Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Hyper reality and Celebrity culture Essay Example for Free

Hyper reality and Celebrity culture Essay Nowadays media and technology are growing as hard to predict. Affected to the social behavior, Human cant recognize the truth; we confused by the hyper reality, we involuntarily to follow the system in our life. Hong Kong is a tiny city with flourishing information. The life style is the faster the better, it develop a lot of a copy action in different business, especially in wedding industry, meanwhile Hong Kong peoples are highly depend on Internet, the city haven’t realize its lead by celebrity culture and media. In this past five-year in Hong Kong had created a new way to represent news call â€Å"action news† they use 3D animation represent the whole happened in internet, but Is it the visual in the animation is real? People in Hong Kong emphasize wedding customs and traditions. It usually takes more time in Hong Kong than in United States to prepare a wedding. Comparing to the casual wedding in United States, wedding in Hong Kong are more complex, In fact wedding it can just like Las Vegas, spend $25 and have a simple marriage. This process takes less than 2 hours. Because of the celebrity culture and hyper reality changes Hong Kong wedding more in last ten year. In Hong Kong wedding like a system or a show, the bride and groom will take photo in royal family style then print like an oil painting with the frame. The banquet will have backdrop for the guest-taking photo with the bride and groom, and the backdrop will have the designed logo for the newly wed. They will have an emcee for the banquet; they will play the game, sing etc. R. Penfold-Mounce(2009:12) believes â€Å"Celebrities in society influencing fashion, how we furnish our home, and even the food and drink we consume. The reason to have all these action are not traditional behavior, It all just come out by the Royal wedding and Celebrity. Royal wedding has affected the standard how about wedding should be. Media showing the Royal or Celebrity wedding over the world by television. The audience will try to follow or copy the wedding in the design, dress, picture angle and style. You can compare the different of photography royal family with Hong Kong people. (picture 1-2) S. Holmes and S. Redmond (2006:60) agree, â€Å"Adulation, identification and emulation are key motifs in the study of celebrity culture. The desire for fame, stardom, or celebrification stems from a need to be wanted in a society where being famous appears t offer enormous material, economic, social and physic rewards† Some wedding they will design a souvenir, it based on royal wedding souvenir, they are giving a cup, a little decorative items. (pictures 3-5). Those item were made without any purpose, there has not use value. It was created by â€Å"emulation†, If we see clearly about need is a concept without desire or personal require. It just system twisted desire to be rationalize and abstract. J. Baudrillard, (1988: 161). The new wedding behaviors have no meaning, but it getting to change be traditional behaviors, People getting to believe the new wedding behaviors are important in wedding. Media, Photo, Video, Facebook help wedding behavior explode to everyone, then people try to duplicate their wedding same as what they saw, after 100 times duplicate, people think new wedding behaviors are inevitable and right. Facebook network bring the wedding to a half public space, people post photo, in addition everyone got camera, it make wedding can’t escape to be public. In this status the bride and groom will change to be well know in their area. It is the reason to reinforce they have new wedding behaviors, because the wedding is in the public space, masses will know how’s the wedding look like, masses will discuss about, wedding transform to be a issue. The great amount of representation, people gradually lose the reassessment on new wedding behavior. According to C. Mclninch(2008) â€Å"Assimilation being further affirmation of the individual’s mastery of an idea and of the individual’s place in the world in reference to that idea. In view of new wedding behaviour related to culture industry, in that case they are unity, repeat, deception, falsehood, operation and forcibly. Hyper- reality or media accelerate new wedding behaviour to intrude our mind and it permeates our mental. J. Baudrillard(1988:98) said â€Å"as a sort of historical attraction to the second degree, a simulacrum to the second power. † The new wedding behaviours are deception and falsehood; the wedding photography companies build up a hyper reality land for the bride and groom to takes photos. There normally like a Destiny land or cinema studio, people can easy to cross around the world, they imitate Beijing the Forbidden City, Europe church, USA Main Street and something you can expects (picture 6-11). Because of the high emulation building complex, Human the examination will get weak. At the same time there is not original emulation, consequently human will forget how is the real Forbidden City look like, human impress is the emulation of Forbidden City, Reality will cover by Simulation. J.  Baudrillard(1988:113) believe â€Å"The Disneyland imaginary is neither true nor false: it is a deterrence machine set up in order to rejuvenate in reverse the fiction of the real. Whence the debility, the infantile degeneration of this imaginary. It’s meant to be an infantile world, in order to make us believe that the adults are elsewhere, in the â€Å"real† world, and to conceal the fact†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The Disneyland is really similar the wedding company’s studio, they smash down â€Å"I believe what I see†, because mess media cover us with simulation. With presentations â€Å"The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium that is, of any extension of ourselves result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology. † M. Mcluhan(1964:124) Nowadays Hong Kong people highly depend on Internet, News geometry level to spread out. In an hour we can’t imagine how many viewer in one title of news. But we never perform an in-depth investigation on the news viewpoint, The director of â€Å"Simone† Andrew Niccol(2002) said† It’s easier to make 100,000 people believe than just one. Media really understand Niccol speech; Media selective represent the true in the society, Media will try to test the masses, find out which part of true the masses will accept, afterward media will simulacra then keep representing. Different news media represent news in different way, even in same issue, base on reporter viewing point, the news head tittle and visual representation are influence the masses how understanding the message. For example in Protest at Dolce and Gabbana store in Hong Kong follows alleged ban on photography. To analyze the tittle, picture, editing and emulate. It all started when a local tabloid newspaper reported that security guards stopped people from snapping pictures outside its flagship Hong Kong store in Canton Road. What really incensed local sensibilities was that one of the doormen apparently told a local man that the photo ban was not extended to Mainland Chinese tourists. That prompted a barrage of online comments on Hong Kong web sites accusing DG of blatant â€Å"racism† and claims that international brands have, in general, become too dominant on Hong Kong streets. Hong Kong has 54 different Daily newspapers but in this news just only reported by one daily newspaper name Apple daily. Apple daily represents the DG news in front page more then 3 days, and every day up loads a video on youtube. Let it explode by the Internet, the