Eighth Topic : New Technology and The Culture

It is typical for a new technology to be adapted within a culture and used to support existing patterns of behaviour.With your own relevant examples, answer these questions.

Critical Reflection : Culture Influences through Technology
First question:What kind of culture influences through technology can you see from today's world?
1. To me, technology nowadays has thoroughly brought a big impact to the current world. Along with the development, some devices of technology are getting more and more demanded by the mankind, for instance, the utilization of a personal computer. People are so into this useful gadget that almost every family owns more than one PC in home. With PC, people can easily get to know almost all the knowledge that ever existed in this world, and it even allows people to contact each other no matter how fat they are apart. Therefore, utilizing PC everyday has been a common practice for the current mankind, and at the same time, its existence has caused replacement for some other media forms in this world that presented ever since the earlier century.

2. Some other influences through technology I can observe from the world is that, technology will always keep on developing and it will always replace the outdated ones as well. To make the human being's life easier, technology has been developing non-stop since forever. However, when there is any new product manufactured, it will normally replace the older ones, which is not that advanced after comparing. This act seems kind of cruel and mean, but it is happening like almost everyday as people are commonly selfish in this aspect in order to bring themselves the easiest lifestyle, just like how a personal computer replaces the newspaper. Why is it so? Just like my brother says all the time:"who wants to waste money to get their hands dirty when we can read the same news with computer?"

Second Question: Is there a possibility to reshape the (new) culture today via new technology? How ?
1. Of course this probability is making sense, in fact, it is happening now. The will of humankind to make ourselves an easier lifestyle will normally drive us to creating new technology in order to fulfill this demand which is thought to be impossible at first. Unknowingly,this kind of development of technology is actually reshaping the culture today, and spontaneously, people will start to change to sort of following the flow of technology.

2. In fact, the reshaping of new culture happens under competition. Normally, improvement happens when there is challenge within oneself or among one another. When mankinds are exposed to different kind of challenges, most of them, especially scientists, will try to invent something out to overcome the adversity. And under the competition among each other, better invention will be created. Of course, when there is a better invention, people rely on it even more and start alienating those old inventions. From that, a new culture will be born. Therefore, I always believe in reshaping the culture is possible as competition never stops, and as it is still happening, new culture will be born unstoppably.


Personal Reflection on the Class.
In fact, I had a quite boring class for this week. it is not about the lecturers or the class, it is just that I never liked reading stuff, so that is why I somehow got bored. Anyway, just when I started to feel sleepy, our lecturer played us a video clip about the iPhone, a mobile phone which has been everyone's dream, and it successfully attract my attention. And from that clip, I learned even more about the iPhone and how convenient our lives can be with its existence. What I can say is that, I was totally amazed. So yea, a good day it was.

Seventh Topic : Media Imperialism

Critical Reflection : Media Imperialism
1. From what i can conlcude after watching the video on The Power of Nightmares (Part 3 – Shadow in the Cave) is that the 9/11 incident has left a big impression on world terrorism. The goverment of the United States are trying their best to protect their nation from being exposed to this danger. After all the actions of sending American troops to the middle east to find Osama, none of those missions were successful. In fact I sometimes wonder if all the accusation about Osama hideouts and military base inside a mountain really do exist.

2.I understand that the nation is extremely cautious of international terrorism and trying to do the best that they probably could be in safe zone. In fact countries all over the world are taking precautionary actions towards this matter but i believe that sometimes people are assuming and expecting the worse to happen which is probably the best way to be cautious but at times when it is done without any source of information and evidence to the truths of the incident can give a big impact on what actions to be taken. For example we cannot just enter a country where you think thats where the terrorist is hiding without the knowledge of where this person really is. Further investigation needs to be done to refrain from making a big damage.


