Reshaping culture with new technology (Critical reflection2)

2) Is there a possibility to reshape the (new) culture today via new technology, How?

In my opinion, there is a big possibility to reshape the (new) culture today via new technology. Culture can be changed according to the situation. Culture will change from times to times whenever there is new technology. The "TV culture has gone" by Bob Garfield is an example of how the creation of "new" media (Internet) change the perspective of human toward TV. How will this new technology change the current culture? It is as simple as because human just like new thing and keep themselves up to date with the latest trend. In addition, if the invention of 3D broadcast is success, the 2D broadcast will no longer be used. This is because people know it is better view by seeing the 3D broadcast compare to 2D. People will no longer use projector, LCD screen and other 2D screen devices because they think it is out dated. In conclusion, if a new technology is created with functions that fulfil our needs, it will gain its popularity very soon. When many people prefer to use the new technology, the older one will be abandon. And hence, a new culture formed. It happened otherwise if the technology offers poor function and does not gain attention of people.

Technology and the culture it influences (critical reflection1)

It’s typical for a new technology to be adapted within a culture and used to support existing patterns of behaviour. With your own relevant examples, answer these questions.

1) What kind of culture influences through technology can you see from today’s world?

In my opinion, I think one of best examples for culture influences through technology that I can see from today’s world is cell phone culture.

Cell phone is an amazing tool that do make our life better as it can be use to call for help, contact anyone around the world, keep track of time, keep it user entertained (Games, Music and Video) and can used as a flash light. The latest advance cell phones even have 3G and GPS function. 3G functions allow the caller to see the receiver face to face and GPS function provide the user way to nearest town or road. With just carry a cell phone, one can do many things very easily and will no longer feel afraid or lonely.

The cell phone culture is a global phenomenon and indeed had influenced our culture from all around the world in today. No matter you are children, teenager, adult or old folk, most of them already have their own cell phone.

Below is a documentary video talk about technology of cell phone revolution the world.

“This compelling documentary takes viewers on a journey through cell phone culture, showcasing its numerous functions around the world from Japan to India.”

To watch the whole video: Cell Phone, The Ring Heard around the World, go to http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/cellphones/video.html

As a conclusion, the cell phone had shaped our culture as we are now calling or messaging each other more often using a cell phone and these has resulted in less face to face interaction. Besides, the cheap rates of instant messaging have degraded the use of proper language in youths today. As you can see, the cell phone culture has changed our society into one that demands speed and efficiency in telecommunications.

Personal Reflection-Week 11

This week lecture is about Technology & how it is changing our media & culture. Once again it is delivered by Madam Helena. Today, I had learned about the advancement of technology has changed our culture in several ways. For example, most of us using social network to communicate with each other, download movies or TV-series from internet instead of watching TV and read online newspaper to get latest news from internet. Besides, Madam Helena also showed us several short videos to watch. One of the video talks about ACU University demonstrated the versatility of the I-Phone. However, this week is the week we will be given our final blog assignment. Overall, I felt happy and quite satisfy with what I had learned from Media Culture Class. For me, it is always nice to be given a chance to do writing on the blog. Goodbye, my MLC Blog!

Media Imperialism (Critical Reflection2)

In this post I will further explain what media imperialism is and how it affects the society. Basically, media imperialism is about smaller countries are losing their identity due to the force-feeding of media from larger nations. It can be equated to small community shops closing down due to large superstores moving in, taking over and having a monopoly. As the larger media corporations begin to take over, smaller media companies are either being forced out or swallowed up.

When the media is under the controlled of larger nations, they can create many things on media to influence the public, they have the power to decide any type of awareness that is suit to be known by the public and what to be cover-up from the public. As a result, most of the truth had been buried behind and left all the great lies that are shown to the society. Someone may know the truth, but they cannot do anything about it or cannot even find a chance to speak up. This is because they do not have the power like the stronger and larger nations to change the fact. Even if they manage to speak up, and the public knew the truth, nothing will change too because the one who control the media is still the one who creates the lies.

Just like In advertising, all products are advertised as perfect regardless of its real ability, and any bad feedback will be covered up during the advertising. As long as the advertising company are able to pay to the media company, such phenomena continues. And that is the reason why we never see any advertisement saying a product is not good. Both of the company will able to get their own company profits and benefits if they cooperate with each other. In the end, the public is the one who become victim and been trick. However, there is an exception - cigarettes. Before the government banned the advertisements of cigarette, we can see them frequently everywhere. The media company cover up the consequences of smoking and make smoking into a cool act. However it had been ended since our government decides to stop all advertising of smoking in our country. That is why what we are seeing today on advertisements about smoking in our country is all about “cancer”, “death” and “illness”. Yet this is media imperialism as well; the government control the media to show the effects of smoking to the public, but at least it is a positive matter.

