Week7: Discourse in media in the context of Occupy Wall Street 2011

Anti-capitalist demonstrators in Melbourne last year.
Source: http://www.louisemcooper.com/galleries/occupy-melbourne/

Discourse can be defined as a language activity which shows sentences and structures organised in various ways and “this organisation is called Discourse” (Deshmukh 2011, p.1).  When compared Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and The Age about Occupy Wall Street last year, they used different discourse in their articles.  The Age contends that it is "an important event that might even be seen as a turning point" and then explains that Australian banks became vulnerable after Global Financial Crises and they remain still the same now (Llewellyn, 2011, no.pg).   And ABC states that what these protestors do is “not aiming to replace or to fight it (capitalism), it is merely aiming to come into existence” (Hage & Hoffsteadter 2011, no.pg). 

Foucault (cited in Green n.d., no.pg) argues that normality is created through a process of problematisation, for example, the norms of madness and illness are defined by reference to the deviant.  So, it seems on the one hand, left-wing-The Age tries to normalise anti-capitalist movements by problematising current financial institutions' systems.  And on the other hand, state-owned-ABC provides problems of the meaningless protestors’ insistence for the sake of normalisation of neo-liberal economy. 
                                                               An image used in the article of The Age.↑

               
                                                             An image used in the article of ABC.↑

Discourse seems be able to manipulate a sense of normality in people’s minds.  It could　control what is normal and not, and what behaviour or ideas are normal and not.  In other words, it may change a person’s normal sense to abnormal, and the person’s normal idea could be regarded as a crime in a society.  These discourse indirectly indicating norms consequently seems to being reflected in law, justice and order in our society.

References:

Deshmukh, AJ 2011, ‘Discourse’, Golden Research Thoughts, vol. 1, no. 6, pp.1.-4, retrieved 27 August 2012.

Green, S n.d., How can some of Foucault’s ideas and perspectives be usefully applied to the study of the mass media in society?, Theory. org.uk. : Media/identity/resources and project, retrieved 27 August 2012,

< http://www.theory.org.uk/f-essay1.htm>.

Hage, G & Hoffsteadter, G 2011, Occupy wants what Occupy is: another reality, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, retrieved 27 August 2012,

<http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3665204.html>.

Llewellyn, DS 2011, ‘Time to occupy our financial hubs?’, The Age, 10 October, retrieved 27 August 2012,

<http://www.theage.com.au/business/time-to-occupy-our-financial-hubs-20111010-1lgq9.html>.

Week 5: How do you participate in your national identity?

image source

http://www.carters.com.au/index.cfm/item/100136-immigration-propaganda-poster-australia-land-of-tomorrow-artwork/

Diaspora refers to ‘large-scale migration or dispersion of people in general‘ (ALC215 Study guide, Topic 3, p. 1).  Immigrants have tried to seek and establish their original cultures in settled states.  Sun (2002, p. 122) explains that a website signals that diasportic Chinese groups seek their cultural identification by engaging with historical national trauma, and cyberspace plays an important role in telling national stories (p. 133).  I would agree with this, in Australia, the internet largely connects me with national identity.  I watch my country’s news, drams and films through the internet.  However, if I had a friend who has same nationality with me but was born and grown up in Australia, I would tell her/him about more spiritual aspects of Japanese culture.

For me, spiritual things create my stable　
 cultural identity which is linked to animism.  Animism means breath, life and sprite in Latin and is a religion of sprites which insists that every object in the nature in this planet carries sprites (Bak n.d., p.1).  Animism is historically prevailed in Japan.  Also, it is represented in some of Japanese animations.  Probably some of you guys have watched ‘Spirited Away’ (2002), and Bak points out that it presents ideology of water and the Nature (n.d., p. 1).  I think culture associated with something we could not see may bring more stable cultural identity and sense of belongings  Because it seems be able to expand immigrants’ imagination towards the culture and the imagined world may not be easily deprived by environmental changes.   In this case as well, media, animations and films, help me to be adherent to my cultural identity.

image source:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nature-brain/469009068/

Spirited Away Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6az9wGfeSgM

References:

Bak, M n.d., Animism inside Japanese animations : focused on animations by Hayao Miyazaki, M.A. Visual Communication Design, retrieved 26 August 2012,

<http://www.kyoto-seika.ac.jp/cumulus/e_programs/posterpdf/s2_4.pdf>.

Deakin University 2012, ALC 215 Study guide, Topic 3, School of Communication and Creative Arts, Faculty of Arts and Education, Burwood.