title of the first day is â€Å"Evil tyrant DG said don’t take photo with our window display. † In the begin the tittle haven’t mention any about â€Å"racism†, in the first day video chorus mention Mainland Chinese people allow to take photo, Hong Kong people Go away! , But in that 2:00 video they mention reporter had testing twice to take photo in font of the shop, it will mess up the original happen, because the second time is a truth effect or reality effect. In the video never showing any people who represent DG say any about â€Å"racism†, The only said â€Å"racism† was the chorus. Previously had been mention when human facing great amount of representation, people gradually lose the reassessment, public haven’t ask for the video clip with the actual DG staff to said about â€Å"racism†. The Second day, other daily newspaper start to mix into this hyper reality project, but they all just present on a tiny space of a whole page, the video just report how masses feel about DG with the no snapping issue. On another hand April daily used the tone on the presentation was totally different, they keep used the front page on DG issue, Video-showing peoples taking photo in font of the DG store with a tittle †DG very obstinate, everybody snap a shot!. † The intention is obvious; they try to encourage people to take a photo in font of DG store. They find out the masses most interesting in freedom and racism problem on the DG issue form all those comments about the first video they post on youtube. Then third day apple daily got a celebrity take picture in font of the store, and report facebook had a group, hadn’t mention who create the group, just mention who many people â€Å"likes†. You can see how media step by step building a simulation. â€Å"Once upon a time there were mass media, and they were wicked, of course, and there was a guilty party. Then there were the viruous voices that accused the criminals. And Art (ah, what luck! ) offered alternatives, for those who were not prisoners to the mass media. †U. Econ(1990:153) , The masses haven’t to seek for What is the reason apple daily need taking photo in font of DG store, Where is the video clip about DG said about â€Å"racism†, Who create the facebook page to against DG Hong Kong store. The masses totally get in to fascination by media. J. Baudrillard(1995:85) think fascination is append on the happen is fading away, when the happen is disappear, people just only facing fascination. He also agree Media is a place of disappearance, because Media is a place to eliminate meaning, message and symbol. The third day on DG store issue, Apple daily present more then10000 protesters in font of the DG store, other daily newspaper had different number on the protester result around 10000, a lot of protesters, It really confuse us to know how many protesters in the actual situation. But the DG protest explodes to different media, TV, radio, Internet. The frequency of representation to increase many times over, the focus point form masses is shift to Are we need to attend the DG protest? The masses totally forget why apple daily need to take photo in font of DG store. Since the frequency of representation the second day of the protester had redoubled. Apple daily the tittle for fourth day was† When DG will apologize. †, media to drive masses request DG apologize, DG have no alternatively to provided press release about apologize for specific staff indiscretion. In that short-term Apple daily create an untrue speech to be a speech had more then 40000 people believed. Everything just a media using information technology create a simulation, simulation dominate our world, the between representation and objective, notion and object there has no any distinction. â€Å"We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning. † J. Baudrillard(1995:98) proved Media montage numerous similar massages, a lot of them are without meaning, and media is leads masses to a lost area. Truth sneak into different shooting angle or retouching it will change to â€Å"effect† base on technology create a â€Å"truth effect†, media exploit these â€Å"effect† to attract masses or try to affect their judgment, Media is mislead the public with prevarication and deliberate falsehoods. â€Å"Seeing is believing† is can’t apply on nowadays news anymore. Besides they can pretense that turns into reality, Apple daily also is the first daily newspaper using 3d animation to represent news; They start it from the 3d pictures (picture x), in this few years they develop to 3d animation. They call that 3d animation news in â€Å"action news†. â€Å"Action news† that animations story are composite with different people information about the news, plus editor arrange and computer graphics try to fitting in with the story, to build up a lively and realistic way to present the â€Å"truth† they consider as, let the public can more understand to discuss about the topic. Even apple daily everyday will produce 10 to 15 news to â€Å"action news† but not every single news will adding with animations, normally they base on text characterization, then adding some information are hard to distinguish real from imitation. For example on â€Å"one action news† from 3/4/2010, compares the text version and the animation version, there had add many extra parts in the case like Beach dating, the defendant had take off victim’s clothes, the victim crying in font her mother and how the situation and expression when policemen search the defendant flat, those plot in text version haven’t any mention about, but they are the news plot form â€Å"action news†. (Reference 2) In fact, a lot information form the case haven’t explain really detail like background, but in â€Å"action news† had been explain really clear, How does the flat look like of the victim and the defendant, even floor and furniture in the flat, â€Å"action news† they present it all to the masses, compare other news daily information about the same news, had not mentioned any information about their flat. How apple daily know how their flat look like? How they know the victim must cry when she express to her mum. Obviously, â€Å"action news† had push picture represent news to an other level, It help media easier to arouse masses emotion, to cause masse consume, base on J. Baudrillard (1995:129)â€Å"†¦the original and the distinction between reality and representation vanishes. There is only the simulacrum, and originality becomes a totally meaningless concept. † Since original had be represent that is not truth any more, is just a concept. Now â€Å"action new† steps in to another level, using simulations to show â€Å"real†, Through our common sense to create the â€Å"real† they though, that is â€Å"hyper reality â€Å" They are deliberately to copy same as â€Å"real†, naturally masses start believe â€Å"hyper reality†, gradually masses forgot the truth. Along with media science and technology rapid development, nowadays media has different way to copy â€Å"real† or simulacra, like building, video, retouching and 3d animation. It increase human or media the confidence and ability to control â€Å"real†. Media and consume society operate our behaviour, When we look back at history, we just find out many no meaning behaviour or simulacra, we never find individual idea and original. Technology brings out human the power and desire control â€Å"real†. We step by step fall into hyper reality. In addition different government, structure and organization they got their own reason to hide the â€Å"truth† to the public. Now even a ordinary people represent him / her self in facebook. How many facebook user equal or more then how many simulacra, News and wedding are just only part of our life, but we are trapped beyond hope of rescue.

