Sunday, April 19, 2009

MEDIA IMPERIALISM 2

And I would like to mention in this field another example of media imperialism. What happened in Iraq.

Jorge w. bush convince the whole world through the media that Iraq is a very dangerous country and that they own or make a lot of Internationally prohibited weapons and so on. But actually, when they occupied Iraq, they found nothing. This is just a form of what can be achieved from misleading media. And there weren’t any other news channels in U.S. which opposed this idea. One of the reasons that the Analysts think that they occupied Iraq for, was because they have the petroleum and god knows what else.

 

MEDIA IMPERIALISM

Like it is obvious from what we learn in the media culture lecture that media IMPERIALISM is a Monopoly of information for institutions, governments or corporations belong in the end to only one owner who has control over the content of the media and usually hides what he want or fabricates it to serve his own needs. For example the documentary movie (The Power of Nightmares - The Shadows in the Cave 3) shows that this kind of media limits our view in the concept of terrorism and al-Qaeda. American government tried to convince the world that Osama Bin Laden is hidden in the mountains in Afghanistan and they spend millions and used the latest weapons to blow up the region. Although all the ex-soldiers conform that there is no trace of any one there, they just arrest any one just look like Arabs without providing any evidence. and also Donald Rumsfeld (United States Secretary of Defense ) affirmed that al-Qeada had a secret base containing bed rooms, offices, secret exits, ventilation system, computer system , telephone system, ……etc however none of these basements were ever found. Mostly, the word (Terrorism) was used only to achieve political interests. All the Accusations that made against young men whose name were listed in the terrorists list or in the news and those who have imprisoned in Guantanamo, all of which happened without evidence. Yet they were accused like they did in 9/11. The terrorism as idea exists but as an organization is not, and that is so far because of the media imperialism.

The Power of Nightmares - The Shadows in the Cave 3

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Tetrad of Internet


        Using Marshall McLuhan’s tetrad concept, I found it very useful to describe any media and analyze its behavior and effects on societies. I choose the Internet as a media to analyze using this tetrad technique:


 §  Enhancement:the Internet amplifies world wide communication and information access instantly

§  Obsolescenc:the Internet reduced the importance of prints, radios, books and even TVs.

§  Retrieval:the Internet returned direct communication.

§  Reversal:the Internet flips the world into one city.



 

"Tetrad of media effects"Definition


Generally speaking, a tetrad is any set of four things. In Laws of Media (1988) and The Global Village (1989), published posthumously,Marshall McLuhan summarized his ideas about media in a concise tetrad of media effects. The tetrad is a means of examining the effects on society of any technology/medium (put another way: a means of explaining the social processes underlying the adoption of a technology/medium) by dividing its effects into four categories and displaying them simultaneously. McLuhan designed the tetrad as a pedagogical tool, phrasing his laws as questions with which to consider any medium:

  1. What does the medium enhance?
  2. What does the medium make obsolete?
  3. What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier?
  4. What does the medium flip into when pushed to extremes?

The laws of the tetrad exist simultaneously, not successively or chronologically, and allow the questioner to explore the "grammar and syntax" of the "language" of media. McLuhan departs from his mentor Harold Innis in suggesting that a medium "overheats", or reverses into an opposing form, when taken to its extreme.

Visually, a tetrad can be depicted as four diamonds forming an X, with the name of a medium in the center. The two diamonds on the left of a tetrad are the Enhancement and Retrieval qualities of the medium, both Figure qualities. The two diamonds on the right of a tetrad are theObsolescence and Reversal qualities, both Ground qualities.

Obscene, Pornography and Indecent

Despite the definitions of these terms and despite which is worse, they are all unacceptable and mean media. It represents a corrupted society where their person grows on an uncivilized and problematic life. It is the kind of a media that can destroy a culture and prevents ant improvement to the society. Sometimes, the intention of it could just be to distract teenagers and make them unable carry responsibility and become unaware of real life problems wither in politics or any other area. This could build in the future a kind of an ignorant nation that is controlled by undirected desires. We hope that we students or responsible people to fight this kind of media and build a successful and beneficial media that represent us as a civilized nation.

