theotherhalf

2007-05-13T08:41:00.000-07:00

The media is corrupting our society. Do you agree?

When discussing about the media, there are several areas that we could look at. Personally, I think that the media could be classified into several categories. Just like the newspaper, there would news and happenings, politics, science and technology, social issues and of course entertainment. Now, for my argument I would focus on whether media in the form of entertainment is or is not corrupting our society. The kind of corruption that my argument would be base on would be in forms of moral degeneration as well as debased character and perversion.

A common debate among people these days on whether violent media would corrupt youths have sparked off concern parents resorting to desperate measures just to stop their children from playing video and computer games. Violent media have been around since the age of American pop culture, where youths read violent comics in which Superhumans smash their ways through cities, destroying and burning everything in their paths. With youths sitting in front of the computer screen blasting everything in their way just like the Heros or villains in the comics, fantasying, pretending, thinking that they are Superhumans too, I can see why parents and teachers are so concern about violent media. Yes, its true that research have shown playing violent video games like the popular Doom, Counter Strike or Mortal Combat can increase aggressive thoughts, feelings and behavior. But research has also suggested that media violence has a relatively small impact on real-life violence.

Furthermore, there are psychologists who use violent media as an educational tool for children to conquer their fears, although they do not concur that violent entertainment is totally harmless. Violence is just like a double-edged sword, one that could be use to parents and their children’s advantage to fight the challenges of growing up. But it could also become hazard when left to manifest within the children. Thus keeping children away and sheltering them from violent media may actually do more harm than good.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2000/06/violent_media.html?welcome=true

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1125659.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/720707.stm

2007-05-06T03:01:00.000-07:00

Global Warming Media Scam

Reduce, reuse, and recycle! The catchy 3Rs used by environmentalist worldwide to save the shrinking forests, to keep our airs free of pollution, to prevent our ice caps from melting. The theory of humans burning too much fossil fuels, cutting down too many trees, releasing tons and tons of CO2 and other so-called greenhouse gases into the atmosphere causing our precious little planet to heat-up and leading to impending doom has become so widely accepted that it is almost sacrilegious to challenge.

How did it all started? Was it a prophecy foresaw by some divine being? No it was media! The scientific community could not have commanded such power to influence the entire world, earning the support of authoritative figures like Singapore’s very own Minister Mentor to US President George Bush. The media has become the new-age god! Everything it says is the truth and the only truth, and those who deny it would be branded blasphemous!

Luckily for humanity, we humans are born with an abundance of curiosity. So for every prophecy foretold, there would bound to be skeptics and disbelievers. And this was how the controversial new documentary ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ all started.

'The Great Global Warming Swindle' - backed by eminent scientists – attempts to rock the accepted consensus that climate change is being driven by humans.The programme, screened on Channel 4 on Thursday March 8, depicts a series of respected scientists attacking the "propaganda" that they claim is killing the world's poor.
Nobody in the documentary defends the greenhouse effect theory, as it claims that climate change is natural, has been occurring for years, and ice falling from glaciers is just the spring break-up and as normal as leaves falling in autumn. However, there were many that saw the 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' as another media scams as well, an attempt by the producers to attain higher ratings.

Personally I believe that there maybe a certain degree of truth on the documentary. Although I have not watched it (which maybe a good thing as my opinions are not swayed by it), I too have some doubts about the “greenhouse theory”.

For years, through textbooks, magazines, news, encyclopedias and even movies like ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ we have all been warned that the North Pole might become iceless during the summer months at the end of this century and sea levels would rise, flooding low-lying countries and eradicating much of mankind!

But is this really what is going on? Or just a scam, perpetrated by scientists with selfish personal interests and thus providing the media with a new scare story, which has been gladly picked up by the focus groups and turned into the new religion, threatening that a nightmare would come true if we don't all change our ways.

Sure, there is research that indicates that the ice sheets are being reduced, but there are also studies that show the exact opposite. An example of this is a study in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letter where the Swedish researcher Peter Winsor compares data collected by submarines below the Arctic ice concluding that the thickness of the ice has been almost constant between 1986 and 1997.

