Final discussion-by Kayli Leng

Internet is globalization, we can find much information from the website and easy to search information. But the problem is, is the information from the internet true?
In my opinion I don’t believe from internet. Nowadays many information are all update by own computer, everyone can update and all information aren’t prove yet, for example Wikipedia. Other than that internet have many rumors, people like to gossip once news out people can shared out of the world in one minute, but the information maybe change because everyone put his or her opinion so that it will change the meaning of the news. So we can’t 100% trust internet.

[Kan Yen Li] Discussion 4 Response

Once again, we hit the much heated debate on the reliability and authenticity of information on the internet. Really, who can blame us for doubting whether they are trustworthy or not. The internet has been available to all of society with internet access, including blogging services and also creating websites. It is easy to spread news and information, and even easier to fabricate them to create commotion and gain attention. And for the sake of fame and fortune, people would risk anything including defying laws and regulations. I, as a fairly experienced internet user, think that it is acceptable to believe news and stories on the internet, judging by the website's dependability. Sites such as cnn.com and many other international news portals have highly dependable source of news and reports, thus making them verified as believable and dependable. There are however, troll sites created solely for the entertainment of netizens trying to make fun of newbies. As long as users are smart in differentiating fact from fiction, the internet can still qualify as a dependable news source.

Discussion 4 by Yau Yau

Do I often take what I get in Internet as truth? My answer is NO. The internet made it possible though. Everything and I mean 'everything' is at the World Wide Web including shopping per order, learning tools and much other cool stuff. But the problem is...  Are the information inside that web can be trusted?

Since internet is so globalize, we do not know the identity that supply the information for us. It is true that the information is now easily found through the internet but it can also be easily spread too. In this case, the information in the internet can be true at times and false too. Depends on the web we are in. There's a secure info web like 'Emerald' which are heavily protected and only allowed the info to be posted by the professors and all the researchers around the globe. A web like this is safe to believe. On the other hand, some web like the 'Wikipedia' and other independent web that have no authorities, we cannot be too trusting. This is because everyone can change and edited the contents inside that web.

So, in overall, I am not too confident to use the info that is spread across the internet. 

Discussion 4 [Yau Fen Nie]

Final Discussion_Do you often take what is on the Internet as TRUTH? I would give NO for my response, it's depends on where I get the information and how trusty is the medium is.
Nowadays, people get information mostly from internet than other, including me. I would rather search for what I want from internet than going out to library, search the information from a huge pile of books. But the problem is, how trusty is the information from the internet. Can we fully believe on it? As the popularity of internet going higher especially social network such as Facebook and Twitter, many people like to spread rumors or some exaggerated information to grab other's attention, they just simply want other to believe and notice the existing of them. But they don't know that how serious is the problem is, the rumors that came from them will spread out seriously fast throughout internet if the news is such a sensation, and this will mislead others to a wrong information, they will get misconception even affect the reputation of others once there is people believe on it. For example, last few months ago, many social network's users across the globe were abuzz over rumors that Hong Kong-based action star Jackie Chan recently died of a heart attack, but the truth is NOT, he is in fact alive and well. At the same time, many people has been fooled by this rumor.
But on the other hand, there is not everything in the internet are unreliable, for example like official news site, the information given is justified. In conclusion, we have to think about the reliability of the site before we choose to believe on it or not.

Discussion 4 [Alice Low]

Can we fully trust the Internet? The answer is not with everything. That is the problem with this generation. People trust it too much. They depend on it to babysit their kids. People post private info on Facebook and complain when it is compromised. People are just too ignorant and trust it too much.

As a webmaster, I suggest not to always trust the content of the internet as your reference in your researches simply because not all published websites in the internet are reliable source of information and data. It is very easy to create and publish a website, and thus also easy to publish false or incomplete information. People get to post whatever it is that they want without someone checking to see if the information presented is correct.

During this time where so much websites are created everyday and published in the internet, the competition among website publishers to gain popularity in search engines, thereby making them popular even if they are not really a good and reliable one.

The entry of internet marketing, especially the contextual advertising, also, greatly reduces the quality of websites listed in the search engines results. Many websites publishers today make a website just for the sake of making money out of it, even if the content of the website is not well researched or not reliable enough in facts and analysis.

The main point here is to deeply analyze first if a certain website is a reliable source of information. We can still use other websites but we have to determine first if it is reliable enough. This depends on the type of website that we are referring to. But the problem is, how do we know that it is reliable?

In a nutshell, books are ALWAYS reliable because the information in them are always checked for 100% accuracy.

