Month: October 2018

Week 7: The Ones Who Control the World!!

Interesting title, I know. In all seriousness, the mass media nowadays controls the world in ways we don’t even realize. Reporters and bloggers can pick out which information they want to include in their reports or blogs and it could change the truth of the reality that happened in a particular event!

Gatekeeping my friends.

“Gatekeeping is the process through which information is filtered for dissemination, whether for publication, broadcasting, the Internet, or some other mode of communication.”  Barzilai-Nahon, K (2009)

Gatekeepers usually rely on information searches and retrieval skills as their secondary sources, rather than conducting a primary research. This could lead to inaccurate information and may only scratch the surface of what the story may actually be. They also can filter or edit their sources and prioritize what they want the public to see as important and other news seem as not newsworthy for the general public.

Let me give you an example of the power of media gatekeepers.

Do is more likely to go on a front page of an American newspaper?

  1. Murder of an abortion doctor in Wichita, Kan., by an alleged anti-abortion activist
  2. Murder of an Army recruiter and the wounding of another in Little Rock, Ark., by an alleged Muslim convert who is said to hate the U.S. military?

Both stories seem equivalent to each other, but nope, the news of the murder of the abortion doctor was spread across the American nation, even on television shows. And for the other murder story? Just the last few pages of a newspaper for one day.

Media gatekeepers can decide what to prioritize and focus more, based on political views. In the case above, the media gatekeepers paid more attention to the liberal side, rather than the conservative rights as the military has largely been a bedrock issue of the conservative right. Benedetto R. (2009)

Just don’t trust everything you read or watch online kids, you may never know how the media is tricking you to think and focus on.

Scary stuff.

 

References:

Disney Film 1992: Aladdin and Orientalism

“Orientalism is the Western attitude that views Eastern societies as exotic, primitive, and inferior.” Said E. (1978)

In this blog, I will be discussing about one of Disney’s classics and how it portrays a vast amount of orientalist stereotypes in their film.

The Disney animated film Aladdin that premiered in 1992 focuses on a young street urchin who wants to marry a beautiful princess by using the power of a genie. This film took place in city of Agrabah, a made up “Middle Eastern” city.

Throughout the animated film, there are several orientalist stereotypes that can be pointed out and could be seen as obscure to Middle Eastern citizens.

Theme Song

The film is obvious that it orientalises the Middle Eastern culture, even from the beginning of the animation. The original theme song of Aladdin contained a line singing, “Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place, where the caravan camels roam, where they cut off your ear, if they don’t like your face, it’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.” This suggests that people from the Arabic culture are viewed as brutal and vulgar. “It attempts to impose the idea that Eastern individuals carry a lack of morals and ethics” Essays, UK. (2013). Disney was obligated to change these so called “racist” lines from “Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face”, to “where its flat and immense and the heat is intense”.

Exhibit 1. The Aladdin Theme song with the original and new lyrics

Protagonist

The film’s protagonist Aladdin can be seen with traits of the Western ideology. This ideology focuses on “rising from the ashes”, believing that Aladdin can truly find himself and become of an importance to himself or someone, a common dream for Western civilizations. Although Aladdin is seen and distinguished as a Middle Eastern character, he holds more of a Western vibe that can be seen for the Western audience. Why you may ask?

‘Whiteness emerges as a way of identifying groups of people associated with superiority’ (Osuri, 2008)

This shows the Western audience that Aladdin has some sort of superiority as compared to the other characters in the film, who were more tailored with the Middle Eastern details, such as their darker skin, large beard and noses and thicker accent.

See the source image

Figure 1. Aladdin being captured by two Middle Eastern men

Middle Eastern Men

How the animated film portrays certain characters in the film have exaggerated the orientalist stereotypes in them. The antagonist Jafar, is seen as a Middle Eastern man wearing a long robe and the Middle Eastern physical features as stated earlier. This separates him from other characters such as Aladdin and Jasmine, making the Jafar viewed to the audience as “Fear from the Middle Eastern Culture”.

In the film, Jafar captures Jasmine and chains her up, thus she is in a state of restricted movement. This suggests that Jafar wants to keep her as a sexual slave. What does this say to the general audience? To the Western audience, this scene gives the perspective that all Islamic men like to indulge themselves in preserve sexuality.

