Xoxo9

cultural imperialism

xoxo9 — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:00:28 +0000

06:00 AM

That 70s Show VIII (Sitcom)

My Fairy King

06:30 AM

Prime Time Morning (News)

09:30 AM

The Ellen DeGeneres Show V (Variety)

10:30 AM

The Tyra Banks Show II (Variety)

11:30 AM

Small Space, Big Style (Info/Education)

Little Home, Hugh Results

12:00 PM

The Martha Stewart Show II (Info/Education)

Chazz Palminteri

01:00 PM

Jamie’s Kitchen: Australia (Info/Education)

02:00 PM

Fall Guy (Drama)

Soldiers Of Misfortune

03:00 PM

Chicago Hope VI (Drama)

Thoughts Of You

04:00 PM

Perfect Strangers II (Sitcom)

Get A Job

The above is a program guide from http://5.mediacorptv.sg/wassup/progguide/index/.html , showing the programs screened on channel 5 on 11th march 2008 from 6 am to 4 p.m. As one would notice, most of the programs are American. With the exception of the morning news, all the shows are Western programs. It is undeniable that there is a huge dominance of U.S media products on Singapore television. Even on radio stations such as Class 95, most songs are from U.S. According to Varis (1984), it is clear that there is a one-way traffic. This means that while we are absorbing and learning the culture of Americans, they know nothing of us. In fact, many Americans don’t even know the existence of Singapore. U.S is a major exporter of media products, and many countries in the world have access to these products.

Many Singaporeans know the U.S culture more than our own. Ask them who the American politicians are, they’ll gamely list all of them. But ask them who is the Transport Minister of Singapore, and they’ll be at a loss. Ask the locals the history of Singapore, most are unsure, and some don’t even know. Yet, when you question them the American history, they can write a book about it.

What are the consequences of this cultural imperialism- the unbalanced flow in international television market? I personally feel that cultural imperialism dilutes a community’s culture. In some cases, the community members abandon their own culture to join another. Some cultures would no longer be proud of their traditions and heritage, hiding them when they can. Cultural imperialism could also impact the global television culture. A terrible consequence is that the global television culture loses its diversity and uniqueness, and follow this tried-and-tested way of success. For example, Singapore produces English television comedy series, like Police and Thief and My Sassy Neighbor, to model after the success of U.S television series like Ugly Betty, and Heroes. It is indeed sad that the effects of cultural imperialism is often unpleasant and leads to loss of cultural identity.

Yo wat up

xoxo9 — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:03:50 +0000

The African-American community(or otherwise known as the black community) in America is identified through its culture of Rap and R&b music, break-dancing, slang and language, behavior and actions, dressing and clothing and a whole lot more. The black community in US have single-handedly revolutionized Hip-hop. And I’m not just talking about the music, I’m talking about the moves, the clothes, the language, the whole get-up.

Does a black man know from birth that he was destined to rap and break dance? I suppose no. Cultures are learned. When a baby is born, the influence of the society, his parents, and his friends mould him into the person that he would be in the future. Cultural norms are only norms because we are so used to them that we often forget that they were novel to us once. Most black musicians on radio now sing the same genre of music, and behave in a similar manner. Also, musicians such as 50cent, Chris Brown, Flo Rida, T-Pain, all dress in the same manner. There is a perfectly legitimate explanation for this. Often, belonging to a culture (in this case, the black culture/ hip-hop culture) means acting according to group norms. This is due to the security it provides. Because cultures are shared, it is difficult to act as freely as we wish. When Eminem, a white rapper, first entered the rap music industry, he was heavily criticized for “posing like a black man”.

There are many cultures in the world, and despite culture being exclusive to a community, it can be observed that there is more intercultural interactions more so than before. Take the example of US. The hip-hop culture is so extensive that even the white community is involved. In addition, the hip-hop culture is also extended to Asia, where Japanese, Chinese and Koreans etc are involved. We live in a global village, where there are intercultural encounters everyday. There is so much intercultural interaction that there is an obvious presence of co-cultures.