Monday, January 20, 2020

The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka Essay -- Metamorphosis Kafka Essays

"The Metamorphosis" By Franz Kafka Throughout literary history, certain authors are so unique and fresh in their approach to the written word that they come to embody a genre. Franz Kafka is one such author; â€Å"Die Verwandlung† or â€Å"The Metamorphosis† is one of his works that helped coin the term â€Å"Kafkaesque.† Through this novella, Kafka addresses the timeless theme of people exploit-ing others as a means to an end. He demonstrates this point through showing that a family’s unhealthy dependence on the main character results in that character’s dependence on the family.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Kafka’s unorthodox beginning of â€Å"The Metamorphosis† reads as what would seem to be a climactic moment: â€Å"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.† The reader is henceforth bound to the story in search of the reason for and meaning of this hideous metamorphosis. Shortly thereafter, the reader may also notice that although Gregor is quite aware of his condition, given these bizarre circumstances he is not at all in the state of panic one might expect. On the contrary, the insect is frustrated that it cannot get out of bed to go to work! As Gregor tries to rouse himself from bed in his â€Å"present condition,† his observation that â€Å"he himself wasn't feeling particularly fresh and active† is macabre in its passive acknowledgment of the absurdity of his state (p. 855). This sets the tone for the remainder of the first chapter of the story. Grego r, a person typically not a hindered by â€Å"small aches and pains,† (p. 857) clings to his rational nature as he struggles with the slow-in-coming realization that he is more than â€Å"temporarily incapacitated† (p. 863).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The first chapter ends shortly after Gregor reveals his new form. The sight of the insect elicited an expected reaction; its mother understandably retreated aghast and in shock. Correspondingly, the chief clerk that had been sent by Gregor’s employer, scrambled in flight as he â€Å"had quite slipped from his mind† (p. 864). Gregor’s father was â€Å"relatively calm† (p. 865) until the chief clerk had completed a hastened retreat. Gregor’s father, spurred into action by this flight, consequently repelled the insect aggressively and injuriously back into the bedroom from which it had come.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The second chapter illustrates a family and a human-insect trying to adju... ... a perfectly normal thing to do.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Kafka uses a unique method of metaphor. He does not say, â€Å"Gregor is like a bug.† He does not say Gregor is bug in a traditional metaphor; rather he says Gregor is a bug – literally. The effect is dramatic, as the reader, by virtue of the absurdity of the literalness of situation, is swept-up in trying to stay footed in reality. The effect of this technique is that the reader continues throughout the story to ask the question: why? It is in this pursuit of ‘why’ that the reader sees Kafka’s message: Don’t treat people simply as a means, or life will have a way of turning it back on yourself. Through the transformation of Gregor, and the transformation of the family’s life, Kafka wants the reader to observe that despite Gregor’s metamorphosis into something very un-human, he remains the model of humanity when compared to his family. Not only did the family leech from Gregor, society itself seemed to call up on Gregor not as a person, but to serve as a tool to satisfy their needs. Once transformed, Gregor no longer served well in this capacity. Rather, he became the one in need, and he quickly became more of a burden than he was worth to them.

Sunday, January 12, 2020

A business plan for Mr. Rentals

This is a business plan of the company called Mr. Rentals that started in 199, founded by Glen and Kerrianne Hickman and is based in Perth Western Australia in a suburb called Balcatta. The business is about renting appliances and electronics and house goods such as VCRs and TVs from their stores for a particular period of time. (Mr. Rental, n.d.).The pricing techniques that the company should use must depend on the demand for the electronic appliances in the area they are operating. Furthermore, they should also consider the brand and the model of the appliance they are renting and depending on that they should set the price at which it should be rented.Moreover, they must also consider the price of that particular appliance at which it is being sold in the market. This is because if they will charge a higher price to the customers, firstly their market would decline. Secondly, if the appliances would be available to the customers on high rates, they would prefer saving some money a nd buying the appliance themselves.The prices of the company are charging for its rentals vary from the range of the products that they offer and also on the number of days or months for which the customer wants to hire the appliance. Under the kitchen items, Mr. Rentals offers freezers, fridges and microwaves. The freezers available are large and medium chest freezers and upright freezers that cost $11, $9 and $ 13 per week. The company offers medium, larger, extra large and bar fridges that cost $13, $15, $19 and $8 per week while the microwave is available at $ 6 per week.Under the lounge items comes audio, DVD and VCRs, game consoles, set top boxes, TVs and TV stands. The prices of these items vary from home theater system for $14 and stereos for $10 while DVD players for $3, DVD recorder for $11, DVD and VCRs combo for $6 and VCRs for $2 per week.Under game consoles the play station 2 is for $7, PS3 for $23 and Xbox 360 for $16.   