Hence I said that media imperialism is not always bad although usually it is. Media imperialism can be good too if the one who control the world media is willing to tell the truth. I believe it all depends greatly on the Media Company or whoever that has the power to control the media.

Media Imperialism (Critical Reflection1)

The documentary entitled "The Power of Nightmares (Part 3 - Shadow in the Cave)" by Adam Curtis was shown in class on Monday. How do you relate the information given to you in the documentary to the theory of Media Imperialism that we talked about in lecture?

The documentary is about how the power country (the rich and advance country like US) makes the world believe that terrorist is actively involving in crimes and state that vanish the "terrorist" is the correct way. However, the "terrorist" actually does not exist; in fact, it is just an assumption of the super power country. It is very obvious that the country has abused the power of media for their own purpose. Although there are small group of people who realise that this is not right, they cannot speak up their words as the media is dominated by the powerful country. This is similar to Media Imperialism.

From the documentary, I learn that media imperialism is very unfair to the weak as they are being force to obey and tolerance by the stronger rival; the stronger one can make whatever action and claim it as a correct act even it is wrong. Using the example from the documentary, the late President of America, Bush had announced that there was an active terrorist army, which involved in the 911 tragedy, located at somewhere around the Afghanistan. As we can see, through media imperialism, the Bush administration was able gain power and authority in the people. They control the media content by showing the people what the politicians consider as the truth. The truths were covered up while others were distorted or made up. Politicians created an illusion for themselves and a shadow enemy for America. For example in the Documentary, they told the world of the existence of a terrorist organization called Al Qaeda which is lead by Osama Bin Laden. The truth was actually there was no Al Qaeda. Bin Laden was merely a wealthy man who funded the operations of Islamist terrorist. They even added that this organization have operatives in more than 40 countries, while in reality, these terrorist are merely different groups of people fighting against regimes in their own countries. Besides, they also announced that terrorist intent to use dirty bombs to attack America. According to experts, actually such threats are of no concern because the radioactivity produced is not harmful to humans.

In my opinion, the US government practice media imperialism because as one of the world’s leading economic powerhouse, their actions are monitored by the world. Media imperialism is very unsafe and yet, not easy to block because the media has been controlled by developed countries and they are the only one who have the power to filter and choose what they want the public to think and know. In other words, only the strong country will have the ability to use “Media Imperialism” to control the whole world.

Personal Reflection-Week 10

This week, there were just a few of us (less than half of the class) who attended the class and many were absent due to the Design Fundamental upcoming submission. Basically, we only have a 15 minutes lecture by Madam Helena. It is about Media Imperialism. After the lecture, I understand that Media Imperialism is about a superior country control and influences others by dominating the media. Then, we were asked to watch an hour-long video: “The Power of Nightmares (Part 3-Shadow in the Cave)”. It is a very interesting video to watch and I do enjoy it very much. So, I hope during the next lecture, Madam Helena will provide or show us another interesting video too. For me personally, I like video more than long and boring slides.

Tetrad Of Media (Critical Reflection 2)

This is a website which provides examples of the laws of media applied on mobile phone.
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/innis-mcluhan/002033-2030-e.html,

Below is a the example used: Can you apply the laws of media to the cellular telephone?

1)What does the cell phone enhance?
· Interpersonal communication
· Accessibility
· Response time

2)What does it make obsolete?
· Phone booths
· Privacy and anonymity
· Isolation and the home

3)What does it retrieve?
· Tribal culture
· Acoustic space
· Cameras

3)What does it flip into when pushed to extremes?
· Letters



This is my personal explanation based on the above example:

The cell phone makes the communication between people become more convenient, easy, and faster. It is easily accessible because the cell phone can be placed anywhere in our pocket and hand bag as it is small. Besides, it enables us communicate with individuals which either in local or foreign country just within a short time and it also reduce the response time between two parties.
The cell phone makes the phone booths obsolete because we are able to contact a person where ever we are; regardless of the location of the sender and receiver .We no longer have to rely on the availability of a phone booth to contact someone. Besides, when we use a phone booth, there is no privacy because people can overhear or eavesdrop on our conversation. By using a cell phone, we can have our own privacy as we can make a call or answer the call in a suitable place. The receiver of a cell phone call or message would also be able to identify a person’s phone number (unless it’s a private number). The cell phone also removes isolation from the user because the user is always connected to the outside world; he or she can be contacted anytime.

