Chapter 8: Final Assignment

Role of Media in Socializing: Discuss the human needs that media help satisfy in term of news and entertainment

In general, Media refers to various means of communications. There are many media that we can refer to, such as: mass media, social media, computer media digital media and etc. These media undoubtedly is changing our lifestyle, turning us to rely more and more on media in daily life. But, how these media help us to satisfy our needs in term of news and entertainment?

Before that, lets have a short look on the 9 basic needs of human by Abrahim Maslow. The 9 basic needs are:

1) Security - need to feel safe, to feel assured that they know what is going to happen, to know ahead of time what the plans are.
2) Adventure - need for an adrenaline rush, to have new experiences, to travel, to have BIG experiences
3) Freedom - need for independence and spontaneity. It is also the need to have choices and to feel in control of making those choices.
4) Exchange - need to trade information and knowledge with others, not just to mingle or socialize, but to deliver and receive something of value.
5) Power - need for Power need to be in a position of authority and responsibility.
6) Expansion - need to build something, to add onto, to create an empire, to expand horizons, to go where no one has gone before.
7) Acceptance - need to accept yourself and be accepted by others.
8) Community - need for Community like having people around.
9) Expression - need to be artistic, to be seen, to be heard, to be felt. It is the need to express oneself through words, speech, actions, dress, art and self-creations of all types.

The Internet can make you smarter, experts say. According to a new survey of scientists, business leaders, and technology developers in summer 2008, three out of four experts said our use of the Internet enhances and augments human intelligence, and two-thirds said use of the Internet has improved reading, writing, and rendering of knowledge. Therefore, we can make a hypothesis that media helps in satisfy our expansion need. Through online journalism and online newspaper, we are able to increase our general knowledge about what is happening around us globally in just a few clicks. If man wants food for his belly, he also needs news for his mind to keep pace with the world. In other words, news are today's world encyclopedias.

Secondly, social media such as Facebook, Friendster, and Twitter enhance the meeting of people around the world, providing them to chat and know each other without traveling around places. Hence, it satisfies our community need. These social media make us accessible to meet with different people in different countries, makes it less awkward when communicating with strangers or people we are not familiar with. Further more, it is never a hard work for us to join groups in Facebook that are having similar likes and dislikes. So, it also satisfy our acceptance need. By being accepted in a group, people will meets his self-esteem, and these people will often be a stabilizing presence and help others tolerate with each other and avoid any conflict in group. At the same time, they share their knowledge, experiences in a same group. satisfy their exchange need.

Media such as music, television, blog, cinema and theater share one purpose, to satisfy the need of expression. The author of a blog or the director of a movie express their feeling and their opinion about certain issue through their works. They are actually promoting understanding through art, words, and behaviors. For example, the movie "2012" shows the director's concern about the environmental issue of our Earth and invoke us to start to care our environment.

Through playing games, we are actually satisfying our adventure need. People like adventures and explore new things. However, not all of us are having enough resources to explore the adventure such as students. They do not own any income and thus they will have no money to travel to new place. Games satisfy their needs. Games such as: Assassin Creeds use real life places and scenery in Italy. The players who play the games will feel like they are actually in Italy. The same theory apply in playing racing games since illegal racing is forbidden. Games such as Grand Thief Auto, Sims City have no particular rules to obey. The player can change their character's appearance, hairstyle or way of dressing, feel free to move the character around the game world without restrictions. Thus, gaming also satisfy the need of freedom which the players can't experience in real life.

As a conclusion, the media helps people to satisfy their needs. It did a great impact on our society today. Therefore, although it satisfy our needs in some way, there have to be some control on the usage of media. A wrong or misuse of media could bring violent to society. For instant, Batman or any superhero movie. They are trying to confess to people to be a justice and honor person. But a misunderstanding of the meaning could affect people to be solve problem violently.

Chapter 7: Tetrad of Media Effect

From the book "The Medium is the Massage", McLuhan summarized his ideas of media by using "Tetrad of Media Effects. " The tetrad is a means of examining the effects on society of any technology (medium) by dividing its effects into four categories: Enhances, Reverses, Retrieves and Obsolesces. McLuhan designed the tetrad as a pedagogical tool, phrasing his laws as questions with which to consider any medium:

- What does the medium enhance?
- What does the medium make obsolete?
- What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier?
- What does the medium flip into when pushed to extremes?

Lets start with a few examples. The first example I will use is blogging.

Enhancement: It provides unlimited space for users to write their journal. It also allow the users to insert media such as video clip or music in their blog. Furthermore, it provides a space for people around the world to share about their life. A blog is never a paper like dairy, it provides more function in it.

Obsolescence: Blogging reduces the usage of paper. However, it can be viewed by everyone which means a less privacy.

Retrieval: Our life is getting busier and busier. So it is quite difficult for us to continue the habit of writing journal. Thus, blogging offer a great replacement. It is free, easy to use and flexible. Ones can express himself/herself in blog, or use it for assignment purpose or etc. In a nutshell, it is about sharing of one's feeling, knowledge and communication.

