Heal The World

The King Of Pop, Michael Jackson, has recently passed away at the age of 50. Michael suffered a cardiac arrest in his home and when paramedics arrived, he was already found with no pulse. His death definitely shocked the world as it was extremely sudden and also because he was going to hold 50 concerts (allegedly tickets were all sold out) in a bid to revive his career. The reason why Michael Jackson's death has shook many throughout the world was because he had managed to establish himself as an international artiste. People all throughout the world would know who he is and songs he sang. Albeit Michael also being known for his eccentric behaviour, who would remember all that now that he is gone?

Michael's career took a downturn when his behaviour started to attract attention from the public such as him being a paedophile, and the infamous incident where he carried his baby and hang him outside of the balcony while waving to the press. Michael Jackson had faced negative publicity for the most part of his life. However, with the news of him passing away, everyone in the world has managed to look past his odd behaviour and many are grieving over the lost of a legacy. We have to admit, no matter what Michael Jackson does, his hits and dance moves are timeless, and even until today many pop stars and dance groups name Michael as their inspiration and try to incorporate his moves into their own dances. The globalisation of mass media was the reason why we look up to Michael as a international pop star. Everyone in the world who had access to radio, televisions or newspapers would know his famous hits.

I will miss bopping my head to his songs and watching him do the famous moonwalk, the dance move that no other can perfect other than him. One of my favourite songs from him, Heal The World, actually shows the softer side of him. Let us all forget the bad press and how the media portrayed him for the past few years of his life. We have lost one of the greatest music artiste of all time but his music will definitely live on. 

"Heal the world, make it a better place

for you and for me and the entire human race"

RIP Michael Jackson

August 29 1958 - June 25 2009

AHHHHH HEINEKEN!

I am sure many of you have seen this advertisement by Heineken on local channels lately. This advertisement is a very good example of high context culture. High context culture focus on information preprogrammed in the receiver and setting and does not place importance on the transmitted message. In this advert, there is no straightforward messages about the product itself. The beginning of the advertisement shows a group of women walking into a walk in wardrobe and them screaming and shouting while admiring the wardrobe full of clothes and shoes. Halfway through, shouts can be heard from another room and the camera is then focused on the men in a walk in wardrobe, only that this time it is completely filled with bottles of Heineken instead of clothes and shoes. The men are seen screaming with joy- just like how the women reacted to the clothes and shoes. The advertisement is trying to subtly transmit the message that Heineken is important to men like how shoes, clothes and accessories are important to women.

Such high context advertisement would also require the audience to interpret the meaning themselves. Personally, I enjoy watching such advertisements as they are very interesting and because the nature of the advertisement is not straightforward, it would depend on how I interpret the advertisement itself. Usually the advertisements would be humorous or has some added 'oomph' factor to try to gather viewer's attention. In contrast, low context advertisement would not have such added factors. They would only consist of the main messages they want to transmit to the audience and thats about it. To impress viewers and target audience, I feel that advertisements are very important as they have to make a lasting impression on them. 
That being said, I realised that Heineken has came up with many humorous advertisements which included stars like Jennifer Aniston. All in all, I feel that Heineken advertisements are definitely successful as they have the X Factor and the adverts are also memorable. Now, anyone up for a glass of Heineken?

Tradition: Killing Whales

Hi everyone, my entry this week would be based on the article here. To sum up the article, it is referring to the Traditional Eskimo Whaling of the Western Arctic and they article talks about why Eskimo hunters kill whales. 

To the Eskimo hunters, killing whales are part of their culture. Quoting from the article, it states:  "All aspects of whaling fall under the control of ceremonial rituals and belief systems as well as customary patterns having to do with the attraction of whales to the crews, permitting themselves to be taken for food for the village, the hunting and butchering process, and the various uses to which the whale's resources are put." Because hunting and killing whales are part of their culture, they do not see anything wrong with it and do not understand why there are protests made from all over the world to stop them from doing so. Eskimo hunters also believe that whales are attracted to the crew and thus they are permitting themselves to be taken for food for the village. From an outsider's point of view, I feel that this is merely an excuse to try and legalise what they are doing. The website also states that the whale hunting technique is handed down from generation to generation. This is a clear example of how people use culture to glorify their acts. In this case, the Eskimo hunters use the excuse that it is a tradition passed down from their ancestors and also that whales are attracted to them, they did not intentionally hunt them down to kill them. Even though I agree that whale hunting is part of their culture and their ancestors have practiced it in the past, I do not agree the whale hunting should be condoned just because they have to do it for their cultural beliefs. 

