Contemporary Issues in Media World

Converted by Falcon Hive

8th Topic : Technology, Media and Culture

5:38 PM • , • 0 comments


Technology and How it is changing our Media and Culture

It’s typical for a new technology to be adapted within a culture and used to support existing patterns of behavior.

  • What kind of culture influences through technology can you see from today’s world?
  • Is there a possibility to reshape the (new) culture today via new technology, How?

1) There's a lot actually. One of the obvious technology that has lead to cultural influences would be blogging, social network and instant messaging. Nowadays almost each of us would have joined at least one of the social network whether its Friendster, Myspace, Facebook and such. Even though the majorities in our friend's list are the one that we already befriend with, but it's like a must to add them in our list. Even though we always meet them, talk to them but sometimes we also talk about something by leaving them message or comment in the space given virtually. Today, instant messaging are not only used to have a chitchat during leisures, but it has become a medium where we can hold a meeting with a group of people to settle down our task. Some people prefers to have this kind of meeting than actually have a live meeting outside.

2) It is not impossible to reshape new culture today when we have new technology. Technology are improving day by days and as long as we have new technology, it can influence into reshaping new culture in our society. When it makes things easier and interesting, people will tend to use it and soon after it will become a new culture. For example, prayer reminder for Muslims in their own mobile. I've seen lots of people are using it now. It makes things easier when they're at their workplace or when their house is far from the mosque where they can't hear the athan. It's easier because mobiles are carried with them no matter where they are.

Personal Reflection :

This week's lecture by Mdm Helena was interesting. It's about how technology and media had changes and give impact to our culture. This will be the last topic for our Blog's Assignment. Even assignments can be done via blogging. Can this influence to new culture too? Heheh. Anyway, the assignments had teach me many things and of course i've learnt few things from it. Its one of the interesting assignment i ever had. I feel like i'm able to point out my own point of view. Before this i dont like blogging because i felt like i'm not good in writing and i dont know what to say, but now i feel like setting up my own blog to share my views to others. Sometimes i feel like its a must for us to have it. Many good things can be deliver and its all about how we appreciate the media. :)

Big thanks to our lecturers. Even though i'm boring when they were giving a lecture but i did learn many things from them for this subject. It's like an eye-opening subject for me and it relates very closely to our life.

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7th Topic : Media Imperialism

11:56 PM • • 0 comments



Media Imperialism
The idea that powerful and wealthy countries can exercise economic, cultural and social control over others through control of media industries.

The media coverage of the larger nations has been criticized as having blanket coverage of the world's events. Many think that media imperialism has led to biased information and inaccuracy within news stories. - (taken from week 7's lecture's note)



The Power of Nightmares: The Shadows In The Cave (Part 3)


This video has been showed to us during the lecture in week 7.

The Power of Nightmares is a BBC documentary produced by Adam Curtis. The films compare the rise of the Neo-Conservatives movement in the United States and the radical islam movement, making comparisons on their origins and claiming similarities between the two.

More controversially, it argues that the threat of radical Islamism as a massive, sinister organised force of destruction, specifically in the form of al-Qaeda is a myth perpetrated by politicians in many countries—and particularly American Neo-Conservatives—in an attempt to unite and inspire their people following the failure of earlier, more utopian ideologies. (taken from wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares )

From what the documentary has showed to us regarding this issues, its very clear and obvious now that the tragedy of 9/11 was an inside job and there's a hidden conspiracy lies within.

This is surely an example of media imperialism. The so-called world leader is lying and fooling their own people and this is not the only big lie that they've made, there's a lot more that we didn't know or didn't ever think of. Some of us didn't notice of their lies and conspiracy. How can this happen? It's because they have a control over media. Let me give a simple example. Television. Some of us never realized that the news that have been spread through the TV might not be 100% trustworthy anymore. They will cover up the news so that it will make them look good and make the other side looks bad. This could not only be apply to news, but also other type of media such as cartoon, music, and also movie. Sometimes the representation used in the movie was totally differs from the real thing. They tried to poison people's thought through it with many things and of course the obvious one is about Muslim being a terrorist. Even before 9/11 they've made up such things and included them even in cartoons. Who's the viewer? Kids of course. They are trying to poison us starting from our kid's lifetime!