Reversal: Blogging also can be use with different purposes. Students assess their assignments via blog. Some sell their product in their blog. The blog flips into commercial use.

Another example is the Facebook.

Enhancement: The Facebook enhances the meeting of people around the world, providing them to chat and know each other without traveling around places.

Obsolescence: Facebook contains chatbox, comment box and email functions, we need not call over or sending letters. The Facebook group offer a place for meeting and informations purposes, where employees can keep theirselves updated from the upper managment.

Retrieval: The Facebook retrieves the sense of community and socializing. Nowadays, we can see almost everyone using Facebook to keep contact with others. Even my mum used a Facebook to contact me!

Reversal: When the Phenomena of Facebook is over-extended, there will be less privacy and become a waste of time because people started to sit in front of the computer whole day to play with Facebook. A man can have 1000+ friends in Facebook but he may not even has one in the real life.

Chapter 6: Message vs Massage

In this chapter, we will discuss about Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 - December 31, 1980). Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian educator, philosopher and scholar- a professor of English Literature, a literacy critic, a rhetorician and a communication theorist. McLuhan's work is viewed as one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory. He is also known for the expressions "the medium is the message" and "global village". McLuhan was a fixture in media discourse from the late 1960s to his death and he continues to be influential and controversial figure. More than ten years after his death he was named the "patron saint" of Wired magazine. (resources from www.wikipedia.org)

From the view of Media is massage, McLuhan stated that the media massage or pummel us, or perhaps he was making a pun on the new"mass-age". From this view, how we choose to deliver the message is more influential/important than what we want to deliver.

"We shape our tools and they in turn shape us."

This concentration on the medium and how it conveys information -rather than on the specific content of the information is the focal point of "the medium is the massage. "

Meanwhile, on the view of Media is the Message, our resources is limited and hence man needs to use tools to enhance the resources. Technology works as extension of human body and how it affect our relationship with one another. This extension occurs when an individual or society makes or uses something in a way that expands the range of human body and mind in a new fashion. In other words, whenever a new technology is invented, the lifestyle changed. For example, the selling of Ipad and cellphones.

The extension of technology causes amputation, which eliminate the older or inconvenient technology. The automobile amputates bicycles, and it results the place develops in different manner. The invention of gun power amputates archery and eventually turned it into a sport rather than a weapon.

Fail! =X

Chapter 5: Mead's Theory

George Herbert: Transition to a Modern Social Psychology of Communication

George Herbert was an American philosopher, sociologist and psychologist and had been regarded as one of the founders of social psychology and the American sociological tradition in general.

George Herbert comes out with an idea called symbolic interactionist which refers to the emergence of mind and self from the communication process between organisms. According to Mead, a self is “that which can be object to itself” and only humans have and are, selves. The self arises when the individual becomes an object to themselves. Mead argued that we are objects first to other people, and secondarily we become objects to ourselves by taking the perspective of other people, and thus through language we become other to ourselves. Humans learn to see themselves from the standpoint of their co-actors. It is through realizing ones role in relation to others that selfhood arises.

Besides that, Mead also distinguished several phases of socialization, notably the “play phase” and the “game phase”. The former stage occurs when the young child begins to take the role of individual significant others. The child takes different roles he/she observes in "adult" society, and plays them out to gain an understanding of the different social roles. For instance, he first plays the role of policeman and then the role of thief while playing "Cops and Robbers," and plays the role of doctor and patient when playing "Doctor." As a result of such play, the child learns to become both subject and object and begins to become able to build a self. However, it is a limited self because the child can only take the role of distinct and separate others; they still lack a more general and organized sense of themselves.

For the “game phase”, the individual must take the role of the generalized other. It is required that a person develop a self in the full sense of the term. Whereas in the play stage the child takes on the role of distinct others, in the game stage the child must take the role of everyone else involved in the game. Furthermore, these roles must have a definite relationship to one another. It is also notes that in the game stage, organization begins and definite personalities start to emerge. Children begin to become able to function in organized groups and most importantly, to determine what they will do within a specific group.

Chapter 4: Impact on Culture?

This chapter, we will focus on the impact of media on our culture. It is no doubt that culture often get influenced through technology. The example that we mentioned in class is the TV culture. Since we are having Youtube and PPS nowadays, people are becoming less and less in watching TV since online broadcasting is free and we can watch it whatever and whenever we want.

Another real life example, guys and girls, are you still writing letter to pals or parents? Are you still using magazine or newspaper to know a pen pal? Nope, we had done neither now. People nowadays especially youth get to know each other via network like Facebook, Friendster MySpace and etc. With just a few clicks, we could almost done everything. The Internet brings conveniences and keep us connected with each other. Just like what I am doing now, I am blogging to share information or knowledge.

Have you ever heard this word: Otaku? The emergence of Japanese Anime and Manga changed the lifestyle of youngster today. People started to admire Japan, started to speak Japanese, started to dream to become a animator, started to listen and sing Japanese songs and etc. Due to this, the culture of cosplaying emerged.