Discussion 4-Camille Koh

The internet is now a significant and expanding space for news. It is the most dynamic force in changing the way we make and consume news. Therefore, should we really trust everything that is up on the internet?

For me, I personally do not trust what I find in the web to be a hundred percent the truth. Now with the internet being so globalize, everyone and anyone could have wrote a particular information and that could only be their personal opinion. When finding information on the internet, I usually will go through different websites and sources before finalizing my thoughts on a particular topic or issue. For example, when there is a product I would like to purchase, I'll probably go to different forum sites to browse and read other people's view and comment first before purchasing the item.

Other than that, we also can't entirely believe the information posted on social networking sites, like the very famous and still expanding, Facebook. The information posted on people's profile may not entirely be the truth. Their age, birthday, where they live or even how they look like might just all be lies!

In the end, it all depends on yourself whether you choose to trust a specific source of information or not. But of course, try to be smart about making that decision as well.

DISCUSSION 4 by Cham Yang Hui

Nowadays, the Internet is a very powerful medium of communication which allows us to get in touch with anyone, anywhere, anytime which just with a click. News, information, issues can be spread throughout the world within seconds. Yet, these news and information are not 100% reliable and truth. No one knows which is real which is lies. So it is up to us to believe it or not. 


For me, i don't often take what is on the internet as truth with our thinking much about it. I just read it and know what's the latest update. Believe it in 50-50 only. As we know, people like to make news, get people's attention. Just like the previous discussion, journalist write something they get paid. That's their job. So they want to get people's attention then they only can earn money. Same goes to blogger. People like to write what they think. Maybe the news just a gossip which they just know a little bit of a whole story, then they started to make a story by their own. So, what we read in the internet doesn't mean it is all truth.


For an example the hong kong artist Nicholas Tse and Cecilia Cheung married in the year of 2006, and they have 2 sons now. Before this, they seems like very lovely, happiness family. Yet now the news is they want to divorce and they said this is just the gossip. But after that, got news saying that they already deal with the divorce and will announce at the end of the year. But now, still don't have any news, rumors proved unfounded. 

TOPIC DISCUSSION 4 - FINAL

Attached here is 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. (You can post this up in your blog)


Do you often take what is on the Internet as TRUTH with our thinking much about it? If yes, why? If no, why? Discuss this in your own words with recent personal examples.

Media Culture Discussion 3 (Amanda Tham)

In my opinion, not all the blogger are journalist, and not all journalist are blogger also. But first, we have to understand the meaning and character of blogger and journalist.

Blogger
Is personal writer which use blog to record their feeling, mood and their experience also, they can write what they like with their own opinion. And most of them are non commercial, usually they get side income by placing advertisement in their blog.

Journalist
Usually they write article instead of post like blogger did, and they have to write their article in polite way, mostly write article regarding many things like, event, product, society issue and many more. And they get paid if they sell article to the newspaper, just what they write have to be polite and freedom are limited, not freely as blogger did.

Conclusion is, everyone can be blogger, and journalist too, as long they understand the character they wanna be.

[Kan Yen Li] Discussion 2 Response

Not all bloggers are journalists, and not all journalists are bloggers. Living in a postmodernist world, the lines between many traditionally decided subjects are blurred and it is getting more and more difficult to differentiate between pioneering, innovation and creation. Journalism has existed as early as the 1600s, and has evolved into an extremely vast and versatile universe of writing, photography, documentary and many more. A not-so-recent paradigm shift of the internet began with the invention of blogging, a portmanteau of 'web' and 'logging'. This online trend served the society in many ways, benefiting the producers as well as the receivers with an impact relatively akin to journalism. That is, however, not the complete picture. Let us begin by comparing the definitive context of these two terms.

Journalism - the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the citizenry. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and business, journalism also covers cultural aspects of society such as arts and entertainment. - Wikipedia.org

Blogging -  a type of website or part of a website usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. - Wikipedia.org

As you can see, what journalism consists of include facts and anything that is thought to be facts. Blogging, on the other hand, could be about the happenings of our society, current issues and generic details of a persona, and still could be anything of interest, general blabbering, advertising purposes and many more. Therefore, if you ask me, not all bloggers are journalists. 

Discussion 3 [Alice Low]

BLOGGER - is a type of website, a digital dairy or even a style of writing of the user. People always write what happen to them in their living or a place to express themselves and comments other people's blog. It does not need to be the full truth and they can share their ideas and thoughts. To some, blogs sound like high-tech versions of newspaper op-ed pages full of commentaries and letters to the editor. But bloggers say they're more than that.

JOURNALIST - people who collects and disseminates information about up to date events, people, trends and issues. The field includes editing, photojournalism, and documentary. Their work is acknowledged as journalism. Journalist is a career and who have received professional education and training, have responsibilities, and have certain skills.

