Voice out Loud through media !

Mass Communication
It is always an interesting topic to talk about as now mass media have been part of us as it is playing a big part in our daily life. We did watch television; listen to radio and even internet which is a new media nowadays. Those are act as a channel to transmit medium to us, and this medium has the power to change the way we live and experience the world. Moreover, the functions of media are to give us surveillance, correlation, cultural transmission, and entertainment. It taught us the trends and the important issues that happening around the world as you all know time are precious to us, media can help us to shorten the time we spend for finding information. However, we need to take a balance between bad and good sources.
In media communication theories it explain the effects of mass communication which means how they influences us and explain the role of the mass media in shaping values, world views and world fair.
Remember what Ms Hui ask us how media influences us? Many students have suggested a lot of things; most of them said media influences us in good and bad ways. Actually, personally I feel that media can influences many ways especially the way we talk and the language we used.
Of course, in Singapore, language used in media will not influenced us in a bad way, as Singapore’s media are partial controlled by government, language and information they used are guided.
Being a Hongkie, I have noticed that now Hong Kong has a trend of using improper Chinese in the lifestyles magazines. They can create new words when the words do not even exist in the dictionary as it is not controlled by government and they need interesting gimmicks to build up the sales. This can influence teenagers especially when they are writing composition and even the way they talk, if they are not talk like that they will be seen as totally “uncool”. This is a big issue in Hong Kong’s education; many teachers and parent are worrying that once the teenagers used to write in improper Chinese, it will affect their writing skills in the future. Now, the teachers are trying to correct their way of writing as much as they can in school and for the parents they are giving their children more newspaper for reading, however this issue has been posted in the media (newspaper) and have been acknowleged.
I think they should not use verbal languages for writing in the magazines, especially words that are not in the dictionary. They maybe want to bring up interesting stuffs but to me by using proper Chinese can also give the same effects just like Singapore’s magazine.

However, it maybe wrong to use improper language, but the idea of freedom of speeches is popular in Hong Kong. They can discuss any issues that happened around them in the media which I strongly support it. I believed freedom of speech are important to us and the media, through media act as a third party iwhich let us voice out our own opinions(minority views) to the issues especially politics, economics that happened in that country and not only majority views. What do you think?

Culture

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/thehousebunny/

To me, this words means that the different kind of people, the way of living and perspective of life are different although they maybe the same races. Especially culture is learned from young and they are shared from generation to generation. Therefore, I believed that every family or group has it own different culture.

Watched House Bunny this weekend, it was a comedy. However, from there I saw the culture different from each sorority group in the movie and how culture influences each other. The story goes by Shelley as a main character in the movie; she is living a carefree life until a rival gets her tossed out of the Playboy Mansion. With nowhere to go, fate delivers her to the sorority girls from Zeta Alpha Zeta. Unless they can sign a new pledge class, the seven socially clueless women will lose their house to the scheming girls of Phi Iota Mu. In order to accomplish their goal they need Shelley to teach them the ways of makeup and men at the same time. The combination leads all the girls to learn how to stop pretending and start being themselves.

In this movie, the group Phi Lota Mu has a unique culture that new students love to join them as culture can affects language and social organization. For Zeta Alpha Zeta they always are the unattractive group of girls which other people thinks that they are freak. However, in order to save their house they need to attract thirty girls to join their group and coincidentally Natalie (one of the members in Zeta) met Shelley who has been moved out of the Playboy mansion. Shelley had persuaded the seven clueless women to change their culture and style in order to suit everyone. As culture is dynamic, it is constantly changing as cultural contact increases; old ways of doing things change and people learn the new behaviors. Also, intercultural communications allow people to access to experience other cultures which can enrich one personal level. In this case, Shelley serves as a new culture to them as they communicated, they exchange culture and they decided to change their style to be more feministic and the Zeta girls also taught her that not all men like the appearance, they also need women who can talk with them.

In this movie, they also show the collectivist cultures too as they believe that it is right to subordinate personal goals for the good of others where their goal is to attract new students to join Zeta rather than individualism. They tried hard to change their styles and they win the group Phi Lota Mu but they slowly feel that they have change to another person like Phi Lota Mu which only judge people from their appearance and they blamed Shelley as the one who changed their group culture, however, they realized that Shelley and them should stop pretending and tried to be themselves. Personally, I feel that it was true that people should just be their selves and should not try to change to suit others.

I enjoyed watching this movie; it was so funny in some of the scenes and it really shown that between people, each of us has cultural differences. I feel that people group together as they shared the same culture. So don't you think that people that we alaways with actually have the same family background?However, we still can get along with people who are different from us, as we are human beings we can adapt to different cultures.

KEEP GOING !

Keepwalking. Asia
Did anyone saw these advertisements before? I am not sure whether these advertisement are shown in channel 5 or 8 but I did see it in AXN channel (SCV)
This is the link for the advertisements episodes.

http://www.keepwalking.asia/

Basically, these advertisements are about promoting Johnnie Walker Black label Scotch whisky. From the advertisements which is in a serials form, they shown the effectiveness of group communication. In these advertisements, they show group communication from their friendship.
In these few advertisements, Jason, Mike, Jack and Tim are friends since young and now they are became business partners. The main character in these advertisements is Jason who is the dreamer (initiator-contributors in task roles) where Mike is the encourager in maintenance roles as he is the oldest among the group, he always encourage Jason to persuade his dream which is become a filmmaker. For Jack, he is a joker which plays as a harmonizer in the group and lastly for Tim, he is a follower in the group as he always listened and did what others say.

In the first episode, Jason was surprised that he was being fired by his friends in the architectural company as he has been working so hard for the company and Jason know that group synergy are important for building up a company especially he know that he should stay on as group can meet member’s interpersonal needs. In this case, the group shows the need for affection (they have developed a close, caring relationship with others). However, this decision is made because the friends are supporting him for persuading his dream after Jason has committed to help out the company for the last three years.

Moving to episode 2, the friends gave supports to Jason by not disturbing and motivate him as he can not produce any script.
However, I think from episode 3, it can see really that no one can stand alone without anyone helping. In episode 3 when individual vs. group, Jason was under a lot of pressure as his script was stolen and the movies can not be produced but when he told his group of friends about the problem, the group of friends really shown a full support which is by their action (e.g. took out all the money they have and even Tim’s precious car). I feel that if one person is facing a lot of problems, a true friend can lend you a hand in that moment and problems can be solved easily.
In episode 4, it only has the trailer which is only have 17 seconds but to me this is the most meaningful advertisement for group communication. From the trailer it says that “Walking alone. You go faster.” But when “Walking together, you go further.” I think this is the idea of group communication, it not only influences each other to meet their needs but when doing something together it is easier for the dream to come true.