Akshaya's Blog

Hey there friends, Its Sha here to talk about my User Generated Content.

Before I jump into the topic I have something very interesting for you guys. I bet you will be awed by the wonderful video that my teammates and I have created. More than the time, money, and hard work put into this content, we have put in hell lot of fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSDypskPegw&t=22s

This video is a parody of the “Do you have any special talents?” video. The issues that we have brought into view are the hoarding problems in Singapore, the Japanese Invasion, and at last the ultimate swag of our very own video. I am really eager to see the other classmates videos. It was a very fun experience, getting our hands on editing after so many months was a tough game but we managed to get things done in time.

User Generated Content is basically content that is being created by the audience for the audience. Previously, any given content like drama, news, cartoon, reality show,etc were created by a groups of people called the media personalities, actors,etc. The ordinary people were just viewers of the content. But, in the past decade, common person have gained easy access to it. This has made viewers think more and tempted them to become creators themselves.

We have all passed the days of admiring big stars, and come to the stage of admiring self. People started sharing views, showing talents, educating people, and entertaining online through multiple platforms and social media.

Before 15 years there was no such job as “Instagrammers”, “Social media activist”, “Fashion bloggers”, etc. These are jobs that have evolved from the development of media over the years. We all know about Lilly Singh don’t we!

She is one of the people who made a remarkable identity of themselves through Web 2.0. She worked really hard and produced good content while being a YouTube star. She attracted millions of hearts through her “Trip to Unicorn Island” world tour. And now, she is a Late Night Show host in an American Show. Without Web 2.0, talents like her would have had less likely the opportunity to come out and gain popularity in the world.

All these discussions make me wonder if the modern day media (User Generated Content) has changed the viewers opinion on the mainstream traditional TV. Well nothing is constant right! So isn’t this.

Mainstream television was one of the fastest and most effective ways to obtain information about happenings around the world. But, after media reached the hands of the users, information is being passed and spread like wildfire. It reaches the viewers ears even before it reaches the traditional TV nowadays.

The clever media TV industry has now made news reporting very efficient by creating platforms for viewers to upload any information they know. This will hence make it easier for the content to reach the TV and then be broadcasted. Even then, how many people today bother to sit in front of the TV to watch the news telecast?

Every single thing needed is available on the phone. All the way from instant news update to cashless payment methods in shops. Traditional TV has become the last place to receive an update on a news. And in today’s world, most people cannot afford to set aside hours to learn about things that are not important to them in real time. It is just passed to them as news bits on the go.

Apart from that, in order to keep mainstream TV in business, some excellent TV shows have restricted shows to only the channel viewers, instead of making it available on any online platform. This makes many people watch TV just for the sake of that particular show. A physical TV is now being used for various other purposes like Netflix, casting from a device, live streaming videos, etc. So, TV are still being used but for multiple purposes other than just cable shows.

This whole blog post writing has made me realize how the hand phones have taken the lives of many individuals. The convenience of mobile phones has now turned into addiction. That is all I have for my opinion on Mainstream media after the Web 2.0. Thank you all readers for reading this blog. Hope to see you guys soon again!

Referances

Lilly Singh. Biography. (2020). Retrieved 18 March 2020, from https://www.biography.com/personality/lilly-singh.

Hello readers! Its Sha! Back again with 2 other hot topics to discuss.

PART 1: My thoughts and subverticment making experience.

Here is our group’s poster:

TBH at first, I thought poster-making out of magazines and newspaper cuttings was old school and going to be boring. But, when we came to a conclusion about what we were going to do and started hunting for the pictures and letters, it all turned out to be total fun. Feminism is an eminent topic that is being addressed in various perspectives in different parts of the world. Basically feminism is the advocacy of female rights.

One of such parts of feminism that my group mates and I wanted to address was that, whenever we think of a domestic helper, we always see a picture of a lady who does all the domestic works and takes care of the children and elderly at home. Or at least, that is about the idea. But, have we ever thought of a male individual being hired to do domestic help or any other domestic
care-giving jobs? I bet not. We might likely have heard of butlers in hotels but unlikely to hear of a mid-age domestic helper who has come all the way from his home country to work for a family. Why is that ? Are women obliged to do certain work?

Well, this subverticement by us is just a simple way for us to bring out our vision of what feminism is? That is feminism in one way is the non-obligatory state of any individual to do any particular work. That is, both men and women should be involved in all kinds of job sectors. There should be no gender bias when it comes to work.

PART 2: Mediated Public Sphere

To put in very simple terms, mediated public sphere is a platform where individuals are able to share any societal issues with the ultimate aim of influencing political actions.

