Global climate change and problems

‘Seek truth and report it’ the US-based Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ)
As we all know climate change has become a big topic, on the news and it has become a global topic as global warming is now effecting every country around the globe. This has put some thought what do the journalists researching and reporting about this got to do with the reports of climate change we see on the media every day, how are our journalists feeling about this global topic?
First of all how climate change is effecting everyone and Journalist last time I checked are also human so, health and well-being for them is a major concern for them also when it comes to climate change. Climate change is a tough topic to cover in the media, because I am not going to lie ‘they need to show both sides of the argument.’ Journalists are not just writing or reporting both sides they are entitled to their own opinion thus creating bias reporting on what they believe hence giving viewers the of the source a biased opinion.
Without creditable sources a journalists that is reporting on such a topic of global climate change they must turn to ‘citizenry sources, these sources are known to be google, Yahoo and blogs would be leading the credibility of sources for the journalist. ‘Google, Yahoo and others, including some remnants of traditional news organizations, are among the leading candidates.’ (Bud Ward 2009)
References:

Bud Ward (2009) ‘Journalism ethics and climate change reporting in a period of intense media uncertainty’ Vol 9: P 13-15,2009

Barriers betwwen International Students and Local Australian students

In my time at university I have met many international students, but as more in the breakdancing community as b-boys from different countries come to study in Sydney universities. These International students I meet are usually from Asian nations such as Hong Kong, Japan and Korea well personally for me.

“Some of the international students believed that it was not that local students were unfriendly but rather that they also did not know how to initiate conversations with International students” (PETER KELL & GILLIAN VOGL 2006). I believe that this is quite true, this is due to the fact that local students do not know much about other cultures but also local students do not know what to talk about with an international student this, can be due to the fact, of language barriers. Even though if the international student can speak some English it can be very common for the local student to not understand a word of what there, international student is saying. In the reading of Kell and Vogl they explain as they had spoken to an international student as they commented ‘Australians’ who had been out of the country were much easier to approach and were “a lot more friendly” than those who had never left the country’ ” (PETER KELL & GILLIAN VOGL 2006).

Being an international student they face many problems trying to, integrate into the Australian society or any new culture at that. Kell and Vogl explain that more Asian students are willing to connect with the Australian Culture but lack familiarity of social norms and also not understanding colloquial English. “It is said of Australian English that it has a wide range of inventive and colourful slang and colloquialism. It is perhaps truer to say that a range of colloquialism is much the same as in any other language but Australians make’ (PETER KELL & GILLIAN VOGL 2006).

Other factors that exclude international students from is Culture clashes between local Australian and internationals a lot of the locals go drinking at the Uni pub but some cultures of international students forbid that, behaviour and trying to mix in with a group but having restrictions can also be hard.

Educating both parties local and international students, both can engage in conversation and activities together. ‘International education becomes intercultural education in which self- forming individuals engage with each other with a cosmopolitan relational space criss-crossed by changing differences. They are open to each other and learn much from each other’ (Simon Marginson 2012).

References: 

PETER KELL & GILLIAN VOGL (2006) International Students: Negotiating life and study in Australia through Australian Englishes, Everyday Multiculturalism Conference Proceedings, Macquarie University 28-29 September 2006 

Simon Marginson (20012) ‘Morphing a profit-making business into an intercultural experience International education as self-formation’

Media Capitals Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s industry is forever growing massively and is now a leading country in the media’s capital. This is due to the fact because of Hong Kong’s rich culture and “Its rising velocity and volume of multi directional media flows are being reassessed to the periphery world system” (Curtin, 2003).

In the early times of Hong Kong, Hong Kong was had been a transit point where only a small number of groups of population had made the territory their home. Hong Kong’s population rose massively but as the Threat of Cold war had risen laws and regulations restricted newcomers into the country during the period of 1960. In Curtains reading he explains even though Hong Kong had implied regulations about newcomers coming into Hong Kong during the tension Hong Kong “Despite these political constraints – and because of its central position in the Chinese diaspora – the city continued to prosper as a nexus for financial and trade relations between mainland China and the rest of the world”. (Curtain 2003). As Hong Kong grew as a country immigrants have migrated to Hong Kong as a sanctuary thus making Hong Kong a leading country on par with Hollywood and india in the media capital.

