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A new graphic compiled by Hilary Mason and Anna Smith of Bit.ly and Forbes Magazine’s Jon Bruner shows the popularity of different online news sites across the United States. The graphic uses data from Bit.ly, a link-shortening website. The team looked for unusually popular linked articles and compiled click-through information to create a color-coded map of the United States that shows the online news reporting preference of each state. Users can view an interactive version of the map that offers detailed information about each state. Clicking on any particular news source shows a breakdown of the most popular news stories and where those stories are popular. Web users can then use Bit.ly links to read the most popular articles in each state. The obvious bias of the graphic is that all of the data comes from Bit.ly. Bit.ly only tracks clicks from web users who use the service, of course, so the data is far from a complete representation of the United States’ online news consumption. Nevertheless, the limited data shows interesting geographical trends. For instance, Illinois and Indiana are the only two states that get most of their news from Illinois’ Chicago Tribune. Fox News dominates in Texas, Montana and Mississippi, but otherwise makes no appearances on the map. USA Today is the most popular news source for Bitly users in 12 states including Florida and Nevada, while the New York Times’ reach is essentially confined to the East Coast. Perhaps most surprisingly, the satirical news site The Onion leads the pack in Wisconsin, Minnesota and New Mexico. Bit.ly allows its users to find detailed usage by adding “+” to the end of a Bitly link. Bruner, Smith and Mason compiled an extraordinary amount of this same usage data to create the graphic. The map claims to use “millions of web clicks,” and Forbes says that it will update the map monthly to reflect new media trends.

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Popular U.S. News Sites by State: Who’s Reading What and Where

Two British mothers have joined forces to protest what they see as increasing gender stereotyping among manufacturers and retailers who target children. Emma and Abi Moore, twin sisters who have two children each, began their anti-stereotyping campaign, Pinkstinks, four years ago. Emma Moore, who has two daughters, became aware of the problem before her sister, who has two boys, noticed anything was amiss. According to Moore, retailers in Great Britain color-code toys and products that align with traditional gender roles. Products associated with male gender roles feature blue packaging and signage, while those associated with female gender roles are packaged in pink with pink signage. Furthermore, the products themselves are often pink. Both sisters agree with other observers that such color-coding effectively locks children into stereotypical roles and activities. Both boys and girls are very conscious of which toys are for girls and which are for boys. As a result, boys who want to practice parenting or housekeeping skills or girls who want to play with science kits or tools receive powerful messages that such activities are inappropriate for them because of their gender. The Moores experienced opposition to their stance initially, even from their own mother, who was an active proponent of gender equality when they were small. The media also responded to the campaign with the equivalent of a giant roll of the eyes. More recently, however, the response has been more positive, including an award by a mothers’ group for encouraging children to feel positive about their bodies. Retailers have also exhibited signs that the Pinkstinks campaign is having an impact. In some cases, they have removed labels indicating toys were intended for boys or girls. The pair has recently begun a new campaign, entitled Slap, which is attempting to stem what they see as a recent move by British companies towards producing and marketing makeup and other beauty products to girls as young as two years old. Emma Moore was the first to notice the new trend when her four-year-old daughter received makeup as a party favor. Although Moore discarded the gift as inappropriate, makeup for small children soon became a mainstay in British stores. The women were originally upset that toys marketed to boys typically focused on work and outdoor play, while those marketed to girls emphasized parenting and housekeeping activities. According to Abi Moore, the focus has shifted. Girls are bombarded with products that emphasize their appearance and encourage them to engage in real or imaginary beauty procedures. Slap is putting pressure on retailers to stop marketing makeup to preschool-aged children. However, it is also trying to make parents aware of the message such products are sending their children of both genders. Abi Moore believes the products sexualize little girls and encourage both boys and girls to view girls and women as one-dimensional creatures whose purpose in life is to be attractive. To prevent her sons from buying into the stereotypes, Abi More watches women’s soccer with them and regularly exposes them to movies that feature strong female leads. In spite of Emma Moore’s efforts, her daughter recently insisted that a playset featuring farm animals was only appropriate for boys, citing the blue packaging, blue signage and the boy shown playing with it on the package as irrefutable proof.