Above, you can see two images of public spheres from the olden days. Way before technology was introduced. People used to gather in a particular place like coffee shops, libraries, etc in order to share their griefs about any issues they face.

Well, as we all know now public spheres have become highly influenced by technologies. People are able to share any thoughts or opinions online within seconds. One of the very important public spheres that we all might have heard of is the #MeToo movement. This act was initiated by Tarana Burke. It then spread like wild fire among many people around the world. This act helps women voice out the injustice that happens to them in their workplace, and other places where their voices will not be easily heard.

The first picture shows the founder of the #MeToo movement. The second one shows one of the Survivor’s march along Sunset Boulevard.

Women have started to come out of their houses and step into the world of “labour for pay” in the past century. Even if we can confidently say that women are nowadays playing very important roles in almost all the different sectors, are we really sure about their safety in their working environment? There have been many situations where women have to keep their mouth shut just because they have to feed their family and they cannot afford to lose their jobs by talking about the abuses that happen to them.

Tarana Burke initially started this to discuss about the physical abuses towards black women. It started in the year 2006 and became very widespread in the next 6 months. It is now being used worldwide in order to discuss and resolve various issues faced by women from all walks of lives. It is a very safe platform for women to share any of their issues. Such an inspiring use of the public sphere through media. There have been many other such mediated spheres that were created in the aim of addressing different issues. Some of those are, #BringBackOurGirls, #BlackLivesMatter, #HeForSHe, etc.

Preparing for this blog post has really made me realize how fortunate I am to live in such a safe and sound environment. I would not be able to assure that there is purely no action against women in Singapore. But, comparatively Singapore is a very safe and sound place for working women.

That’s that for this week’s post. Meet you guys soon in my post!

References

(“History of the hashtag”, 2016)
Article title:        History of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter: Social activism on Twitter
Website title:     Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech
URL:      https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2016/08/15/the-hashtag-blacklivesmatter-emerges-social-activism-on-twitter

(“About”, n.d.)
Article title:        About – Me Too Movement
Website title:     Me Too Movement
URL:      https://metoomvmt.org/about/

(#MeToo: thousands march in LA as sexual misconduct allegations continue, 2017)
Author:               Martin Pengelly
Article title:        #MeToo: thousands march in LA as sexual misconduct allegations continue
Website title:     the Guardian
URL:      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/12/metoo-march-hollywood-sexual-assault-harassment

(The Evolution of the Public Sphere | Digital America, 2020)
Article title:        The Evolution of the Public Sphere | Digital America
Website title:     Tocqueville.richmond.edu
URL:      http://tocqueville.richmond.edu/digitalamerica/?p=914

Hi there again. Its nice to meet everyone again through my 4th blog post. I have shared many of my thoughts about different aspects of media in my previous posts. Today the idea that I am going to cover is:

Does it really matter who owns the media in any given country?

Yeah my dear classmates. We just discussed about this and did a presentation about it last week. Hence, we should have a good knowledge about this topic. We have researched about media in different countries and we have our own stand on which media ownership is best for a country. We know the difference between Private-owned media and Government owned media.
1. Government owned media will have a high level of censorship whereas private owned media will not have as much.
2. Government owned media will not facilitate the expression of people as much as private owned media.

These are the two main differences we are going to look into. Let me tell you my stand in this debate.

Singapore:

There is such a wide variety of media availability in Singapore. We have access to reasonable amount of content. Or at least that is what we think we have. But, when we take a deeper look, we realize that censorship is very strict here. Contents that we receive are filtered before made available to us. So, it is obvious that Singapore’s media is under the control of the government.

This may seem exaggerated. Singapore’s condition of media is not so intense. But, other countries do have these kinds of situation. We will discuss about it further with the appropriate examples.

Eritrea (Government-owned media):

According to a report in “Committee to Protect Journalists”, Eritrea is the most censored country in the entire world. One of their laws of the freedom of press states that media must promote “National Objectives”. Users are required to visit the internet cafes in order to get access to the internet. This makes monitoring really easy. Even journalists who cross the law lines of media have been perished in custody. When other leading journalists and scholars of Africa petitioned to visit the imprisoned journalists, their request was strictly rejected and their life conditions were never revealed. Foreign journalists who were permitted into Eritrea in the mid-2018 were kept under tight control.

After my read and research about this Unitary one party republic, I felt gifted myself. Having the power of knowledge is a what human kind is known for. Media is the major source for voicing out and pulling attention towards the issues that needs to be dissolved immediately. It also plays a major role in educating the human kind with the world beyond their daily lives. But, it is saddening that in certain parts of the world there are people who have been denied of such rights.