Hong Kong’s emergence as a massive media capital is through much of migration of cultural institutions and creative talent. The television Broadcasting Limited TVB, had commenced broadcasting in 1967 in Hong Kong. Countries such as Taiwan, Singapore and Bangkok had started to “attract diaspora audiences that is far beyond Hong Kong’s territory” (Leung and Chan, 1997). TVB now broadcasts to countries in South East Asia with popular Television Drama series. What has made TVB drama television shows very popular is how it has integrated with western culture, pretty much it’s like watching an American Soap but with Hong Kong actors, and in a different language, but the action and scenes are pretty much similar.

C-Pop or Cantonese popular Music is a massive industry in Hong Kong it’s Hong Kong’s music industry. Popular singer song writer Gloria Tang Shi-Wing is a Cantopop and Mandopop singer, born in Hong Kong. I personally like G.E.M Tang as her fan base is not just restricted in Hong Kong but also, Taiwan, Macau, USA, Canada Great Britain and South East Asian countries.

With Hong Kong as a leader in economics banking and also the now breaking into the media as a leading country in media capital Hong Kong will keep producing its Television Drama series and C-Pop stars.

“Hong Kong is one of these competing media capitals”

References:

Curtin, M  2003, “Media Capital: Towards the study of spatial flows”, International journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 6, no.2, pp. 202-228.

 

Media

Mainstream news Channel 7, 9 and 10 what are we really watching? A lot of these broadcasting, services focus a lot on the NRL and celebrities and their personal lives. Clearly that is what many Australians just care about news about the NRL and stopping refugees coming by boat. If you want real news head over to ABC or SBS.

What I have learned so far is that Rupert Murdoch owns a lot of the Media, so a problem in today’s Western Media is that whoever owns that particular media outlet, they can put their ideas upon that station and imply their own ideologies and they can chose what is to be shown and reported. Both sides to the story are never shown in a lot of the western or mainstream media, a perfect example of this is Fox NEWS. Fox News is just horrible in a previous blog post I have done before, I just talk about how biased they are, and how one sided they can be towards certain topics.

Peter Lee Wright explains that “forcing concentration on one aspect rather than all the others. News becomes an uneasy balance between what the network can afford and what the audience will wear”. (2014 p. 14) His explanation here is how news companies can twist the truth by only focusing one side of the story as focusing on both sides. “News bulletins are incapable of encapsulating complex truths. For that very reason, the historian-journalist Mischa Glenny resigned as the BBC’s East European correspondent during the Bosnian war”. (2014 p. 14).

In this day and age of news media it has come apparent to me that majority of news outlets just want audiences or be as entertaining as they can be for viewership for their 6pm news timeslot. This is due to the fact that the owner (Rupert Murdoch) just wants more viewership as they focus on popularity rather than the story at hand.

Refrences

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 Cinemas

The ever growing entertainment industry gets bigger and bigger as the years come by, we are starting to see a massive shift in films that are starting to come out in different languages. Personally most films I have watched and come across are a lot of English, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean and Russian. Without globalisation film crossovers would not exist. No matter what kind of film you are watching now, if it’s from Hollywood, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwanese a lot of cross cultural elements appear in the films. Due the emergence of globalisation we are now seeing a lot of films being culturally crossed over.

In Khonoa’s reading, she refers that crossover cinema is “the term crossover cinema is used to encapsulate an emerging form of cinema that crosses cultural borders at the stage of conceptualization and production and hence manifests a hybrid cinematic grammar at the textual level, as well as crossing over in terms of its distribution and reception.” (2014 p. 2) With the emergence of globalisation, this has allowed a mix of culture in the world’s cinema. Remakes of different films in different countries are a prime example that stand out the most, although they may be in a different language but the story line or plot of the, movie may stay on the same.