The cell phone also retrieves tribal culture. For example, the notion of arranged marriages in certain culture is revived because pictures and cell phone numbers can be exchanged between prospective families. The camera built-in phones revive a generation of users who can capture and appreciate the beauty of pictures.

When pushed into the extremes, people longs for snail mail. Letters gives people a sense of excitement when sending or expecting a mail. Letters is also much more intimate because letters can be accompanied by items when using mail.

Tetrad of Media (Critical reflection1)

Using McLuhan's "Tetrad of Media" (see diagram above), choose a medium or media application or tool (e.g. newspaper, books, radio, tv, film, internet, computer games, handphone, instant messaging, blogging, online advertising, youtube, facebook etc.) and explain its media effects? Please refer to Week 9's lecture notes plus your own research to discuss this topic.

After I done my research based on this week notes and book entitled “Mobile as 7th Mass Media, I had chosen the mobile phone to explain its effects on society using the “Tetrad of Media” theory by McLuhan.

(The Mobile phone Of Yesterday-Today)

There are four laws in the tetrad of media, which is phrased into questions.

1)What does it (the medium or technology) extend?

The mobile phone is the extension of audio and visual. A person voice can travel further and faster through a mobile phone. The mobile phone is also a medium for music, games, pictures, messaging, and even internet.

2)What does it make obsolete?

"The phone makes smoke signals and carrier pigeons unnecessary” (from notes). The mobile phone makes the wristwatch and alarm clock obsolete. People no longer need them because a mobile phone has functions that can be use to tell us the exact time and to set an alarm. The mobile phone also makes the landline phone outdated due to the inconvenience. Mobile phone is too convenient as it can be carried and used in almost any place around the world.

3)What is retrieved?

Mobile phone retrieves a sense of community because different parties can get in touch easily with one another. The users can respond, initiate and maintain a conversation between family, friends and colleagues.

4)What does the technology reverse into if it is over extended?

The over-extension of mobile phone reverses people into the longing of isolation.

Personal Reflection- Week 9

This week our Media Culture class lecture was conducted by Mr.Radzi. At the end of the lecture, we learned about Media: The Extensions of Man by Marshall McLuhan. Mr.Radzi had explained to us clearly through the powerpoint slides and I found that it was easily to understand. Basically, the lecture touched on the medium is the message, Hot and Cool media and tetrad of media. By the way, once again, I do hope Mr. Radzi would try considering my opinion, which is reduce the amount of text in his slide, because I think the text was over much already until I actually start to feel sleepy. I think the text should be in points form instead of paragraphs; honestly, I think it would be easier to read and digest.

Obscenity, pornography and indecency (critical reflection2)

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

As we know, these three terms- obscenity, pornography and indecency are closely related to negative sexual behaviour from Media who has been widely spread toward the general public. A Material is known as obscene when it is detestable to the general public. It is highly offensive because it may be forbidden in some cultures, and can be considered as immoral or unethical in some societies. For example, photo of naked females or even males are considered as obscene in Asia due to the conservative nature of Asians. Most Asians agree that the act of showing one’s body in public as an act of someone that does not have self respect nor respect others. In other words, obscenity is about showing adult's content, such as naked and sex, without proper purpose. Furthermore, it usually carries extreme offensive sexual elements. If compare indecency with obscenity, obscenity is more serious and such broadcast is prohibited in media.

Pornography is different from obscenity because it is meant to arouse the feeling of sexual excitement whereas obscenity merely disgusts the audience. However, there are many people especially the teenagers who actually enjoy pornographic materials. Most of the pornographic material is not encourage in general public because when seeing too much such thing will eventually come to addiction towards sexual behaviour. Even though pornography is a legal broadcast of sexual material in some countries and some of the companies actually have license to broadcast it but it is highly restricted to children under 18. Besides, it served the desire of human and it is a form of business.

Indecent materials are seen as inappropriate materials which are usually a minor issue compared to obscene materials. Indecent materials are usually targeted as inappropriate to younger audience whereas obscene material is inappropriate to the community. For example, the video of a sex transplant operation is considered as indecent because it depicts the genitals. Those groups of trainee surgeons are encouraged to watch it but children are prohibited to watch it. However, no matter how, it does not reach the level of obscenity and it is protected by the First Amendment. So, the content is partially had been filtered before the broadcast and to avoid it from reaching the children.

Basically these are the major differences between obscenity, pornography and indecency. However, in my opinion, it is impossible for parents to stop their kids from being corrupted by sexual materials because the power of mass media nowadays is so vast and powerful. Besides, the content is too complex until one can just dig anything from the media especially the internet. Parents should give proper education about sex towards their children before their children go through the wrong site and being influenced by those obscenity, pornography and indecency materials.