See the source image

Figure 2. Jafar chaining up Jasmine

As stated earlier, Aladdin contains more of a Western ideology in the film, including sexuality. The first scene premieres Aladdin being chased down by the police, as young girls are head over heels for him by the side. Different age groups of women in the film are mesmerized by Aladdin’s Western charism portrayed in the film. However, with Aladdin’s Western charisma, this creates a East and West sexuality divide that Eastern men must capture women to gain their attention, giving a negative image towards this stereotypical gesture.

See the source image
Figure 3. Girls checking out Aladdin when being chased by the police

In conclusion, the animated Disney film Aladdin has a myriad of Arabian orientalist stereotypes, which can give the wrong impression of the Eastern culture in the eyes of a Western audience.

References

 

 

New forms of Orientalism in the 21st Century

In this 21st century, we are now considered as a global village where we all able to go to new places and learn about a myriad of cultures. With that, East meets West and orientalism was formed. But before moving on, you may ask the question, “What is orientalism?”

According to the author of the book “Orientalism” Edward Said (1978), “Orientalism is the Western attitude that views Eastern societies as exotic, primitive and inferior.” In short, it is when the West takes elements from the East and incorporate it into their culture. From what I noticed in my interests, hip hop would also include orientalism elements in their artform.

Nicki Minaj, a well-known female American rapper used some form of orientalism in her music video “Your Love”. In one of her lyrics, “When I was Geisha he was a samurai somehow I understood him when he spoke Thai” shows that in terms of orientalism, she is taking multiple Asian cultures and combining them as a whole. In her music video, she would wear make up that would imitate a Japanese style and wear a sexualized Geisha outfit, which does not resemble the historical meaning behind the traditional Geisha outfit, just a form of some exotic appeal in her video.
See the source image

Figure 1. Nicki Minaj wearing the Geisha in the music video “Your Love”

Nicki Minaj used a normal form of orientalism, but did you know there are also other forms of orientalism?

Wu Tang Clan, the famous 90s American hip hop group would use elements from the East in their lifestyle and also their songs. Typically, orientalism would be associated with Europeans using the Eastern culture features as an exotic trend, but Wu Tang Clan is an African American based group. Hence, this new form of orientalism would be called “Black Orientalism”. So in a way, Nicki Minaj would also be considered as a form of black orientalism.

Wu Tang Clan would use a lot of Eastern elements in their music and lifestyles, specifically using the ideas and philosophies of Buddhism and Taoism. This Buddhism/Taoism approach originated from the leader of the hip hop group RZA, due to his influence on Buddhism during his spiritual journeys in life. RZA had other influences as well, which included kung-fu films, comic books and Eastern religions, known as the “patchwork of poached taos in life” “RZA used his “poaching” to construct an arsenal of spiritual “strategies” and “tactics” to deal with his life circumstances and help him and the Wu Tang Clan attain success” (Gonzalez-Dysinger D. 2015)

RZA’s philosophy was one of the main reasons for Wu Tang Clan’s image, attitude and style of the group. The group would base their songs and albums on a mixture of African American culture and also the Eastern influence.

See the source image
Figure 2. One of Wu Tang Clan’s album using the Eastern elements in their album artwork

Another form of orientalism can be found in Japan called “Techno-Orientalism”, which emerged in around the 1980s. Techno-Orientalism refers to a mixture the exotic features of the Eastern culture with futuristic science fiction narratives, which is also falls under the genre Cyberpunk.

The film “Blade Runner” in 1982 was one of Hollywood’s main productions that showcased what techno orientalism was to the globe. The film displayed a dystopian version of Los Angeles, with a Japanese futuristic look such as neon-lit lights, women wearing a Geisha in gigantic billboards and etc. This example shows of how techno orientalism creates a Western and Eastern hybrid with scientific elements in play, creating a cyberpunk vibe in their film.

See the source image

Figure 3. The introduction scene of the 1982 film “Blade Runner”

One may raise the question though, “Is orientalism considered as a form of racism?” To answer that question, we have to understand what is racism.

“Racism is the belief in the superiority of one race over another, which often results in discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity” (Garner S. 2017).

Orientalism is more being fascinated of the Eastern culture, rather than mocking or thinking they are the superior culture. In context, being fascinated by the exotic and foreign features of the Buddhism culture just like RZA would be considered as an Orientalist. Making fun of the an Asian culture’s appearance or citizens would just be straight up racism.