A successful crossover film would be the Japanese American film Letters from Iwo Jima. What made this film from Clint Eastwood stand out was that this movie was even though “Americans are in the movie it shows World War 2 in the perspective of the Japanese soldiers who fought in the war. I personally have only seen films of World War 2 from American perspective and seeing a film that has crossed over to show the Japanese perspective is great as the film as shown what Japanese culture of during that time period (1944).

While there are many successful crossover films there are also many failed ones although the Grudge isn’t much of a failure to the original Ju-On film 2002 the Japanese film that inspired The Grudge films remake in 2004. But on the IMBD Ju – On had a higher rating then The Grudge itself. Western audiences always want a resolution in a film where as Japanese audiences do not need a resolution to a film or the storyline.  Rotten tomatoes gave it a low review of 39% ‘There’s some creepy imagery to be found, but not much in the way of logic or truly jarring scares’. While reading a few comments in the comments section a person comments “Completely misses the point of the original.”  This is where there is a lack of “crossover in terms of distribution and reception” (Khorana 2014 p. 2).

References:

Khorana, S 2013, ‘Crossover Cinema: A Genealogical and Conceptual Overview’, Producing a Hybrid Grammar, pp. 1-43.

Ju-On the Grudge 2003 Rotten Tomatoes, [Online] Viewed 13 October 2014
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ju_on_the_grudge_2003/

Ju On The Grudge IMBD, [Online] Viewed 13 October 2014
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364385/

Television In Translation

In our ever massive entertainment industry we have come to accept the fact that a lot of our television series that are shown on our Australian television networks come from America, this can be due to the fact that many of the the small screen films are produced from Hollywood.

Now this is not entirely true as we see Australian Sitcoms or drama series on our television an example of a drama series that is common can be, traced back many years and still airing on television Home and Away. Moving away from drama television Australian comedy entertainment shows like Kath and Kim was a big one which rolled onto the Aussie networks in May 2002. What appealed to many australian audiences was how ‘bogan’ the show was, it had the slang we use in everyday conversations, and this appealed because it reflected on ‘typical’ Australian Culture is like.

“Comedy after all, is a cultural and social practice that is both shaped by and contributes to historical conjunctures” (Turnball 2008, P.112). Although Kath and Kim relates to the ‘bogans’ of Australia this did not stope America from replicating and original of Australian comedy television.

In the year of 2008 NBC and American television station aired the first ‘American’ Kath and Kim. In it’s early arising critics had given the ‘American’ copy cat a good rating but as the show progressed ratings dropped which saw to the cancelation of the television show in America. The American version compared to the Australian had shown many noticeable changes in the show. The massive difference between the 2 shows was that the American version was that in the reading from Turnball was that they both called each other ‘Horn bags which was very ironic as she explains that the the Kath and Kim in this were glitzy glamourous Americans, but also the sliming and toning down of one the the characters.

Below: Australian

Below:American

Although the American Kath and Kim was a fail other replicated films america tried to imitate and that was, successful was Ugly Betty. Ugly betty was originally a Television show in Colombia and “in Colombia she was an intelligent yet unattractive and unfashionable assistant at a Bogotà fashion house.” (Miller 2010, p. 198). “One factor behind the popularity of the telenovela genre is the short run 5–6 night-a-week format, which serves to capture and maintain a steadfast and transfixed audience.” (Miller 2010. P. 198). Although in telenovela has short lasting shows “Ugly Betty” in the USA had managed to be integrated into American society. What made ugly betty and telenovela’s stick was that they have “a mix of globally-resonant archetypes and a structure of specific

localizable elements”. (Miller 2010, P. 213).

By having a global or universal theme shows are able to be translated into many different nationalities if they are to be recreated in a different country as they can relate. As for Kath and Kim and comedies alike are hard to imitate and translated as the comedy needs to stick to the culture to be understood by the people in the countries.

Bibliography

Turnbull S 2008, ‘It’s Like They Threw a Panther in the Air and Caught It in Embroidery’, Metro Magazine: Media & Education Magazine, no. 159, vol. 1, pp. 110-

15.Miller, J.L. (2010) ‘Ugly Betty goes global: Global networks of localized content in the telenovela industry’. Global Media and Communication, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 198-217. 