The above youtube video is a short scene from the movie, Step Up, showing Channing Tatum(the white man in the clip) dancing in a hip-hop style, with break-dancing moves. Also, you would notice that he speaks like a black man. In the movie, the white man lives in the ghetto and he grew up feeling that he belongs to the black community, following their culture. His language style is very much like the black hip-hop guys in the movie. Because he uses this language, and also their slangs, a person who is not familiar with the hip-hop culture would not necessarily understand the things he says.

Also, in the movie, Channing Tatum is supposedly the “bad” boy. Because he is a white man “acting” like a black man, he is stereotyped as a “poser”. In the movie, the school and its students despise him and have prejudices against him. It went to a point where they discriminated him. To them, the hip-hop culture produces criminals, “gangstas”, and delinquents.

This also highlights an important barrier to cultural understanding. Ethnocentrism is a belief that one’s culture is superior to all others and there is a tendency to judge all cultures by one’s own criteria. In the movie, most of the white students can’t stand Channing Tatum because they think his culture is not as superior as theirs and that he doesn’t possess the talent and classical dance techniques to be qualified as a dancer. To them, he’s just some “punk”.

However, having said all that, it is absolutely important to keep in mind that intercultural communication allows understanding of each others’ cultures, and with greater understanding, there is greater tolerance to differences. In fact, knowing the similarities between cultures bond people and unite them.

Let’s get personal

xoxo9 — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:24:21 +0000

Everyday we meet people and interact with them, we don’t realize that we are having interpersonal communication with these them- our friends, parents, teachers etc. How does an interpersonal relationship come about? According to DeFleur et al (2005), there’re 3 processes: Engagement, Management, and Disengagement.

Most people don’t realize that we subconsciously use a set of criteria to form relationships. Physical appearance, for one, is a big factor. Similarity to ourselves is also important when we form relationships. Though on the other hand, we sometimes form relationships because of dissimilarities. We have an inclination to form relationships with people who’re different from us.

Below is a clip from Monsters Inc. when Boo and Sully first makes contact. In the Monster world, children are thought to be contaminated and fatal.

In this short clip, you see the start of a friendship between Sully(the monster) and Boo(the little girl). As a Monster and a human child, they definitely have differences in physical appearance. Also, because of their vast incompatibilities, it seems almost impossible that they will become friends. Sully rejects Boo because she is human and different. Boo, on the other hand, wants to befriend Sully because he is novel to her. Boo especially likes him because he is unlike others (human beings she interacts with on a daily basis). She wants to form a relationship with him because of their dissimilarities. This is the engagement stage where there is first contact. Also, one would notice that there is mainly non-verbal communication between the two as Boo is too young to communicate verbally. Since this movie is intended for children to watch, this is a useful technique for easy understanding.

Another stage would be the disengagement stage where the relationship is dissolved. The clip below, however, goes against that. This is a clip from Love Actually where Jamie goes to Portugal to propose to Aurelia. Before this, Jamie could not speak Portuguese and Aurelia couldn’t speak English, and they had many conflicts maintaining their relationship.

Instead of dissolving their relationship, the two forms a new one instead- one as husband and wife. Hence, the Knapp Model of Relational Development is more apt in this case. Jamie and Aurelia started with Stage 1, where there was initiation and proceeded to Stage 2, where there is experimenting. In Stage 2, they made small talk and Jamie disclosed personal information about himself- the contents of the book he is writing. However, they skipped Stage 3,4,5 as they had problems maintaining their relationship. They went straight to Stage 9 and 10, whereby Jamie returns to England and never meets Aurelia again. The story then takes a twist (which is the scene shown in the clip), where Jamie’s relationship with Aurelia jumps back to Stage 5, where they bond through marriage. This is a perfect example of a non-linear form of relational development.

Through these examples, we can observe the many details in interpersonal relationships and the formation and maintenance of them.

