Dangerous Expressions

Selfies has taken over our lives with people stopping what they are doing just to take a selfie like in the middle of a pathway or in the middle of a conversation. I bet that most of you reading this can picture a moment or two when you have done this. I can’t. I am not into having photos of me taken as only seem to take photos to capture the special moments in like birthdays and holidays with family and/or friends but I do take the occasional selfie with friends and siblings.

Psychologist say that we take selfies to self-express, which seems pretty obvious. However, we only show the best expressions of ourselves. Girls have their hair and make up done to perfection. They take many pictures of themselves, to get the right photo to post on social media for their friends and family. I am not saying that this is everyone it is just the majority. In The Conversation, psychologists believe that selfies are the best medium for expression as we demonstrate that we are living an exciting life or talents or personal beauty.

Our self-expression is fuelled by this need for attention. We post things on Facebook and other social media sites to gain attention . We check in to let everyone know where we are, we take photos to show what we are doing or how happy we are and we can now demonstrate what we are feeling. It is so easy for us to grab attention as we just have to click a button and it is for everyone to see.

With attention so easy for us to have attention, people are taking extra measures to make sure that they have everyones attention. Late last year, The Guardian released an article which highlights how 2015 was the year of dangerous selfies. The article explains how there has been at least 20 deaths where people have taken risk to get a selfie. A couple of people in India tried to take a picture of a train, on the tracks, while it was moving towards them. Another person was killed while climbing to the top of a moving train while seven men drowned as they tried to take a photo of themselves on a capsized boat.

While of these incidents are all accidentally, people are putting themselves at risk to grab the ‘perfect’ selfie. They are being reckless in their decisions as they are just thinking about ways to impress their friends and family on social media. This raises the question is taking that picture/selfie really worth it? Are those likes and comments worth risking your safety? Is our idea of self-expression going to get us hurt or killed?

http://theconversation.com/why-do-people-risk-their-lives-or-the-lives-of-others-for-the-perfect-selfie-55937

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/dec/28/selfies-danger-death-2015

Please Explain

The Blackfish documentary was an eye opening experience. I knew that SeaWorld had controversy in regards to their treatment of animal but I didn’t know any specifics or the extent of what was happening, so naturally, I did some Googling.

I was also curious about Sea World at the Gold Coast as I enjoyed going there as a child. Seeing all the animals, the lazy polar bears, the energetic penguins and the amazing dolphin show. In the mist of the controversy with the Blackfish documentary, Sea World on the Gold Coast came under criticism and was questioned about their methods and treatment of the animals.

Due to these criticisms, the marine science director, Trevor Long answers all the questions in the Gold Coast Bulletin. Long explains that there is no connection between the two businesses. Which was interesting to find out. The Sea World on the Gold Coast has no association with the SeaWorld in the US as the Gold Coast founder, Keith Williams, took the name to capitalise on the reputation and he was able to as it wasn’t registered in Australia. However Williams did change a tiny aspect which you probably did notice but just assumed it was a grammatical error. Williams put a space in between the two words, SeaWorld became Sea World.

Sea World is accused of just ‘rescuing’ these animals in order to capture and profit off them. Long explains that the animals are rescued and once that have rehabilitated, they are released back into the wild. This is their “primary goal”. The only reason certain animals stay with Sea World is because they are helpless and it would be a death sentence if they were released. These animals are “permanently disabled or too young to survive”.

Another big question was asked of Sea World which Long was happy to answer. What happens if the animals don’t want to perform? He highlights that none of the animals are starved or punished if they don’t perform. The only animals which perform are the ones who want to, usually the young and energetic. During the shows they are given some of their daily intake of food and given the rest during meal times. For those who don’t perform, they are not in small, shallow pools shielded away from the public but are put into lagoon where the public can see them and fed every day.