References

Week 6: Stream Live for Android Vs iOS

Alright I lied. There won’t be any livestream of the brawl between these two operating systems. However, the battle between them has been going on for quite sometime, even up to today.

Let us take a look at our candidate’s arsenal shall we?

See the source image

On the left side of the ring, we got iOS. iOS was created by the Apple genius Steve Jobs, who created a phone that revolutionized the world in 2007, the iPhone. Before that, he created several products throughout the years such as his first ever hand made computer “Apple 1” in 1979. With that, iOS is a core business, meaning it closed appliances tethered to a closed ecosystem, basically only Apple can edit and add their stuff.

See the source image

On the other side of the ring, we got Android. Android was created by the Google legendary duo Sergey Bin and Larry Page, who were recognized as the creators of one of the best search engines in the globe. The duo created their first Android phone in 1998, which later created and improved the operating system “Android” in the following years. Unlike iOS, Android is an open source and many companies use their operating systems such as HTC, Xiaomi and LG.

But the question is, which one is better? iOS or Android? Let us review each of our fighter’s arsenal again.

iOS

  • Full control on iOS, app market and developers
  • Massive profit gain after each sellout
  • Solely Apple developers can work on iOS
  • An individual manufacturer

Android

  • Given out for free
  • Open source system
  • Small profit gain
  • Enormous amount of independent OS and app developers
  • Has a lot of companies rather than just one

According to Simon Hill of Digital Trends (2018), there is really no “best” operating system, it really depends on what you are looking for. iOS would have better a better app store, apps and accessibility. On the other hand, Android is more affordable, customizable or even a better cloud.

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At the end of the day, it just comes to your preference on what type of phone you are looking for. If you ask me, I rather not just not buy a phone and save that money up for a new computer, a better buy in my opinion.

References

A Peak Within Asian Co-Productions

Co Productions are a beneficial way to gain more financial, creative and technical resources from the parties in the production. Nowadays, co productions mainly focus on mainstream genres or a mix of genres for audience appeal, such as sci-fi combined with elements of adventure etc.

Co productions can be found all over the globe, but I will be paying more attention to the Asia market in this blog. Popular countries within this market include: China, South Korea, and Hong Kong, just to name a few.

“Avengers: Age of Ultron” was a movie released in 2015, that became one of the best selling movies that year. With a signed agreement with Korea, the production team filmed a few key scenes in Korea’s capital Seoul, which not only helped promoted Korea’s tourism but also reimbursing up to 30% of South Korea’s Culture of  Ministry and Sports and Tourism, due to the country’s state-funded incentive program.

In the Asia market, Hong Kong and Korea are great partners in terms of creativity and productions. Both of these countries have international appeal after the release of “Transformers” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron” which both had scenes from the stated countries. In 2014, Hong Kong and Korea have collaborated for a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), in order to increase creative understandings. The MOU was implemented to create new ideas and put more attention towards research and training.

A scene from Transformers with the Hong Kong Opera House in the movie

Gregory So, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development stated, “Hong Kong and Korea are ideal creative partners. There is a strong potential for greater collaboration. This agreement will increase bilateral exchanges, bringing mutual benefits to the continuous growth and sustainable development of the creative economies of the two places.”

Not only with these two Asian countries are finding ways to gain opportunities but also Mainland China.  in 2014, China has introduced a new scheme of incentives towards their domestic film industry, which was also a method to attract international producers as well. The Chinese Government has provided a subsidy of USD16 million to create up to 10 Chinese movies a year. Chris Devonshire-Ellis of Dezan Shira & Associates comments that, “…this incentive is constructed is likely to lead to a new generation of pro-Chinese films and increasing interest in how Western film production companies can access the Chinese market with local partners to take advantage of these incentives.”  That year, China signed an co-production agreement with the UK for the making of fantasy drama, Warcraft and Seventh Son. 

Particularly in the Chinese aspect, the use of co productions with other countries is to promote the Chinese culture across the globe. There are even reports of India and China signing a co production deal in 2014. “…boost film-related tourism between the two countries and hence pave the way for a more vibrant people-to-people contact,” said India’s Minister for Information & Broadcasting Manish Tewari.

