Digiulio 1

Carmine Digiulio

Professor Hellmers

English Composition 2

22 October 2021

Literature Review

This literature review will look at some significant sources for the research paper about

how politics influences our lives as a people. A total of ten references will be used to compile the

entire study. All the documents chosen and researched entail detailed analysis on how politics

has either affected people's lives or spaces negatively and positively. The first Document by

Suzan documents the first time the AIDS virus was first experienced. This virus led to the deaths

of very many people before what was happening was discovered. Due to the government's

involvement, research and drugs that could help elongate lives were finally discovered (Susan,

23). This was a breakthrough from the government and a sigh of relief to the patients and the

affected families. The Document, however, places blame on the government's failure to intervene

in time to help those who died horribly from the virus before the research was conducted.

Franklin is concerned about risky politics. This is about global warming issues and how

governments can ensure that the several bodies concerned with climatic change have constantly

tried, but not much has been achieved (24). He further mentions how the issue of global warming

has threatened food security and how things may go out of hand in the coming future. Giddens

and Anthony, on the other hand, talks about how globalization has made life easier for

individuals. They mention that through globalization, people have gotten the opportunity to
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source goods and products that they want from any part of the world (146). This has been made

possible through legislation by the Senate and Congress in America and across the world.

Suzanne speaks passionately about the problems that Latinos face in America. She is

concerned with issues of racial segregation (120). The division and profiling of people in

America based on their races had made lives difficult for the Latinos in America. This is partly

political because politicians also use sentiments that suggest racism during their campaigns to get

votes (123). She firmly believes that legislation can be done to rectify this mistake once and for

all.

Speight and James illustrate how politics influence fuel prices and how this affects the

lives of citizens directly and almost immediately. According to Speight and James (123), all

production and logistics depend heavily on fuel and oil. When these prices are raised beyond the

means of the ordinary citizen, then the first impact is a rise in prices of essential commodities

since they can hardly be produced.

The Document by Lester on Media and Environment: Conflict, politics, and the news are,

however, divergent a bit. It speaks majorly about politics having a role in the media and the

news. As much as the news reaches everybody, I feel the effect is insignificant because everyone

decides which news channel or paper they would love to watch, read, or hear.

After reading the documents, I learned that politics affects our lives without us knowing

sometimes. The articles suggested that one should go through their daily routine from dawn till

dusk and extensively look at each and see how politics influence each in one way or another. The

articles also made it clear that people should be aware of all the happenings around them

politically. This is the only way that their decisions will be informed when electing the
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politicians of their choice to help them lead a good life: “However, politics is also much more

ordinary – and the more ordinary, perhaps even mundane politics of everyday life can affect

us as profoundly as the extraordinary. Politics influences our everyday lives in countless ways,

and as you will see more clearly later in the course, we ourselves often engage in politics,

perhaps without even realising that we are acting politically” (Peters, pg. 3)
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Works Cited

Chambré, Susan Maizel. Fighting for our lives: New York's AIDS community and the politics of

disease. Rutgers University Press, 2006.

Fabricant, Michael, and Michelle Fine. Changing politics of education: Privatization and the

dispossessed lives left behind. Routledge, 2015.

Franklin, Jane, ed. The politics of risk society. Institute for Public Policy Research, 1998.

Franklin, Jane. "Politics and risk." Beyond the Risk Society (2006): 149-168

Giddens, Anthony. Runaway world: How globalization is reshaping our lives. Taylor & Francis,

2003.

Lester, Libby. Media and Environment: Conflict, politics and the news. Polity, 2010.

Oboler, Suzanne. Ethnic labels, Latino lives: Identity and the politics of (re) presentation in the

United States. U of Minnesota Press, 1995.

Peters, B. Guy. "The politics of taxation." A Comparative Perspective, Cambridge (1991): 58-64.

“What Is Politics?” OpenLearn, what is politics, www.open.edu/openlearn/society-politics-

law/what-politics/content-section-1.2? Accessed 7 Oct. 2021.