This would bring me to the point where the Eskimo hunters are practicing collectivist society because as a whole, they believe that whale hunting should be a legitimate activity whereas people protecting the whales and believe that these sort of hunting should stop belong to a individualist society as they differ from what they know is wrong or right. I feel that whale hunting should be stopped in all parts of the world as we all know that the number of whales are decreasing dramatically. Also, I do not agree that whale hunting should be made legitimate to a certain group of people just because of their cultures as this would lead to extinction of a lot of species. For example, other cultural groups may capture sharks and some other cultural groups may go around killing monkeys. The bottom line is, culture defines who we are, but we should not make use of our culture to prove that our doings are right.

Britain's Got Talent!

This week's entry would be on the popular UK based show, Britain's Got Talent! The winners of BGT 2009 are a group of dancers called Diversity and they comprise of 11 extremely talented dancers. After watching Diversity perform week after week, I am able to relate them to what we learnt about group communication. 

In Diversity, I am able to see the characteristics that a group possess. They work well together, and show interaction, interdependence and a collective identity. In this case, they common goal would be to work towards winning the competition. As they perform together in a group, they would need to learn how to work together to achieve the best results. Group socialisation may or may not occur in the group itself. As Diversity joined the competition as a group together, each individual definitely wants to be able to win the competition. They would then try to work and influence each other to work as equally hard so that they would be able to gain something out of the competition. There would also be group pressure amongst the group as the competition moves to a higher level. If they were not able to combat group pressure and succumb to placing individual needs above group needs, Diversity would not have been able to emergy as winners of the competition. That being said, I would not know of the difficulties faced by the group itself. There may be certain internal conflicts that are not known to the public. However, Diversity has shown that being in a big group and working well together has its advantages.

Personally, I feel that even though working in a group is challenging, the end product is definitely rewarding. The important thing is that while in a group, you do not take for granted that there are others to finish up the job for you. Instead, if you are able to give input and learn from the others in the group, the work given would be finished at a faster rate and of better quality. 

Hi everyone! My entry this week would be based on the short clip above. It might be a little slow but I strongly encourage everyone to watch it. Short and sweet :)

The starting of the video shows a man whom wakes up everyday to head to work and was leading a mundane life until he met a woman whom was working in the building opposite the one he was working in. The video is a very good example of non-verbal communication. Throughout the video, the male lead does not communicate verbally with the female lead at all. Instead, they communicate by writing the information that they want the other party to receive on a piece of paper. Non verbal cues are an extremely influential source of meaning, and in this case, the two leads of the short film communicating non verbally made the short film even more interesting compared to if they were communicating verbally. The two leads also made use of objectics and oculesics. They made use of pieces of paper to transmit information to each other and also made use of eye contact. Because of all these factors, the video thus made me realise that non verbal communication is equally effective as verbal communication. At the end of the video when the two leads finally met at the junction of the traffic light, they were able to communicate verbally yet the female lead told the male lead to not speak. Instead, she took out a piece of paper which has a heart drawn on it and the words "Hi". Even when they had the chance to communicate verbally, they chose not to and this is because non verbal cues are as effective as verbal cues. By ending the film this way, it also did not disrupt the flow of the film as there was no verbal communication throughout the whole clip. 

In all, this video made me realise the importance of non verbal communcation and the impact of non verbal communication is equally, if not more, substantial as compared to verbal communcation.

Sex education in schools

This week's entry would be about MOE tightening the topics covered during sex education in schools. I believe that many of us has came across sexuality talks while in secondary schools. I remember sitting in the hall of my school, listening to a external instructor talk about abstaining from sex and the consequences of engaging in pre-marital sex. The article I am referring to can be found here.