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It’s Time to Rethink Pink, Says Anti-Gender Stereotyping Campaign

In the course of any argument or discussion, good communicators need to know how to avoid logical fallacies. Logical fallacies weaken an argument by treating a false assumption as fact, but because many speakers and writers don’t take the time to consider the basis of their arguments, logical fallacies are fairly common in politics, business and even in interpersonal communication. This infographic about rhetorical techniques and logical fallacies (aka rhetological fallacies) by Information is Beautiful can help you understand these concepts better. To understand logical fallacies, you should consider the six main categories of fallacy types: attacks, content manipulation, faulty deduction, inaccurate cause and effect, emotional appeals and mental appeals. While there are dozens of different fallacies, most of them fall into these six groups. Attacks include ad hominems, in which the speaker attacks the other speaker rather than the counterargument. Unfortunately, this type of argument can be effective, but pointing out the attack will undermine its effectiveness. Content manipulation is exactly what it sounds like: changing facts in order to suit the goals of an argument. The classic example is a confirmation bias. The speaker ignores facts that do not support or that directly oppose his argument. Faulty deduction mimics a logical argument, but makes an ultimately illogical conclusion. The speaker might assume that a small sample size represents a whole group or that a general rule applies to all individual circumstances. Some faulty deductions are hard to spot, but they undermine an argument just the same. Inaccurate or garbled cause and effect is somewhat similar to faulty deduction, but these arguments try to draw a clear link between an observation and an assumption when such a link isn’t necessarily there. An example is denying the antecedent. The speaker might say that “new refrigerators are cold, so the only way to get a cold refrigerator is to buy new.” This falsely assumes that there is one logical explanation for why a refrigerator would be cold–that is, it is a new refrigerator. All inaccurate cause and effect fallacies make a similar logical leap from a fact to a conclusion. Mental appeals include the appeal to authority, which politicians frequently use. Saying something like, “that man must be guilty, because the police arrested him,” would be an example of an appeal to authority. The speaker is not addressing the core argument of the man’s guilt. Instead, he’s implying that the authority has expert knowledge of the circumstances and therefore must be correct. Other mental appeals make similar jumps in logic. An appeal to probability, for instance, assumes the inevitability of an event or circumstance without any reasoning. In an appeal to tradition, the speaker opposes change simply because it is a departure from established practices. Appeals to the mind appear to make sense at first, but they’re easily eliminated through logical counterargument. Appeals to emotion are almost identical, but they focus on fear, love, hate and other strong emotions. An appeal to spite is a classic example. The speaker might say, “republicans hate the environment, so trusting a republican’s energy plan is ludicrous.” Usually, appeals to emotion are less overt, but they ignore the logical parts of an argument in favor of controlling the listener’s emotions. All of these types of fallacies can quickly weaken a strong argument. In order to communicate clearly, you should remember to avoid these fallacies and know how to spot them in opposing points of view.

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Rhetological Fallacies: Errors and Manipulations of Rhetoric and Logical Thinking