In my personal opinion, I think that bloggers cannot be considered as journalists. For me, bloggers write because they want to and they will have more freedom in creating blogs. Journalists write it to get paid because it is their job and they report the facts. Although bloggers have the same characteristics with journalist but they are actually not in the same field.

In conclusion, blogging isn’t journalism, but journalists can blog. In fact, as a tool, blogging is particularly suited to journalism because it can help journalists connect and understand their readers better.

Blogger VS Journalist_Topic Discussion 3 [Yau Fen Nie]

Blogger VS Journalist..Are blogger journalist? For me, I think that a blogger can’t be considered as a journalist. But, nothing stops a blogger from being a journalist and vice versa, some bloggers are journalist too but most are NOT. The definition of blog from The Merriam Webster is a website that contains an online personal journal with reflection, comments, and often hyperlinked provided by the writer. While the definition of journalist is a person engaged in journalism especially a writer or editor for news medium / a writer that who aims at a mass audience.

In my opinion, BLOG is an online diary that allowed people to express themselves, air opinions and promote themselves - and, by extension, their products and services. While JOURNALISM is a job/career, they are publisher, editor, reporter, or other person connected with or employed upon a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, mostly they are paid to do their job. They have the rights to collect the information and publish it in the dailies to cover the people.

However, bloggers have much in common with journalists activities; because, bloggers also have rights to collect information. Bloggers helps the journalist by collecting and posting recent updated information happening in the world, and there are so many journalists and reporting organizations whose resources will help bloggers produce better, more accurate work.
With much in common as well as many differences, bloggers and mainstream journalists should be looking into one another for ideas on how to navigate our newly revised media world.
So Bloggers need only to look at the ethical standards developed by various journalism groups to get ideas on important issues to be included in a bloggers' guide. A media executive who moonlight as a blogger as it is necessary; the journalist need to hear some news from the blogger and from the public, to reveal information.

Discussion 3 "Are bloggers journalists?" by Yau Yau

From Wikipedia, Blogger is the person who write or manage a blog. A blog (a blend of the term web log) is a type of website or part of a website. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Most blogs are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even message each other via widgets on the blogs and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites.

From Wikipedia, a journalist collects and disseminates information about current events, people, trends, and issues. His or her work is acknowledged as journalism.

Reporters are one type of journalist. They create reports as a profession for broadcast or publication in mass media such as newspapers, television, radio, magazines, documentary film, or the Internet. Reporters find sources for their work, their reports can be either spoken or written, and they are often expected to report in the most objective and unbiased way to serve the public good. A columnist is a journalist who writes pieces that appear regularly in newspapers or magazines.

Are bloggers journalists?

Regarding this topic, my point of view is bloggers are NOT journalists. There are alot of difference between them. Bloggers as in the most initial intention are to write and blog about their feelings, their moods and also some trivial things happen in everyday life. Usually bloggers will post about what they think or what they want other to see. Blogger has freedom to write everything about themselves. Blog is more personal & private dairy. Journalists is a person who been paid to write about news and facts. Journalists cannot put their own feeling toward certain things into their post and print. Journalists have a responsibility to publish the facts to the public. They need to let public know about what is happen everyday in the world.

For me, I do not have my personal blog. But I am always read my friends' blog everyday. I felt that blogs are always more interesting compared to newspapers. I can comment on my friends' blog in their post. Blog is relax. Newspaper is formal and provides important news. Therefore, Bloggers are not equal to Journalists.

Discussion 3-Camille Koh

In my opinion, I don't think bloggers are considered journalists. Blogging is definitely a new way of writing, a more modern and innovative kind. But people who blog usually write out of passion because they want to while journalists write to get paid, because it is their job. Moreover, blogging gives us, ordinary people, a chance to voice out our opinions, feelings, thoughts that we are entitled to. Also, bloggers' content is considered to be more personal but journalists must write based on facts, whether it is a hundred percent the truth or not.

Everyone can be a blogger these day, but to be a journalist, a good one, you will need training and certain criteria before becoming one. As a journalist, you need to be able to conduct a proper interview, know actual news from gossips or trivia and write in a proper way, that means in correct grammar and spelling.

On the other hand, bloggers usually write or blog about the things that are most interest to them. I think this is where the difference of blogging and journalism lies. Journalist usually writes about facts that might not entirely be of interest to them at all.

Blogger shouldn't be held in the same high standards as journalism. But then again, blogger can be consider as a tool for journalism, that is, depending on the person who blogs it.

discussion 3 by kayli leng

I think Blogger is not a journalist. Journalism will write the report in a formal way and blogger is a way that people share their feeling, comments and others. Nowadays many people use blogger to become their digital dairy.

