The highly sexual art of selling perfume

Feminine sexuality has become an increasingly popular theme in advertising, including commercial advertisements, billboards and especially advertisements in magazines. The interesting thing about this is the fact that not only is feminine sexuality used in advertisements targeting men but has also alarmingly become extremely popular among women’s products advertisements. Ultimately, the use of feminine sexuality has become so prominent in advertising through popular culture, that it is even successfully used for products marketed to women (Brittan, 2010).

Source: yesterdaysperfume.com

Perfume is one product widely used among the female population and therefore is also a highly advertised product throughout various forms of the media. Through suggestive poses and seductive looks, the models in these advertisements epitomize a sense of beauty that many young women who would purchase this perfume desire (Conway et al., 2006). This in itself suggests femininity through the eyes of popular culture and therefore beguiling the society with this mentality as well.

The phrase ‘sex sells’ has become increasingly popular when it comes to effective marketing and advertising strategies. Though sex itself does not literally sell these specific products, any sexuality in an advertisement will ultimately attract consumers to the product. The women portrayed in these advertisements are close to naked in several instances and that along with seductive poses apparently create beautiful and successful women (MacKinnon & Catherine, 2007).

Source: thesocietypages.com

The depiction of women in this manner has also lead to issues concerning eating disorders in order to look like the women who are seen in these advertisements. According to experts, women are believed to feel depressed and have lowered self-esteem as a result of these advertisements (Moult, 2009).

Source: gizmodo.co.uk

In conclusion, advertisements today, especially concerning fragrances have given women of societies everywhere an entirely skewed perspective of what an actual woman should be like. In perfume advertisements, the woman is not portrayed in an immoral fashion but they are typically seen to be submissive to a man overpowering her (Schmidt & John, 2003). The society that we live in claims to teach that nothing is less attractive than a woman who needs a mans approval to be empowered but most of the popular brands sell the direct contrast portrayal of a woman. Based on this, a serious change should be at hand but how many of these large and established companies are willing to take the first step towards a global risk?

References

1. Brittan, A 2010. Sexism, racism and oppression. Blackwell. p. 236. Retrieved June 26 2012

2. Conway et al. 2006. Status, Communality and Agency: Implications for Stereotypes of Gender and Other Groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 71, No. 1, pp. 25-38. Retrieved June 26 2012

3. Moult, J 2009. Women's careers more tied to weight than men -- study. Herald Sun, Retrieved June 26 2012.

4. MacKinnon, C & Catharine, P 2007. Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 147. Retrieved June 26 2012

5. Schmidt, J & John, H 2003. Veiled and Silenced: How Culture Shaped Sexist Theology (Macon, Ga.: Mercer Univ. Press, esp. pp. 124–129. Retrieved June 26 2012

Google censorship: Needed?

Google Inc. is an American multinational corporation which provides Internet-related products and services, including Internet search, cloud computing, software and advertising technologies. The company's mission statement is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" (Vise, 2005).

Google has been estimated to run over one million servers in data centers around the world, and processes over one billion search requests and about twenty-four petabytes of user-generated data every day (Vise, 2005). This dominant market position of Google's services has led to criticism of the company over issues including privacy, copyright, and censorship.

Source: fanpop.com

Based on those criticisms, Google has adopted ‘Network neutrality’ which is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online (Kuhn, 2009).

In China, Google.cn search results were filtered to remove some results concerning the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, sites supporting the independence movements of Tibet and Taiwan, the Falun Gong movement, and other information perceived to be harmful to the People's Republic of China (PRC) (Henry, 2006). Google claimed that some censorship is necessary in order to keep the Chinese government from blocking Google entirely, as occurred in 2002. Some Chinese Internet users were critical of Google for assisting the Chinese government in repressing its own citizens, particularly those dissenting against the government and advocating for human rights as Google was said to be against a similar decision made by the United States of America government simultaneously (Carlson, 2010).

Source: chinabiz.com

It is believed that a strong majority of those materials which are ordered to be taken down are politically inclined as well as deemed to be a threat to national security (Cusack, 2007). What about censorship of petty materials? Freedom of speech and access to information is the key to national growth (Platante, 2009). Therefore, in my opinion, Google should adopt an approach whereby all information is accessible by anyone at any time unless the material causes copyright infringement.

References

1. Vise, D.A 2005. "Online Ads Give Google Huge Gain in Profit". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 26 2012.