Estonia(Private-owned media):

On the other hand there are countries with extreme freedom of press. Examples of such countries are Estonia, Iceland and a few more. These countries have the least restriction over the content that is made available to audiences. In Estonia, owning a Gambling website is as easy as it being legally authorized with very little restrictions. This shows a lot about the community that the younger generation are growing in. There are more of such examples to prove that restriction-less media is not good for the country.

The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graphs show the internet freedom, the country’s score based on that and internet penetration of them respectively.

Where do I stand about this whole media ownership thing?

Last but not the least, what I feel about this whole media ownership thing is that, freedom of speech, media, knowledge, etc should be made available to all people of all countries yet in a way that the government has an eye over it. This will lead to a perfectly structured media access. I feel that common people should be allowed to access media content that is reasonable and valid to be watched. Unwanted content and excessive unnecessary content can be restricted. But, retaining the peoples’ rights should be kept in mind when clearing out misleading content. Conclusively, media should be owned by the government. But, laws should be made in order to conserve the peoples’ rights to voice out their thoughts.

Thank you all my readers! Meet you guys in my next post.

References:

(“Eritrea”, 2020)
Article title: Eritrea
Website title: Freedomhouse.org
URL: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2019/eritrea

(“Estonia”, 2020)
Article title: Estonia
Website title: Freedomhouse.org
URL: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2017/estonia

(“Freedom on the Net 2016”, 2020)
Article title: Freedom on the net 2016
Website title: Freedomhouse.org
URL: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2016

Topic: Uses and gratification theory

What is uses and gratification theory?

(1)The uses and gratification theory (UGT) is the audience- centered approach on what people do with media, opposed to what media does to people. Last week I discussed about the ‘Media Effects’ Model. Whereas this is the opposite of that theory. This theory proves that audiences are responsible for what they consume. Instead of featuring audiences as passive consumers, they are considered as responsible adults for what they watch. And, how they use media to fulfill their needs.

There have been multiple researches carried out to prove this theory. I would like to take for example social media. There are a lot of social media influencers nowadays. They are people who emphasis on their ideas about different things/ concepts. To be specific, I would like to talk about a protest that took place in the southern part of India called Tamilnadu. This protest was held in the world’s 2nd longest beach.

Denotation:

This protest was against the ban of Jallikattu (A traditional event in Tamilnadu). Thousands of people came down to the beach in order to show their support against the ban. They held various placards which had quotes written on it. After sunset, they started showing their torchlight in their phones which showed how they were unanimous about this protest.

Annotation:

A large number of people gathered in the same place to show unity against a ban of their tradition. Holding up the lights on their phones showed their involvement and togetherness towards one ultimate aim. People of all ages were gathered. Regardless of age everybody actively participated in the protest.

Mythical level:

India is known to have a very large youngsters population. Young people, students started to share their views on this ban on social media. The topic started to gain very large attention. The love of their culture brought people from all different places in Tamilnadu to come together for this protest. It is strongly believed that without media, this protest would not have gained this much of support and attention.

Conclusion:

There were may other people who did not agree with the idea of bringing back ‘Jallikattu’. There may never be a right or wrong side of support for this protest. But, when people of high love for their tradition came together with the help of media. They used media to influence and register the importance of their culture. This is what the uses and gratification theory emphasizes.

2nd part of the blog post: Lobby groups

Thank you all for reading my views on the UGT! See you again in my next post!

References:

https://renneneko.wordpress.com/2019/02/01/uses-and-gratification-theory/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_pro-jallikattu_protests

Blog post No.2 :

• What is wrong with “media effects” model?
• What are some questions I have in mind that would help shape the mass opinion on media effects?

What is “Media effects” model ?

• “Media effects” model is a theory that explains how media influences people and passively affects their attitude and perception.

One of the theories of “Media effects”:

• In the first half of the 1900s, the hypodermic needle theory was developed. This theory proved that any content on media would penetrate the minds of audiences with ease and also be accepted by them.
• (1)The media theory is of 3 different types                
  • Direct – Direct influences on audiences
  • Limited – People use media to satisfy their own needs, hence there is very little impact on the audiences even if so it would be direct.
  • Indirect – sees media effects as slow or cumulative rather than quick and direct.

Positive effects:

Media is not to be always blamed only for the negative impacts it has made in people. Media has brought many positive changes in the audiences. Mainly education through media has developed and hence many students have benefited from it.