106cm LCD TVs for $30, 106cm Plasma TV for $3 5, 51cm flat screen TV for $5, 66cm LCD TV for $20, 68cm flat screen TV for $20 and 81cm LCD TV for $23, TV units for $5 and set top boxes for $6. Under laundry items are dyers and washers. Dryers are available at $8 and washing machines from $10 to $16.Under the office items come computers, data projectors, printers and desks. The computers are available at the prices ranging from $23 to $33, data projectors are for $150 and printers for $6 and desks for $5.To promote its business, Mr. Rentals should use an advertising and promotional strategy and it would be best if the company advertisers in magazines that are related to females or whose target market are the household women. Furthermore, they can also advertise in the magazines that are famous amongst the bachelors. This could bring attention of the prospective customers and they would get to know more about the offerings of the company.Besides that, Mr. Rentals can also develop promotional literature such as flyers, catalogues,   leaflets,  free samples,  ad newspaper,  etc. Other than this, Mr. Rentals can use search engine tools to drive traffic to their website, EZ-Mail list, EZ-Affiliate tools, EZ-Hit counter tools, etc. The best time to do these promotional activities is when the demand of the items is the most. For instance, there is a higher demand for the laundry items in the summers because children go out to play in summers and dirty their clothes and same is with the elders.The demand of the game consoles, lounge items such as TVs, VCRs and audio systems is most during the vacations. The demand for the kitchen items such as fridge and freezers is also higher in the summers therefore they should be promoted in the summers more than in winters or in any other season.Doing the SWOT analysis would give a clear view of the strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats of the company. Mr. Rentals promises free delivery within 24 hours that saves time of the customers and the company also has the offers online facility to place orders after which the company delivers, installs as well as demonstrates the appliance without any charges. Mr. Rentals also offers free services for the customers if they might have any complain or they might want any repairs or replacement of the appliance to be done.  Moreover, the company offers flexible agreement terms that can serve the customers well along with easy payments with several options such as direct debit, centre pay or credit card facilities. Mr. Rentals has the latest appliances available and they give the facility of up gradation to its customer with great package deals. These are all the strengths of the company and the company can benefit from it by maintaining this and also by adding some more facilities for the company.Weaknesses for the company can be types of deals it provides. If the company does not offer a wide range of deals or they do not have the brands available that suit the customers the most, their market wo uld decline.Therefore, sue to the competition existing in the market, they must ensure that they keep all the latest appliances in their stores. Opportunities for the company would be the deals that it offers. It must offer more and more interesting deals to attract the customers. However, a threat for Mr. Rentals would be the decreasing prices in the home appliances. If the electronic appliances manufactured by the companies are of lower prices, the demand for renting appliances would greatly reduce as people would prefer to buy the electronics instead.The results of the market research produced from the primary and secondary resources show that Mr. Rentals is quite popular amongst the customers. The primary data used is the company’s data that was available in the company and its website. Moreover, market research done through the surveys and questionnaires used tells about the likeliness of the customers for the electronic appliances and the deals offered by the company.Th e list of the products that the company is willing to sell is mentioned above in the paper. They basically deal with four categories of electronic appliance i.e. the kitchen, lounge, office and laundry items. The target needs of the company are realistic, achievable and sufficient to make a profit.To attract the target market, Mr. Rentals have a very good option of making allowance for seasonal factors such as in summers or during the holidays when there is a higher demand of laundry items in the summers and lounge items during the vacations. During such seasonal periods, the business can work to full operation.ReferencesMr. Rental. (n.d.).   Wanna read a bit about Mr. Rental’s History? October 27, 2008. Retrieved from: http://www.mrrental.com.au/home/index.php?id=32