2. Kuhn, E 2009. "CNN Politics – Political Ticker... Google unveils top political searches of 2009". CNN. Retrieved June 26 2012

3. Henry, T 2006. “Race to the Bottom”: Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship, Part IV. How Multinational Internet Companies assist Government Censorship in China, Human Rights Watch, Vol. 18 No. 8(C), Retrieved June 26 2012.

4. Carlson, N 2010. "BREAKING: Google Pulls Search Engine Out Of China". Business Insider. Retrieved June 26 2012.

5. Cusack, J 2007. “The Great Wall: China Against the World, 1000 BC–AD 2000”, Julia Lovell, Grove/Atlantic, Retrieved June 26 2012.

6. Platante, P.L 2009, Freedom of Speech: Key principle for development, Sage Publications, Inc. United States of America. Retrieved June 26 2012.

Aakash Tablet: An innovation in internet revolution

Aakash is a series of Android-based tablet computers produced by British company DataWind. It is manufactured by the India-based company Quad, at a new production centre in Hyderabad, under a trial run of 100,000 units. The tablet was officially launched as the Aakash in New Delhi on 5 October 2011 (Kurup, 2011).

Source: tekdig.net

It has been launched with the aim of linking colleges and universities in an e-learning program. Aakash Tablet is the subsidized student version sponsored by the Indian government. This tablet has been launched with a vision of bridging the digital divide, and the government hopes to reach out to millions of students through this initiative (Timmons, 2011).

Using this device and its connectivity, the students can access all the content available in the Sakshat portal and other educational websites (Singh, 2012). The student is not dependent on a physical classroom and can access world class lectures and content on this device in the any corner of the country.

Suneet Singh, CEO of DataWind. source: sikhachievers.com

There is no stopping for Aakash tablet as DataWind CEO Suneet Singh Tuli said that this tablet is going places and the whole world is taking notice of this ‘made in India’ tablet. He said that the tablet has generated a lot of interest among international organizations like UNESCO and several world leaders. Speaking to media in New Delhi, he said, “Several prime ministers and ministers have evinced interest in Aakash who want it for their country in thousands” (Tripti, 2011).

Aakash tablet has a great potential of reaching millions due to the low cost. When the tablet reaches every nook and corner of the country, an entire generation will have access to educational content and will soon enable them to be at par with their global counterparts.

source: tablettechtoday.com

Due to its economically friendly nature as well as positive implications that possibly could arise from its innovation, it is believed that it serves as a major platform to harness quality graduates within a nation hence improving social dysfunctions and lapses through the availability of the internet practically everywhere. The internet also serves as a tool which operates in building communities in terms of lacklustre education, infrastructure as well as poverty (Liechsten, 2010). 

References

1. Kurup, S 2011. "'We want to target the billion Indians who are cut off'". Times of India. Retrieved 25 June 2012.

2. Timmons, H 2011. "Aiming for the Other One Billion". New York Times, retrieved 25 June 2012.

3. Singh, J 2012. "Aakash: This Sky Has Limits", LightReading (India), retrieved 25 June 2012.

4. Tripti, L 2011. "India Announces World’s Cheapest Tablet". India Real Time, viaThe Wall Street Journal, retrieved 25 June 2012.

5. Liechsten, P 2010, “The internet and socialism”, The Wall Street Journal, Retrieved 25 June 2012.

WikiLeaks: Friend or foe to professional media?

WikiLeaks is an international, online, self-described not-for-profit organisation publishing submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under the Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more than 1.2 million documents within a year of its launch (Chatriwala, 2010).

Source: article-3.com

The WikiLeaks website says their goal is "to bring important news and information to the public. One of our most important activities is to publish original source material alongside our news stories so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth" (Khatchadourian, 2010).

Julian Assange, Founder of WikiLeaks. Source:  telegraph.co.uk

Another of the organisation's goals is to ensure that whistleblowers and journalists are not jailed for emailing sensitive or classified documents. However, the major stumbling block which WikiLeaks faced was when Chinese journalist Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in 2005 after publicising an email from Chinese officials about the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre (Bradner, 2007).

Rather than leaking directly to the press, and fearing exposure and retribution, whistleblowers can leak to WikiLeaks, which then leaks to the press for them. The group located its headquarters in Sweden because it has one of the world’s strongest shield laws to protect confidential source-journalist relationships (Hennigan, 2010).