Negative effects:

Before I talk about the negativity of Media effects, I would like to share with all of you an incident that happened in the year 2004. (2) A teenager from UK murdered his friend.”The murder took place in a way that could be traced back to be influenced by a video game that he had been playing” says his mother. The court decided that the game had no bearing to the case. The teenage boy had some money issues and decided to rob his friend. But, ended up in killing him when the situation got out of control. Apparently, at the court hearing, the victim’s mother said that the murderer was not triggered by the game but he got the ideas, the violence and the methods from the game.

This incident that I have explained clearly shows what I mean by negative effects. Media might not be the direct reason for crime. But, it is a passive influencer.

There has not been a proper experiment conducted to prove that “Media effects” theory is either right or wrong. I feel that the experiments conducted should be fair and unbiased in order to get an effective result. But, even if effective experiments are conducted the results lies half way between positive and negative.

Here are some hindering questions in my mind that might shape mass opinions.

1. How are the contents of media differing from country to country to suit its culture and its intended effect on its people? I believe that media in different country differs in its content. By that I mean, in various countries, there are different kinds of expectations on the common people. This is being brought to them passively through media. Eg: in certain countries, fairness products are largely advertised. People are made to believe that a certain skin colour is beauty and certain colour is not. This creates inferiority complex within an individual.
2. Are our diet and other food habits based on media?    People back in the days ate food for hunger, daily need, health, etc reasons. But today people eat all different kinds of cuisines and varieties they see on media, mainly social media. But, we often tend to forget that regular food habits are supposed to be based on our geographical location and varying climate . It is interesting to taste various types of food unless or until it is within healthy limits.
3. Are we being concerned about something that is not the real problem. Is media affecting us in a silent and subtle manner that we will never be able to realize? This is a nightmare if we think about it deeply. There is no definite answer to this question. But, thinking about this tortures my mind.       

Conclusion:

Wondering what “Media Effect” is, trying to find a solution to this question. These are done as part of our contribution to what we are studying but, taking personal actions is for self-wellness. The ultimate and desired use of media is to analyse and understand good and bad media content. Take in good media content. Leave behind the bad side of it. Thank you all for taking time to read my blog. See you guys again in my next post.

References:

1. https://docs.google.com/document/d/12yJg7MyQw6SE-mkPLAASI9L-RmRL1qzaAWBXbxuw0OY/edit
2. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1470929/Teenager-gets-13-years-for-video-game-murder.html (Teenager gets 13 years for “video game” murder)

Image credits:

1. http://cartoonsbytom.blogspot.com/2011/04/blog-post_8650.html
2. https://studymasscommunication.com/category/theory/
3. http://drewmckissick.com/three-types-of-media/
4. https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/grieving-dad-wants-man-who-3770835
5. https://returntonow.net/2019/08/02/why-suntans-really-are-healthy-and-pale-skin-really-is-sickly/
6. https://www.thenational.ae/lifestyle/food/10-things-that-irk-us-most-about-dining-out-in-the-uae-1.664363
7. https://wsimag.com/science-and-technology/24461-the-negative-effects-of-social-media

An introduction about me. Nah I’m very bad at this. Whenever I try to intro myself to someone, I can only think of the crazy things I have done. Apparently my whole life.

About me…

Hi all! I am Akshaya. “Sha” just picked up to make life easier😊. I am basically a 3rd culture kid moving back and forth Singapore and India. (P.S – didn’t know there was such a thing until Mrs.Alex talked about it in class). I have lived an unevenly distributed 10 years in each country. That hence gave me a wide exposure to different cultures and practices. I love both countries😍. Living back and forth in two countries also gave me an opportunity to meet a variety of people. I am a colorful, fun person and tend to have a lot of friends in both countries. Being honest about myself I am better off in groups than being individualized.

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These are pictures of me with my friends in high school✌️ , 1st year in SIMGE – PSCC EXCO(P.S – I changed course to psychology so I had to start from year 1, technically this is my 2nd year in this university)🤔, and an ideal picture to show how much me and my friends love the show F.R.I.E.N.D.S😘.

Why Psychology?

I had been having a very keen interest in psychology since 11th grade. I have told my parents since that I wanted to pursue a psychological degree after high school🎓. But, my parents being protective and wanting me to get a settled job immediately after bachelors made me take up a professional course. Not having a passion for that degree really gave me a tough time. I suffered a lot😭. Then, after me suffer for 1 whole year in that course, my parents decided to let me pursue my passion. And therefore here I am fully pumped to dive in and learn a lot🤩.

Is BCM really going to help me?

I believe that today all our lives revolves around our gadgets 📱 . We can’t even go 30 minutes straight without touching our phones in a lecture hall🤯. That is how much we are dependent on media and gadgets. Learning about media and communication would help in any degree. The knowledge of media is very important for every educated individual ✅.

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