A news reported by journalist and blogger are totally difference. Blogger can be non-formal and journalism must be formal. So that is the difference of journalism and blogger. I agree with that journalist write and get paid because is their job and blogger is volunteer to write out their feeling and what their thinking.

DISCUSSION 3 by Cham Yang Hui

For me I don't think bloggers are journalist. Because blogger is blogger, journalism is journalism. Blog for me is something which you can write your personal things, feelings, promoting on the blog and share with the worldwide. It is something diary yet is public for everyone, share your recent activities maybe. Yet also have blog is private which just for himself/ herself. Maybe some people write blog is because of assignments just like what we doing now yet we are not journalist!

Journalist is a job which they get paid by someone. So my opinion is sometimes the thing might not be correct or not really exactly what the person said and they written on it. Journalist, automatically will think of media, so sometimes they must write something nice but actually not really that nice for example in an event or write something which more over than the realistic. For example the celebrities, sometimes maybe the incident weren't so serious or so bad yet they might write it till how serious it is. So, this make us feel like, journalist could write something which not happened until it's like really happened. That's something different between blogger and journalist.

TOPIC DISCUSSION 3

(DEADLINE: 24 July 2011, Sunday, Midnight) 

Please read these two interesting articles.

http://chris.pirillo.com/are-bloggers-journalists-are-blogs-new-journalism/

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2005/tc2005037_7877_tc024.htm

Are bloggers journalists? What is your take on this? 

Discussion 2 "Media Stereotypes" by Yau Yau

What is media stereotype?
According to the Webster's Dictionary, stereotyping is defined as a fixed conventional notion or conception of an individual or group of people, held by a number of people. Stereotypes can be basic or complex generalizations which people apply to individuals or groups based on their appearance, behaviour and beliefs. Stereotypes are found everywhere.  Though our world seems to be improving in many ways it seems almost impossible to liberate it from stereotypes. Stereotypes have existed since the beginning of time in our everyday life through religion, politics and the media.

Media stereotype was widely used in our life. For my experience and research, women or girls are shown as slim and men are shown with muscles and with perfect appearance in the movies or in all the advertisement. Not only that, even on video games, the male characters are always likely to be heroes and with big muscles, great power and lots of abilities. Female characters are always likely to be shown as sexy, pretty and frequently wearing revealing clothing.

However, video game teaches kids that violence is acceptable. In video games, the way to beat an opponent is to punch, kick or knock him out. In movies, the good guy wins when he violently defeats his enemy. This is bringing wrong information to people. After kids are play those video games or watch those movies, they will follow the action that what they was seen on the games or movie. This is because those characters in the games or movies are already stereotypes in our mind.

Media Culture Discussion 2

With the improvement of media nowadays, people get information more easier, but it also cause a lot of mislead information to receive by the audience. And it might be cause big mistake and misunderstand between races, or even the image of a group or big as country also.

Like the sample video, arab always appear in Hollywood movie mostly as terrorist, weapon dealer, as long many kind of character which with bad image on it, and when time goes on, many people will misunderstand Arabian mostly work as those dirty work, with those bad image which reflect from the Hollywood movies. This is also a fact when they use same way too much, mislead the audience and give them wrong information.

And the image of many occupation inside the movie, not just Hollywood movie, even Asia also facing same problem. They use pretty girl and handsome guy as main character, create a different illusion with the reality, and with too much information nowadays, and resistance plus filtering of audience not same with everyone, it easy to mislead the audience most of the time.

Discussion 2 [Alice Low]

According to my research, media stereotypes are inevitable, especially in the advertising, entertainment and news industries, which need as wide an audience as possible to quickly understand information. Stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person or group of people, usually relating to their class, ethnicity or race, gender, sexual orientation, social role or occupation.

For example,  in the movies shown in Women, Sport and Film class. For instance, in all of the movies we saw how hard the main characters had to practice in order to achieve their own goals. I think that this corresponds very well to such an important value of the capitalist society as competition. In the modern capitalist society it is widely accepted that the way to success lays through competition and only those who work hard enough can reach the sought end. It is beneficial for the hegemonic power to make sure that all people in the society belief in such myth, so that the unequal nature of such competition could be mask behind the mass belief. It might be true that only those who work hard can achieve successful results, but what we fail to realize, that not every one in capitalist society has equal opportunities and conditions for hard work. Not everyone has chance to have a horse (National Velvet), to be able to leave the families in order to play in a team (A League Of Their Own). There are many people who cannot reach what is understood as success only because of not having enough money or authority, and not because of not working hard enough.