In August 2009 in the Scandinavian nation Iceland, Kaupthing Bank secured a court order preventing Iceland's national broadcaster, RÚV, from broadcasting a risk analysis report showing the bank's substantial exposure to debt default risk ( Sigurgrimsdottir, 2009). This information had been leaked by a whistleblower to WikiLeaks and remained available on the WikiLeaks site; faced with an injunction minutes before broadcast, the channel ran with a screen grab of the WikiLeaks site instead of the scheduled piece on the bank. Citizens of Iceland were reported to be outraged that RÚV was prevented from broadcasting news of relevance (Singel, 2010). 

source: eurovoix.com

Therefore, WikiLeaks has been credited with inspiring the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, a bill meant to reclaim Iceland's 2007 Reporters Without Borders ranking as first in the world for freedom of speech. It aims to enact a range of protections for sources, journalists, and publishers; this, in my opinion marks the largest impact WikiLeaks has had on professional media apart from sparking other models of similar goals in various countries across the globe.

References

1. Chatriwala, O. 2010. "WikiLeaks vs the Pentagon". Al Jazeera blog. Retrieved 25 June 2012.

 2. Khatchadourian, R. 2010. "No Secrets: Julian Assange's Mission for total transparency". The New Yorker. Retrieved 25 June 2012.

 3. Bradner, S. 2007. "Wikileaks: a site for exposure". Network World (Framingham, MA). Retrieved 25 June 2012.

 4. Hennigan, W. J. 2010. "WikiLeaks' new home is in a former bomb shelter". Los Angeles Times technology blog. Retrieved 25 June 2012.

 5. Sigurgrimsdottir, H. 2009. "Iceland court lifts gag order after public outrage". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Associated Press. Retrieved 25 June 2012.

6. Singel, R. 2010. "Wikileaks Reopens for Leakers". Wired (New York). Retrieved 25 June 2012.

Reflection

Through this blog, I have expressed the different types of issues that may arise in the field of publication and design. Apart from coming in close contact with these issues surrounding the topics concerned, I have also come across several theoretical theories. For instance, readers tend to utilize different senses to fathom multimodal texts which are involved in visual images which give priority to the arrangement of colours, frames, hyperlinks, medium and menu board (Walsh, 2006). During the course of designing this blog, I had to pay close attention to the arrangement of texts as well as other elements to suite the taste of readers better.

As a blogger now, I believe that proper attribution and credit to the designated sources play an important role in a personal blog as they may be seen as plagiarism. Through this blog, it has also come to my knowledge the importance of use of proper terminologies and jargons to not offend any cultural values or norms (Digikev, 2005).

I sincerely hope that this blog has achieved its main objective and readers have indeed gained knowledge concerning the issues in publication and design.

References

1. Walsh, M 2006 ‘The ‘textual shift’: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts,’ Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24-37.
2. Digikev.M 2005, Blog etiquette, viewed 12^th June 2012, retrieved from http://digikev.co.uk/articles/blog-etiquette/

No freedom of expression within Communism

North Korea is ruled by a dictatorship that is autonomic and everything is done and approved by this one ruler. During the funeral of Kim Jong-Il, former leader and dictator of North Korea, it is believed that two comparison photographs show that a camera crew who were filming the mourning event had been digitally erased from the original picture which left many baffled (Parson, 2011).

Source: opencuba.blogspot.com

It is said that the North Korean government edited the original photo in order to express their power as a nation ruled by a communist leader. As shown above, the camera crew which were filming the event behind mourners do not appear in the photo on the right which was released by the North Korean official Central News Agency (Himelboim & Limor, 2008).

This situation or instance is definitely defined as one where no ethical principles were applied as they had edited the original photograph to assert an ideology unto others. On the other hand, privacy of their governing body and its dictatorship based communism should be left totally out of the light as it does not concern others unless they make it theirs (Kieran, 2000).

For a nation such as North Korea where freedom of expression is under suppression, it would definitely affect the nation in terms of political instability as well as depreciation of economy. It is believed that freedom of speech is pivotal in expressing information and happenings to the public as well as the media acting as a platform for social media network. In addition to those claims, the press is the mediator of the occurrence and the public therefore it is most important that freedom of speech is practised as service to the public could be gravely affected (Netto, 2002).

