Digital Artefact: Tattoo and Hip Hop Censorship in Chinese Television

Digital Artefact: Podcast 

Contextual Essay:

When thinking about the topics that I could do about soft power or censorship for this research project, I wanted to spread the awareness on China’s censorship on hip hop culture and tattoos on television. I began to research articles regarding the ban from online news outlets like TIME and DailyNews. The people affected by this are celebrities in China who are in the hip hop scene or just generally have tattoos or accessories that look “hip hop”. Several artists have been banned to appear on television or are forced to cover their tattoos to be on screen, which I think destroys their purpose of fully expressing themselves and diminishing the positive impact of hip hop culture.

This photo taken shows Chinese rapper PG One (2nd R) posing for a picture during the premiere of the movie  Wu Kong  in Beijing on July 9, 2017.

A famous group of Hip Hop artists for the premiere of the Chinese movie “Wu Kong”

I decided for my media outlet to be a podcast, as I believe a strong voice is a powerful tool that can show a person’s emotion and ambition on a certain awareness. In this context, my passion and love for the hip hop culture has driven me to create this podcast and raise awareness with the power of only audio.

The focus in this podcast is the censorship of hip hop artists and tattoos in television. I mentioned several examples of how artist were censored out and is becoming more and more common due to the uprising phenomenon of hip hop culture in China. “Rap of China” is one of the most popular TV shows in China, which involves a lot of people to have censored out hip hop related items and tattoos on the programme.

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According to the BBC, “Rap of China” was viewed more than 2.5 billion times 2017 on China’s largest video streaming website, IQiyi. (Dukoff, S. 2018)

In my podcast, I started off with an strong and loud instrumental as an introduction, kind of like the intro you hear when you watch the 730pm news. I did not add any music after that, because I believe the use of voice alone is more powerful than anything else. Adding a plethora of effects may sound fancy and all, but really gets the audience’s attention is the way you use your voice, arguments you make and the valid facts you state out.

To end it all, I talked a bit about how hip hop culture was created as a outlet for positivity in the 1970s in New York. One of the hip hop pioneers African Bambaataa, also known as the founder of the Universal Zulu Nation, states the four core values of hip hop are: Peace, Love, Unity and Having Fun. With China’s censorship on hip hop and tattoos, is this destroying the purpose of having hip hop in the first place?

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African Bambaataa, a historical and important figure in the hip hop culture

Tattoos in the 21st century is more acceptable due to the individual freedom of expression. So again, why take away the freedom of people for just being themselves?

Overall, my podcast consisted of a strong introduction of facts and examples of how China and Korea used their power of censorship in the media, argue on how they should not use this power, with a taste of why hip hop was created in the first place.

I hope this can raise more awareness on the censorship of tattoos and hip hop culture, because it is more beautiful than you think.
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An African boy dancing “breaking”, a popular form of hip hop dancing.

References

Dukoff, S. (2018, April 07). China bans hip hop, actors with tattoos from appearing on television . Retrieved from https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music/china-bans-hip-hop-tattoos-appearing-tv-article-1.3771540

Quackenbush, C., & Chen, A. H. (2018, January 22). China Bans Hip-Hop Culture and Tattoos From TV. Retrieved from https://time.com/5112061/china-hip-hop-ban-tattoos-television/

Nelson, G. (2005). Hip Hop America. New York City: Penguin Books. pp. 16, 18, 57. ASIN B001R9DHYE

VICE Asia. (2018, October 09). Retrieved July 30, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHCo0Iwra0I&feature=youtu.be

 

 

 

Reflection on Research Project

 

A couple weeks before the deadline of this research project, I was struggling on what topic I should investigate on. But after some deep thought, I decided to focus on the area within animal rights, but couldn’t exactly put my finger on what focus I should strive for.

Eventually, I decided to investigate on animal abuse in the tourism industry, as I realized on my friend’s social media posts that they aimlessly go to animal attractions overseas but do not realize they harm they are impacting on these poor creatures.

During my proposal, I focused on ways to stop animal abuse in the tourism industry. After my tutor gave me some feedback, he told me to direct the focus with some media elements. Hence, my research question transformed into: How to stop animal abuse in tourism with social media? 