Advertisement and its effectiveness.

xoxo9 — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 05:08:31 +0000

There’re many types of advertisements. Some show us the practicality of the product, some lure us with celebrities, and others simply lure us with the idea of the “non-reality”. I’ll be elaborating on what I mean by the latter. Above you’ll see an advertisement by Motorola promoting their phone- RAZR2. The advertisement toys with our mind. As learnt in my Communications class, communication is based on perception rather on reality. I cannot agree more. Often, we overlook reality to convince ourselves of the intention of the message the sender is conveying. For example, a person you don’t like tells you that your shirt is nice, and perhaps it really is, you’ll think that she’s just trying to be hypocritcal. We perceive the message to be threatening rather than pleasant, maybe based on past experiences when she has repeatedly said things she doesn’t mean. Possibly, our conclusion comes from the fact that the message was accompanied by nonverbal communication. We selectively observe the message that we want to hear and see.

Moving back to the ad, I personally felt tempted to buy the phone after watching it because it was simply so cool. Several factors prompted me with that decision: First, the 2 main characters inside were sleek, stylish and good-looking. They played with the fact that many people judge others by their appearances. Also, they were both wearing black, which is a “cool” color, in comparison with white. “Cool” colors are often used by the media to potray a certain image. For example, if they wanted to show that a woman is sexy, they would use colors like crimson red or dark purple. On the other hand, if they wanted to show a woman is kind and sweet, they would use colors such as pastel pink, light yellow etc. The ad manages to create a cool image of the phone by carefully choosing the clothes, hair and make-up of the leads. They fit comfortably into our personal constructs of whose cool and stylish. Second, the atmosphere of the environment is selected very carefully. They took a very casual setting and made it desirably cool. The lighting is also dimmed on purpose. Cool= good-looking= nightlife= dark environments. That is how the media usually potrays the cool image and creates the environmental stimuli. However, this only works if cultures are the same. For very traditional Chinese families, black is a color only reserved for funerals. In fact, the Chinese culture does not approve of the color, black, because of its association with death. Hence, when looking at an ad like the Motorola ad, they would not perceive it as cool. Rather, they would associate the phone with death. Having said that, most of the time it works, because the media of the world is mostly Westernized by the American culture.

Thirdly, the ad has no verbal dialogue. And since non-verbal communication is receiver-based, it’s basically up to our intepretation of the ad. This is effective because it does not spell out everything for us and different people intepret differently. They effectively used oculesics to fill in the “missing dialogue”. We saw different emotions just by observing their eyes- anger, surprise etc. Motorola also used Proxemics to change their relationship and situation. Using Edward Hall’s four zones of personal space, the 2 characters toggled between social, casual and intimate distance. Within the intimate distance, they used Haptics to show perceptions of liking and arousal of senses. They touched each other alot and were generally considered intimate.

Finally, you realized that whatever I said has nothing to do with the phone, RAZR2. But that doesn’t matter, because they managed to send their message across- RAZR2 is cool. It’s strange, because reality tells us that the phone has hardly any use in the ad, other than to cut their clothes, which we also know is impossible. Yet, we willingly convince ourselves that the phone is useful and looks good after that. This ad successfully communicated with us, and consumers will feedback to it by buying the phone.

Here’s something to think about: Are all ads out to “trick” consumers by using the right advertising methods and techniques? Is it right for ads to advertise something that isn’t really what it is? Yet, advertising is all about this.

Talk to me without words

xoxo9 — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:41:06 +0000

I’m a huge fan of Ellen Degeneres and this is one of the episodes of the “Ellen Degeneres Show” I obtained from Youtube, for her 50th birthday. Inside is a video dedicated to Ellen from a handful of celebrities. As Ellen is a comedian, please don’t expect it to be something that isn’t funny.

Who disagrees that a song can communicate?Hardly anyone. Most of us would even recount incidents when we’re extremely saddened by a song, and even close to tears. Songs can make us happy and they can make us sad. When put in movies, they enhance the effects of the scene. Our minds can’t seem to ignore the impact of a song. But can a song be overpowered by something else?

I’m sure everyone is familiar with the song, “I Will Survive”. And I’m sure everyone knows the intended message of the song. If you find yourself laughing at the video from the “Ellen Degeneres Show”, is there something wrong with you?

No. Even though the song is supposed to somewhat motivate people, the intention of the song is overshadowed by the actions of the celebrities. Even though they’re not singing, their actions literally speak louder than words. We cannot always think that effective communication is by our voices. Simply watching the video would enable us to understand that sometimes actions convey stronger messages than words/voices. Taking a nostalgic look at the models of communication, we would realize that these actions are called noise. If the noise becomes increasingly “loud”, we are distracted from the message.