You may be surprised to find that many famous people in the entertainment, sports and political fields have more in common than a photogenic smile and a career spent in the public eye. Many of the people who manage to turn their time in the spotlight into successful careers have degrees in communication. Some of the names on the following list may surprise you, but on second thought, they shouldn’t. What better degree is there for a person whose career depends upon communicating effectively with the public? 1. John Quincy Adams served as the sixth president between the years 1825 and 1829. He was also a diplomat, a senator, and member of the House of Representatives. Although he was not popular enough as president to be elected for a second term, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest secretaries of state The United States has ever had. Communication degrees did not exist at the time, but rhetoric was already considered an important skill for those pursuing a secondary education. Adams taught the subject to students at his alma mater, Harvard. 2. David Boreanaz became famous playing the role of Angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the show’s spinoff, Angel. Currently, he is cast as an FBI agent on Bones. He is also a producer and director of note. Boreanaz got his communication degree from Ithaca College. 3. Mary Elizabeth “Liz” Sutherland Carpenter , who was often referred to as the funniest woman in politics during her long career, wore many hats. She was a journalist, an author, a popular public speaker, a feminist, a humorist, and a political adviser. She was also a journalism major who graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. 4. Brandi Denise Chastain is a professional soccer player with the California Storm and former midfielder for the U.S. women’s national soccer team. She earned her communication degree from Santa Clara University. 5. Constance Yu-Hwa Chung Povich , better known to viewers as simply Connie Chung, has earned the respect of the world of broadcast journalism as an anchor and reporter for virtually every major American news outlet. It all started with a journalism degree from the University of Maryland, College Park. 6. Stephen Tyrone Colbert hosts Comedy Central’s political satire, The Colbert Report and is a regular on the network’s Daily Show. His communication degree came from the Northwestern University School of Communication. 7. Robert Quinlan Costas , known to fans as Bob Costas, has been a popular sportscaster for three decades. Costas started out as a Communications & Rhetorical Studies major at Syracuse University. Although he never received his degree from Syracuse, once he had established himself as a sportscaster, he was granted an honorary degree in communications from S. I. Newhouse School of Communications. 8. James J. Gandolfini, Jr. brought the character of Tony Soprano, Mafia don, to life. In the process, he received critical acclaim and an Emmy award, as well as three Screen Actors Guild Awards. Gandolfini’s BA in communications came from Rutgers University. 9. Richard Andrew “Dick” Gephardt is a career politician who was the Representative from Missouri and became the House Majority Leader, then the House Minority Leader when political tides turned. He pursued the Democratic nomination for president twice. In Gephardt’s day, communication degrees were called speech degrees. His came from Northwestern University 10. John Gray is well known as the author of the book “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.” Gray used the book as a springboard for his career as an author, public speaker and relationship counselor. He has written a series of books expanding the ideas found in his first book and founded a training school for counselors who use his principles to work with couples. Gray’s Ph.D in communication came from Columbia Pacific University. 11. Marcia Gay Harden , known for playing elegant, composed women on the Broadway stage and on film, is the recipient of an Academy Award as well as a Tony Award. She earned her Master of Fine Arts from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. 12. Mark Harmon , the actor who became famous playing doctors on St. Elsewhere and Chicago Hope, currently stars as Leroy Jethro Gibbs in military detective series NCIS. He earned his degree in communications from UCLA. 13. Marg Helgenberger won an Academy Award for her portrayal of K.C. Koloski in the television series China Beach. She is also known for her portrayal of Catherine Willows on the groundbreaking crime drama, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Helgenberger originally studied to be a nurse but changed her mind, ending up in what is now the School of Communication at Northwestern University, where she received her bachelor’s degree. 14. Charlton Heston , who started out in life as John Charles Carter, is famous for playing larger-than-life men who found themselves faced with challenges and faced them with courage. He won an academy award for his portrayal of Ben-Hur. He was also a powerful political activist who took his own courageous stand against racism in the 1950s and 1960s. His training in the field of communications undoubtedly aided Heston in getting his Civil Rights message across to listeners. He earned his degree from the Northwestern University School of Communication. 15. William Motter Inge , Pulitzer prizewinning playwright and novelist known as the “Playwright of the Midwest,” got his Bachelor of Arts degree in Speech and Drama from the University of Kansas. 16. Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson , more commonly known as Lady Bird Johnson, former first lady of the United States, used her position to make world a slightly better place. An intellectual and conservationist, Johnson earned bachelor’s degrees in both history and journalism from The University of Texas at Austin. 17. Edward James Koppel , known to late-night viewers of the news program Nightline as Ted Koppel, for 25 years, was the recipient of a Master of Arts Degree in Mass Communications Research and Political Science from Stanford University. 18. Brian Lamb , CEO of C-SPAN, put his communication degree from Purdue University to good use, communicating the ins and outs of politics to viewers more effectively than anyone before him had ever done. 19. Gary Larson , the cartoonist who created the quirky humor that infused the cartoon series The Far Side and sold more than 45 million copies of collections of the single single-panel cartoons has a Bachelor of Arts in communications from Washington State University. 20. Matthew Todd Lauer , known to viewers as Matt, is a broadcast journalist and host of The Today Show for more than two decades. He graduated from the School of Media Arts and Studies at Ohio University. 21. Shelton Jackson Lee , who was given the affectionate nickname Spike by his mother, is as well known as a political activist as he is as an Academy Award-nominated director, producer, writer, and actor. Lee earned his Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication from Morehouse College, then went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts in Film and Television from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. 22. David Michael Letterman , the comic host of television’s Late Show with David Letterman is also a producer. His communication degree came from Ball State University, where he has established a scholarship for average students such as he claims to have once been. 23.Donovan Jamal McNabb , former Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback earned a number of records during his professional football career. Before he was a professional quarterback, he was a college football player working on a Bachelor’s degree in communication from Syracuse University, where he currently serves on the Board of Trustees. 24. Matthew David McConaughey made a name for himself playing likeable leading men in romantic comedies. He earned his communication degree from the College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. 25. Nicholas Meyer is a modern-day Renaissance Man. He is a screenwriter, producer and director as well as best-selling author. He was nominated for an Academy Award for the screenplay adaptation of his book “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution,” which raised eyebrows by having Sherlock Holmes seek the services of Sigmund Freud to help him overcome an addiction to cocaine in between solving a thorny mystery. He is the recipient of three Saturn Awards. It is no surprise that Meyer’s communication degree from the University of Iowa is in theater and filmmaking. 26. Daniel Irvin Rather, Jr. , known affectionately to generations of viewers as Dan, was the face of the e CBS Evening News, where he worked as anchor, for most of his career. After he left CBS due to a report during the 2008 presidential campaign that was later proven to be unverified, he went on to complete a number of journalistic projects before retiring for good. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism at Sam Houston State University. 27. Dave St. Peter , who has been with the Minnesota Twins for decades, became the president of the Major League Baseball team in 2009. Given the fact that his position keeps him squarely in the center of the public’s eye, it is no surprise that St. Peter holds a communication degree from the University of North Dakota. 28. Howard Allan Stern is best known as a radio personality, but he is also a television host, as well as a successful author and actor. Stern’s radio program has been on the air since 1985, and it continues to be heard all over the country on satellite radio. Although Stern’s controversial and outspoken approach led to him being fired early in his career and caught the unwanted attention of the FCC in the mid-2000s, Stern is no intellectual lightweight. He graduated magna cum laude from Boston University. Given his success in virtually every modern form of media, it is not surprising that his degree is in communications. 29. Curtis Edward Warner was a running back for the Seattle Seahawks. A member of the College Football Hall of Fame, Warner was a two-time All-American when he played at Penn State University, where he got his bachelor’s degree in speech communication. Since the time of the Ancient Greeks, communication has been recognized as a crucial part of education. Over the last century, communications studies have evolved from a single course on rhetoric at many colleges and universities to encompass an entire field of study. Schools of communication are proudly numbered among the colleges at many top universities and often offer students not only the opportunity to study theory and learn by doing, but often the chance to conduct research in the field as well. There are few majors as dynamic and relevant to today’s world as communication.