Sun, W 2002, Leaving China: media, migration, and transnational imagination, Rowan & Littlefield, Lanham, Md., pp. 113-36.

Week6: Topic 3 Making Cultures.

Is Al-Jazeera a counter to Western media imperialism or a mirror version of Fox News Style propaganda?

image source:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/321062

I think it could be both, but I will explain that Al-Jazeera is a mirror version of Fox News style propaganda here.

There was a difference in the news coverage of Iraq war between Al-Jazeera and Fox News.  According to Wicks and Wicks (2004, p.8-9), when a bombing happened in a restaurant in Baghdad in 2003 Spring, Fox News persistently kept reporting about whether Saddam Hussein was inside and was killed or not, while Al-Jazeera focused on mainly civilian casualties caused by the bombing.   It seems that Fox News wanted to justify the bombing by insisting that it targeted Saddam.  And Al-Jazeera might want to represent the war as abuses of human rights by showing victims of innocent civilians. 

image source:
http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/news/iraq_war.html

image source:
http://curezone.com/ig/i.asp?i=47262

El-Nawawy points out that an importance of Al-Jazeera is “to let people talk” (2003, p. 50).  Al-Jazeera is facilitating people to express their opinions clearly and honestly.  So one of the reasons why Al-Jazeera focused on casualties might be because Al-Jazeera wanted to stimulate viewers’ minds by showing bloody dead bodies and lead them to public sphere to discuss and exchange how they felt towards the coverage.  Probably the coverage of casualties could make the viewers symphathise with the victims and suspect that US was not actually assisting Iraq to be liberal.

So, both of media try to enhance nationalism among people in US and Arab states and to justify their foreign policy.  Also, Al-Jazeera tries to get international community and human rights groups support Arab cultures. Therefore, Al-Jazeera is a mirror version of Fox News style propaganda.

Iraq War Media Propaganda: Al-Jazeera Perspective part1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k1i500b4T8

If you would like to watch part 2, here is the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi92IZICfeM

References:

El-Nawawy, M 2003, 'The battle for the Arab mind', Al-Jazeera, the history of the network that is rattling the governments and redefining modern journalism 2003, Westview press, Boulder CO, pp. 45-69.

Wicks, R & Wicks, J 2004, 'Televised Coverage of the War in Iraq on Al-Jazeera, CNN and Fox News.', Conference Papers - International Communication Annual Meeting, pp.1-28, retrieved 20 August 2012.

WEEK4: REGULATION and OWNERSHIP

Intellectual Property can be seen with ease around us.  Intellectual Property refers to “non-physical property that is the product of original thought” and protects ideas “by protecting rights to produce and control physical instantiations of those ideas" (Moore 2011, no.pg).  With acceleration of innovation of technology and its competition between companies, issues of Intellectual Property are occurring.  For instance, Apple has sued Samsung Electronics, claiming of infringement of patent, in 2007, the latter created a phone with several elements of iPhone’s design (Rebeiro 2012, no.pg).  

Sauce: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WVQI9fOAg0

Problems happen not only among developed states, but also between developed and developing states.  For example, Trade-Related Aspects ofIntellectual Property (TRIPS) was criticised over limited access to HIV/AIDS medication in South Africa due to the medication’s patent (Halbert 2005, no.pg).  

Image sauce: http://www.themedicalguru.com/medicine/a-basic-guide-for-using-medicine/

The problem of the former example could be that Intellectual Property is not effectively working to motivate corporations to make products that contain originality and creativity.  The latter example may be contributing to make underdeveloped countries in disadvantaged positions.  In other words, it may seem that Intellectual Property and TRITS were established in agenda of protection of strong positions of powerful states in the world. 

Rights to ideas sound every individual’s equal rights in the world regardless of their nationality, ethnicity and political systems.  However, Intellectual Property seems to be involved in North-South conflict and contributing to escalation of difference between developed and developing countries.  

References:

Halbert, D 2005, ‘Globalized Resistance to Intellectual Property’, retrieved 5 August, 2012,

<http://globalization.icaap.org/content/v5.2/halbert.html>.

Moore, A 2011, ‘Intellectual Property’, retrieved 5 August 2012,

<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intellectual-property/>.

Ribeiro, J 2012, ‘Apple asks court to sanction Samsung by ordering in its favor’, retrieved 5 August 2012,

<http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/432486/apple_asks_court_sanction_samsung_by_ordering_its_favor/>.