This is also the basis of certain comedies. Jackie Chan is famous for his action-comedies. Sometimes the dialogue is not necessarily funny but the actions are easily understood and generate laughter from the audiences. People from all ages and cultures interpret actions far better than words. The following is a clip from the advertisement for Visa, promoting the Beijing Olympics, by Jackie Chan.

Many people would have already seen this advertisement. Without us realizing, the advertisement managed to demonstrate its intentions without a single use of dialogue. The music is also kept very simple. Non-verbal communication remains a very important part of communication. More often than not, non-verbal communication does not need to be accompanied by verbal communication.

A very simple form of non-verbal communication we have daily is this:

We are on our way to work/school. We see someone we know far away. You catch the person’s eye and vice versa. You want to say “Hi” to him/her, but you can’t possibly shout. So, you wave and smile! By using the right affect display, you convey the message that you are very happy to see him/her.

The above example illustrates that non-verbal communication does not necessarily have to be complicated. It is inherently an extremely flexible sort of communication that we utilize not just every day, but every hour of our lives.

Here’s something to think about: The deaf community uses sign language to talk with each other. Is this considered non-verbal communication? (Because they are really trying to talk to each other “verbally”) Also, will this “verbal communication” be complicated by non-verbal communication?

I love tv and I can’t lie.

xoxo9 — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 17:08:31 +0000

This is a short clip from the Japanese cartoon Sailormoon that was shown many many years ago. Sailormoon is a cartoon from Japan which was subsequently dubbed in English and shown in several other countries. The clip I obtained was shown on New Zealand television. It is translated and dubbed in English. There are other versions of this clip in Cantonese and Chinese.

This is one of my favorite scenes from the cartoon because within the few short minutes, there’re many climaxes. In fact, people who don’t know what the cartoon is about would more or less infer the content from the gestures, body language and other uses of symbols in the cartoon. The expressions from the characters provide us with some knowledge about what’s happening. Since communication does not necessarily have to be verbal, we would see that some important parts are put across by actions.In the beginning, one of the main characters, Tuxedo Mask, was lethally attacked and instead of using dialogue to convey the message that he’s in pain and dying, they show his hands shaking, and beads of perspiration dripping down from his temple.

Hence, the audience would infer that he is at his last breath.The cartoon also cleverly uses hints to tell us what is going to happen. For example, they stressed on Sailormoon’s teardrop, which we would realize eventually that it triggered the revelation of the Moon Princess. Since this cartoon is targeted at children, the language is kept very simple. More often than not, the characters’ expressions are exaggerated to put across the intended message.

Having said all that, you would realize that I have used the power of language to animately describ the scene from the clip. Verbal communication is present in our lives daily, so much so that we often overlook it. The clip used language to give each character a name, so we can define the identity of the character and distinguish it from other characters.

For example, the name Tuxedo Mask suggests that the character might be a hero in the cartoon as his name is powerful and strong. Perhaps, I might have come to this conclusion because I’ve attached the things he does in the cartoon to his name. This is also a powerful element of naming and identity. Also, he often wears a tuxedo and a mask to remain unrecognized.

The black cat in the cartoon is called Lunar. According to Adler and his colleagues (Adler et al., 1998), the name of a person can influence how we perceive them. This is extremely true. If I were to meet a person called Lunar, I would immediately think of the black cat in Sailormoon. And I would perceive the person based on the characteristics of Lunar. The same can be said of the name Garfield. Everyone knows of the cartoon cat, Garfield, who is a lazy and fat cat. If an employer decides to hire someone called Garfield, who is incidentally on the heavier side of the scale, he would somehow think that this worker is lazy. This is inevitable as the impression of the name Garfield is deeply imprinted in all of our heads.