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29 Famous People You Never Knew Had Communication Degrees

When it comes to sex and love, what is blurring the line? It’s been said that every seven seconds men think about sex, but what time of day do they think about it most, are they the only ones thinking about it, and what causes them to think about it? Oh, and as for love, why do we so often get the two confused? Is there some kind of factor causing this blur? The results of this study give us some insight into the love lives of men and women. Thanks to University of Edinburgh we were able to conduct this research using a tool they developed called TweetOLife . Researchers used TweetOLife to analyze millions of tweets collected between November 2009 and February 2010. It let us analyze the gender and hourly differences of these tweets, so that we could end up with the results below. Which Gender Actually Talks About Sex More Our first two questions were common ones: which gender talks about love more and which gender talks about sex more? If you look at the graph below, you’ll find that women talk about love 26% more than men. The exact numbers showing 37% of men and 63% of women discussed love. But what surprised us is that it is pretty even between the genders when it comes to who is talking about sex. Turns out women talk about sex nearly the same as men do. The actual numbers reveal 48% of men and 52% of women tweeted about sex. So When Is Sex On the Mind? So we know who’s talking about it sex and love, but when are they talking about it, and what is making them think about it? This answer was not that surprising: alcohol. When we looked at the frequency of tweets containing the word “drunk,” we noticed these tweets peaked from 10pm to 2am. We also noticed tweets containing the words “sex” and “love” also increased during these times. Just for fun, we put in the word “horny” and it had the highest correlation with “drunk” tweets. While this study is not perfect, it does reveal some interesting insights into the sex and love lives of men and women. It also gives us an idea of what may be blurring the line between these two feelings. It is important to remember these are general topics and phrases used in tweets. For example, analyzing tweets from a person saying “I love my boyfriend” would have been mixed in with the same patch of people stating “I love Justin Bieber.” Fans drunken love for Bieber would make a cool study though. In the study’s defense, these people are still stating their love which may have increased with intoxication. Also, to make sure this did not flaw the data we also tested the phrase “I love you” and found a similar correlation. So what can we learn from this study? If someone tells you they love you between 10pm and 2am, you might not want to trust what they are telling you.

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When Is Sex On the Mind?

CBS News Anchor, Erica Hill (COM ’98), speaks with current journalism students in the College of Communication about the advantages of studying journalism at BU.

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Erica Hill Talks about the Advantages of Studying Journalism at BU