Personal Reflection on the Class.
For this week, we were presented with a video titled The Power of Nightmares (Part 3 – Shadow in the Cave). The length of video is almost 1 hour, i almost bore myself. But i manage to get a few info regarding the video. From what i can digest from this video is that, politician are very much involved in the situation of keeping the country save from terrorist attack. But sometimes I feel that the politician themselves are continuously assuming too much. Like what the video mentioned at the end, "Politicians are creating strange fantasies" really hits me that maybe all this while it has all been on their mind that they are doing such actions.

Sixth Topic : Tetrad of Media

Using McLuhan's "Tetrad of Media", choose a medium or media application or tool (e.g. newspaper, books, radio, tv, film, internet, computer games, handphone, instant messaging, blogging, online advertising, youtube, facebook etc.) and explain its media effects.

Critical Reflection : McLuhan's Theory
[By referring to the "Tetrad of Media"]...
Windows Live Messenger which is an instant messaging client enhances communication between one another at a higher speed. Via this medium, we are able to not only chatter but also playing simple games, seeing each other's faces, and also calling one another by clicking on the "call a contact" or "video call" buttons.
This application is so reliable that it actually obsolesces normal phone calls, letter writing and also mobile phone text messaging, since it is free and user-friendly. Therefore, since it was released in 2005, people started depending on it as the main communicating client and it has nearly replaced the usage of letter and also phone call.
The good thing about this instant messaging client is that it has retrieved the practice of note writing and passing during old times. During sometime ago, we all used to passing note to chat with one another and it seems to be one of the entertainment. Nowadays, this application enables us to continue this sort of entertainment, only that we are using keyboard and mouse instead of pen on a trashed paper. As an addition, we can even insert pictures to make the whole conversation to be more colorful.
However, when we are way too much obsessed to this application, everything will be reversed into a wastage of time. Some people tend to forget to focus on other more important issues when they utilize this service excessively. This is definitely going to affect the daily works and it doesn't seem like a good thing to me.

Personal Reflection on the Class
For this week, we were shown the interpretation on the topic of "The Extensions of Man". In the class, lecturer briefed us about the McLuhan's concept on this very well known term- Media.
Throughout the class, we learned about the Hot and Cool Media that day, and of course the tetrad of media as well. However, this chapter seems to be kind of complicated to me, so I think I shall need to revise on it soon.

Fifth Topic : Obscenity, Pornography and Indecency

Obscenity, pornography and indecency: What are the differences between these terms?

Critical Reflection : The meaning of Obscenity, Pornography and Indecency.

• Obscenity-- Something, such as a word, act, or expression, that is indecent or lewd.
• Pornography-- Literature, pictures, films etc that are indecent in a sexual way.
• Indecency-- The state or quality of being unseemly or immodest.

Meaning taken from "www.thefreedictionary.com"

1. All these 3 terms seem be alike. However, each one of them carries a specific meaning distinctly.
Obscenity is actually to describe the behavior of displaying or depicting sexually offensive pictures or wordings. Majority of them are shown on some foreign reading materials and tee shirts, and due to the current era which is getting more open-minded, these works are commonly acceptable.
Pornography is more like a depiction of some naked people posing or performing sexual acts in videos or pictures in order to arouse people's erotic desire or pleasure. Some countries like Japan see this kind of production as the main source of income, however, it is illegal to produce in Malaysia.
While for indecency, it is to be explained as the exposure of acts or gestures which has breached the border line of morality. Some of these commitment of acts are against the law (exposure of private part in public unreasonably) while some of them will only arouse disagreement of other parties (an inappropriate outfit).

2. The similarity of all these 3 terms is that all of them are able to be found through media, like TV and computer. To me, it might be kind of cool to have some obscene wording on the tee shirt, however all of these sources bring nothing else but harm. It might jeopardize kids' mind with these pictures or videos as it can be easily accessed through internet. Therefore, to me, it is supposed to be banned everywhere regardless of movie, internet or what so ever as it's no fair to publish all these for the sake of sexual satisfaction of certain parties.


Personal Reflection On The Class
Well, class for this week has nothing important to be mentioned about as it was mainly about the briefing on our second assignment. So, yea.