Language is also important in relationships. In the clip, you would see that in Tuxedo Mask’s last moments, he used language as a tool of communication to tell Sailormoon his last wishes. Hearing Sailormoon’s pleas for him to stay alive, he would also realize that she loves him. Even though they communicated for a rather short time, they used language effectively and within that short period of time, they managed to “tell” each other how much they liked one another. Words are something we often take for granted but are very crucial in transmission of messages. Let’s examine the words Sailormoon used towards Tuxedo Mask. In the clip, she said this: “No!! Tuxedo Mask!”, “Tuxedo Mask, no, please don’t go!”, “Dear Darrien”, “You can’t go, you can’t!” Without watching the clip, just by examining these words, one would come to a conclusion that whoever is speaking it, cares a lot of the other person. Thus, it is essential to take caution in the words we use as it can affect the message and its meaning.

In the clip, you would also realize there is an obvious lack of slang. In translation of the cartoon, they must have removed some language exclusive to the Japanese community. They did this for a very good reason. Slangs are language-based barriers which are mainly meaningful to a particular group and are usually used in informal situations, or when we are speaking to a community of people who understand it and would feel “closer” to the conversation because of the slang. During translations, one would usually note that slangs are not translated as it is sometimes impossible to, or because it is not necessary as it does not affect the main message.

Here’s something to think about: Are we using verbal communication effectively in our lives everyday?

What’s a communications model?

xoxo9 — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:53:17 +0000

The above postcards are from www.postsecret.com and ”PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.”-text quoted from website.

I selected these 3 postcards to show the linear model of communication. These postcards show secrets from people, and are published on the PostSecret website. Most people write in to “say” something to someone, whom they didn’t get a chance to, or simply to “say” a secret that they need to get out of their chest. Readers like us, are passive targets as receivers of this messages. The senders of this message, in this case the message is the secret, send their messages through a channel, in this case it’s the postcard, and we, as receivers passively read it but do not respond to it. Even though this is one of the earliest form of communication, it is still very valid today, based on the example I illustrated.

To elaborate, let me talk about the first postcard. The sender of the message, let’s call him/her X for convenience sake, wishes to “tell” her dog something. Instead of doing so directly, X writes a postcard, using it as the channel/medium, to convey the message. She writes the message, “Everyone says I saved your life. The truth is, you saved mine.” Conventionally, the receiver of the message would be the target of the message. However, we, as readers, received the message too. In fact, the targeted receiver is not the receiver. We, as outsiders, are the receivers instead. Knowing that her dog can’t read, he can’t be the passive receiver of the message. This is a twist to the usual linear model of communication. Hence, it can’t be said that it is an accurate representation of the model.

However, the next postcard is a more accurate representation of the model. In the second one, the father of the baby, wishes to tell the public a secret he has kept to himself all these while. He, of course, does not expect a response/reply to his message. So the father, as the sender, writes a message, “After my son was born, I secretly wished he would die so I could have my life back. Now I would give my life so he could live. I never knew I could love someone so much.” He uses the postcard and internet(because PostSecret publishes the postcards it receives on the website weekly) as the channel/medium to convey his message to the public, who are the passive receivers. This model of communication is illustrated successfully in this example, and shows that the linear model of communication is never too old to be obsolete.

In the 3rd postcard, the sender, perhaps the wife of a soldier, “hopes” that her husband will read the message, as he is the intended target of the message. She, like the rest of senders, conveys her message, “Sometimes I let it go to message on purpose. I can’t bear the sadness in your voice. Come home safe,” through postcard and internet, letting it be the medium for transmission. If her husband reads the message and knows it is his wife who sent it to him, he completes the linear model of communication by being the receiver. However, he definitely would respond to it. Hence, the interactive model of communication comes into play here. The linear model of communication is broken as there is feedback. The soldier would decide to call his wife to tell her that he got the message and he loves her. That is a response to the message that she sent him. The linear model of communication is insufficient to describe this form of communication as the receiver is no longer passive. It is also important to take note of the noise that would be present in the communication. The soldier might have been in Iraq fighting a war, and reception would definitely not be very good. So he calls his wife, hoping to say something romantic. But, because of poor network, he keeps getting cut off and sometimes his voice becomes muffled. His wife hears what he’s saying, but not in the way he intended it to be. Instead of it being romantic, it ends up being frustrating because half of the time, she can’t hear him. Noise is an extremely important element here as it changes the message altogether.

Here’s something to think about: If the receiver is not the intended receiver, can the communication still fit into the model?