So are the ices growing or melting? That would be something for the scientists and environmentalists to argue it out among themselves. But what counts to most ordinary people is what media is reporting, and media is often highlighting only the most distressing, shocking and attention-catching studies and seldom report of studies that go against the popular consensus that human activity leads to global warming. So as a matter of fact, the news, the theories are all actually one-side views and beliefs.

Global climate is certainly an important issue to debate, but it is unfortunate that the news communicated to the public is so often shifted towards the worst-case scenarios and the doomsday theories. There is no reason to scare people by just giving them only one side of the argument. ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’, be it true and revolutionary or just a production for fame and money, may just become the first step whereby views opposing the current consensus could be built on. It could serve as a motivation for those skeptics who are against the ‘greenhouse theory’ to search for new evident, as well as a guild for the public to gain a better view of the current issues on global climate.

Information from:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4066189.stm

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/sanandaji9.html

2007-04-25T09:41:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, the mass media do not report the news; they make the news. Discuss this with references to recent events.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3702574.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3953693.stm
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/911terrorspectaclemedia.pdf

Mass media has also been one of the most powerful of tools for politicians, ever since the beginning of its existence. As the old saying goes, “knowledge is power” thus whoever controls the knowledge of the people, controls the people. Not only in recent years have mass media been manipulating the news that they report. Media manipulation may just been as old as politics itself. Politicians in Queen Anne's England, such as the Tory Robert Harley, were the first to realize the importance of political communication and thus giving rise to the practices such as manipulating news of state affairs to win the people’s hearts.

Without doubt, we live in an age where media manipulation is all around us. From recent events, occurrence that took place in the past few years, we could clearly see that not everything that is reported in our newspapers is true.
One clear example would the ‘democratic’ United States; the corporate news media loyally portray the dominant class ideology both in their reportage and commentary but cleverly gives an impression that they are free and independent. News and issues on the Vietnam in the 1950s to the recent Iraq war have all been twisted and turn to suit the government’s propagandas. The Bush administration have been often suggested to be the good of mankind, while the Iraq, Iran, North Korea and countries that oppose this supposing ‘good’ are labeled as the ‘axis of evil’.

However, I cannot deny that media manipulations in forms of censorships do have their uses and benefits. Some news and footages are just unsuitable to be revealed to the general public. This would be due to various reasons; one would be that the publics’ lack of understanding of the entire issue might lead to widespread of anxiety and misunderstandings. Take for example the recent Virginia Tech mass murder incident; the murderer, Cho Seung-Hui, a South Korean immigrant and Virginia Tech student, whose rambling diatribes and hateful videos were being broadcasting repeatedly on various news agencies, may had just lead to the stereotyping of Asians to be brutal and bloodthirsty monsters. Furthermore, this abusage of the media to broadcast gory images for higher ratings had instead glorified his actions and caused repercussions such as encouraging more of such bloody massacres.

Another instance would be the Al-Qaeda terrorists shooting their own videos of their kidnapping and murdering hostages. Their motive, instead of ransom money, is to be broadcasted to the world, to instill fear and to shake public opinion.

Thus it is important that a balance between truth and ‘cover-ups’ is strike when editors publish their news. Mass media can never simply report the entire truth. There are things that should be kept away to protect the safety and civility of the society but at the same times facts should never be manipulated for personal gains as well. People are entitled to know the truth, while the media’s job is to report the ‘right’ amount of it.

2007-04-12T11:13:00.000-07:00

“YouTube has no ethics, it's been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money.” Do you agree?

I do not think that Youtube has no ethics and is created solely for entertainment and profits. From the origins and brief history of Youtube, we could see that it started off just as a platform for people to share their personal videos. Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, two of the three founders of Youtube told Times magazine that the inspiration for the creation of Youtube from them having difficulties sharing some of their personal videos online. Furthermore, the initial publicity of the website involves netizens posting their ‘homemade’ videos on Youtube to stand a chance of winning attractive prizes. This very fact shows that Youtube was created for people from all walks of life, all over the world to share and provide entertainment with original videos that they made themselves.