Remember, when a practices is practiced at anywhere and anytime, it becomes a culture.

And finally, God bless to this guy:

Chapter 3: Media Imperialism

Media imperialism is a phenomenon of a big and wealthy media industry or company control or monopoly over the media industries. When an owner is actually controlling the media, the media output can be biased. The owner can decide on what information to be shown as well as what to censor. For example, in Britain, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) operates its own form of media imperialism. The BBC has an annual television license that needs to be bought before you can own a television, regardless of whether you watch the BBC or not.

The same thing happens in our country, Malaysia. As example, our newspaper is control by the government under the act of PPPA1984 Malaysia’s Printing Presses and Publications Act. The PPPA provided the Minister for Home Affairs with discretionary powers concerning the granting, suspension and revocation of printing licences within Malaysia and the import and distribution of foreign publications. Licensing offences under the Act are punishable by up to 3 years’ imprisonment or fines of up to RM 20,000 or both. According to Press Freedom Index by Reporters without Borders, Malaysia is ranked 131 out of 175 nations.

A famous example of media imperialism is the BERSIH Protest on 10 November 2007. The event organizers intended to have a peaceful, non-violent rally, advising participants in the days and weeks beforehand how to keep the rally peaceful. However, the rally was marred by the government sanctioned police violence. After the incident, foreign media such as Al-Jazeera covered the event with detailed videos and ground and satellite images. BBC and CNN featured the news in their online papers as well.

On the other hand, ironically, local papers such as The Star only managed to feature a traffic jam on page 8 of its Sunday edition. Most of the local papers did not feature this as an important event despite the magnitude of the rally whereas protests in other countries were covered almost daily in full detail. The local media cannot report the rally because of the act of PPPA 1984.

OK, spot the differences:

Chapter 2: Impact on the Society?

In your opinion, what media discovery or invention has made the greatest impact on society today? How and why?

Today's topic will be based on the above. From the video on social ice cream in Chapter 1, we knew that the media has a big influence in our daily life. For the easiest example, as technology develops, majority of the people can't survive without internet. The Internet allows us to involve in social network with just a few clicks (Facebook). Even we can survive without internet, we can't catch up what's the latest information or news in the world, or worse, we can't communicate with each other.

Lets take a look on other example as well. Technological change has made globalization a tangible reality. Since the end of World War II, the world has seen major advances in communication, information processing and transportation technology, including the explosive emergence of the Internet and World Wide Web. In 1990, fewer than 1 million users were connected to the Internet. By 1995, the figure had risen to 50 million. By December 2007, the Internet had 1.3 billion users. The rapid growth of the World Wide Web (WWW) has developed into the information backbone of the global world.

The WWW has made great impact on the world business today. Billions of goods and services were expected to be sold online to retail customers. Many people like to use internet to get information before making a purchase. They collected data and feedback of one product to avoid buying a bad quality product. Viewed globally, the Web is emerging as an equalizer between big firm and small firm. Since it rolls back some of the constraints of location, scale and time zones, the WWW makes it much easier for buyers and sellers to find each other, wherever they may be located and whatever their size. It allows business, both small and large to expand their business globally at a lower cost than ever before.

Besides that, the WWW also impact the education field greatly. Education today is slowly moving towards to techno-based. Textbooks do not have to be a must to students as the search engines such as Google, Yahoo enable students to locate information easily. Furthermore, E-learning is more interesting to students as the graphics were wonderful to look at. A topic that could be very dry can also be exciting to read by combining the content with animation. Students also can download the lecture notes and project sample through Internet even when they are not in school. Next, computers have also been a source of joy for children because of the games they like to play with them. So school work, that resembles play, is much more appealing. With the vast opportunities the WWW, affords great learning with much joy. That is why in Germany, the computers are taught from kindergarten.

Finally, another one of the impacts of the Internet and WWW on the society is in the field of medicine. People can seek from Internet to have a great source of information about certain disease. Hence, people are much better informed and eventually lead to an increase of health. Patients can easily contact the doctor to discuss their cases, understand alternatives and any other information using the Email services.

As a conclusion, the WWW has made the greatest impact on society today. No matter how it affected our culture and life in good and bad ways, it certain did change the way we work, how we spend our free time and also the way we communicate.

Chapter 1: Media Culture... Apa ni?

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Before learning what is media culture, lets look into the word media first. The word "Media" refers to the means of communication such as radio and television, newspapers, and magazines, that reach or influence people widely. Then, the word "Culture" means the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group. Hence, I could define "Media Culture" in this way: hows the media changes or affects our culture.

Lets describe media as an ice-cream. Long long day ago, we are only limited to a few flavors, but now we can found lot of them in the city. Why is this phenomena happening? The same theory applied in the using of internet today. Everyone is using the Internet to do research, to communicate with others.Why?

Always remember that the media has a great power within itself. It is not only affects our daily life, opinion, perspective, thinking etc, it is also provide us information, entertain us as well. Besides, media will form lots of community among ourselves by gathering a group of people with the same thinking. So, how is it affects our life, our culture? Stay tuned for the following chapter. =D