A Review of the White Houses Blog on Native Americans - Essay Example

?Running Head: BLOG REVIEW A Review of the White House’s Blog on Native Americans A Review of the White House’s Blog on Native Americans The power of the Internet is immeasurable. Since its invention, it has provided various means of communication. Nowadays, it overpowers all media including print and television. Importantly, the availability of the Internet in every home allows the government to reach the people easily. This paper gives a review of the site maintained by the White House. In the discussion, the paper attempts to identify the purpose of the blog, its language, and underlying messages that could have a negative effect on the readers. The White House has an official web site, and in it, one can find the blog on Native Americans. The blog is undoubtedly maintained by the government, thus its contents are expected to have been approved by the Palace. Indeed, when I visited the blog thrice on March 18, 20, and 22, I read articles that seemed like press releases by the government. The blog features articles on the protection of rights of Indian tribes in America. Maintained by the government, one can assume that the blog does not contain any taboo themes that can cause damage to the image of the White House. Rather, the blog helps project a reputable image of the President and his governance. The blog contains articles written by different people but most of them are employed under the government. One of the contributors is Milford Wayne Donaldson, the chairman of Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP). On March 20, Donaldson wrote about the plan of the ACHP to adopt UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. This will benefit the indigenous people because the declaration gives right to indigenous people to protect their heritage places or sites. This means that if there are propositions to alter a heritage site, authorities will have to consult first with indigenous people before undergoing any action. An earlier post dated March 7 talks about the signing of the President of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013.  Jodie Gillette and Charlie Galbraith (2003) posted this article, complete with a video of the whole program. The video shows the people who attended the signing of the act and the speech of the President as regards the importance of women’s rights. The article also reports relevant information about violence done on Native American women. According to it, a recent study found out that 46% of Native American women suffered from violence such as rape, physical abuse and assault. With the approval of the act, the authors assume that Native American women will be more empowered to take on the challenge to report any violence they encounter. Another post by Jodie Gillette talks about the tribal leaders’ convention held on December 5, 2012. This rather late post was made on March 18 to report on the details of the long-finished convention. One good thing about the post is that it includes links to other posts such as Tribal Law and Order Act, Violence Against Women Act, and others. On one hand, the links help visitors to understand the related issues further. On the other, it helps students and authorities document reports with necessary information surrounding the issue. Clearly, the blog addresses the general public, including Americans and other nationalities who will be visiting the blog. In particular, students engaged in Native American research will benefit greatly from the important information offered in the blog. Native American s also benefit from it as they read about government programs to protect their rights and culture. Moreover, authorities will be kept updated on government actions for Native Americans and tribal people. Overall, the blog promotes the image of the White House as it features the good deeds of the government, especially the president. Specifically, the articles in the blog reflect the concern of the White House for the Native Americans. Given the topics in the blog and the organization it represents, the blog uses a serious tone and language, which implies addressing people in the upper level such as the employed, business, and government sectors. The language, appearance and content of the blog are also serious. They are all written by government authorities who have access to first-hand information regarding White House undertakings. It is not clear whether the bloggers are Native Americans, thus the transparency of the reports is questionable. Likewise, most of the blogs are about the government’s efforts to promote the benefit of the Native Americans. The articles are all praises to the Palace, and there are no first-hand reports on the struggles of the Native Americans. Such can only be established if the blog presents true-to –life stories of the Native Americans, authored by them or reported by their own tribal group. Improvements to the blog on Native Americans should be done by allowing Native Americans to speak for themselves, narrate their experiences either good or bad, and show their own photos and videos presenting tribal culture, struggles, etc. Specifically, as the authors confirm the violence that Native American women are suffering, the blog could be filled with grim pictures and morbid narratives authored by Native American people. However, nothing like that is visible in the blog. Rather, the articles that boast about the actions by the American government lead readers to believe that there is peace and harmony between Native and Non-native Americans, and that everything is under control by the White House. To improve the blog, the government should consider giving a balance report on Native Americans, including their hardships and success and the government’s failures and accomplishments to protect the rights of the Native American people. References Donaldson, M. W. (2013, March 20). Native American traditional cultural landscapes action plan – better decisions for historic projects. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/06/28/native-american-traditional-cultural-landscapes-action-plan-better-decisions-histo-0 Gillette, J. (2013, March 18). Achieving a brighter future for tribal nations. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/03/18/achieving-brighter-future-tribal-nations Gillette, J. & Galbraith, C. (2013, March 7). President Signs 2013 VAWA – Empowering Tribes to Protect Native Women. [Web log comment]. 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