Hi all,
I got my grade back for this blog assignment and I have to say, it’s a pleasant surprise. Many thanks to all who commented religiously, I am grateful and happy to know that you guys care 
All the best to everyone for their finals!
xoxo
Isaac
Hey all guys,
we are finally in our last bout before presentations! I bet everyone’s nervous and excited on how we are to wow our instructor!
since i’m a person who constantly waxes nostalgic (hey i love memories) let’s go through the chapters taught and my 2 cents on each.
History of Communication – When our instructor (hereby known as HKL) told us about Idols of the Tribe, I began to think about every (and i mean) EVERY instance i could. but I rarely could find it because though Francis Bacon had a clear mind of explaining it to us, i feel that it’s pretty much outdated and i realise that some issues like misunderstandings which is known as idols of the cave be known as simply .. misunderstandings. Theories imo are known as a guideline, but it is up to us to make it relevant
Perception – My favourite topic, due to its biggest relevance to my everyday life. Since then, my group and i constantly check each others Non Verbal Communications out on a daily basis. No wonder i scored quite well for this quiz! That being said however, I realised that the use of NVC can be applied onto print ads as well as on screen instead of just in real life. since then, i’ve missed the plots of many movies thanks to my game of find-the-NVC in every movie. (do you realise that UP! the movie has the highest count of proxemics amongst all the NVC shown?)
Interpersonal relationships – My sentimental topic. when HKL went through the Knapp model of relational development, i kinda ran through my previous relationship as well as my dates and where it went wrong. I realised that I tend to went into the Stagnating shape whenever i wanted to terminate it. so in a sense, the circumscribing was pretty much lapsed whenever i wanted to end my dates. That being said, I began to explore the idea of an interpersonal relationship between a movie maker and its audience. and how the conception of say a movie is made, by the moviemaker sussing out the audience (INITIATING stage) by having focus groups, research etc..
Culture – the template for living! I enjoyed this topic as it sparked lots of debates among the class for Asia being high context, but a few individuals or rather, a whole new wave of generation 1987 and above having more low context culture behaviour thanks to the influence of western media.
that’s about most of my favourite topics covered so far! do tell me about my views on the chapters. I’d love to hear what were your enjoyable chapters too!
I’d like to thank our instructor HKL for giving us an enjoyable module, even though it started out being very intense and awkward (“NO GRACE PERIODS”), certainly a testament to Knapps Initiating stage, but the class slowly warmed up to her and we’re slowly getting the hang of speaking our in discussions when she throws questions to the floor.
I myself have learnt that communication has many layers and many interpretations and it is crucial that we make no grey matter whenever we are trying to express our opinions and thoughts lest the occurence of miscommunication happens.
I can’t wait for the presentations, Let’s all have fun… oooooooookay? (hint)
Again, I extracted an article from TIME magazine, dated 28 Sept 2009 that talks about Muslim women and wearing the Hijab while engaging in sports activities.
click to read
This article illustrates and shows the culture of Islamism and in particular, the difficulty of Muslim women to exercise whilst bearing religious dressing. The writer, herself being of Iranian descent, recalls her first time having to be completely covered up (except for the face & hands) during a jog with her friends in Tehran.
As Culture is a template for living, this article highlights the trouble for (pious) Muslim Women having to find a compromise between athletics & religion. As their religious background encourages (I’m putting it lightly here) the females to be completely covered showing minimal skin, the writer believes that many females are encountering the same problem as she does, the search for other alternatives of sports etiquette without blaspheming against Islam.
Her solutions were to go to gyms that catered exclusively for women, secluded non-urban areas (“In the seclusion of the mountains, no one frets if you tie a bandanna over your hair instead of a proper veil”), being more active during colder seasons (“During snowy Tehran winters, I pushed myself to go skiing, since modesty ceases to be an issue when you’re bundled in a ski suit & hat”) or just donning the hijood, “made from high-tech fabric that’s meant to wick sweat from the skin”.
Through this article, I wondered whether having to don the hijood to cause them to be at a disadvantage when competing with women of other races and religions. Take a look at the olympics, in a lane of 8, we commonly see the Islamic women not making it into the top 3. Could this be because of lack of training? I personally doubt so as this is the Olympics which we’re talking about. It is of a high prestige to represent your nation and I am very sure that much effort & time was taken into training.