For my digital artefact, I decided to give podcast a go. I never attempted creating a podcast before, so I thought this would be a good chance to practice on a new media outlet, instead of my go to of videos. For creating my podcast, I collected data from sources online, like Google Scholar and other news from animal rights organizations regarding animal abuse in the tourism industry. After some secondary data collection, I conducted a video reaction interview of a friend of mine, who travels to countries with animal attractions. The video that was presented to her was the dark side of these animal attractions, with some follow up questions after her initial reaction.

Pros 

Experimenting with a podcast lets you only use the power of voice in your media platform. As compared to video where you have to add effects, footage, and other media elements, podcasts only uses audio so it is somewhat easier and flexible to create with just your voice. The audio editing software is fairly easy to use. I used the audio editing software Audacity for this project.

On a side note, it is also easy to listen to as people can download it for offline use.

Cons

Due to the use of only audio, it is hard to describe certain visuals in the media platform. If I want to show the gruesome side of animal abuse, it cant be as simple as just putting some footage of tigers being skinned for their fur. I would have to verbally describe it as detailed as I can, in order for my listeners to paint the image in their head.

In conclusion, I enjoyed experimenting with podcast for my research project. This gave me new experience and understanding of how a podcast works and how to improve it for the next time I create a podcast. I am satisfied with the outcome of my podcast as I was able to add primary and secondary data, and also increase my confidence with the use of voice, which is a little cringe to hear at first honestly.

During the podcast creation, I realized I should be able to point out my facts and information in a coherent way with not a lot of blabbering around. I would definitely use this lesson for the next time in the future when I pursue my career in the media industry.

References

Digital Narrative: Live-streaming of Street Dance Events

 

What is my research project about? 

This research project has allowed me to discover the outcomes of being able to broadcast “underground” events to a global scale, in real time. I analyzed the effects of street dance events in the past and also the impact it made when turned into an online event where the globe can spectate at the same time.

The change between underground events and having the opportunity to view events online has somewhat both pros and cons. In the past, if you wanted to know about an event and feel the energy, the only way was to go to the event itself. It brought that selective feeling as not a plethora of people would watch, making you feel like one of the chosen ones. In the 21st century, people can watch on their phones wherever they are in the world, which loses its authentic underground touch. The quality of the livestream also depends on the bandwidth connection in the area, which plays a major role on feeling the vibe of the event.

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Two World Class Bboys going head to head in RedBull BC One World Final

“Live streaming can be technically difficult and particularly challenging when it comes to things like bandwidth. Quality of footage is a major issue and if poor, it can reflect badly on professional organizations.” Abraham, I. A. (2015)

Why this topic? 

I decided to investigate on this topic due to my interest on street dance and how the media has changed the game for what was known to be underground and evolved into a global media community. My research question: How effective are live-streams for street dance events? The purpose of this research was to find out whether the energy and vibes are affected when live-streamed, which are major components for the street dance scene.

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Live stream advertisement for a renowned street dance event 

Methodology 

In order to investigate on this matter, I conducted three face to face interviews who are part of the street dance community in Hong Kong. They consist of dancers of breaking and wacking (forms of street dance). These interviews were useful as I was able to ask any follow up questions and also they were knowledgeable in their field of events. I also conducted an ethnography study before I interviewed them, to see how they would react when watching a livestream event. I used live-streams from YouTube from RedBull and other popular street dance events globally.

For the formality of the research project, I sent out consent forms to them, to explain how their information would be used in the research project.

I also looked upon YouTube comments of the to find what other users think about the live-stream, which I stated later in my digital narrative when I started speaking in the video.

Results 

The interviews were effective, but it could have been better with maybe interviews from people who are event organizers or the media production team. This is due to the limitation of the weeks needed to prepare this project. Overall, the interviews provided some information that I found quite intriguing.

Through this research, I was able to find out the effectiveness of live-streaming on street dance events. Even though the live-streams were able to provide a convenient method to stay up to date with these underground events, some vital elements were missing through this media advantage. Some agree that the livestreams were able to show the energy of the event, with people and dancers going wild when someone performs a spectacular move. However, compared to events in person, the audience couldn’t give “props” online. They simply shout to themselves when something cool appears, but it is not like the event in person where you can see others go crazy as well.