Another stereotype that presented in all of the movies was the dependency of women upon men. Male characters always participated in helping a female character to reach the success. Velvet needed young man who would help her to practice her horse riding skills. Monica's love to a basketball player was an important component on her way to glory. The rejection of her love by man was one of the main moments that made her want to practice even harder.  What makes all these examples even more interesting is that one can develop a counter argument, saying that the fact that in these movies men were helping women to achieve the success was instead a break of stereotype, which represents men as those who achieve high goals, and women as those who help to achieve these goals. If we compare the different ways, in which media depicts helping male and helping female characters, we will see that if men help with a wise advice and with their knowledge, then female helps by cooking and taking care of children. This is yet another stereotype, common to all kinds of mass media.

In my view, I think that it is more important that people are able to recognize the stereotypes than knowing how to combat the usage of stereotypes in media. This is because once we get rid of one stereotype another will take its place. Children should be taught from the schools what are the stereotypes that exist in society and how one should understand them. This is to prevent them from reproduce the existing stereotype and did not except everything what they see in movies, press or Internet for the pure truth. I believe that we need to start from elimination of believe in stereotypes within the society.

Discussion 2 - Media stereotypes_[Yau Fen Nie]

Media, however, not only entertains and offers news to people, but also transfers the stereotypes, beliefs and values of the society to reproduce the existing order of social life. MEDIA play a part in how people think and generalise a group of individuals, based on the other's gender, race, religion, hair colour and so on. In my opinion, I think movies are mostly influenced people's mind, the more popular the movie is, the more serious the influences. For Examples, most movies like to portrayed a very handsome man as main character with muscular body and usually he will be very gentleman or romantic and mighty, but please look at our real life, there are plenty more men that with a good appearance are different from what movies had portrayed, they can be a cheapskate, or maybe a murderer, robber, or even rapist. Same goes to women, not only pretty women can be perfect.

Other than that, from my research, stereotypes are also given to people with blonde hair. The popular saying about blondes is that "all blondes are bimbos", is becoming an increasingly more common stereotyping associated with blonde haired women. The notion of the "blond bimbo" is generally determined by age - to most people they associate them as 'a young, sexy girl with long blond hair, large breasts, long legs who is stupid and superficial' (Agius, Bicknell & Watson, 1997).

Admittedly, media is a great invention, but somehow, it sweeping generalizations about people, our world will become unfair in certain ways. Overall, I think this issue should be concern seriously because it may misinform or mislead people especially kids nowadays about the world around them.

Discussion 2-Camille Koh

We cannot escape stereotypes, nor can we prevent ourselves from doing so. Now with the media being so influential and powerful, they have set our minds to think that in order to live our lives, we must be 'placed' or 'labeled' in a particular group to fit in. From my experience and research, I think most of the television programs and movies showcase a lot of stereotypes. For example, the movie Mean Girls, where the whole story describes how female high school social cliques operate, and the effect they can have on girls. Another movie that is also considered to exhibiting stereotypes is Legally Blonde. The movie is portraying that blondes are often stereotype as 'dumb' and so they wanted to break that away.

Magazines are also sending out the wrong message to the society, where they stereotypes gender. They illustrate how men and women are supposed to be or supposed to act like. For example. men should always be masculine, dominant, strong and seem to be interesting in technology and cars whereas women are always perceived as feminine, emotional and mostly likes to go shopping and put on make-up.

[Kan Yen Li] Discussion 2 Response

The world we live in now is, to put it subtly, obsessed with stereotypes. Every person, living or dead, can be labelled judgmentally without giving much thought about it. Though frustrating, we sometimes might find ourselves doing so unconsciously as well, and that is the saddest part of all. Stereotyping people is an unfair excuse for society to avoid thinking too much. Categorizing people and labeling them is easy to do when they never bother to find out more about them, just so one can claim to understand how society and the "system" works and not be intimidated by subjects they deem foreign and unfamiliar. A more common way of doing so is the ever gratifying media stereotyping. Media stereotypes encompass a wide range of human society and studies, from religions to countries to present cultures to age and also gender.

The best example i can give is the perpetually popular African American stereotypes, also known as 'Blacks' and sometimes, more vulgar terms inappropriate for general readers. Despite having leagues of successful, well known, highly achieved icons in the African American society and a status and citizenship equal to any other Americans, people of black ancestry still suffer to the cause of racism and stereotyping. In the eyes of the demeaning, if you are black, chances are you come from a family plagued with social strife often involving illegal and harmful activities (drug trafficking and bank robbing, to name a few). Also, pop culture often define black people to display certain characteristics such as a fondness for Kentucky Fried Chicken, watermelons and Kool-Aid. These statements are apparently untrue, but one may wonder where it originated from. For reference, i have done some research on black culture and also movies concerning it. The best example of stereotyping blacks is 'Undercover Brother', a 2002 comedy film in America.