Even though places like Sea World explain how the animals are treated and why they are kept in captivity, I still question any shows that have performing animals in it such as circus’ and zoos. However, we are reassured by  statements like “We can’t make animals perform. If an animal doesn’t want to perform, it won’t perform” (Long), which we see every now and again during these types of shows.

http://www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au/lifestyle/pets-and-wildlife/the-truth-about-sea-world-gold-coast-theme-park-reveals-all-and-answers-critics/news-
story/df63b6e3c8c0cd4b493b5a9c2664a2ee

http://seaworld.com.au

http://seaworld.com.au/research-and-rescue.aspx

Final Blog: Interview

For my final blog, I conducted an informal focus group. This group consisted of the most reliable people I know, my family. While eating dinner, I asked my Dad, Mum, brother (17) and sister (13), how do they find out what is happening in the world. How do they get their news. While they looked at me weird at first, I explain way I asked and then they were happy to answer.

While they all had common answers, there were also differences. All the members of my family get there news off social media during the day. We all sit down at night and while watching our weekly programs, we are on our laptops, phones or tablets looking at our news feeds and the trending topics for the day. While I expected this answer to be the most common, I didn’t expect my Dad to say that he uses Facebook daily, even more then once, for his news. Everyone also listens to the on-hour news segment on the radio when in the car but don’t go out of their way to listen to it. My brother also looks at online news sites such as ninemsn.com and the Telegraph. My Mum and Dad also watch the television news programs on during the evenings, particularly Channel Nine’s hour and a half news starting at 6. This covers the national and local news. My sister, however, isn’t interested in going to websites or watching the news during the evening, that might have something do to with her age as a young teenager. Occasionally, my Mum and Dad will buy the paper, usually on a Sunday, but not often.

After this discussion, I asked them why they don’t use other forms. I asked my sister why she doesn’t come out and watch the news, she said that she doesn’t want to. She can find all the relative information online, plus it is depressing watching all the things that are bad in one hit. Which I totally understand. Watching the news you see murders, robberies, close encounters with death and many other stories that the world seems to be full of. My brother doesn’t see why he has too. He goes online and is up-to-date with all the recent stories. My mum and dad replied the same as they watch the news in the evening and have constant updates if there is a crisis online and on social media. However, they were open to it.

Analyse Text: Body Image

This is a topic that I know has been done to death, however it is a very important topic that affects everyone. Body image is the attitude people feel towards their bodies and the influence that society, the media, family and friends and even yourself, has on you (Reachout). The issues has been around for many years but has been a major issue for the last decade or so. This is because the messages that the media are sending and how the public are receiving them aren’t matching up. The media show models, both women and men, that people idealise and want to be. These models are defined as ‘perfect’ and the public are bombarded with these images which creates a negative body image.

Late last year, the Daily Life wrote about Victoria Secret label’s recent campaign, “The Perfect ‘Body’. The purpose of this article was to highlight this campaign resulting in dissatisfaction sparked in the public. The writer of this piece, Nicole Elphick, highlights how the brand that is meant to be all about the female figure is not “very keen on the actual bodies of the majority of women” (Elphick, 2014). This seems to be true with campaign posters and advertisements showing size 0 models who, in today’s society might be the ideal women but isn’t the norm, or even close to the norm. However, this has not always ben the case, 20-30 years ago those models represented the norm and accepted amongst the public but as more and more brands target the ‘norm market’ strategies began to change. Victoria Secret are sticking, to what Elphick says, is the “narrowly defined and outdated notion” that is a size 0 models.

This article has a strong point of view as you can tell, however, being a conscientious uni student studying a media degree, I have to look at all areas including bias in a article. I first look at who the online news outline, Daily Life, is written for, women, men or both? Looking at the rest of the website, it has got articles on healthy recipes, ways to keep fit and fashion stories. From this we can tell that the article was written for a female audience in mind. Finally I look at who wrote the article, in this case it was a woman. Now I am not saying that because a women wrote this article, that all the information is untrue but it  might be a little bias. She might have gone at Victoria Secret a little bit harsher then what someone, like a man would.

I believe that body image will still be an issue for many years to come. Even know more and more people are questioning the media in cases like this. These images are always going to be out there and bombarding the public.