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Audience of an event giving props to the dancers

Although the live-streams may have missed out this real time “props” function, the live-streams were still able to portray the vibe and energy of the event through this real time technology. Viewers were still able to keep up to date and feel as if they were part of the event, which created a global media community for the street dance worldwide. But the effectiveness depended on the bandwidth connection, the livestream angles i.e. if the camera crew knew the right angles and timing, and also the function of giving props together as a global community.

 

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What did I learn? 

Throughout this research process, I was able to understand more about the BCM240 material into practical matter. I can see the relation between media, audience and place towards the investigation regarding live-streaming street dance events in today’s generation.

Media practices has changed the way people view street dance events. In the past, the only way to know anything about the event and the highlights is to be there in person. But with live-streams, people do not need to go all the way to another country to see an event, but stay at home and enjoy the event from the comfort of their home. The audience of the livestreams are also affected as now they are a little lazy to go out to watch these events in person, which could create a loss of audience in these events in the long run. The use of public place is used as these live-streams can be viewed at home, work, school or anywhere you can think of that provides an internet connection.

Technical side of the project 

In a technical aspect for this project, I was able to produce a simple video with an application called Clipchamp. Clipchamp is an online video editor that is easy to use for anyone, even with little editing experience. Due to technical difficulties with my laptop, I was not able to use the professional video editing software I normally use. Which is why I had to focus on making a simple video with the online video editor that requires no download.

The video started with an introduction of the research project, briefly talking about how street dance events were like in the past and the present day. It then proceeded to showing a few clips of the ethnography study I conducted, with finally the interviews to uncover the questions regarding livestreaming street dance events. I ended with a conclusion of how live-streams changed the game of the street dance world. I used a myriad of fonts and transitions to make the video stand out more. I did not include music as I felt it would make the video lose it’s professionalism of the video.

Reflection 

Overall, I believe I fulfilled the requirements and successfully portrayed the research idea into my digital narrative. With this video, I believe it can give people the idea on how the media has changed the game for the world. Not solely on street dance events but also other aspects in life.

I had a few setbacks though, such as not organizing my time well for the interviews and video planning. But overall, I believe I can learn from this project and understand more on how media brings a lot of positive impact in the global community we live in today.

References

Blog 9: Attention Span, New to the Old

So I was asked to co-design a test to see the attention span of a family member and mine and basically report how that goes down. Here is what went down.

I asked my uncle to do a series of tasks around the house. The following tasks included:

  • Get a score of 10 points in Flappy Bird (Yes I still have the game somehow)
  • Clean up his room neatly
  • Vaccum the living room
  • Search online for 10 random facts about animal rights (indirectly helping me for my digital artefacts)

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He was given the time of 30 minutes to finish all these tasks.

Let us hear what he has to say about this test.

He mentioned how this test was kind of stressful, as everything had to be done in just 30 minutes. He tried to do the easiest one first, which he thought would be the 10 random facts. But then he realized he had other tasks that required more time, which created more stress when he thought about the bigger tasks he had to do. In the end, he wasn’t able to complete any of the tasks perfectly.

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But it doesn’t matter, even I failed miserably at this.

But what can I take away from this little attention experiment?

Well the older we get, our attention span grows smaller and smaller. Our concentration for tasks gets harder as we age, which is kind of scary if you think about it. Although we will be pushed to do more tasks with time pressure as the motivator when handed out with a plethora of tasks, it doesn’t necessarily mean they will be top notched material?

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My uncle also mentioned how he was distracted several times as well for starters, he wasn’t taking this very seriously. But overall, he just kept getting distracted on other things like his mobile phone etc.

“The attention spans of human brain are getting shorter. We have lost almost four seconds of our attention span in the past 15 years. This means we cannot concentrate on a thing for more than 8 seconds on an average.”

References

Blog Design Review

Blog design plays an important role in making a blog stand out. I believe to make a blog stand out, you got to present your personality into it. Let me show you my blog.

I started using a black and white theme, keeping it simple and clean. Why you may ask? If you know me personally, I am direct and not into sugar coding. Simply put, black and white. And also I just like black and white.