Obscenity, pornography and indecency (critical reflection1)

Definition of Obscenity, Pornography and Indecency.
According to the Word Web Pro,

Obscene :
1. Designed to incite to indecency or lust
2. Offensive to the mind
3. Suggestive of or tending to moral looseness

Obscenity:
1. The trait of behaving in an obscene manner
2. An offensive or indecent word or phrase
3. An obscene act

Pornography:
1. Creative activity (writing or pictures or films etc.) of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire

Indecent:
1. Not in keeping with accepted standards of what is right or proper in polite society
2. Offensive to good taste especially in sexual matters
3. Offending against sexual mores in conduct or appearance

Indecency:
1. The quality of being indecent
2. An indecent or improper act


In US, the censorship is controlled by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission). The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government. The FCC works towards six strategic goals and one of the areas is the media.

What makes material “obscene?”

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, tobe obscene, material must meet a three-prong test:

(1) an average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest (i.e., materialhaving a tendency to excite lustful thoughts).
(2) the material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way,sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law.
(3) the material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic,political, or scientific value. The Supreme Court has indicated that this testis designed to cover hard-core pornography.

What makes a pornographic work obscene?

Pornography is the term used to describe a work which uses sexual images with the primary purpose of causing sexual arousal. Some of this material may be "indecent," that is, offensive to some but still protected by the First Amendment. But some pornography is "obscene," and is not constitutionally protected.

A less technical way of classifying pornography divides it into two categories:
a)Hard-core porn- features total nudity, lewd display of genitalia, actual representation of sex acts, bestiality, incest, fetishes, homosexuality, exploitation of children and violence.
b)Soft-core porn- such as Playboy magazine, may also include full nudity and lewd presentation of genitalia, but will not emphasize violence and sexual perversion.

Pornography merchants work to target various interests and demographic groups. There are trading cards featuring porn celebrities. One can find group-specific pornography for Asians, African-Americans, older people, pregnant or lactating women, obese men and women, and so on. If there is the slightest chance that the depiction of a sex act will titillate people, someone will produce and market it.

Pornography, of course, is not the exclusive cause of sex crimes or of hostility toward women (except a person imitates violent porn). It is clear, however, that pornography fuels perverse behaviour in what seems to be a growing number of deviant individuals. Many who study the problem agree that pornography's effect on society is growing, and the more and longer porn is used, the greater its impact on an individual.

What makes material “indecent?”

Material is indecent if, in context, it depicts or describes sexual orexcretory organs or activities in terms patently offensive as measured bycontemporary community standards for the broadcast medium. In each case, the FCC must determine whether the material describes or depicts sexual or excretoryorgans or activities and, if so, whether the material is “patently offensive.”
In the FCC's assessment of whether material is “patently offensive,”context is critical.

The FCC looks at three primary factors when analyzingbroadcast material:
(1) whether the description or depiction is explicit orgraphic
(2) whether the material dwells on or repeats at length descriptions ordepictions of sexual or excretory organs
(3) whether the material appears to pander or is used to titillate or shock.No single factor is determinative. The FCC weighs and balances these factorsbecause each case presents its own mix of these, and possibly other,factors.

The general difference between obscenity and indecency is indecency is milder than obscenity. Obscenity relates to a larger audience whereas indecency has a smaller scope. Indecency is used to gauge a media whether it is suitable for a certain group of audience, such as small children. If the material is found to be inapropriate for that age group, it is restricted from being broadcasted at certain hours. However, if a material is found to be obscene, it is censored and not broadcasted at all.

Personal Reflection- Week 8

Time wait for no man, one week holiday had been passed. So, this week we have Media Culture Class. Basically, this week we had no lecture given by Mr.Radzi because Mr Radzi says that he's giving us more time to complete assignment. Unfortunately, we had been given another new assignment by Mr.Radzi. According to Mr.Radzi, for this second assignment, we need to write 800 words essay about Role of Media in Socializing; discuss the human needs that the Media help satisfy in term of the News and Entertainment. Seriously, I hope he extends the deadline for the essay submission because I feel very stressful as we are facing other assignment too.

Why is Media Literacy important for you as FCM students to have it?

As FCM students, media literacy is important to us because by having this knowledge, we would become better media workers. Through Media literacy we would be able to learn how to judge, analyze, and make use of media effectively. Besides, we would also be able to detect misinterpretation, false claims and various manipulations in the media. With media literacy, we will be aware of what the media is feeding us, and not just blindly absorbing media messages without much thought thereafter. Being the future media worker, I need to know what factors to be accounted for in creating media content. Media literacy empowers us about these factors, such as media ownership, money and values. Thus, we can become better storytellers, when using the media to communicate with the world. Since Media Literacy is about thinking, it is highly essential to media creators like us, FCM students, so that we never create something that give raise to critics such as stereotype, and plagiarism.As a conclusion, media literacy is an important knowledge that must have for every future media producer like us as a FCM student now as it enables us to create something which is new, creative and meaningful.

