The news of the Virginia shootout came as a shock to many. 23 deaths caused by just one person. It created a great buzz. But how many people will actually show as much concern to the massacres in Baghdad. To her citizens, it is just another day. One can easily point out that the difference in the so called "value" of lives in different nations.
Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that the Virginia shootout is insignificant or we should not grieve over such situations. I am just hoping that people will shift their sights on what are the other worse events happening in other war torn countries. Is there really a value difference between americans' lives and the muslims in Iraq? Is it true that people living with higher standards should have a higher value? I hope that people will put this incident behind them and take a better look at the world that is consumed by violence and agony.
Instead of posting commentaries on the Virginia massacre, i think people should channel their efforts to provide aid to other poorer countries which has thousands dying daily. They start movements, mass funerals. These events need astronomical sums of money. Does it help at all to commemorate someone who is dead? Would not it be better if it is channeled to better uses for example, use it for charitable causes.
Speaking of which, there is something to be learned from this virginia shootout. Why and how the Korean was able to plot and execute sucah a scale of massacre? It all goes down to the living conditions of an immigirant in a foreign country. Even in this so called liberal world of ours, people are still being discriminated, being deemed as parasties of the society who grab the opportunites of the locals. What should be changed is the attitude of how locals should look and treat the migrants.And by the way there is no gene that will decide what race we are which means we are all actually of the same kind. Hence, everyone deserves an equal right to where we want to stay. Another point is the availability of guns. Why is it that guns are made available to common folk? Is it for sercurity or is it a threat posed among people? I think all of you should know the answer.
In conclusion, I feel that people should not just say how sad the massacre is but instead, look out into the world and use events happened as lesson and use htme to create a better world.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Media- produce or report news?
The mass media is very powerful and influential in the world. As one ex-president of United States said" a president governs the people for 4 years but journalists govern the people forever". This statement simply shows the power of media. In the modern age people now depend on media for information and i find that it is important for the mass media to report facts rather than create them.
What news i would like to do is about news that are fabricated in favour of the government or the corporate. These types of videos are particularly known as the VNRs(video news releases ). VNRs are pre-packaged "news" segments and additional footage created by broadcast PR firms, or by publicists within corporations or government agencies. VNRs are designed to be seamlessly integrated into newscasts, and are freely provided to TV stations. Although the accompanying information sent to TV stations identifies the clients behind the VNRs, nothing in the material for broadcast does. Without strong disclosure requirements and the attention and action of TV station personnel, viewers cannot know when the news segment they're watching was bought and paid for by the very subjects of that "report."
One of the examples is the report on nuclear weapons in Iraq. After George Bush's claim that Iraq purchase Uranium from Niger was exposed, it created a big buzz on the reliability of the news that we are listening to. Nowadays, government agencies uses media as a way to influence the mentality of the people to do what the government wants them to do. In this case, it is to spur the negative feelings of US citizens to fight the Iraq war. It questions what the media ethics does it have and the information we are getting through our senses. It refutes that basic definition of information.http://www.rense.com/general44/50.htm
Now we shall look at news in our local context---The Huang Na murder case. In this incident, the mass media exaggerated the situation and portrayed the victim's mother as a very pitiful and devastated lady who had just lost her daughter. In the end, the response was massive. Some of the Singaporeans who had read of her plight decided to give donations to Huang Na's parents. This sum of money grew as more articles are reported on her. In the end, this astronomical sum of money was enough to buy Huang Na's parents a three story bungalow in China. This once again shows the power of media again. The exaggeration has caused the people to lose their rationality and donate unnecessarily. The donations have lost its meaning and the media has to bear part of this blame.http://www.channelnewsasia.com/cgi-bin/search/search_7days.pl?status=&search=Huang+na&id=157756
The final report i am doing is on the exaggeration of reports on global warming. Although global warming is a serious problem, the media should not sensationalize it. A catastrophe is interesting but a climate analysis is not. Nowadays, when we flip through the newspapers, we see reports on climate change and how the world will end in near future. It just shows something, media would rather attract readers, have a veneer of superficial interest to increase its sales rather than provide the true story.http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,342376,00.html
What news i would like to do is about news that are fabricated in favour of the government or the corporate. These types of videos are particularly known as the VNRs(video news releases ). VNRs are pre-packaged "news" segments and additional footage created by broadcast PR firms, or by publicists within corporations or government agencies. VNRs are designed to be seamlessly integrated into newscasts, and are freely provided to TV stations. Although the accompanying information sent to TV stations identifies the clients behind the VNRs, nothing in the material for broadcast does. Without strong disclosure requirements and the attention and action of TV station personnel, viewers cannot know when the news segment they're watching was bought and paid for by the very subjects of that "report."