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For my blog, I placed the header image as a black and white photo of the Hong Kong streets, to represent where I come from. It is an introduction of where I come from to users who do not know who I am. Even my WordPress name “ErrylClassics” is a unique way of saying this blog is the one and only. Originally it is just a fancy way to make a cool and fresh name, but now I like to think of it as this blog as one of the classics since the name “Erryl” is hard to find in this world. Therefore, I believe this stands out due to this fact.

On top of that, the logo of my blog is a selfie of myself, wearing something simple. I believe there is no need to dress fancy or stylish when showing yourself off, just be yourself and that is all everyone needs to know. Therefore, I believe this gives off a strong personal touch to my blog.

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On the bottom of my selfie, a quote I placed can be found which is “Communication is key to this world.” A reference to the communication course that I am taking.

In my blog posts, I like to use the different colors and headings to emphasize certain parts of my post. If the sentence is a warning or something important for readers to take note of, I may use a red font or even use Heading 2. Quotes may be used with Heading 3 or 4 to emphasize the impact of the quote. I also use a lot of imagery to show a vivid representation in my posts. This gives a clearer perspective to my readers on what I am trying to portray. I get a majority of my images from Google or are my own self taken photos. I also include some GIFs to make my post more alive, literally.

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I created the navigation bar so it can be put into three categories: Sem A, Sem B and Sem C. Within these categories, you can see the courses inside that semester and find certain posts. This can create some convenience when users try to navigate for a post they want to find.

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I believe what I need to improve on is to add more hashtags to my posts, as this can really increase the popularity of my WordPress blog.

 

Week 7&8: Research Proposal

Digital Storytelling, what a unique way to portray your findings towards an audience.

Image result for digital storytelling

As I heard from my tutor that we have a research project based on digital storytelling, I was pretty stoked and challenged at the same time. I have to present something I find fascinating about media spaces and showcase them in a creative and informative way.

First thought that comes to mind?

Livestreaming of street dance events.

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Let us take a step back and see why this topic is more unique than you might think. Back in the 80s when Hip Hop was just introduced to the world, it was just a type of underground event. Hard to find, probably in some dark abandoned place or even a friend’s house around the block. You would hear stories or through the grapevine on how awesome these underground events were, wishing you could experience it yourself. To hip hop fanatics like myself, these places and events are so historic that they are definitely on my to go to list before I die. If only I could just be able to find these places faster.

Fast forward to the our world now, the digital world. These so called underground events can now be viewed simply on your phone, livestreamed.

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Through this research project, I would like to discover the effectiveness of livestreaming street dance events in our world today. Also to observe the changes from being underground to being broadcasted around the world.

Background

In the past, people would only hear about stories about these underground events, or you would have to go yourself. This was a thing of the past. Now we are able to feel the vibe and watch the action in real time through any media platform, with the power of livestreaming. You could be in class, going to work or even in the toilet taking a dump. And you would still wouldn’t miss a piece of the action of the mind blowing moves you were dying to see.

Common livestreaming platforms of street dance events would be either on YouTube, Facebook or even Instagram. A lot of event organizers around the world have started to use livestreaming to promote their events, but the more renowned channels would be Stance and RedBull TV.

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I aim to investigate the effectiveness on how livestreaming these niche events have either brought more benefits or harm to the global street dance culture.

Methodology

As I have mentioned before, I myself am I hip hop fanatic, for any element. Whether it is graffiti, emceeing, dj-ing or street dance, I try to involve myself into the scene locally. I have several friends in the street dance community and I also actively participate in street dance events as well. I would gather more information by finding livestreams of certain events and make my street dance friends watch it, to observe their behavior when presented with a livestream. After that, I will ask several questions towards the participants for further investigation. Other than the ethnography study I will conduct towards my friends, I will ask base if off by an auto ethnography experience where I would do the same as watch a street dance livestream see if the experience of being at the event in person and at home have any major differences.

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Here are some potential questions that I will ask:

  1. What do you think about livestreamed events?
  2. Do you feel the vibe of the event from the livestream?
  3. What do you think can be improved?
  4. Does it make you want to go to the event more next time after watching the livestream?
  5. Any difference from watching playbacks and the livestream?

I will also look into the comment sections of the livestream playbacks on YouTube and Facebook for further research.

Digital Narrative

I will create a YouTube video for this project, using the format of storytelling due to the creative freedom that comes with it.

