Welcome to my Digital Portfolio!
Hi my name is Andrew Horn and I’m from Bronxville, New York. I am currently a senior at Gettysburg College majoring in Sociology with a minor in Business. Throughout the progression of my Gettysburg College career I have attained the necessary skills to fully understand and conceptualize numerous sociological theories and practices that have been applicable to my capstone project. This site exhibits my senior sociology capstone project of how national media outlets covered and portrayed the NFL’s decision to resume play during the COVID-19 pandemic. I was able to complete this project by using several methods of qualitative and quantitative data to my advantage, thus allowing me to deliver my findings through this interactive digital portfolio.
This research topic is important because the COVID-19 pandemic has been a world changing event that will have a long lasting impact on society for the years to come. We need to understand all the facts that came with this virus, and be ready to combat a crisis like this in the future, if we want to improve as a society. Furthermore, understanding how media biases can potentially alter news stories, specifically in times of crisis and how biases can effects major corporations that are a pivotal part of our American culture. Thus, conveying stories and messages to a particular bias can lead to healthy or toxic morale in society, which in turn questions creditability of media outlets. With the NFL being one of America’s pastime traditions and a cornerstone of our culture, and millions of fans across the world who rely on the NFL for entertainment purposes, it has became vulnerable to criticism during this pandemic. It is vital to understand how media biases can play a part in depicting a cultural artifact of the American culture (NFL) during times of crisis, and the possible domino effect it might have on individuals who are loyal to the league.
This digital portfolio is divided into 8 sections, starting with the introduction, historical background, literature and theory, methodology, results and discussion, conclusion, bibliography and data sources, and about the author page. Each section has its own menu tab which can be found on the top page of the website. In the results and discussion page, there is a sub menu of my themes of liberalism, modernism, and conservatism. In each of these sections I used the drop in tool “Voyant” to help me illustrate key words in my three themes that were found in articles and media sources.