One of the examples is the report on nuclear weapons in Iraq. After George Bush's claim that Iraq purchase Uranium from Niger was exposed, it created a big buzz on the reliability of the news that we are listening to. Nowadays, government agencies uses media as a way to influence the mentality of the people to do what the government wants them to do. In this case, it is to spur the negative feelings of US citizens to fight the Iraq war. It questions what the media ethics does it have and the information we are getting through our senses. It refutes that basic definition of information.http://www.rense.com/general44/50.htm
Now we shall look at news in our local context---The Huang Na murder case. In this incident, the mass media exaggerated the situation and portrayed the victim's mother as a very pitiful and devastated lady who had just lost her daughter. In the end, the response was massive. Some of the Singaporeans who had read of her plight decided to give donations to Huang Na's parents. This sum of money grew as more articles are reported on her. In the end, this astronomical sum of money was enough to buy Huang Na's parents a three story bungalow in China. This once again shows the power of media again. The exaggeration has caused the people to lose their rationality and donate unnecessarily. The donations have lost its meaning and the media has to bear part of this blame.http://www.channelnewsasia.com/cgi-bin/search/search_7days.pl?status=&search=Huang+na&id=157756
The final report i am doing is on the exaggeration of reports on global warming. Although global warming is a serious problem, the media should not sensationalize it. A catastrophe is interesting but a climate analysis is not. Nowadays, when we flip through the newspapers, we see reports on climate change and how the world will end in near future. It just shows something, media would rather attract readers, have a veneer of superficial interest to increase its sales rather than provide the true story.http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,342376,00.html
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Youtube--- the new age
Youtube is originally a website created for people to share their ideas and videos in the world wide web for free. The 2 persons who created the website has been recently paid S$2 billion dollars by google to sell the rights of the website to the company.
Now, youtube has been banned in thailand for showing a video of someone vandalising the potrait of the king. Some state that youtube is an organisation that only lets others post entertaining videos with not much moral content in them. But should we say that youtube is not a pool entertainment junk.
Before we jump into a swift conclusion, we have to examine the origin of youtube. I feel that the core idea of youtube is maninly a medium to share information. Most of the people know that it was a self interest web until it became commercialised. The youtube contains a wide variety of videos, posted by many others who wanted to share their videos. Some are self created, while others are taken directly from TVs. If it is only a website meant for money, then it would have charged others, for viewing or posting a video. And also, if someone was to blame youtube for showing the videos, we should instead point the fingers on those who posted it. All in all, youtube is still only a medium for people to paste their ideas right.
We should not ignore the fact that people actually do benefitted from youtube. Some became famous by posting something interesting and original content while others requested help through video blogs and got what they wanted. So who says that youtube is only a website for entertainment. Not only does it spur creativity and help others, people can watch what they want for free. It is an additional benefit for the main crowd which is why, youtube is unrivalled till now because it has not changed much since it was created.
Perhaps youtube can improve itself by filtering out sensitive videos but the essence of it will be lost. This will discourage people from posting videos and in the end, stifle creativity. I feel that it is the viewers who make the decision of what to watch and not the website of what to post.
Now, youtube has been banned in thailand for showing a video of someone vandalising the potrait of the king. Some state that youtube is an organisation that only lets others post entertaining videos with not much moral content in them. But should we say that youtube is not a pool entertainment junk.
Before we jump into a swift conclusion, we have to examine the origin of youtube. I feel that the core idea of youtube is maninly a medium to share information. Most of the people know that it was a self interest web until it became commercialised. The youtube contains a wide variety of videos, posted by many others who wanted to share their videos. Some are self created, while others are taken directly from TVs. If it is only a website meant for money, then it would have charged others, for viewing or posting a video. And also, if someone was to blame youtube for showing the videos, we should instead point the fingers on those who posted it. All in all, youtube is still only a medium for people to paste their ideas right.
We should not ignore the fact that people actually do benefitted from youtube. Some became famous by posting something interesting and original content while others requested help through video blogs and got what they wanted. So who says that youtube is only a website for entertainment. Not only does it spur creativity and help others, people can watch what they want for free. It is an additional benefit for the main crowd which is why, youtube is unrivalled till now because it has not changed much since it was created.
Perhaps youtube can improve itself by filtering out sensitive videos but the essence of it will be lost. This will discourage people from posting videos and in the end, stifle creativity. I feel that it is the viewers who make the decision of what to watch and not the website of what to post.
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