Resource List

http://au.reachout.com/what-is-body-image

http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/victorias-secret-has-a-body-image-problem-20141119-11pyqh.html

Ethics

Ethics are an important part of research as it sets the boundaries for the researchers and gives the participants a sense of security. There are many definitions for ethics. The one I like the best is that “ethics are widely agreed moral principles about what is right and wrong…” (Tinkler, pp. 1). Using this definition, we see that ethical research is when an individual must do the right thing by the participants who volunteer there time, the project research is being done for and society as the research will have impact on how it runs. However, everyone has different perceptions on what is considered ethics. Within organisations, there is a grey area where ethics are concern as there are no defined rules or guidelines to help organisations. Sometimes, organisations try to be ethical however it doesn’t work and they sometimes aren’t, however, most the time, they get the result they were looking for. Being a uni student looking to be in the marketing industry, ethics is important to me as I know I am doing the right thing for the public and always my company I am working for. Being ethical in advertising and marketing gives the organisation positive feed back from customers as they feel like they can trust us and our products. Being unethical can discredit the brand/label of the product and the reputation of the organisation. The youtube clip, Ethical Communication, demonstrates how ethics is used, and misused, in businesses. The guy being unprofessional and sloppy isn’t a good look for the company, even know he is only communicating through the phone and also email/instant message. Firstly not putting a warning label on the product is unethical because it can, and in this case did, cause harm to individuals/animals. However, the response is the most unethical matter in this example because of the unprofessional way that he interacts with the customer. Writing those things about the product, putting off the blame to the manufacturing devision and saying offensive things about them and management is unethical and should never be done in any situation, business or not. To handle the situation better and act ethical, the guy could have not sold the product in the first place, then this wouldn’t have happened. Not shifted the blame and told him that he would try to talk to the manufacturing department and get a warning put on the product. If he did all this and took the complaint to management, instead of saying bad things about them. The situation would have been over with. Reference List 

Tinkler, Penny 2013, ‘Ethical issues and legalities’, in Using photographs in social and historical research, SAGE, London, pp. 195-208 http://www.marketing-schools.org/types-of-marketing/ethical-marketing.html

Analyse Text: Crackdown

Please watch the 60 Minutes segment before reading. Thanks

http://www.9jumpin.com.au/show/60minutes/stories/2015/april/ice-storm/
In todays society, particularly in Australian, one of the biggest problems is Crystal Meth, or what it is commonly known as, Ice. Ice is part of the amphetamine family and it creates a sense of power as those who take it feel a sense of strength and can overcome anything. This drug becomes highly addictive fast as it floods the brain receptors with monoamines which can kill the receptors and people feel like they need to drug to feel pleasures of any kind. Over time they become tolerable of the drug however, as they are dependable, they need to take more of the drug to get the same effect. Ice is the “highest risk drug” (SMH) to society as it becomes unpredictable and unstable.

Watching 60 Minutes I saw a segment on how ice has effected many peoples lives within Australia. Now I know what you are thinking, 60 minutes? Really? Over dramatises and sometimes misleading by leaving out important information. However, this 20 minute segment demonstrated how ice can take over peoples lives and not only destroying theirs but also innocent victims as well. The opening quote gives a brief overview on what ice is and why people should continue to watch the program. Allison Langdon explains that “Crystal meth, or ice, is the perfect destructive drug. It’s easy to make, cheap to buy, highly addictive, and it’s everywhere” (60 Minutes). Within this segment, 60 Minutes focuses on three separate incidents where ice has destroyed an important part of their lives in one way or another.

The first one is an emotional look at a women and her daughter’s relationship being torn apart because of an ice addiction. You see the emotion on both their faces and you feel for them. The mum becomes so emotional you cannot understand her when she speaks. The first words that you hear “I actually give up as a mother.” which grabs the heart strings of any woman and even men. Then you see the daughter, at this stage she was 23 days sober. You can tell she is restless and nervous, she cannot keep her hands still and she knows what her life has become because of ice. The audience finds out that her mum has taken in her grandchildren to protect them and help her daughter, this pulls on the heart strings tighter. The next incident shows the ‘power’ that ice can give the individual, you see a violent scene against the police, random people on the street and even themselves. You see the devastating murder of a baby boy, Zayden. Someone had broken into a house and stabbed the baby with rage. You see the effect that ice has on innocent victims that don’t even understand why.