I'd like to quote this sentence which i find it's very interesting :

" It is our TV viewing that shapes our understanding of the world and ourselves. However, it is saturated with U.S. influence and media imperialism. How much television has affected our culture and sovereignty is yet to be seen. Only time will tell. " (taken from : TV & Media Imperialism By Catherine Woods)

The world leaders now might are up to something. Who knows. They made Islam and the Arabics looks bad. What i know is that the Arabic lands are rich of oil. They might be setting up a system which can benefits them and their voice of the system is, of course, "MEDIA". We are living in a world of deception. People were spoon-fed with lies and fantasy. The leaders use the word peace, war on terror just to gain authorities. They made it looks like they're trying to protect us while the real thing is uncover. Its like they are trying to blurred our eyes and blind us from the truth.

Here's a story i'd like to share. I've heard this story so many times but i couldn't memorise it. Luckily i've found it while googling about media imperialism. Cool!

" The 13th century Sufi teacher, Rumi, told a tale of a group of blind men trying to describe an elephant by touch alone. One felt the trunk and described it as a rope. Another felt the leg and described it as a tree while the third one felt the ear and described it as a fan. The point of the story was to show how the unenlightened may miss the truth of the whole : the elephant as coherent reality. " ( Cultural imperialism By John Tomlinson, American Council of Learned Societies )

Lastly, there's 1 more video i'd like to share. A very very interesting video to me. For me its a must watch documentary. Open your eyes widely~



What a shocking things to discover! After watching the videos, i did google it just like the creator of the video said and there are lots of information about it on the net. I have never ever before, not even once thought of this and i never expected it to be like this. How come i didn't know about this when the information is widely spread on the internet? Looks like i, myself too being deceived by what has been feed to me.

Personal Reflection :

I was so happy when our lecturer said the lectures will be short just in about 15 minutes :) ! But not anymore when she said we are going to watch an hour long documentary :( . But actually tha documentary was so interesting that i could concetrate watching it. But sometimes i do felt a bit boring because of not understanding what the people in the video were talking about. Now i begin to like this whole media thing because i can relate it to what happens around me. But when it comes to lectures, still i cant resist to not to sleep.. :p

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6th Topic : Tetrad of Media Effects

11:50 PM • • 0 comments

Tetrad of Media Effects




McLuhan's tetrad of media effects taken from week 9 lecture note.


"The tetrad is a means of examining the effects on society of any technology/medium and explaining the social processes underlying the adoption of a technology/medium by dividing its effects into four categories." -Wikipedia


  • "What does it (the medium or technology) extend?"
  • "What does it make obsolete?"
  • "What is retrieved?"
  • "What does the technology reverse into if it is over extended?"

Base on the information given from week 9 lecture's note, i choose online video to apply this tetrad of media effects.

Online videos nowadays can be easily obtained anywhere and anytime. For example we have YouTube, the largest video sharing community.


A few list of drama availables in www.mysoju.com for online streaming.
Click for larger view


Enhance
Video enhance our eyes to watch lots of uploaded videos on the net whether its a movie, drama, anime, documentary, music video and so on.

Obsolesces
Online video makes us interesting in buying VCD or DVD to watch something because they can get it online.

Retrieves
We can get a lots of free videos which are shared widely on the internet among other users all around the globe. We can download it for free, request for it in a certain forum if we couldn't find it, or even watch it online without having to download it at all.

Reverses
Too much usage of video online makes us involves in copyright policy matter. Because of its widely open to everyone, it makes us feel used to it. Used to watch it for free in YouTube, used to download it for free and also used to distributes it to others.

Thus, it will lead to a copyright problem. We uploaded movies without thinking of its copyright and distributed it without the permission of the owner. This can also be called piracy. When we can have it all online, one day it might lead to a bigger problem among the video maker such as film producer to suffer loss from piracy.

Personal Reflection
This week's class was a bit boring. I had a few yawn and i really tried my best not to fall asleep. What i remember from the lecture was only when Mr.Razi gave example on tetrad media, and the example of hot and cold media. When it comes to example it always makes me understand better.

Recently my senior said that, most people nowadays don't really listen to the facts anymore but, they want to know how to apply the fact into their life. :)

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5th Topic : Obscenity, pornography and indecency

11:29 PM • , • 0 comments


Obscenity, pornography and indecency. What are the differences between these terms?

First of all, lets take a look at the definition for each of them.