Hollywood or Bollywood?

What is Hollywood? Hollywood a place in L.A or Los Angeles, California and also a film industry that generates some great movies and not so great movies for many years that’s sells all over the world.
What is Bollywood? Is it just a mere copy of Hollywood? Maybe but it’s really just focusing on the Hindi language film industry which is based in the Indian capital of Mumbai.

Who came first? In my understanding or reading on the internet it seems that Bollywood has appeared to appear before Hollywood. Bollywood, was established in 1899 where as Hollywood was born in 1910 11 years after Bollywood.

Noted buy Ritzer (2007), cultural hybridity is the central reason of globalizing local and global cultural productions that are self-consciously combines and homogenised. As stated by Newcomb and Hirsch film makers act as bricoleurs in the cinematic public sphere that mix both local and global elements to appeal to  audiences that enjoy different genres and trends. Appadurai (1996: 35), states that global mediascapes play a big role in cultural mixing as they play a role in the film producing globally. Thussu (2006) further argues and supports this as ‘the boundaries between the modern and the traditional, the high and low culture, and the national and the global culture’

With the rise of East Asian films industries of Hong Kong, China and Taiwan a lot of movies are now, being cross cultured these cross cultured films from the East Asian film industry are now being the most top grossed films in the US. Many films that are coming out and grossing in the USA that are hybridized are more of the martial arts films these well-known ones can be Bruce Lee movies and also a really well known one the Rush Hour franchise, with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. Ang Lee’s the crouching tiger was attributed to the hybridization as a movie made for the ‘Easterners became a movie for also the Westerners.

The “British Hit” Slumdog Millionaire (Boyale, 2009) grossed up to 141.3 million dollars in the US box office as a Bollywood film. Although this is a great statistic Hollywood’s revenue is still higher than Bollywood, reason being is that Hollywood films are global to anyone in any country, where Bollywood films are mainly just in appealing to the people in India but, in saying that many non “Indian” people enjoy Bollywood films.

Bibliography

Schaefer, D and Karan, K (2010). Problematizing Chindia: Hybridity and Bollywoodization of popular Indian cinema in global film flows

mutiny (2007) Bollywood vs Hollywood the complete breakdown. WordPress.com, weblog. Last accessed 26^th August 2014.

Globalisation and International Education

I believe that globalisation is great. It’s great for businesses to branch out and to start operation internationally.

Why do I think globalisation is great? Well the fact that companies are now starting to operate in different countries and big brands are coming through giving people in different countries a massive variety of consumer goods they can choose from. These consumer goodies that I would call them would be choices of food for example Mc Donald’s or KFC which both suck but for someone new to these kind, of consumer goods they might find it great product as an individual. Now that companies are globalising their products people around the world now own a pair of fresh Nike kick’s or a phone from two massive companies fighting it out Samsung or Apple. Companies operating and expanding internationally is a great way for cultures and different nations to be intercultural but Education is a big factor, in teaching about different cultures and understanding different nations.

Simon Marginson from University of Melbourne is arguing that International students that come into our country come with a rich cultural background, experiences and understanding of culture. With this understanding. International students are able to open up or accept into our own “ethnocentric” society in Australia. With these intercultural experiences, what international students want is more of a chance to interact with the local students but most of the local students are not interested to interact with international students.

The central argument in the readings from Marginson is that he argues that international education is a key element, for rice Australian export. Marginson central argument in his reading is also that to live in a racist free world the next generation of kids and young adults should be educated in, intercultural communications and globalisation. He also argues that cultural negotiation is a major key for opportunities for intercultural encounter.

Due to globalisation, and a massive influx of a huge number of international students and intercultural communication international studies will help local students become more interested in engaging with the International students that are risking a lot to engage with the local students. With more International education we are able to create a network of stable global village. By understanding each other and other cultures conservative ideas can start to deteriorate away from a mind of a conservative.