What is Media Literacy?

The media awareness network’s website has a list of expert’s opinion on the definition of Media Literacy. Below here is the link to the website:

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/teachers/media_literacy/what_is_media_literacy.cfm


First, according to Jane Tallim:
“Media literacy is the ability to sift through and analyze the messages that inform, entertain and sell to us every day. It's the ability to bring critical thinking skills to bear on all media— from music videos and Web environments to product placement in films and virtual displays.”

Secondly for Elizabeth Thoman, she defines Media Literacy into three stages.
“Media literacy is an overall term that incorporates three stages of a time leading to media empowerment: The first stage is about we become aware of the essential of controlling media's influence; the second stage as to learn critical viewing point; and third stage as to further explore the issue.”

Thirdly, Rick Shepherd stated that:
“Media literacy is an informed, critical understanding of the mass media. It involves examining the techniques, technologies and institutions involved in media production; being able to critically analyze media messages; and recognizing the role audiences play in making meaning from those messages.”


Another explanation for Media Literacy found from Wikipedia,
"Media literacy is the process of accessing, analyzing, evaluating and creating messages in a wide variety of media modes, genres and forms."
It encouraged the public to ask question as well as to detect media abuse and gain better understanding about particular information. It also serves the purpose of producing good media creators.

As a conclusion, I define Media Literacy as the ability to read and write about media; able to analysis and make critical reflection on the message carried by media and finally create a clear message and statement.

Personal Reflection- week 7

For this week Media Culture class, our lecture section is conducted by Madam Helena Song. Basically is all about Media Representation and Cultural Stereotype. At the end of the class, I found that this week topic is much easier to understand because there were moment of interactions between the lecturer and students. It was very fun and eventually the whole class wake up from the sleep when Madam Helena encourages all of us to participate in a class discussion. Besides, we were also given the opportunity to watch a few short videos explained about Cultural Stereotype. Those videos not only provided all of us have a good laughs but at the same time we all learnt some useful knowledge from it. As a conclusion, I think this week’s Media Culture class was one of the most enjoyable one, so far in this semester. I hope our lecturers able to keep making the class more and more interesting as we progress through the remainder of this semester. (If can, more videos!)

Critical Reflection 2- Aliens Stereotype

We have seen so many films about the alien and many of the films showed Alien have bad personalities and is bad guy. Even though now we have much more advance technology compare to last time but the true stories about Alien is still unknown to us. Whether they have really came to Earth from the outer space? We still don't know yet and not sure whether should believe the existence of the Alien but we do believe in the fact that our galaxy and space may have the possibility live by the Alien. Since we not really seen Alien before, but why do people depict Aliens with cruel intent that snatch people from earth to do their crazy experiments and whatever else? All of this is because the power of media. The media creator tries to create some stereotype for the Alien, so that they could grab the audience attention but at the same time they will change people view about Alien. When someone stereotypes someone as something, whether they want it to or not, that image spreads and soon others will begin to see the victim as the stereotype. This is just same like a virus spread because even though without any prove, audience will still feel and believe the alien stereotype that has been created by the media. Besides that, stereotype of how an alien looks through media is also another thing which is no concrete proof.

Diagram 1.1 (see above)-Do you really think Alien look like this? Or all the while we are just influenced by media stereotype?

For example, let us talk about the popular science fiction-disaster film in 2005, The War of the Worlds. The story tells about the worlds was being attacked by the Tripod machine which was operating by the Aliens. The Tripod machine able to vaporize all human within its range, and it starts to destroy all the buildings in its path. (Do the real Aliens have such machine?) Besides, the Tripod is harvesting blood and tissues from a helpless human victim. (This show Aliens are cruel killer and intent to kill all the humans, but in truth do they really like that? We still don’t have any prove yet and it was just an imagination message convey by the media creator). All the weapons on Earth were no match to the Alien Tripods Machine. (This shows the Alien technology is much more advanced than humans). In the end, the Tripods were breaking down because the invaders and their weeds were suffering from terrestrial diseases, which they have no resistance to. So, after audience watched this film especially the children, they will started to afraid of the Aliens because they thought if one day Aliens really invade Earth’s, they will be killed by the Aliens. So this is why we must think and treat Media stereotype carefully because it can create us a negative image or perception on certain thing.