Obscenity :
  1. The state or quality of being obscene.
  2. Indecency, lewdness, or offensiveness in behavior, expression, or appearance.
  3. Something, such as a word, act, or expression, that is indecent or lewd.
  4. Something that is offensive or repulsive to the senses: “What had once been a gentle hill covered with lush grass turned into a brown obscenity of bare earth and smoke” (Tom Clancy).
  1. Sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal.
  2. The presentation or production of this material.
  3. Lurid or sensational material: “Recent novels about the Holocaust have kept Hitler well offstage [so as] to avoid the … pornography of the era” (Morris Dickstein).
(Source: http://www.answers.com/pornography )

Indecency :
  1. The state or quality of being unseemly or immodest.
  2. Something indecent or improper.
  3. An improper act or statement.
(Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/indecency )


Differences between Obscenity, Pornography and Indecency

Even though these three terms are different from the aspect of definition, but they are actually closely related to each other. But of course these 3 terms aren't the same. It's just that they're related to each other or it could also mean that one term might lead to the another term.

Indecency base on the definition and the word itself is something which is improper. It might be something which is not improper to be done publicly. It depends on place, culture, society and religion. In certain place when this act is done it might be seen as improper but it might not have any issues of improper when its done in another different place. Different place has a different view of certain things because of its different society and environment. For example, back in my school, when we saw some students from our school taking pictures with guys by having a very close contact with each other's body, we would definitely said that its an improper things to do. Because our school is a religious school and we see it as not a good thing to do from our religious point of view and is not suppose to be our culture. But when its outside of our school, others will think it as normal. It also depend on who did it. Someone from a religious school with someone who came from normal school, people will judge differently base on individuals itself.

Obscenity, i would say an indecent act too whether by action or verbally but this term is more to something worse than indecency. Its because obscenity has something to do with offending sexual morality. It is something disgusting. In certain countries, certain laws were implemented to handle obscenity. The law differs between different countries.

Pornography, is like the extend of obscenity and worse than obscenity. Pornography are usually in the form of certain media such as movie, films, games, animation, pictures, drawing, comic books and such which intended to sexually exciting the viewers. Pornography is not about the sexual act itself, but it's the sexual act which has been presented via medias.


Personal Reflection :

I wait and wait and wait. Looking at my mobile's clock. Time passed nearly half an hour but none of my lecturers are seen. It's a good sign. This might indicate that we're not going to have lectures today. Hehe. But suddenly Mr.Radzi came. My wish didn't came true. But it did came true actually because he came just to tell us about our 2nd assignment and we didn't have any lectures on that day.~ :D

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4th Topic : Media Literacy

11:27 PM • • 0 comments


What is media literacy and why is it important for you as FCM students to have it?

Media Literacy :

  • Process of accessing, analyzing, evaluating and creating messages in a wide variety of media modes, genres and forms.
  • Uses an inquiry-based instructional model that encourages people to ask questions about what they watch, see, and read.
  • Media literacy education provides tools to help people critically analyze messages to detect propaganda, censorship, and bias in news and public affairs programming, and to understand how structural features.
( Media Literacy from Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_literacy)


Importance of Media Literacy to FCM Students :

1) In my opinion, media literacy is important to FCM students because its in our field of studies and we are the one who's going to used it to spread, share and tell people our thoughts, opinion and message through media. Thus, before using it, firstly we need to know what it is by accessing it, analyzing it, evaluating it and then we can create something to pass on our message through it. It's about what we wanted to say and how we are going to say or present it to the people to give an impact or to create an awareness in certain issues. What differs us from other media students is that we present our message creatively by making things more unique and more attractive.

2) By studying media literacy we learn to not just take whatever we saw and heard as the truth. As a multimedia students we need to first check the authenticy of the information we've saw on television or read in the newspaper. Nowadays the world are full of deception, lies and conspiracy because of some big entity having full control of media. It sounds like the media itself is an evil "tool". No, the media or the tools used is not at fault at all. Its how people use it that will determine whether it will lead to right or wrong. It is up for us to use the tools given wisely and deliver the true message so that people will be more aware and conscious of today's propaganda.

Personal Reflection :

I was absence from this week's lecture..hehe :p.. But I heard the lectures was interesting and its about media representation and cultural stereotype. When i first heard of the topic i thought its going to be boring. When i read through the lecture's note it was not bad at all. I think i've learn new things again from this subject :p. But judging from what people's been talking I know that it will be more interesting if i was there listening to the lecture. :p

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