Saturday, January 4, 2020

Ryan Deluna. Independent Project. 1.Frequency Distribution

Ryan DeLuna Independent Project 1. Frequency distribution of a variable and bar graph of the same variable A frequency distribution table is used for arranging data values and counting the number of time each value appears in a dataset. They can be used for both qualitative and quantitative variables. For this data pool I decided to use the subjects’ marital status because it is a qualitative, nominal level variable. (Polit, 23) Frequency table results for racethn: Count = 972 racethn Frequency Relative Frequency Percent of Total Black, not Hispanic 795 0.81790123 81.790123 Hispanic 123 0.12654321 12.654321 White, not Hispanic 54 0.055555556 5.5555556 The table above is a frequency table that shows the relative frequency and the percent†¦show more content†¦The summary includes variance, mean, median, mode and standard deviation. As shown in the histogram majority of people in the data pool have a height of 62-68 inches. This is a symmetrical distribution seeing how close the mean and median are to each other. 3. Cross tabulation of two variables A cross tabulation is a two-dimensional frequency distribution of two nominal or ordinal variables that records the frequency of respondents that have the specific characteristics. These tables provide a wealth of information about the relationship between the variables. For an example I chose to use poverty levels and smoking to show how a contingency table can illustrate a frequency distribution. Poverty level is a nominal variable that will be the independent variable and the dependent variable will be smoking. The end table is a chi-square test and it is used to determine if the variables are unrelated. Contingency table results: Rows: smoker Columns: poverty Cell format Count (Row percent) (Column percent) (Percent of total) (Expected count) (Contributions to Chi-Square) Above poverty Below poverty Total No Count (Row percent) (Column percent) (Percent of total) (Expected count) (Contributions to Chi-Square) 127 (25.87%) (58.26%) (13.13%) (110.69) (2.4) 364 (74.13%) (48.6%) (37.64%) (380.31) (0.7) 491 (100%) (50.78%) (50.78%) Yes Count (Row percent) (Column percent) (Percent of