Functions of the Media

Charles Wright identified four media functions:
(1) Surveillance- information
(2) Correlation- analysis and evaluation
(3) Cultural transmission- education and socialisation of receivers
(4) Entertainment- enjoyment and gratification

The above four media functions can be seen through an article published on the front page of The New Paper on friday the 31st of October. The headlines read " Singapore Teacher Sparks Debate: Show and Tell" and the sides read: she almost bares all in pictures for online bikini contest. Its an article about a teacher in a unnamed Singapore pool school who has a private blog and discusses about issues in school and her personal life. In her blog she included details like getting a tatoo and talking about her everyday going-on in life. The main issue of the article was her sending provocative pictures of her dressed in skimpy bikinis for a online bikini contest held in Australia called the Wicked Weasel. The article goes on discussing on what happened there on and after her blog and her participation was discovered and debates whether what she had done was it a professionally right action.

In the article we can see the media performing all four of its function. "Last thursday, Shin Min Daily News reported that pictures of Tina (not her real name) in her skimpy bikinis had appeared on the internet" here the media has performed its role of surveillance by providing information of the person involved, what was going on and even revealing pictures of the person.

Next on the later part of the article there was an analysis of the issue whereby the New Paper interviewed some parents over the issue. Some of them like homemaker Audra Chow, 36, said the pictures showed a confident person who was comfortable with her body but added it turned her off knowing she was an educator. There was a few other interviews on the issue but they were only one-sided and non had given any support in any sense to the teacher involved. Here the media had provided correlation but it was a one-sided, biased analysis of the issue.

In the article there is also cultural transmission or education of the readers of the paper. Included was an excerpt of the spokesman of the Ministry of Education who said that teachers may create or participate in a blog or other types of online publishing or discussion on matters not related to their work, such as their hobbies, provided they do so in their personal capacity, act in a responsible manner and do so on thier own time. This excerpt educates the readers on what the teachers are permitted to do and whats not, hence the media has performed its role of educating the public.

Lastly the article has also provided entertainment to readers who love such gossips and news. The more and vivid information provided, the more entertainment it would provide to the readers especially such exclusive and rare news.

Now is for my own views on the article. True the media did perform all its functions by bringing the information, analysis, education and entertainment on this article. But what i question is whether have they gone a step too far by blowing this whole matter up and putting it on their front page and even showing the provocative pictures of the teacher involved. I reckon the journalist of this article would not take into consideration how much his or her article would disrupt the teacher involved life in many ways as their main objective is get as much attention on the article as possible. And if they felt that her taking those provocative pictures and posting them online was wrong, didnt they go a step even further by publishing some of the pictures on their people? i am sure it provides entertainment for some who sees the picture, but have they forgotten that their paper is easily accessible to kids and teenagers? in ther first place they might not have seen those pictures at all but by publishing those pictures the media has made a wrong move. What do you people reading this post think about the media? do you agree that the media has taken matters too far?

House Bunny - Group Communication

House bunny is a comedy that hit our local cinema screens a couple of weeks ago. Its about a former playboy house bunny Shelly who was tricked into thinking that she was being kicked out of the playboy mansion. By chance, through a series of events she ends up being the housemother of a sorority group called the zeta alpha zeta, the members of the sorority are a group of seven possibly the most socially clueless women. Because of their inability to integrate with society they face the danger of losing thier house due to the lack of pledges to them. Shelly comes along into the picture and begins to give all the girls a revamp and turn them into attractive people whom everyone wants to befriend with. At the beginning the girls were reluctant but realising the emminent danger of losing their house they decide to go with Shelly. Their popularity also caused resentment from another sorority group who tries to prevent the Zeta's from getting pledges. In the end Shelly's misunderstanding with Hugh Hefner, the playboy mansion owner, was cleared up and she went back to being a playboy bunny but did not feel at ease going back to her old lifestyle and returned to help the Zeta's save their house.

In this movie we can see Shelly integrating into the Zeta's. From being kicked out of the mansion, she needed interpersonal needs like need for inclusion as she felt alone and abandoned, need for control as she used to be in charge of stuff in the playboy mansion, as well as the need for affection from the group of Zeta girls. When Shelly joins the Zeta sorority as she has them for companionship as well as went back to her old lifestyle of being in control of things going on in the house, thus joining the Zeta's, the group have met her interpersonal needs for her to feel the need to be included in their group.

Next in the movie we see problems they faced as a group during decision making, for example needing the full support of the group when making decision and Shelly had to work hard to prove to everyone that what she was doing for them was worth their support. Another problem they faced was that the solution they chose was risky, before the decision to have a makeover, all the girls were hesitant as they felt insecure of themselves and were not sure if the next step that they were about to take was it a right or wrong move. These are just some of the problems they faced as a group.