 

The difference between Obscene, Pornography and Indecent

  • Obscene :
  • Designed to incite to indecency or lust; "the dance often becomes flagrantly obscene"-Margaret Mead
  • Abhorrent: offensive to the mind; "an abhorrent deed"; "the obscene massacre at Wounded Knee"; "morally repugnant customs"; "repulsive behavior"; "the most repulsive character in recent novels"
  • lewd: suggestive of or tending to moral looseness; "lewd whisperings of a dirty old man"; "an indecent gesture"; "obscene telephone calls"; "salacious limericks" 
  • Pornography :
  • It’s kind of activity (writing or pictures or films etc.) of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire.
  • Indecent :
  • Not in keeping with accepted standards of what is right or proper in polite society; "was buried with indecent haste"; "indecorous behavior ...
  • Offensive to good taste especially in sexual matters; "an earthy but not indecent story"; "an indecent gesture"
  • Offending against sexual mores in conduct or appearance; "a bathing suit considered indecent by local standards" 

 

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Media Literacy and FCM Students

Media literacy gives an advantage to FCM students by exposing them to creative thinking on how to upgrade the media in order for it to achieve ultimate goals. it also teaches them methods of allowing people to contribute in the making of the modern effective media

Media Literacy

The process of transforming the media consumption into an efficient tool of criticism

As criticizing other forms of media by interacting with people by giving them the rights to vote, analyze, and give feedbacks

it creates awareness about the abusing media and the amusement in the commercial advertisement and public relations



Media Stereotype

A bunch of thoughts about any ethnic group planted by media into people's brains to affect their judgments about that particular ethnic group.
For instance, a Muslim man with a beard is always pictured as a terrorist in the media
in the west, the stereotype of Asians is that they can't drive, and the main character in the movies ( the hero) is always handsome

that type of false criticism spreads wrong images about certain group of people which influences their lives negatively


I personally believe that it leads to undesirable consequences



About the Media Class

The media culture class has really helpful and interesting information; I actually found it so helpful. Media culture could be very useful to us as FCM students. But the fact is that we can not absorb the possible benefit from the course as half of the class is babbling and the lecturer does nothing about it. The lecturer voice could be barely heard as lecturer voice is too low and students are bubbling without stopping. It would be better if the teacher punishes these students or do something about it. Also the use of advanced media in the class to get students attention such as a big mike and more interesting power points slides would be great. He can also try to share his information with student, ask them questions and provide such attractive activities.

Truth and Lies about the Internet II

Internet is a huge communication media with huge information contained in it and could be accessed from anywhere in the world. Anyone can create his website and put his personal openings (professional, Scientists, religious scholars, beginners, students, teenagers, anti people, subversive, criminals and even terrorist). Not to mention the Youtube.com famous server where everyone can broadcast to the whole planet his opinions through videos which could be easily faked. So I don’t think there is a sane person who can surf the internet or any media and trust whatever the eyes can see without considering wither it is true or wrong..

Truth and Lies about the Internet I



The media in almost everywhere does not actually reflect the truth about things. Mainly, the main source of information that comes from it is peoples’ opinions and not just the professional, editors or Intellectuals experience.

There are many people who believe in what are said through the media and there are a lot of them who doesn’t. For example, 70 percent from American people don’t consider what is shown in the news as a fact and they are right about that.

Media from the Internet also do not have to be professionally accepted and edited to be published. Anyone can create and publish a website and they can put their personal opinions wither it is based on facts or not. So we have to be careful on how can we find the reliable sites and from whom to get the information we need.



Social media

Social media is a huge source information created by the people. It is an easy published technology and has many forms such as words, pictures, videos and audio. It provides social interaction among societies; people can share their stories, experiences, businesses or whatever they like.

Social media can be done via the internet and mobile communication networks. It has many different forms, including forums, social blogs, webblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. The qualification of these services is classified according to the number of visitor's using them.