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.