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I will start the video with screenshots and footage taken from the past, regarding street dance events. After the background section, I will proceed with how in our digital world, we can now access underground events with our media platforms. I will include footage from my ethnography study with my participants, with clips of their interview as well.

I may also add voice overs in the video, on top of my own auto ethnography section when I observe street dance livestreams, to create a more catchy and personal touch in the digital narrative.

Due to the formal nature of the project, I will provide consent forms towards the interviewees, for their right of privacy and using their information data in my video.

References

 

 

Final Case Study: Racial Inequality in Hong Kong

Racial inequality has been around since the beginning of time. The fight against this inequality has been improving everyday, but it has not come to an end yet. In the urban jungle of Hong Kong, racial inequality has been common amongst individuals of the Chinese race, especially towards ethnic minorities.

BBC News (2015) has reported that Hong Kong has a population of 365,000 ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. Communities consist of mainly Nepalese, Indians, Pakistanis and Filipinos. Ethnic minorities have been in Hong Kong for several decades, but they face different issues than just Hong Kong’s main problems i.e. housing issues.

South China Morning Post (2018) posted a video on YouTube regarding the discrimination problem towards ethnic minority families when they are looking for a home. Ethnic minorities face more extreme housing problems when compared to local civilians, as some citizens are not accepting of other “darker skin” nationalities.

Landlords would decline showing these families flats, as landlords are terrified it will affect locals from being neighbors with them. Some neighbors have complained that they do not want the “curry smell” from these individuals, and also find it hard to communicate with them due to language barriers.

To Kwa Wan property agent Hui Kwok Sun states how 60% of the landlords in Hong Kong would not rent out to these families. Even minority families with high income were rejected to rent, in order to keep the peace within the locals in their flats.

There were more complaints from locals that ethnic minorities would not pay rent, drop trash and are extremely difficult to have a conversation with, creating this false stereotype towards them.

“Hong Kong Unison”, a minority advocacy group stated how the government should reinforce the Race Discrimination Ordinance.

“Officials should make it easier for minorities to file complaints and take a case to court”, says Hong Kong Unison.

Housing problems are not the only forms of discrimination they struggle with. Ethnic minority children are challenged to fitting in Hong Kong society, as their curriculum does not provide any form of Cantonese teaching as a second language, according to Castle J. (2015) from BBC.

“The language requirement that forms a barrier for ethnic minorities to receive equal access in education and the labour market, can be seen as an indirect form of discrimination,” says Raymond Ho, a senior member of the Equal Opportunities Commission in Hong Kong.

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Ethnic Minority Kids in EMI (English as the medium of instruction) designated schools

Local Kindergartens require kids to be able to speak Chinese at the age of 3 and even use Chinese as the interview medium towards the ethnic minority youth. English Medium schools were the designated spot for this niche society. But that does not solve the potential problems they will face in the future, such as fulfilling the Cantonese requirement in University or employment.

News Channels like BBC and South China Morning Post report discriminative findings about situations like the above, but this can be effective in order to stop this inequality. Major News outlets like BBC are able to raise an awareness that there is an issue of racial inequality in places like Hong Kong.

Ethnic minorities face a lot of difficulties in their Hong Kong lifestyle. In their daily life, ethnic minorities are faced with discrimination in shops, restaurants etc. Staff refuse service to these individuals, due to their difference in color. This makes life hard for them as they can not find employment, education or other fundamental human rights so easily in Hong Kong society.

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According to Society for Community Organization: Hong Kong (2001), “There are 279,600 non-Chinese in Hong Kong which occupy 4.1% of the total population. Among them, 32% have been rejected for employment or interview because of their races or based on some bad excuses while 27% have been rejected when the employers learnt that they were not Chinese or Westerns. Their lack of employment is not due to lack of skills or degrees, it is simply about their nationality and the cultural differences between the Chinese. Discrimination can be shown also within the salary contrasts between ethnic minorities and Chinese. The median monthly income of Hong Kong population is HK$10,000 while the median monthly earning for new immigrants and ethnic minorities is HK$6,000 and HK$3,800 respectively, based on the Coalition for Racial Equality (CORE), Hong Kong Human Rights Commission (July 30 2001).