Discussion 2 by kayli leng

According to media awareness network Media stereotypes are inevitable, especially in the advertising, entertainment and news industries, which need as wide an audience as possible to quickly understand information. Stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person or group of people—usually relating to their class, ethnicity or race, gender, sexual orientation, social role or occupation.
For example many advertisement magazines also use beautiful women or girl handsome man or guy for the main character for the page. This is because people like to see beautiful things so it can attract more people to watch the advertisement.
In Japanese drama or Korean drama that always have perfect man with a girl. The perfect man must be tall, handsome, intelligent and others. So it will mislead a lot of audience.

--Kayli Leng--

DISCUSSION 2 by Cham Yang Hui

From my personal experiences and research, media stereotypes that i have seen on TV, magazines and in the movies, Asians are always smaller size compare to Caucasian and African. Besides that, Asians are mostly small eyes and Chinese knows kung fu just like because of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.


For an example, "Rush Hour" which act by Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker and Ken Leung and of course the other actors.. From that movie, we can see that Asians are known kung fu and they don't know how to dance. At first Chris Tucker thought Jackie Chan doesn't understand English in that movie and also he thought Asians are nerd but actually we aren't. 

TOPIC DISCUSSION 2

(DEADLINE: 17 July 2011, Sunday, Midnight) 

Please watch this eye-opening documentary called "Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko_N4BcaIPY >

From your personal experiences and research, what other media stereotypes (besides the example from the documentary) have you seen either on TV, magazines or in the movies? 

Discussion 1 [Alice Low]

Culture can be defined as the way of life which includes beliefs, aesthetics and institutions of a civilization. Considering today’s way of life, we would be lying if we didn’t admit that media is not an influential entity in our culture. As we know, social media like Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and Twitter have exploded in popularity over the last few years. Social media includes the various online technology tools that enable people to communicate easily via the internet to share information and resources.

In my opinion, social media has the biggest influence on the people's life because it helps people in many ways. For example, using different kind of social websites has given a new opportunity to people to share their life with their friends, keep in touch with them even if they could not see each other often, get to know new friends and the most interesting part is when we can search back our old friends. People certainly still meet others at social venues like clubs and parties, but it is easier than ever to discover people who share our interests through social media, whether that means via groups on Facebook or following people on Twitter.


The advantages comes when social media make people easy to start making money as it has online with a blog, a few affiliate products to promote and a whole trench of social networking accounts. It is actually giving others convenient from going out while they themselves are also saving from buying or renting a shop to have a business. Not only that, job opportunities may also increase.

But, it sometimes has disadvantages because it has proven that Facebook influence people a lot. For example, news about Alviss Kong which committed suicide when his girlfriend broke up with him by jumping off the 14th floor and before committing suicide, he posted a note to his Facebook profile page. Prior to jumping, he took one last photo and even posted a message 45 minutes before. Few weeks later, another guy which wants to have concentration from the others, he followed his steps and says goodbye to the world in Facebook too.

We actually have reached a stage where media literacy is the dire need of the hour. It is time to start thinking and analyzing what media is dishing out to you.

Media Culture Discussion- Social Media

In the past, people use phone, pager and hand writing to contact with the other, and it brought a lot of inconvenient to each other.

20-30 years ago, the world start appear usage of computer, and with the technical like as they use in the telecommunication.

And until today, facebook, twitter, tumblr, even now the latest Google+ is getting hot in just a few day after it start launching the beta.

Overall, the improvement of social media nowadays shorten distance for everyone in the world.

You can meet up with your friend with just a webcam and finger on the keyboard. And sent instant message to them, instead of phone, phone cost you credit but usually, internet won't, so this is why nowadays IM (instant messenger) also very popular.

Plus, we have friendster from few year ago, and now most popular is facebook, it just created by a US boy for social need, but it aimed what people need, turned out that facebook become part of our daily life, such as discussion, contact each other, share content like photo, music and info.

Mainly, the improvement of social media shorten the distance of all the people in the world, we can talk with each other with just simple drop email, or instant messege, even with content sharing to update your status always. It also showed the concept of "earth village"

It keep grow rapidly nowadays and it shorten more and improve much on the function and convenient in the future.