Diagram 1.2- War Of The Worlds (2005)

Another famous film in 2004 which really bring negative stereotype on Alien is “Alien VS Predator”. This film show to us that the Aliens were evil, cruel and they killed humans. Besides, it is a horror type film as the Aliens looked really frightening and create a very scary impression to the audience. This is how the negative stereotype has been created towards the Aliens.

Diagram 1.3- The Alien in the film, Alien Vs. Predator (2004)

So, personally for me, I think it is actually depends on our own self whether we should trust media stereotype or not and more importantly we must have the knowledge to make critical thinking on the media stereotype. One should always remember that sometimes what our eyes see and what our brain think may not be true all the time!

Critical Reflection 1- Female stereotype

People always have their mind that "Female is weaker sex; they always need a hero to protect or save them.” Is that really a reality or a true fact? Why people will have such thinking? Without any doubt, the answer is all because of the existence of media. Media have create negative image on female towards the audience and they make used of female stereotype to change people thinking.

When I was small, I like to watch fairy tale cartoon from Walt Disney's. This is because most of the fairy tale story will always have a boy as the strong hero who go rescue the girl as the weak character. Then, the girl will fall in love with the boy who save her and after that, they will live happily ever after together. As you can see, most of the fairy tale has the same happy ending. But then, my point is why can’t the girl go rescue the boy? Why every time the boy is create as hero and the girl is always the weak one who was waiting to be saved by the boy? This show the media creator have create female stereotype and the purpose is to make the film more interesting. Children are very easy to get influence, whenever they saw something they will try to learn or copy as well because they thought what they see is real. Even though is just a fairy tale, but children like it, and they thought is actually happen in reality world. But actually, this is just a trick of a media creator.

Media creator have create countless of cartoon, movies, comedy and etc by showing the girls as the weak one and always need a boy to protect her. Their purpose is to influence people, change people mind and create another image to audience. Actually, all of this is just onscreen portrayals of girl.

Diagram 1.1- Sleeping Beauty (1959)

For example, Walt Disney's fairy tales like Sleeping Beauty (1959). The Princess Aurora had been place in a deep sleep after being curse by evil sorceress, Maleficent. Prince Philip braves all obstacles to reach Stefan’s castle prior to battling Maleficent who turn herself into a gigantic Dark Fire- Breathing Dragon. After the death of Maleficent, Philip climbs to Aurora’s chamber, and save her by removes the curse with a kiss. As the film ends, the prince and princess both live happily ever after.

Diagram 1.2- Twilight (2008)

One of the modern day female stereotype adaptations comes in the form of Twilight (2008), a movie based on a novel. The movie shows how a handsome vampire, Edward Cullen tries to protect his love one and save his girlfriend, Bella Swan which is a human from another sadistic vampire, James. When James tries to kill her and she is seriously wounded, Edward come and rescues her. As u can see, the film shows Bella Swan is just a normal human and a weak girl compare to vampire which have supernatural power.

Diagram 1.3- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

Another example showed a female Asian stereotype which is all too common in popular media. In the movies Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), a female character name Cho Chung acted by Katie Leong was powerless to all men who preyed on her mind and body. When Malfoy and his gang leeched her for information she could not help but “give it up”.

What Media Stereotype is?

Media stereotype is a conventional or formulaic conception or image of an individual or a group by the media. The media represent people by using gender, religion, ethnicity, socio-economic class, occupation, difference race and etc.

Media Stereoptype

Thank you, Madam Helena for giving us another informative website. (http://web.media.mit.edu/~ayah/MediaTheories/#conclusions).
This week we are ask to read through an interesting article on media stereotype from the website. Though it was quite long and it took me quite a long hour to read through but it still inspired me to read because it is so interesting.

This week's discussion:

1) What media stereotype is?
2) From your personal experience, what other media stereotype (besides the example from the article) you have seen either on TV or in the movies?

Personal Reflection- Week 6

Hurray! For this week, I got noting to comment on Media Culture class because all of us are having a public holiday on Monday. But unfortunately, even though there is no class, our blog assignment is still going on. We are still given another new assignment by our dear lecturer. So, I guess I have to spend more time on reading the new articles given by our lecturer, so that I can fully understand the written message from the article. Anyway, I must say it is time to enjoy another new blogging week!

Critical Reflection 2- No, internet cannot be trusted 100%!