Source: gawker.com

In North Korea as well, news organizations are not allowed to express their dissatisfactory claims aimed towards the government as everything is autonomicaly controlled by them. It is also virtually impossible for citizens to switch radio stations as they are all set permanently to tune in to government controlled ones. Based on the implications mentioned, I sternly believe that freedom of expression is thoroughly important in the media especially (Hwang & Rigoulot, 2001).

References

1. Parson,C 2011, It wasnt just tears were stage-managed: Pictures show how North removed film crews from photos of Kim Jong Il's funeral, viewed 12th June 2012,http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2079802/Kim-Jong-Il-funeral-Pictures-North-Korea-removed-film-crews.html
2. Himelboim, I. and Limor, Y., 2008, Media Perception of Freedom of the Press: A Comparative International Analysis of 242 Codes of Ethics, Journalism [Journal] vol.9 no.3, pg. 235-265.
3. Kieran, Matthew, 2000, The Regulatory and Ethical Framework, Investigative Journalism: Context and Practice, de Burgh, Hugo (ed.) London, Routledge, pp. 156-76
4. Hwang, C. and Rigoulot, P., 2001, The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag, Perseus Book Group, USA.
5. Netto, A, 2002, Media freedon in Malaysia, Media Asia, vol. 29, no. 1, pg. 17-23.

Open Journalism: The future of conventional journalism

Comparatively to journalism about 20 years back, open journalism has bloomed into an important segment in the evolution of news as well as the dissemination of news. This new concept is considered the pioneer of interactive communication where it sets up a platform on which people are able to communicate with journalists thus being deemed the future of journalism. Ethics in journalism are practised quite widely in this new concept of open journalism simply because information is accessible with ease by others therefore demanding news coverage that is based on rational evaluation which is incorporated with several key values (Plaisance, 2009).

Source: societymatters.org

In an article published by The Guardian by Simon Houpt, ‘How open journalism reimagines the story’ discussed the importance and role which bloggers and citizen journalists play as the feeder of major news stories by being the main source of information to readers and keeping them well ahead in term of any given news (Houpt, 2012). An evident sign of journalists slowly creeping into a digital era is that they constantly rely on social networking sites especially Twitter whereby they are able to post instant updates on happenings around the world are easily accessed by readers from all around the world as well (Cohen, 2009).

Source: veracitystew.com

It is quite inevitable that open journalism is fast becoming the future of conventional journalism and is what that is keeping readers on their toes where latest and breaking news are concerned. The Guardian have invented a commercial video whereby the Three Little Pigs from our childhood memory is relived as a news story and is widely spread via social media. Social media here acts as a trusted source in conveying accurate and credible news to readers. The Three Little Pigs advertisement enforces the thought where journalism is quickly moving into its new phase which surpasses that of the newspaper with reference to current times (Rusbridger, 2012). 

References

1. Plaisance, P.L, 2009, Media Ethics: Key principle for responsible practice, Sage Publications, Inc. United States of America.
2. Rusbridger, A 2012, Open Journalism - The Guardian: A world of news at your fingertips, viewed on 12^th June 2012  http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/insideguardian/2012/feb/29/open-journalism-at-the-guardian
3. Cohen, N 2009, Cruel Britannia, London/New York, Verso.
4. Houpt, S 2012 How open journalism reimagines the story, viewed on 12^th June 2012 
   http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/columnists/simon-houpt/how-open-journalism-reimagines-the-story/article2362095/

Erykah Badu's concert cancellation over religious tattoos

Grammy Award winning soul singer Erykah Badu who was scheduled to perform in Malaysia on 29^th February 2012 caused many senior editors at The Star newspaper of being suspended due to the fact that they published a picture of the singer with temporary tattoos of the word ‘Allah’ on her body. The Information, Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Rais Yatim put a halt to the concert because the picture that was published in The Star caused religious controversy (Ariffin, 2012).

Source: ekeleh.com

Badu was upset with the fact that her concert was banned due to the image that was published of her and later expressed in disappointed fashion that the paper wrongfully published the picture of her which was a fairly old one (Ariffin, 2012). Malaysia consists of multicultural ethnicity branches therefore it is most vital for one to fathom the cultural, racial and above all religious sensitive issues. According to the editor, he was not aware of the gravity of situation and that such images could lead to such repercussions and consequently apologizing along with The Star stating that publishing the image was indeed a mistake of theirs (Chooi, 2012).   