The Asian market is without a doubt a great place to co produce with, as there are multiple benefits when deciding to partner with these Asian countries. In China, the rise of co productions has made China’s box office grow from 17.1 billion yuan (US$3.51 billion) in 2012 to 49.2 billion yuan in 2016. “”The model of coproducing films is developing very well…Chinese filmmakers have established close relations with Hollywood’s major studios,” says Tong Gang, the vice-minister of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, China.

Famous Asian co productions include Kung Fu Panda 3, The Great Wall and Wolf Totem.

References

  1. Hong Kong and Korea sign deal to boost film co-productions and creative work. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.thelocationguide.com/2014/11/ng-filming-on-location-hong-kong-and-korea-sign-deal-to-boost-film-co-productions-and-creative-work/#
  2. New China filming incentives could boost international production interest. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.thelocationguide.com/2014/07/ng-filming-incentives-new-china-filming-incentives-could-boost-international-production-interest/
  3. Fan, X. (2017, October 12). China’s film industry booms, coproductions grow. Retrieved from http://www.asiaone.com/entertainment/chinas-film-industry-booms-coproductions-grow

 

Week 5: Feudal Lords, 2018th Edition

Feudal Lords are known to have properties and own certain lands, which can be traced back all the way till the medieval ages. Little do we know, they still exist in this era, except we call them cloud, walled garden etc.

I like to call this trend, “The Rise of Digital Feudalism.”

As compared to medieval feudalism, digital feudalism can be found everywhere around us in the online world. “We have little choice but to agree, with one click, to an impenetrably long and convoluted set of terms and conditions, which subjects us to constant monitoring by the platforms we use” (Koenig G, 2018). As mentioned earlier, the walled garden is a good example of digital feudalism.

The walled garden refers to applications like Apple App Store, Google Play, Facebook etc, where everyone is present there and provides protection from the “bad side” of the global network. However, the garden owners of this digital land controls how you use the content, which that content is connected with its platforms aka the garden. These walled gardens are closed, hierarchical and centralized databases. In short, they just control and use our information for business and advertising purposes. Funny story, I was scrolling through Instagram about tattoos, and suddenly all my advertisements were about tattoos…alright not that funny it is kind of creepy honestly.

Some people say, that the online metadata knows you better than your best friends, another creepy myth about the internet. Yikes.

According to Kosik, A. H. (2018, July 31) an author from Bustle, Instagram and Whatsapp were both bought by the the social media giant Facebook, and all these platforms share their users information to provide a more personalized feed for advertisements based on your interests.

Although there are methods to minimize the amount of data you send out to these platforms, who knows what else they are doing with our information?

addtext_com_MDMzODIxMjU0NjM

References

 

 

Week 4: The Long Tale

Just to clear things, it is not actually a “long tale” that I will be talking about.

In this week’s lecture, we learnt about the long tail effect and the attention economy. The long tail is defined as “a strategy that allows businesses to realize significant profit out of selling low volumes of hard-to-find items to many customers instead of only selling large volumes of a reduced number of popular items.” (Anderson, 2004)

Within the idea of the long tail concept, comes something intriguing. The Hit Driven model or culture comes to mind, which basically limits the scale, cost of entry and where there is a risk to take away the business model where the lowest denominator always wins. This may sound a little confusing but here is a little example.

In the lecture, the lecturer gave the example of two movies: Annie Hall and Transformers. In terms of the hit driven culture, Transformers will always be more successful as compared to Annie Hall. Transformers will have more profit and more viewers as Annie Hall is more focused on a niche market rather than in an international aspect.

The information economy. We live in an era where information can be crossed the material barriers of the world in the speed of light, just through something called the internet. On top of that, this is all free. Since the internet is basically run by a river of copies and they are free, how do people earn money from this?

Many factors can come in to play when answering this question. Being “first in line” when trying to sell a product will probably give you the opportunity to increase the value of it. Another factor could be making the copy have a little extra touch, making it more customized when compared to others. Even adding the creator’s autograph is a great way to differentiate yours from others.

Pretty sure if I add my signature to my products, it will cost way more than any product (sarcasm intended).

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References

  1. I. (Ed.). (n.d.). Long Tail.What Is the ‘Long Tail’. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/long-tail.asp.