[Kan Yen Li] Discussion 1 Response

The phenomenon of Social Media is an enormous and significant one. Of the 6.9 billion people in the world, almost 90% of them has had exposure to social media, be it the internet, the television or the papers. Simply put, it has an impact on humans a scale so large, we would never have thought possible. Going back to the root of this social phenomenon, the creation of paper enabled the speedy recording of human activities and happenings so that everyone from the current to future generation can know what has happened. Spreading of news and information was further assisted by the availability of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg. The social media culture flourished; people were educated and sophisticated despite their difference in class, gender and age. Following suit was the invention of the television, from black to colour and now, high definition. News could be easily spread within minutes as long as you owned a television set.

The next important evolution of social media happened because the internet was made available to the mass in the 1990s. It made a great impact on our lives, culturally and financially. At first it was simply work and educational tools, but then social networking surfaced, turning the tables. The whole world is connected by a virtual platform, and everyone had a voice. Lost friends are found again, strangers meeting and ending up together, news spreading like wild fire within a matter of seconds, new trends starting up here and there... the list is endless.

That all may sound incredible and fascinating to one's ear, but to some, it could also mean disaster. Privacy has become a much questioned factor in lessening the use of the Internet and television, but users throughout the world relentlessly advocate the development of these technology for a better future. Other than that, news spread easily regardless of their authenticity and reliability. This shortcoming provides evil speakers of the Internet with the upper hand, taking advantage of the weak and misunderstood. As the world continue to rely on the internet for almost every aspect of their life, wrongdoers are gaining more advantage whenever they wish to strike and create massive chaos throughout the globe.

Overall, the impact social media has brought and still is bringing to us is colossal, regardless of its benefits and disadvantages. Like the Taijitu, in the dark there is a light, in the wrong there is some right. We as humans have the ultimate control of ourselves, the world and everything that are in it are what we make of it.

Discussion 1 "Social Media" by Yau Yau

Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, YouTube and so on. These are all examples of social media. "Social media essentially is a category of online media where people are talking, participating, sharing, networking, and bookmarking online."

In my point of view, social media has shot to the forefront of people's attention because it's fun. Social media is really affecting our life and the lives around us. With social media, we are able to connect with our friends and family. I am always using Skype and MSN to chat with my friends and family for few hours in a day.

Through social media, we are easy to share our ideas, photos, videos, likes and dislikes, information to all the people around the world and people will be more interested in the information because we published it with pictures & videos. Nowadays, I always get the latest news from social media more than get from newspaper or television, because social media is more convenience for me to check all the news in local and international. I can go to my Facebook to view what is the latest news recently. For an example, latest news of Bersih, I couldn’t know if I didn’t on my Facebook.

Not only that, people can do their business with selling their products like clothes, bags, shoes and many more through social media. I also get some clothes from online shopping. It is really save my time in traffic jam on the road, energy and car petrol.

Social media is really affecting our life. Social media is made people so close to each other, more aware about their life and more knowledgeable about their world and even politics. We can't live without it!

kayli leng comment

sorry for that, i cannot comment on the other post. i don't no what's the problem.
Can i post my comment here??
My comment:
Camille post> i agree with camille also. Sometimes news paper din't write the news and facebook does. People share the video and photos of the Bersih rally that news paper din't write out.

chamy Post> that's really true, i use internet everyday if without internet and computer i think i can't do anything. so i agree with you, without internet life become boring and outdated. I add something on it,we never buy newspaper in hostel. so we need internet to see what world happen now. so internet is very important for us.

--Kayli Leng--

Discussion 1 - Social Media

Social Media is an online technology tools that allowed peoples nowadays to communicate through internet such as Facebook, twitter, blogger and so on. Seriously, social media has affecting us in many ways, either in positive or negative. Nowadays, I believe that most people would not live in life without social media including me. It enables me to communicate, to share and to know everything anytime and anywhere. Frankly, I get know everything new from social media, not newspaper anymore. Social media expanding our social networking, we get know more friends from local or other country. With some applications like Skype, I can communicate with my friends and relatives that live further away even over sea without any charges.

With social media, peoples can now operate their business without an existing shop or company, for example, in facebook, we can see many pages that selling clothes, contact lenses, daily needs and many more. I’m one of their customers too, it’s very convenient, just with few clicks, online transaction, I bought the things I want without going out. However, it has disadvantages; we never know the quality of the products unless we bought it. Other than that, we are taking risk of being cheat, it’s insecure sometimes.

Moreover, social media is affecting our written communications, or even our oral communications. Usually, I write in short form in email, sms, notes and online chatting every day, and finally this become my bad habit. For example, I would write ‘whr r u?’ instead of ‘where are you?’. Even in examination, I’ll never realize that I have many mistakes on these. This is really unacceptable. On the other side, I ever heard people talked by adding those ‘online language’ such as ‘lol’, ‘afk’, ‘gtg’ etc. in their conversation.