The reason why MOE is doing this is because of the rise in teenagers contracting sexually transmitted diseases and a survey conducted by the Health Promotion Board showed that teens aged 14 to 19 are sexually active. Since 2000, the key message of the sexuality talks held in schools is to promote abstinence. However, the rise of teenagers contracting STIs and teenage pregnancies shows that promoting abstinence is not enough to counter the problem. MOE has thus decided that information on contraception should be included in sexuality talks. This has raised objections from certain individuals as they feel that promoting contraception is indirectly giving teenagers the idea that it is okay to experiment sexually, as long as they do not get themselves pregnant. Contents of the sexuality talk also includes homosexuality, and the message sent across to students on this would be that homosexual acts are against the law, even though the government has stated that homosexuals have their private space. 

The method that MOE is using is verbal communication. MOE hopes to achieve their aims, which is decreasing the number of teenagers contracting STIs and teenage pregnancies, through the sexuality talks held in school. However, this programme has started since 2000, and it has been proved that sexuality education alone is not enough to counter the problems faced by the society today. Non-verbal communication is also used in sexuality talks. I vividly remember watching this video of the abortion process while attending one of the sexuality talks held by my school. There was no communication, all I could see were extremely disturbing images of the abortion process. This shows me that verbal and non-verbal communication are equally important when one wants to transfer messages across to another. The impact of non-verbal communication may not necessarily be lesser compared to verbal communication. I also feel that the steps used by MOE to decrease the number of teenage pregnancies are very feasible. By introducing contraception, it would help to bring the number of teenage pregnancies down even though teenagers might feel that the act of pre-marital sex is condoned by everyone. However, I feel that talks on homosexuality is a very sensitive topic and although it should not be completely left out from the sexuality talks, the content of homosexuality should be given serious consideration. Homosexuality is not uncommon amongst teenagers these days and if miscommunication occurs between teenagers and MOE, there might be undesirable consequences. 

I also feel that sexuality education is a very important part of growing up. Some teenagers might want to experiment with things that they are not familiar with thus by having the right information within their reach, they would be able to differ right from wrong.

Secrecy over Mas Selamat's Capture

Hi everyone, welcome to my communications blog. This week, my entry would be regarding the secrecy over Mas Selamat's arrest. You may refer to the article here.

Mas Selamat, who has been on the run since last February after escaping from Whitley Road Detention Centre, has been caught by the Malaysia officials. Shortly after the arrest took place, the Malaysian officials informed Singapore but they requested that the matter be kept quiet for the time being. That being said, even Singapore's Cabinet ministers were not told about it until last Thursday. The reason why Singaporeans were not informed immediately of his captive was because the Prime Minister wanted to respect Malaysia's request. Also, they did not want to reveal the information of the informers. In my point of view, Singaporeans would be very anxious to follow up on the news because it had caused a big reaction when he escaped last year. By leaking the news to the public, it would definitely raise many questions and yet another reaction from the citizens. However, by keeping his arrest from the citizens, Singaporeans might feel that the Government have not been forthcoming and only informed at such a late date.

The reason why the news was revealed to the public was because some Singaporeans voiced their dismay over the news blackout on Mas Selamat's arrest by the Malaysia's authorities. Having said that, this tells me that the Government only choice to release the information about the capture of Mas Selamat because there was speculation over it. Would the government acknowledge that Mas Selamat was captured if there was no talk about it in the first place? That would remain as a controversy. I do agree that Singapore might have kept the news from the public as to respect Malaysia's decision, but to keeping the news from the public for a month is a little too long in my opinion. After releasing the news, more questions would definitely be raised as to why the information was kept from the citizens for so long. This is a miscommunication between then government and the citizens. If the government manages to clear up the issue of withholding information from the public for a certain period of time, the public's perception of the government would still remain the same and the trust would not waver.

However, I applaud Singapore's Internal Security Department (ISD) for following up this case since Mas Selamat went missing last February. The ISD never let their guard down and have been constantly working with the Special Branch to locate where Mas Selamat is. This shows that the officers were committed to their work and that they never gave up even though there were security lapses that enabled Mas Selamat to escape from the Whitley Road Detention Centre.