This is my other answer for the question. I said “No” because there was some sort of information or issue in the internet are not 100% reliable. Therefore, in order to really get the true answer, I must search through the internet for many results, or similar websites regarding the topic. After I have found many same answers and found that it is consistent, then only I would trust the information or issue in the internet. As we know, Wikipedia's is one of the famous and easy use free encyclopaedia use to find articles. Although Wikipedia’s provide us we with plenty of explanation and are a compilation of referenced materials, but the sources are not 100% reliable. This is because Wikipedia’s allowed other writer to re-edit the articles and some writer have put some unreliable information on it. Thus, it is important for one to have conscious and knowledge on how to identify which information is authentic and which is deceiving. Besides, there is some website from internet that was used to cheating or deceiving the audience and make them purchased their products or for specific purposes. My conclusion is even though internet cannot be trusted but still there are many people using it including myself, this is because internet provides us the easiest way to get information. So, I must say one should know how to filter out those the inaccuracy in internet in order to get the accurate info.

Critical Reflection 1- Yes, Internet Can Be Trusted!

For this question, I will certainly give positive answer, which is “Yes”. I do believe and trust to the internet. Well, I believe not just I alone will going to said “yes”, I believe everyone from whole over the world will said “yes” too. This is a fact because if nobody believes in the internet, then nobody will use it to search material or information and also internet will not going to become as popular as today. One could just believe the information is true without any thinking because some of it comes from a reliable source. Besides, internet is a very easy accessible compared to newspaper, books or documentaries. With internet, I can get any facts or info in just a few minutes and with just a few clicks. This is why sometime people prefer to just trust the resources they found in the internet rather than go library to do research. By the way, some of the information from newspapers or books is originally come from the trusted website in the internet and it just reprinted by publisher. Well, actually everything in this world is “balance” (have positive site and negative site) and the same goes to internet, we trust internet because we think internet can be trusted and is true that some information from the internet were original. But, there were certain information in the internet cannot be trusted because it has been distorted by the writer. So, my conclusion is we can trust internet, but we must know how to judge and decide which is the most suitable and accurate to choose.

Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture

A Comic Strip entitled:

"Rumors, lies and innuendo spread far, wide, and fast on the Internet." taken from "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? Discuss this in your own words.

Personal Reflection - Week 5

Honestly, this week's lecture was much more fascinating compared to last week. Somehow, my instinct told me that I do really enjoy this week Media culture class. Well, first I must thanks to Mr.Radzi for made me realize how 'Powerful' the mass media is. After I read the lecture slides and Iistened to Mr.Radzi explanation, I finally understand that mass media actually have the ability to deceive public. Mass media can make public to believe something fictional and might cause the whole worlds under panic and chaos. Mass media can neither bring goodness nor badness to us too. So, I think this matter is depending on the person who present or conveys the media message to public.

Sadly, even though the lecture was very informative but there were many students still did not pay attention in the class. The class was so noisy and hard for me to concentrate on Mr.Radzi lecture. I can see only a few of us were listening, whereas others were on their own conversation. Well, perhaps Mr.Radzi’s lecture still not enough to get full attention from student, but for me, I think it is okay for me to listen Mr.Radzi lecture. In the end of the class, I finally understand and see ways of using these media theories on my future media product for the audience. I do agree in future it does useful for me, and so I must study them more until I am able to use them appropriately.
Okay, I think that's it for this week then, hopefully next week class will be as interesting as this week class!

Social Media 2- Deviant ART

Deviant ART is another International famous Social media tool among the art fans and artists. Personally, I’m a fan of deviant Art because I can found a lot of references and best artwork from there. For me, after looking at those artwork, it can actually inspire me many ideas and make me improve. The purpose of Deviant Art aims to provide a place for any artist to exhibit and discuss works. So, Deviant ART is actually an "online art community." Artists are allowed to share their artwork by posting their artwork on their own page and let other artists comment on it. In my view, comments people artworks and receive feedback from other people perhaps is one of the simple and perfect ways of communication. Besides that, Deviant Art is a good social media tool that allowed people to create or involve in forums to make discussion and express their feeling on a shout box. More importantly, artists from all over the world can easily get know and cooperate to each other besides sharing knowledge of art and making improvement among each other. The user of deviant Art can create their own personal page which contain information about their name, age, mood, interest, and hobby and so on and can edit their own public journal which is similar to a blog. Besides that, a person can actually create “portfolio page” that may be useful because the person can communicate by showing those potential employers their artwork. In addition, deviant Art also have free Messaging Network which is the real-time chat system that allow artist to share ideas, opinion and experience among each others. One more thing, a film category was added to Deviant Art that allowing artists to upload videos. An artist and other viewers can add annotations to sections of the film, giving comments or critiques to the artist about a particular moment in the film. Besides, some artists even uploaded their own tutorial video and share with other artists. As a conclusion, Deviant Art is a suitable social media tool that should be joined by every artists and fan art around the world because I believe this social media tool will bring big changes to Art Community and so, enhance the standard of artists from all over the world to a new level.