Admittedly, social media really affecting our life positively and negatively yet we can’t live without it. :)

Social Media discussion 1

Nowadays almost everyone use social media. Example of social media, Facebook, YouTube, Blogger, Twitter, etc... Even me, use it every day, chat with friends, update blog, watch the latest news and others.

I think most of the teenager use social media to widen their friendship, keep in touch with friends or reconnect to their old friends by using social media.

Social media also can be a marketing strategy. As we see that many advertisement post on Facebook, because seem like many people use social media and we use every day so that people can see the advertisement through social media and not just only can see it on television. And people use it to promote their products by making a contest or voting on facebook.

Other than that people also make their own e-commerce business on social media. such as selling cloths, key-chain and others.
I think that many people make social media be a part of our life.


--Kayli Leng--

Social media impact (discussion 1)-Camille Koh

Social media is definitely increasing and expanding in the society nowadays. It has certainly become a part of our daily lives as most of us religiously depend on it to pass the day. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Blogger no doubt have change the way we communicate compare to the past where it still involves mailing letters. I am not saying that we do not use this method anymore, but it is getting lesser and lesser. But on the other hand, some of the positive impact that this social networking sites have is that we are able to meet new people, improve our relationship with friends and loved ones, as well as being able to find old friends and reconnect with them. That way, we can always stay in touch with each other in a more convenient way no matter where we are in the world.

Social media can also inform you about the latest happenings that are going on right now in the world, whether locally or internationally. We now do not need to just depend on the news or newspapers to know about the latest global events. For example, I can just go to Facebook and check out people's updates in my news feed to know what is trending right now like the latest happening which is the Bersih rally which has been going on for the past few days. For someone who barely watches the news, I wouldn't have even know that this rally is happening if it were not for the people on Facebook to share it in the web.

Other than that, social media can also greatly improve the economy. A lot of people are establishing their business through social media and are actually doing really well. Television programs, talk show, advertising as well as online shopping are some of the few commonly known business to have expanded quite well in the past few years. How does this impact the economy? Well, a good advertisement or commercial can really influence the people and convince them to invest on whatever the product you are trying to sell. For example, the Macbook Air commercial, although simple, it really emphasized the best feature of the product, which in this case is the thinness and lightness of the Macbook Air. People who are not familiar with the product would probably be interested just by seeing it on the television.

Social media greatly influence the way we live our lives. Whether it is a positive or negative one, I think it depends on how you use it and impact it into your lives.

DISCUSSION 1

According to the blog assignment, we are asked to discuss how this new "Social Media" phenomenon is affecting my life and the lives of the people around me.

Social media is something like MSN, SKYPE, FACEBOOK, SMARTPHONE and etc. And we can see that social media in 21st century is everywhere and it seems like is a MUST for everyone's daily life. I feel the power is so strong as it has affected my life can't live without internet. I have addicted as it has became part of my life. No internet equally my life has gone BORING and also feel like outdated. Especially Facebook. Even the people around me, everyday sit in front of the computer spending most of their time on it. Watch online television, listen to online broadcasting, communicate with friends, do assignments ALL WE NEED IS COMPUTER AND INTERNET ACCESS as well! And it has affected most of the people, once they back from class they will just sit in front of the computer. Besides, the first thing everyone does when they on their computer is the FACEBOOK. Even no Facebook, there might be either Twiter/ Youtube/ Tumblr/ MSN etc.. 

So does the same thing happen to you my dear group members? :)

Blog Assignment - TOPIC DISCUSSION 1 :

TOPIC DISCUSSION 1 (DEADLINE: 10 July 2011, Sunday, Midnight) 

Please view this short video on Social Media. (You can post this video on your blog for reference) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpIOClX1jPE

Discuss how this new "Social Media" phenomenon is affecting your life and the lives of the people around you. Real-life examples would be good. 

Reminder:

Each student must post at least
1.) 1 reflective response on topic given (5%)
2.) 2 reflective response/comments to members’ postings within the group (2.5% X 2 = 5%)

All posts should be spread out over a period of 5 days to 7 days (NO BINGE-ING!!) 

Group Member

Leng Cheok Kuan 1102702783

Alice Low Soo Ying 1102701139

Lee Chen Yau 1102701423

Cham Yang Hui 1102701419

Yau Fen Nie 1102701868

Camille Koh Jin Ni 1102700150

Kan Yen Li 1102701711

Amanda Tham Shih Wei 1111111053

Social Media in Plain English( Reference)