Contemporary Issues in Media World

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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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3rd Topic : Media Stereotypes

11:22 PM • • 0 comments



What is media stereotype? From your personal experience, what other media stereotype you have seen either on TV or in the movies?


Media Stereotype :

  • Media stereotypes are inevitable, especially in the advertising, entertainment and news industries, which need as wide an audience as possible to quickly understand information.
  • Stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person or group of people
  • usually relating to their class, ethnicity or race, gender, sexual orientation, social role or occupation.
Souce - http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/index.cfm


Examples of Media Stereotype :

From my own personal experience, i think i've seen so many types of cultural stereotype but i never realized it or recognized it as a stereotype. For examples, there are animal stereotypes in cartoons. Each different animals were presented differently in the cartoons and then it leads to certain animals to have stereotype. For example lions are always presented as the leader, king and brave. We can see this in Disney's cartoon, "The Lion King", " Madagascar" and in "The Chronicles of Narnia" lion was presented as powerful and the true ruler.

The good image of lion will be kept in children's mind. They will look the lions as brave and powerful. This could also apply to other animals such dog as a loyal friend to human. There a lots of cartoon and movies which portrayed dogs as loyal. Not to forget donkeys was always used to represent stupidness and people will bear in mind that donkeys are stupid. This influence people to think that donkey is somewhat lower class animal and is not cool compared to horse. It also had influence us to use it in our daily communication when comparing something such as " as stupid as donkey" or " as brave as lion".

Personal Reflection :

Holiday~ No class~ This topic is quite interesting. :p

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2nd Topic : The authenticy of Internet

11:10 PM • • 0 comments

"Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture" by Stanley Baran, pg 324


Do you often take what is on the Internet as truth without thinking much about it? If yes, why? If no, why?

Yes, sometimes i do believe what i read from the internet and No, sometimes i do not believe what i've read. It all depend on the websites itself. If its an online news sites such as CNN, The New Straits Time, Utusan and others, then of course the news are for real. But still i won't accept 100% the news there for a certain category such as POLITICS. I've heard many people said that sometimes the hide the real news just to make sure it wont deal any scratch to some highly ranked person in society.

If its about article, then it could be true or it could be wrong. When i'm going to search for something of course i won't just read 1 articles. there will be a whole bunch of articles that i can read under a same topic. From there i can compare between each others to make sure that the information given is for real. If it is an official sites for a company, group, corporates then i'll make sure its not a fake official site made by someone else like in the comic strip. I'll do some research by 'googling' around. The internet is so wide and there's a billion of users from all over the globe. People will discuss each others about what is true and what is fake. So many review can be found to make sure what is fake and what is not.

Sometimes out of no where i'll receive a forwarded email revealing about this company, this brand, that food, this people is like this and like that which is actually are not as what we've known before. Some are a bit shocking. But i won't easily believe the mail unless the source stated is a really strong source. There are also a few that leave down their contact detail and their phone number. Maybe to make it looks more trusty.

My personal reflection for last week's class, as usual it makes me a bit sleepy. Tried to my best to not feel sleepy by reading what's on the slides. I also try taking notes. When i'm jotting down the notes i feel like i'm trying to understand it and try to give focus to the topic. I also feel like a real student. This is how it should be actually. But the slides are ready to download anytime.

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