Lastly through the movie, we are able to see the process of Shelly being integrated into the group, from first being a prospective member, to a new member, to a full member. It begins with her being a prospective member when she was brought in to the Zeta's house when everyone was deciding whether to rope her into the group, here she was like a prospective member as she was not part of the group yet. Next in the following stage as a new member, she began to learn about things in the group, finding out information about each individuals in the group. Lastly she intergrates into a full member of the group, being the center of all the activities that the group was involved in. She never fell into the catergory of being an ex-member of the group though at one stage she did leave the group, because despite being away she still felt a huge part of her still with the group and was at a loss without them.

In the movie we can also see many parts of group communication, for example who in the group plays the task or maintenance roles as well as some aspects of groupthink symptoms developing after the sorority group became popular.

It is quite an enjoyable movie to watch, despite its comedic and seemingly brainless plot there are actually alot of things that we learnt in group communication that can be observed from the movie.

Survivor Gabon : Reel Life versus Real Life - Interpersonal Communication

The latest edition of the award winning reality tv gameshow Survivor was aired on friday night after much anticipation. A brief introduction of the show: Survivor is an American Version of the Survivor reality television game show based on the Swedish television series Expedition Robinson. The show is based on stranding a group of strangers as one or more tribes in a remote location, where they must fend for food, water, fire and shelter for themselves, while competing in challenges to earn rewards and immunity from being voted off by the tribe in progessive eliminations; the last challenger remaining at the end of the competition win the US $1 million prize and the title of Sole Survivor

The above is a general introduction of the game but underlying are aplenty of complex alliances and relationships in order for one to progress in the game other than just winning the challenges and avoid being eliminated every other week. What interests me to tune in to the show is in the later part of the show whereby when the group that faces the decision of who they should vote for to eliminate, it is at this point of the show whereby those who fear being eliminated will try to use their alliance or partnership to their advantage and try to win over the rest of the group not to vote for them. It is a very complex part of the show whereby interpersonal relationships come into play and its quite exciting to see how situations unfold in the show. Similar to what we have covered in lecture many aspects of relational formation also occur in the show. One good example of it is physical appearance, in the show we can see that the good looking people tend to go with each other like the handsome guy and the pretty girl and they tend to develop a more interpersonal or closer relationship with each other. Another example would be similarity like the older folks in the show will tend to bond together closer due to attitudinal similarities in terms of thinkings and values. The most glaring relational formation aspect in this gameshow would be about exchange ( form relationship based on our perceptions of the cost and rewards of the relationship ), most of the time the contestants would look for the fittest or smartest, those who would win challenges and try to form a relationship with them as they would stand to gain more from this relationships and in another view, gain a higher chance of avoiding elimination and winning the game.

Well that was reel life, now we come to the real life. I agree to a large extent that many of the relation formation aspects that we learn play a very important part when i consider forming a relationship with another person. The physical appearance, similarities, dissimilarities, exchange, proximity, reciprocity and competency. I guess of all the aspects i would take into consideration of similarities the most, cause i feel that it is very important wether the person is similar to me so that we can click together well in a friendship. Of course the other aspects of relational formation that i mentioned above do play a part but i guess some are more significant than others, well for those who read this post, you could leave a comment on which aspect you think you consider most when deciding on forming a relationship with someone? but note that forming relationship is not just pertaining the boy-girl relationships but friendships as well as working partners

Perceptions-closure

These television commercials shown on television recently caught my attention as they are quite interesting and unique. They play with a concept of what i learned during communication lectures about perception and closure. Which is the tendency to fill in the missing pieces of a puzzle by mentally completing it so as to make sense of it and is influenced mainly by our expectations, perceptual tendencies and past experiences.
The first advertisement of the worst restaurant by a local radio station is very interesting as it cause us to form a conclusion before seeing the entire picture. The scene being set in a kitchen of a restaurant and a guy in chef attire seems to be doing something that we cant see, with the effect of the sounds it seems like he was peeing into a pot. This plays with our mind as we know that in restaurants we do not know how our dishes are being prepared so for all we know the above perceived scene might just be what is really happening in a restaurant and hence we draw the conclusion that the chef in the scene is peeing into a pot possibly for making a dish. However towards the end of the commercial we realize that he was just pouring an ingredient into the pot in an awkward position. Upon completion of the advertisement, i realize that it was sort of telling me not to jump into conclusions by just deduction from what we see but only conclude when we see the whole picture.
The second advertisements is a very intellectual advertisement as it plays with word play by removing words from a sentence in such a way that it comes up with a totally different meaning. The driving instructor was giving bad comments about the learning driver, however in the ears of the learning driver we hear words omitted from the sentence in such a way from a bad comment it becomes a positive comment for her. This commercial in some ways plays with closure, whereby in our mind we help to connect the sentences together even though the omitted words we left we empty space and we join the sentence together in out mind.
From these two above commercials we can see clearly how the concept of closure works. From jumping into conclusion in the first advertisement to helping connect the sentence in the second advertisement. These advertisements are also good in the sense that in the first example we can learn from it that we should not jump into conclusion by looking at one scene and should instead wait to see the whole picture. And from the second advertisements, leaving out simple words in a sentence can cause a totally different meaning altogether. I sure hope to see more of such entertaining and educational commercials on our local television.