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Foreign domestic helpers (FDHs) are also affected as they are treated as a second class towards Hong Kong citizens. FDHs are categorized into usually Filipinos, Indonesians and Thais. Based of a survey of Asian Migrant Centre and Coalition For Migrants’ Right, 2,500 respondents were conducted in this survey to find out more in depth about their discrimination.

“The result reveals that the FDHs have identified some areas of public life where they are very often unfairly treated or discriminated against. They are markets/groceries (7%), shop/restaurants/commercial establishments (4.5%), and public transportation personnel (3.4%).”

The belief of their discrimination is due to the nature of their job as a domestic helper, and also the fact they are different from local citizens in Hong Kong.

Ethnic minority discrimination is so common in Hong Kong society on a daily basis, we tend to turn a blind eye against them. Is there any organization that can help with this inequality?

Hong Kong Unison.

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Hong Kong Unison is a non-governmental organization founded in March 2001 and recognized as a public charitable institution (IR File No. 91/7763) in 2005. We receive no government funding. In the past years, our services have expanded from handling individual cases to advocating policy reforms for ethnic minority residents. (Hong Kong Unison, 2001)

They strive to close the gap between the racial equality towards ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. They provide programs which empower the ethnic minority youth, as well to teach Cantonese to them as Cantonese is not taught as a second language to foreigners residing in Hong Kong.

Will we be able to stop the fight between ethnic minorities in Hong Kong? We may never know, but at least we can try.

References

Blog 5: End Game In Hong Kong

End Game for Hong Kong? Oh! You meant the Marvel movie End Game! Silly me!

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The movie End Game came out a few months ago and it was a huge success in terms of production and storyline! Personally, I was not a major fan of Marvel movies, but the hype was in every corner…literally. On social media, conversations on the streets and even on the bloody MTR! Bombarded with End Game posters…EVERYWHERE. My partner was dying to watch the movie as well, so with that in mind, I decided to watch the movie.

My partner and I decided to watch the movie in a budget cinema in Mong Kok called Dynasty Théâtre. I totally recommended to go to this cinema if you are into a vintage looking cinema, and if you are on a budget. The location is around a 10 min walk from Olympic station, with the alternative of going out from Mong Kok station as well. The End Game movie was overpriced in almost all cinemas, with some tickets soaring up to $200HKD for just one ticket! But for Dynasty?

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Take a guess.

$50. Ain’t even joking here. 

This was finding gold in a silver mine, being able to watch the such an anticipated movie, with vintage feels and with a super reasonable price! The capability constraint was dealt easily due to the pricing and transportation. As well as the coupling constraint, with my partner and I being quite free to find this movie, despite our busy schedules. Other cinemas around Hong Kong were all packed already, so this was really quite the charm to find.

During the movie screening, you could feel everyone’s anticipation of the movie. My partner could not stop whispering to me how much she was excited to watch this after all the trailers she replayed on a daily basis.

From what I learnt in the lectures, never really gave a deeper thought about sharing this media public space when watching movies in the cinema. We all have different feelings towards the media being shown, yet it we all our experiencing the same film and venue?

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Heterotopia: that space has the capacity to host multiple meanings for different users, at the same time.

The movie was a definitely one to remember. I never thought directors would be able to mix comedy, thrill and action together. But somehow, they did it so perfectly it was just majestic to watch. Not a huge Marvel fan, but I had a few good laughs in there.  Overall, I the movie made quite an impact towards hardcore fans in the cinema, with some even in tears and thrill going up and down like an insane roller coaster ride.

References

Blog 6: Can I Take a Photo of You?

“Hey that dude is wearing a sick ass tee! Take a little snap of it and post it on your Instagram story!” A common phrase I usually hear from my friends when we stroll around the hypebeast streets of Mong Kok. But thinking about it more deeply, do we actually have the rights to take photos so openly and freely?

“Some photographers have been approached by the police while on the street taking photographs.” (Arts Law Centre of Australia, 2016)

In the photography world, there is certain ethics that need to be followed properly, in order to have the rights and freedom to utilize them to your personal will. Certain violations of taking photos in public can have serious consequences.

“There are criminal offences set out in state and territory statutes regarding behaviour that is a gross violation of privacy or the taking photographs and video or audio recordings result in the creation of material that offends community standards” (Arts Law Centre of Australia, 2016)

In the “victim’s” perspective, will they be aware of the usage of your photo that you have captured? In their point of view, you could be a creepy person and print that photo out and hang it on your wall to admire their beauty or other needs. I am exaggerating a little bit, but it could happen!