Social Media 1 - Facebook

Facebook is one of the most popular and well-known social media tool nowadays. The existence of Facebook has revolutionized the way in which young people communicate and indeed, I’m one of them who also joined Facebook. Nowadays, Facebook are even having high popularity being used among the adults and some big companies. In nature, we are given the natural ability to communicate with others and so, every each of us have our own personal social network like family, best friends in high school or college and colleagues. The advanced in our technology have successfully created Facebook which is free-access social networking website that has makes us easy to communicate with other people. I'm interested to join Facebook as it make me so easily to contact with all the people I know and allowed me to make new friends from all over the world. For example, I can just use my notebook to access Facebook and chat with any friends around the world by just send those messages. Within just a few minutes, they already received the message and able reply me back. This is supreme fast, safe and effective, if we compare to last time where people used letter to communicate with others which is too slow and have to wait a very long time. One more things, Facebook is able to help us find back our lost contact friends if they are also using Facebook. This is so easy and fast because by just using the search function in Facebook, we are able to find them back and make friend with them again. Moreover, Facebook also help us to notify and create more understanding about our friends by reading their own update personal profiles. In addition, we are allowed to upload our personal photo to Facebook so that we can share our photo with our friends, tell them what we have done recently and receive their comments. People are allowed to do all sort of activities by just using this Facebook. For example, I can play many free mini-games in Facebook with my friends and compare my high score with them. As a conclusion, I must said Facebook is one of the best and interesting social media tool that have make rapid changes in human communicating ways and allow people to conveniently share their personal opinions, stories or experience in the form of words, pictures and videos among the communities.

Personal Reflection - Week 4

Basically, what I have learned from this week (Media & Society- Classical sociological Theory & Media) is how media binds people, media models and the classical sociological theories of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber in relation to media. This is the toughest week I ever faced in Media culture class. Honestly, I’m not feeling well with this week’s Media Culture class. This is because I felt pressure and so many worry appeared in my mind. I have no idea what will going to happen on me during the final exam of Media Culture in this semester 3. I must say this week there were far too much information to be understood and memorised by me in such a short rushing time. Somehow, I really hope our dear lectures- Mr Radzi and Madam Helena could understand our difficulties. In my opinion, (IF IT’S POSSIBLE) I hope they can prepare more slides with pictures or diagrams (make it colourful), arrange the notes into mind map form (make us easy to understand), and make the notes become short and simple (easy to memorized the main point). I definitely believe and confident with this 3 requirement, Media Culture will become a much more interesting class and fun to learn. I think that’s all what I want to talk about for Media Culture class week 4. Alright I’m looking forward the next class on Monday!

Make use of Pickle Ice-Cream as an example to explain Social Media. Wow, sound Interesting!

First, I must thanks to Madam Helena for sharing this simple but great video with us. After watching this video from Common Craft Show, I started to understand what Social Media is all about. Basically, Social media mean new opportunities to create and communicate with people they care. In other words, we can say Social Media were for us to carry out sharing and communicating with each other from all over the worlds.

Now, I will talk and explain on what is this video all about. At first, the big ice-cream Company (industry) want to improve and increase their company profit, and indeed they form a group discussion and they have found out a way which is start making 3 different flavour of Pickle Ice-cream. This will provide the consumer a variety of choices. People feel content with it as they are allowed to choose, but they never realised that actually there are better ways.

Suddenly a new invention is brought to the community. Now everyone can create their own homemade ice-cream and in the end too much new invention of Ice-cream flavour. This causes people start to think differently and start to do their own business (selling their homemade ice-cream).

Now, FACTORY and HOMES are like friends & neighbours which mean variety of new invention (Ice-cream) became something to share, bring people together and even celebrate. Surprisingly, Big Company still is making good profit because demand grows even higher than before.

Because there are too many new inventions, people start to look for 3 things- NEW, POPULAR & INTERESTING. Then, someone come out with a great idea, which is built a board to let people describe, rating and comment the products. So now, at a glance customer will understand the product (ice-cream) and buy it. And soon, everyone start to have their own board too which mean new idea always spread and share among our community. As you can see, by using just a board (for customer view), the product quality became better and improve and save from costly advertisement.

Technology & new ways to attract customers formed a unique community. Today, many people know how to create their own Ice-cream or even certain products. After all, we must thanks to blogs, broadcast, and video shared. All of this is new ways who had given people the wide opportunities to share, comment and receive feedback from each other .

As a conclusion, I must said Social media play an important role in our community because it can bring changes to the world.