The final incident effected three different families within seconds. An individual who was high on ice, speed his car through a red light knocking a pedestrian 52 meters away, killing him instantly and  crashing into a car which carried a family. You see the footage of the end results of this crash. You are told the names of the people who died, the pedestrian and 2 members of the family in the car, then you are told that the driver, who was high, was injured but survived and only got 16 years in prison. This just rips at the heart strings of the audience. I know that 60 Minutes isn’t everyones cup of tea, but this emotional segment was a hard hitting piece that I believe everyone needs to watch as it effectively demonstrates how ice can and has destroyed people’s lives.

Recently, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has commissioned a task force to address this issue, the National Ice Taskforce, which is lead by the former Victorian Police Commissioner, Ken Lay. The aim of this task force is “for the combined governments to develop a ‘National Ice Action Strategy’ and to collate an interim report to be handed to Mr Abbott as soon as the middle of the is year” (Kenny, SMH). In the press conference introducing this task force, Abbott gave some concerning statistics about the drug. “…around 400,000 Australians used methamphetamine each year, with 200,000 of those using crystal methamphetamine, commonly known as ice… 25% of meth users were consuming the drug once of week”. These statistics are truly shocking, however it is an important issue which everyone should be aware of.

Reference List

http://www.drugs.health.gov.au/internet/drugs/publishing.nsf/content/ice/$file/Ice%20or%20crystal%20methamphetamine%20hydrochloride.pdf

http://www.9jumpin.com.au/show/60minutes/stories/2015/april/ice-storm/

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3464163.htm

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-to-announce-new-taskforce-to-tackle-ice-scourge-20150407-1mg80o.html

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/prime-minister-tony-abbott-says-ice-is-the-worst-drug-problem-australia-has-ever-faced-20150408-1mgi7u.html

Research is Learning

To me, living life is all about learning. We have been learning from a young age, learning how to walk and talk to driving to writing the perfect blog. We do this to gain knowledge and experience of the world around us. We try new things and sometimes we fail, but trying and trying again until it works is part of the learning experience. I like learning new facts from what is happening around the world to random aspects of life. Research is how we, as a individual and society learn. Research what I am going to do today, what movies are good, what course should I take and which phone/laptop/television should I buy are some of the aspects of life that need to be researched even if it is just asking someones opinion. Anyone can research. It is a simple process that has become an everyday occurrence. Anyone can have access to any knowledge anywhere they want. We have the technology to research at anytime such as devices like computers/laptops, tablets, mobile phone and smart televisions with strong connections such as broadband and the ‘recently’ introduced 4G connection. A big part of todays research is social media. When you log in to social media like Facebook and Twitter, you have a trending side bar. The bar links the top ten to 15 stories of the day. People read these link titles and become interested in what the story might be about. I don’t know how many times I have logged onto Facebook and looked down the trending list and got lost looking at the news articles attached or the celebrity buzz around celebrities or certain events. Now Media Research is different to everyday research. Media research, similar to scholarly research, is where, according to Berger, systematic, objective, careful and concerned about truthfulness and accuracy (p. 15, 2014). It is about gaining knowledge and learning about the real world and using these features, media research is not only learning about topics but digging deep until all the truths are revealed. We do this by following the seven stages of the research process, Observation, Initial Data Gathering, Theory Formulation, Hypothesis Formation, Further Data Gathering, Data Analysis and Deduction. In some stages such as Further Data Gathering, qualitative and quantitative research can be used. I have always wondered how much we take the media for face value? How many people just take the media’s word and don’t bother research a topic or event further? All these questions lead up to finding our how much influence the media has on the public. How do the audiences perceive the media and do they question the information they are given. This is the area I would like to research and find more about as I have an idea of what the answer may be but you never know, people might surprise me.

Reference List

• Berger, Arthur A. 2014, ‘What is research?’, in Media and communication research methods : an introduction to qualitative and quantitative approaches, 3rd ed., SAGE, Los Angeles, pp. 13-32
• Lion King Quote ‘https://www.pinterest.com/pin/397513104581175645/‘

Climate Change

Climate change is one of the major issues that the public are facing today. According to ENSAA “climate change is a long-term change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods of time… It may be a change in the average weather conditions or a change in the distribution of weather events with respect to an average…” (2011). This change has happened, mostly, due to human activities producing a large amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere such as fossil fuels, agricultural practices and other industrial processes (EPA, 2014).