Let us take this photo for example.

nista

I was in the streets of Mong Kok and saw this tattooed lady smoking a cigarette, while she uses her phone. I have been observing her for a few minutes to see what she does in this public space with her media device. She does nothing out of the ordinary and just scrolls through her social media, while taking puffs out of her cigarette.

With her face being clearly shown in the photo and using this photo for the sake of my blog: I am in violation of photography ethics.

However, that was just a hypothetical example. This is my girlfriend that I asked to take a photo of, for the sake of using this scenario for my blog. Do not need to report me to the cops guys.

There would be more violations if this was legitimately used for commercial purposes, like advertising for example. If the tee’s logo was shown, I would have to get permission from the tee company in order to use the photo, to avoid any legal action being placed on me. If I really did take a photo of this “random” person on the street and did not blur her face out, that would be another violation to the list.

In summary, street photographers should be careful of what they capture, they might know realize what they are doing is against the law. There will always be serious consequences for towards this unlawful act.

References

Blog 3: Robots, the New Guardians

Sounds kind of cool to think about, robots as like our new guardians in the 21st century. But what do I exactly mean by that? Well, robots benefit us by providing care, assistance or even to some, company.

Hospitals are a complicated and hectic place. People during with a myriad of diseases, ranging from a cough to life threatening situations. Usually for life threatening cases, robotic surgery is especially high in demand. According to Dr. Patrick Ross, Chairman of Surgery at ​Main Line Health (MLH) in Philadelphia, “Robotic surgery is currently in high demand with many types of patients because it is representative of the newest, most innovative technique, no one wants to consider receiving last year’s best option when there are more advanced, and possibly more effective, alternatives available.”

Robots are helpful outside surgical rooms, comforting kids and families before they go through a surgery or a check up. Due to the painful environment in hospitals, kids in particular are scared of the procedures needed to be done for their health. Robots kind of are like the hospital’s guardian angels to help them feel a little less scared.

According to Dodge, A. Ozobot (2017), a robotic platform blog that focuses on coding and STEAM, “A team at RxRobots developed MEDi, or Medicine and Engineering Designing Intelligence. MEDi is a humanoid robot that works in the pediatric ward to make doctor’s visits less painful. The robot hangs out with kids in the waiting room and travels with them to various procedures. MEDi has one job: making the hospital experience less painful.”

Kids have reported that 50% of the pain has been decreased, as they are so concentrated on playing with the MEDi.

MEDi is not the only robot that was invented to help cope with patient’s pain. The MIT Personal Robotics Group recently developed Huggable, a talking robotic teddy bear with more than 1,500 sensors, video cameras, microphones, and speakers.

Robots have also helped with the administrative side of hospitals, such as nursing, scheduling appointments and rooms usage, and also with janitorial duties. “The Xenex LightStrike Germ-Zapping Robot fights tiny aliens in the form of viruses and other microbial bugs with the help of ultraviolet light. The robot looks like any other cleaning tool, with four wheels and a handle, but it follows the cleaning crew and eliminates any bacteria that traditional methods are unable to reach.” Dodge, A. (2017).

Robots are not only essential to hospital aid, but also to other fields around the world.

The military services need robots in order to protect their soldiers’ lives. Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) robots are capable of examining suspicious packages and surrounding areas to find and even deactivate improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and mines.  The military also uses aerial machinery to scope for enemy movements or find hidden explosives, in order to protect their lives and also fight for their country in the most efficient way possible.

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Car production also relies heavily on robots in the automobile industry. Robots are more beneficial and help lower costs for employees for assembly line positions, due to the repetitiveness of the job. The cost of error is lowered and also saves time and energy for the company and employees. They also replace the risk of humans being harmed, as robots can take on dangerous tasks during the manufacturing process.

Personally, the most amazing use of robots is when they were into space. Honestly, without robots, we wouldn’t know much about space or knew how massive it was! The Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) and the Remote Manipulator System (RMS) were used in various space missions, in order to find out the details about several planets in outer space.

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Their capture of information and visual data gives us humans the opportunity to see what is beyond our little earth.

Fascinating.

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