On the Road - Nonverbal Communication

Listening to communication lecture this week about perception and non-verbal communication this week, what came up to my mind was the perceptions and amazing non-verbal communication on the road. Not having to speak face to face with each other yet understanding what the driver in the car wants to do is quite amusing and interesting.
First up what i want to talk about in this entry is about perceptions of the kind of cars and what kind of drivers drive those cars. People come up with conclusions that those drivers with with souped up cars with fanciful car decals are hell drivers who are nothing but danger and trouble when we see them and the road, and as my dad would always tell me to avoid these drivers. Its true a large number of drivers driving these cars are speed monsters but quite amazingly i have met some who have been courteous on the road too and there was once an encounter whereby one such driver actually signaled and gave way for me to cut into his lane which i thought was a really nice gesture. That prompt me to reconsider the perception that the drivers of all these souped up cars are demons on the roads but maybe they are just car lovers who love to do up their cars just like how someone would like to decorate their home. To add in on this topic of graciousness on the road, i have to say that what i observe on the road most of the time is that those uncles in their big mercedes benz or BMWs are the ungracious drivers who constantly speed and honk unncessarily on the road. I guess that maybe they have the thinking that they paid more for their COE taxes and drive bigger and more luxurious cars hence they are at a class higher above than others and others should give way to them. Hence the perception that those driving souped up cars are road demons, people should think twice again before coming to a definitive conclusion.
It makes me wonder who came up with the idea of red means stop and green means go and why not other colors like blue and white or any other colors. I guess maybe they chose red and green as they were the fundamental colors and the more obvious colors to human eyes so it would be easier for us to notice.
Another non-verbal communication that is often seen on the road is anger, there are a few ways i have seen and heard of anger being shown on the road. The most common and obvious way of display of anger is the pressing of the horn, people press their horn may it be in the way of danger or when they are frustrated with their fellow drivers. Being stuck in a traffic jam it is always common to hear the constant sounds of horns urging the driver in front to inch forward and normally it is accompanied by a disgruntled face when i turn around to look at the driver. I have to admit that i personally too am a person who occasionally make use of the horn to show my displeasure and it is something i have to curb myself from because looking back at it pressing of the horn at someone is not very pleasant and we should practice road courtesy.
The non-verbal communication of anger that i have heard of quite commonly on the road yet have not encountered such situation yet is the display of the middle finger to someone else on the road. Have heard of such situations told to me from my friends from unruly drivers who when displeased with someone on the road would press repeatedly on their horn and give the middle finger. Personally i feel that this is a very unpleasant and ungracious thing to do and it shows what kind of ill-mannered the person is as even though someone might have committed a mistake on the road one should not give the person the finger.

Nanny Daddy - Defining Communication

Seeing the title i guess most people are wondering what this post would be about, well its a new channel 8 9pm drama that i just watched just now. The timing this show is being aired i guess is too close a coincidence with one of the topic discussed by our PM Lee's National Day Rally. The topic our PM approached was giving increased benefits to encourage Singaporean families to have m0re kids.

Well the show is about this bachelor Alan ( portrayed by Adrian Pang ) who is a selfish and petty man who is hated by all his fellow neighbors in the block. One day his sister shows up at his house with her nine month old baby daughter and begs him to look after the baby girl as she has to rush to the middle east to save her husband. Well as the story progresses on we see many funny antics and situation between Alan and the baby like him learning how to change her diapers and wearing female clothing to breastfeed the girl. Basically the show is trying to portray how much fun and joy a baby can bring to a person or family's life and having a baby can also change one's character to make the person more responsible. This might have a certain effect that would lead couples to ponder deeper on having a children as they see the positives sides and joy of having a kid in the family.

Going back to what i learn during communication lectures, i guess the government is using appeal to emotion ( Pathos ) to persuade couples into having kids. The reason why i feel that the government is using persuasion by emotion is because seeing the comical and happy situation with the baby girl evokes one's emotions, feeling the sense of joy through the tv show.

Personally i feel that the show is not really able to get across the sense of joy of having a baby to its audience. No doubt there are the comical moments in the show but some scenes keep repeating itself making it not comical anymore, for example in one episode yesterday i notice twice they tried to make a comical situation of the baby peeing onto Alan's clothes. Seeing it once was enough but repeating it twice kills the effect. Next i feel that there can be more variety of happy scenes with the baby then there is shown on the show.

Hahz so for those who have read this post please comment on what u think about it and if you have seen the show u can also comment on how you feel about the show.