It is understood that ethnic and cultural differences may conjure a sense of ethnic bond and it is not always the message but the appearance of the image and how it forms an articulation of understanding coherent with their own comprehension (Eriksen, 1991). The matter could have clearly and easily been averted if The Star had paid more attention to details such as ethics which serve as pillars to the roof of understanding morality and service values (Walker, 2000). The comprehension of reading material may differ from different people from different backgrounds (Schriver, 1997).

In designing a document, it is most important to comprehend the cultural contexts that are involved in the dissemination of information to the reading public; therefore attention must be paid to the small details to avoid such circumstances (Walsh, 2006). The Information Ministry have come out issuing a statement saying that the main reason behind Badu’s concert cancellation was because she did offer sensitivity towards the religious backgrounds in Malaysia through her temporary tattoos (Yoong, 2012). 




References

1. Ariffin, L 2012, The Malaysian Insider Erykah Badu says disappointed, promoters blame The Star for concert ban, viewed 12th June 2012, http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/erykah-badu-says-disappointed-promoters-blame-the-star-for-concert-ban
2. Chooi, C 2012, The Star suspends two editors over Erykah Badu row, The Malaysian Insider, viewed 12th June 2012,http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/the-star-suspends-two-editors-over-erykah-badu-row 
3. Eriksen, TH 1991, ‘The cultural contexts of ethnic differences’, Man, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 127 – 144.
4. Walker, M.U 2000, Naturalizing, normativity, and using what we know in ethics.Canadian Journal of Philosophy 26 (supp.), 75 - 101.
5. Schriver, KA 1997, Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub., New York.
6. Walsh, M 2006, ‘The ‘textual shift’: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24 – 37.

       7. Yoong, S 2012, Associated Press Malaysia bans Erykah Badu show over Allah tattoo, Yahoo News,         viewed 12th June 2012, http://news.yahoo.com/malaysia-bans-erykah-badu-show-over-allah-tattoos-074941033.html

Kony's video goes viral

Joseph Kony the Lord Resistance Army is one of the world’s most notorious criminals due to the fact that he has apprehended over 650 children soldiers and sex slaves in the short span of 2 years (Green, 2012). There has even been a release of a video online gaining massive support over the internet concerning the halt of his operations.

Source: highsnobiety.com

Apart from that, Kony2012 is a film created to gain support from authorities by an organization called the Invisible Children who are spearheading this attempt to bring Kony to face international justice for his despicable acts of inhumanity. This short film is about an issue concerning a Uganda national warlord who holds children captive and uses them as slaves and/or soldiers. This video became viral on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter in an instant and is because its contents touch sensitive social issues (Cherubini, 2012).

It is understood that this video was made on the grounds of activism and that those social networking sites do not mainly serve as a platform for activism but the internet is able to conjure an orthodox method of activism by adding the current concept campaign through the use of emails (Harlow, 2011). In layman terms, the main purpose social movements such as these is to attract the attention of outstanding public figures thus sparking a movement aimed at the operations of bandits such as Kony.

Source: highsnobiety.com

In this context, the internet played a colossal part in shedding light on the situation to others as this video gained over 14.5 million viewers on YouTube in just a matter of days. Despite having millions of viewers overnight, it is believed that the World Wide Web can never outgun any existing activism through its massive number of viewers (Briggs, 2010).

Based on those statistics and figures, I firmly suggest that online activism can spread like wildfire as more and more people are dependent on the internet for dissemination of information and above all, it is easily accessible. Based on the Kony case above, a proper activism movement in the real world is sparked by video that went viral on the internet. Therefore, the internet also serves as a platform on which millions are gathered before a proactive movement is created (Eichstaedt, 2010). I would like to stance that online distribution of information is arguably the fastest method in creating awareness to the public.


References

1. Green, M, 2012, The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa's Most Wanted. Portobello Books. p. 121
2. Cherubini, F, 2012, Kony2012: once information goes viral, there's no stopping it, World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, March 9, viewed at 12 June 2012,http://www.editorsweblog.org/2012/03/09/kony2012-once-information-goes-viral-theres-no-stopping-it
3. Harlow, S, 2011. Social media and social movements: Facebook and an online Guatemalan justice movement that moved offline, New Media & Society, vol. 14, np. 2, pp. 224-243.
4. Briggs, J, 2010. Innocents Lost: When Child soldiers Go to war. pp. 105–144.
5. Eichstaedt, P, 2010, First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army, p. 206