When reporting on issues like climate change, journalist have to follow a certain code of ethics when writing. These include “Seek truth and report it”, “…be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information” and “…be free of obligation to ay interest other than the public’s right to know” (Ward, 2009, p. 13). While reporting along these codes, journalist also have to make sure that there is a balance of information given to the public, a for and an against. This is called a ‘false balance’.

False balance allows the article or segment to have an equal balance of opinion and facts from various people. However on this issue it seems that around 97% of scientist say that humans cause global warming, (Cook et al, 2013, p. 1) but when shown on television, journalist put experts on to show an equal balance on the topic. This doesn’t demonstrate an honest and fair report that the journalist have to follow but it is the way television, newspapers and radio present to their audience.

With these inconsistencies in reporting the question is raised that is opinion really important in reporting when the facts clearly show a specific point of view?

References

http://www.ensaa.eu/index.php/climate-change/97-defining-climate-change.html

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/basics/

Ward, B 2009, ‘Journalism ethics and climate change reporting in a period of intense media uncertainty’, Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, vol. 9, no. 13, p.14

Cook, John, Dana Nuccitelli, Sarah A Green, Mark Richardson, Barbel Winkler, Rob Painting, Robert Way, Peter Jacobs, and Andrew Skuce. “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature.” Environmental Research Letters 8.2 (2013): 024024. pp. 1

News?

What makes the news these days can be anything as long as it has a following. When watching Channel Nine (Win), all throughout the day there is news, more news and you guessed it, more news with Ellen and a cooking show to separate morning and afternoon news. They all show the same thing, with the same footage and comments, about the latest sport news (recently the NRL), which celebrity is having a baby or getting married, what is happening overseas and what is happening nationally. The only way the public today get real news and just the real news is on the ABC or SBS.

Even when reading, watching or listening to the news, you don’t always get the full story as it is up to the producer what the newsreader says and what the journalists report. This can make the news unbalanced and sometimes bias. Lee-Wright says that the news “tends to distort” (Lee-Wright, 2012, p. 14) the stories it shows and only report on the what they think the other news channels will be reporting on. This shows that the media only want audiences and it doesn’t matter whether the news isn’t really news or if it is biased and unbalanced.

References

Lee-Wright, P 2012, ‘News Values: An Assessment of News Priorities Through a Comparative Analysis of Arab Spring Anniversary Coverage’, JOMEC Journal, pp. 1-15

Crossover Cinema

In today society people are open to experiencing other cultures and the globalisation of film allows this to happen. The term ‘cross-over cinema’ is used to describe this new form of cinema that creates a hybrid of cultural boarder films (Khorama, 2013, p. 2). In this new type of cinema, the global media industries “acknowledge new kinds of creative collaborations that are holistic and replete with the promise of awakening us to the essentialism that persists in certain cultural process and products” (Khorama, 2013, p. 3). This means that more films will have a global audience and that audience be receptive to what the movie is about and the meaning it is trying to convey. This is because the film is not “conventionally grounded in a single national/cultural/generic source” (Khorama, 2013, p. 5). This is different from western productions as the director(s), writer(s) and producer(s) have targeted the film towards a certain type of audience.

The 2008 hit film, Slumdog Millionaire, is considered one of these crossover films as “traverses national and cinematic boundaries” (Khorama, 2013, p. 14). This film was a product of collaboration of a Western Director, Danny Boyle and an Indian Co-director, Loveleen Tandan. From this collaboration, the film’s story lines appealed to both the Western and Indian audiences as well as the rest of the world. This is evident by the eight wins at the Oscars, four at the Golden Globes, seven at the BAFTA Awards, one at the Amanda Awards in Norway and one at the Cinemas Writers Circle Awards in Spain.

Crossover Cinema is becoming more popular in today’s society as people are more open minded about various cultures.

Reference

Khorana, S 2013, ‘Crossover Cinema: A Genealogical and Conceptual Overview’ in ‘Crossover Cinema: Cross-Cultural Film from Production to Reception’ ed S Khorana, Routledge, New York, p.3-13

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1010048/awards?ref_=tt_awd