Bibliography
Margin, S (2012) “Morphing a profit-making business into an intercultural experience
International education as self-formation”, University of Wollongong presentation, delivered 21st Febraury 2012, accessed 15th August 2014 via Moodle.
Khorana, S (2014) “Internationalising Education-Cultural Competence And Cosmopolitanism”, BCM111, University of Wollongong, 12th August 2014

The people we find on the World Wide Web

Still sexism, racism and prejudice are all present in both online and offline. Where do we see a lot of this?

Sexism and misogyny in the media. In this day and age we see girls expressing their sexuality some do it because they are free and don’t give a ‘flying monkey’s buttocks’ about what other people think or some do it because they want to seduce men well I am assuming. The things people do about this is hope on their social media going off calling them “sluts or whores” or Pretty much ‘Slut Shaming’ which a lot of women are not at all.

On the discussion I found on the guardian between Nina Power and Mariam O’Reilly. This discussion pretty much puts in misogyny in social media and what not a better one than twitter.

Lauren Bennett who conducted the interview says A Twitter user called Conservative MP Louise Mensch “a typical soulless rich whore”; TV critic AA Gill said Professor Mary Beard is “too ugly for TV”; a tweet allegedly described the 19-year-old victim of convicted rapist and footballer Ched Evans as “a money-grabbing little tramp”

Nina Power: “Yes. The internet is a place for all these interesting things – investigative journalism, blogs – but it’s also a place where you’re attacked. But women have to keep going with what they’re doing, and not be put off by the abuse.”

Marian O’Reilly: “You’re exactly right. It would be shocking if a woman were bullied into silence. Mensch was right to go public and expose these people – and with the naming of the rape victim in the Ched Evans case, it was absolutely right that the police moved in quickly. I definitely think that outing the bullies, naming and shaming them, is the way to go.”

In my opinion men who think women have more rights and power over women aren’t real men women have I believe are allowed to freely express there sexuality and should not be judged for it especially on social media

References

Laura, B, “Why is there so much misogyny online?” Available: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/may/04/conversation-misogyny-online-abuse
Last accessed 15/05/2014

Clicktivism and it’s slacktivists

Due to the rise of Social Media, Facebook, twitter, Tumblr and YouTube and many more we have seen many spreads of massive ethical issues raised in the media follow through with a lot of activism through social media as social media becomes a massive part of society’s lives. A good example of this #Kony2012 which was run by and organisation called invisible children.

The video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

In 2012 a video of Joseph Kony who was a militant leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda reached 100 million views in the first 6 months of its release with people sharing it all over Facebook or just social media. The viral video directed by Jason Russel, got people to sign petitions, buy action kits and donate to the invisible children organisation.

It’s not just everyday people who share these Medias all over social media celebrities even jumped onto the bandwagon against Kony. Although the campaign was shared all over social media, by celebrities and non-celebrities not much was done besides clicktivism. The organisation ‘Invisible children’ almost $20 million for the campaign against Kony.

But was this campaign had it downs, many of its supporters were slacktivist just doing the simple measures. Evan Bailyn writer for the Huffington post for the article ‘The Difference between Slacktivism and Activism: How ‘Kony 2012’ Is Narrowing The Gap’ Explains that volunteering in a warzone and volunteering in a warzone on Facebook are, completely different and that slacktivist for the Kony2012 campaign are lazy.

My Conclusion is that clicktivism is positive and negative it has its ups and down the with this, it has created an awareness of ethical issues that are needed to be looked at and people should jump on the bandwagon but also this create slacktivism with people just sharing this on social media but not actually “Volunteering in the warzone”.

References

Evan, B. (2012). ‘The Difference between Slacktivism and Activism: How ‘Kony 2012′ Is Narrowing The Gap’ Available: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/evan-bailyn/kony-2012-activism_b_1361791.html Last accessed 13th May 2014.

NEWS.com ‘Remember Kony 2012? Well, it’s 2013. What happened?’ Available: http://www.news.com.au/world/remember-kony-2012-well-its-2013-what-happened/story-fndir2ev-1226550575923 Last accessed 13th May 2014