix Modeling, direct response

measurement and other techniques are included in this science.

To prepare myself for this amazing career that I have chosen for myself, I have

decided to franticly take all of my general education classes. Thanks to my AP credit

from high school, I will officially be done with all of my required gen-ed classes by the

end of next semester. For my freshman, my focus is really on my general education so

that for the next 3 years I will have time to focus on my majors. Therefore, I do not have

many classes that connect directly to my declared majors and minor. I will have 2

journalism classes under my belt at that time, which will help me to further my education

to become a better journalist. I am looking into taking a speech class. And I will have

completed both economics classes (micro and macro). Like I said before, I am

considering changing my second degree from Political Science to Political

Communications. I think the classes required for this degree would not only give me the

knowledge of the law and government, but also the intelligence of how to present that

knowledge. And that presentation is key to the line of work I hope to pursue.

Shanto Iyengar, director of the Political Communication Lab at Stanford

University, wrote a book called " Media Politics: A Citizen's Guide". This book discusses

the role of image in American politics. "Media Politics" examines the impact of

increasing media coverage and debate on politicians and the policy-making process. The

phenomenon of "media-based politics" creates an atmosphere where public relations

strategy and ill-informed public opinion often affect the way social and economic

problems are addressed. This is what I want to do. I want to help politicians, celebrities

and businesses gain a good image with an impeccable reputation and sustain that image.

I am actually in the process of sitting down and developing a 4-year courses plan.

It’s been a little complicated because of everything that I want to do, but I am trying to

narrow it all down. I have realized since coming to college, it’s not just about how much

you can do anymore. It is becoming more and more about how well you can do the things

you love. I have sit in a request to visit with my advisor when we all return to campus

after Christmas break. The goal of this sit-down is to develop a plan. I do not want to
waste my time, wondering if this class will count for my degrees. I have already decided

that I would love to study abroad, either second semester sophomore year or sometime in

junior year. It is hard because I am trying to stay very, very active on campus. It is hard to

balance everything I want to do with the things I can do, but I am determined to do it.
 Works Cited

Publications:

Bernays, Edward. “Public Relations”. Boston, MA: BELLMAN PUBLISHING

COMPANY. 1945

Graydon, Shari . "Made You Look - How Advertising Works and Why You Should

Know", Toronto: ANNICK PRESS. 2003

Iyengar, Shanto. “Media Politics: A Citizen’s Guide”. Washington DC: THE

WASHINGTON POST. November 30, 2006.

Nelson, Joyce. “Sultans of Sleaze: Public Relations and the Media.” TORONTO:

BETWEEN THE LINES. 1989.

Speakers from in class:

Dr. Michael Porter, from the Communications Department. Heard on December 4, 2007.

Mr. Stephen Kopcha, from the Strategic Communications Department. Heard on

November 6, 2007.