I could safely say that even the creators of Youtube did not expected it to grow into a billion dollar worth website where people share controversial videos that entangle their company in countless copyright infringements and even face bans from certain countries. If the initial aims of this website was just ingenuously to provide people with an easy and user-friendly way of sharing their own videos with other for fun and entertainment, how could we possibly accuse such an innovation to be non-ethical? Yes, it may be true that Youtube is created for entertainment, but for money, I quite hard to say so. No one, including its three founders would have thought that their idea would manifest into something worth of billions in such a short period of time. Even if Steve, Chad and Jawed (the other founder) were after profit, they would have very well charge users of Youtube for service.

Ethical or not, Youtube is currently facing many external threats. From lawsuits by Viacom for copyright infringements to accusations of being a bad influence to being ban for insulting the founders of modern Turkey and Thailand’s King, Youtube has certainly painted a repulsive picture for its reputation. But how much of these non-ethical accusations can be directed at the company when 65000 videos are being uploaded daily. No doubt there will be some illicit videos ended up on the web. I not saying that Youtube entirely innocent, however, we must not forget that everything that goes up onto that website originates from the users worldwide. A survey showed that Youtube has about 20 million visitors each month thus maybe just a handful of unlawful people who uploads some morally unsound videos would be enough to tarnish Youtube’s reputation.

What I would like to say here is that, a website that operates on the basics of millions of people worldwide, could not be simply labeled as ethical or non-ethical.

2007-04-04T19:06:00.000-07:00

‘The teenage years are the best years of one’s life.’ Would you agree with this view? (CAMBRIDGE NOV 1994)

Why would I agree that teenage years are the best years of one’s life when I’m mugging at 2.10am trying to churn out this piece of work just to meet the dateline my teacher had set? Yes, yes. I know how some of you out there would say that despite the homework, boring lectures, egoistic teachers, naggy parents and especially those hardcore muggers in school, teenage life wondrous as this is when people start to experience and understand the realities of the world.

Teenage years, a phrase of life that everyone had to experience; going through puberty, experiencing the sweet-bitterness of first love, hanging out late with friends, sitting in front of your computer or television console for hours, defying the orders of your parents, making decisions on your own for the first time, taking up General Paper to know more about the world (much more like how others sees it), the list goes on. Wow! It sure is exciting doing all this things for the first time. And I’m certain it makes you feel finally or at least partially as an individual but not just an extension of your parents’ will. It seems like it is during this stage of life when one learns to take charge of his/her life.

The feeling of being independent, being in control sure is nice isn’t it? But here comes the side effects. As the cliché of our all-time favourite friendly spider comics suggest, “With great power comes great responsibility”, the mere ability to make the many decisions in life was given to every teenager along with a price tag. And written on this price tag, is the word stress. Stress coupled with all the other hormonal changes in the body result in teenagers feeling angst and rebellious, and in turn lead to the so-called ‘emo’ cases. Whereby teens wore black clothing, listen to gloomy and gory music and even self mutilate, justifying these actions as forms of emancipation. Doesn’t all these makes us wonder if the price of growing up is too high?

Then which are the best years of ones life? If the teenage years were bad, adulthood is going to be worst. It is obvious that it is the stage of life when the full responsibility of your life comes weighing on your shoulders and that doesn’t end here. When parenthood comes into the picture, the burden gets heavier and it just keeps adding on. The full fledge of external factors would come crashing right onto you! Paychecks, house loans, bills, medical fees, GST, unemployment, upgrading, your children’s school fees, your unreasonable boss, your self-centered colleagues, your unfriendly neighbours and many many many more. And guess what? The stage that marks the beginning of all these, is our teenage years! Sad to say, but it is God’s and our government’s way of preparing us for the harshness of the life ahead. Am I being too cynical about all this? You may say so but from what I see, these are what almost every adult around me is going through. Alas! The best years of ones life are often gone even without us noticing. As the old saying goes, ignorance is bliss”. But for now naivety will cost us dearly.