That being said, could it be due to the attire they wear? Does the “high-tech” fabric serve as a hindrance instead? Does the additional layer of clothing stop them from achieving maximal effects? Or could it just be because of their genetics (it IS proven that africans/kenyans and chinese, due to their climatic conditions and genes, are better runners).
watch this video below
it shows 3 islamic women in 3 various forms of dress codes and their view/reason for their attire. the most conservative one feels that [01:10] it “exemplifies the fact that she is an honourable muslim woman”. The most liberal lady feels that [04:00] by wearing a veil and living in Canada would she not be used as a tool to “bring people together, Jews, Christians Muslims? I don’t think so”. She also states that being covered up would be a barrier between her and them and hence states that in the Religious Book of Islam that it is not clear that women have to be covered up.
I personally know the religious debacle of having conservative dressing and the ongoing traditional demands of being Muslim. However, I truly respect these women who compromise by donning the hijood as it looks rather uncomfortable but yet, they have to wear it in order to stay both committed to their sport & faith. Their template of living, i.e CULTURE shows them how their lifestyle should be directed and thanks to technological improvement, a balance has been struck, be it controversial as it seems (“its slick ninjaesque style [hijood] might be too assertively Muslim for some”)
Either way, the hijood has opened doors for Islamic women, making the idea entirely possible for them to respect their religion and stay in shape.
I extracted an article from TIME magazine, dated 28 Sept 2009 that says that facebook users have expanded their age range to even 40s and 50s, and that they use the facebook platform to search for long lost friends and lovers.
(do click on the following pictures to enlarge it and read! 
)
They even coined a term “retrosexuals” within the article, for people who are taking the plunge into recycled love. The article relates many incidents of users who have searched and texted their summer school flings with variable results.
As I read this article, it indeed shows that Facebook is not just about pop culture, but it is just culture in itself, in a sense that our lives have revolved around Facebook for most us, somewhat or another.
Myspace, Facebook, friendster, all these social networks that are rather apparent these days, are these introducing the culture of Stalking, and what context culture are these sites relying upon?
As mentioned in the article, Facebook provides a way for people to reach out to someone without fear of rejection. Isn’t this in a sense sussing out someone you’re interested in or just knowing more about the person without them realising what you are doing?
Social Network sites are an open book to anyone’s lives. People can and would put in whatever information they feel interested in writing. Parents all around the world are rather worried about these as they are afraid their offspring might not be able to limit what they want to post online.
With their advertising that says “a networking site where you can share information and link up friends”, it stimulates our minds to learn a pattern of thinking, feeling & action.
Social Networking sites also have a choice of being high context in culture, in a sense that there are many methods in which one can convey a particular message or feeling (Low context is imminent through chat windows and messenging). (The use of the ‘poke’ function (where a user can just send an non-literal poke to catch the receiver’s attention) conveys interest in another. Or tagging someone (labelling and linking a persons profile onto a particular photo) in an image would mean that the user is trying to show association between another user and that photo. Various other applications and quizzes within facebook have contextual cues that stimulates users to interprete messages in their own style.
Many of us base our lives on facebook. I, for one won’t deny that I am a facebook junkie. My status page is updated every half hour through my mobile phone connection. My photos are extremely up to date and I would rather write on someone’s wall rather than dropping him/her a text message. My life is rather dependent so much that during lesson breaks, I would be logging onto facebook to see what my friends are up to.
Although this is not a hindrance, I do wonder what life would be without facebook, maybe I’ll go ask the application Mystic Megg for my predictions and various horoscopes.
talking about interpersonal relationships got me thinking of the recent troubles brewing between the newly-minted President of the United States & the country itself. Let’s apply Knapp’s Model of Relational Development
INITIATING – Barack Obama first made his grand entrance into the Presidential Elections in 2008.
He was black for starters, which already showed stimulus discrimination (Thanks to his color compared to previous presidents) coupled with stimulus generalisation i.e having matching educational qualifications & campaigns like previous elections were.
Through the elections, Duck’s filtering theory can be applied as the nation “sussed out” Obama by the number of times he had airtime on TV and on print ads to showcase his capabilities and promises should he be voted president.
PS: check this out, Obama knew how to get the votes of the younger generation by getting Popular pop band, Black Eyed Peas to publicise his speech through a music video and onto global phenomenon, Youtube.
However, things aren’t so peachy keen now, after the Intensifying (prior to election results), Integrating (winning the election) & Bonding (Swearing in as President – a ritual). The real work starts.
The Obama Administration has been under fire for its approach to the US Health Plan (http://www.barackobama.com/) . In a gist, the promises he made earlier during the happier times (i.e Integrating & Bonding) have not been met yet. This shows a DIFFERENCE IN PERCEPTION / Expectations have not been met.
However, the US has been split on this, some extremists (http://www.theobamafile.com/ObamaLatest.htm) have already been starting a movement to have a re-election, showing that the Conflict has been diffused into other issues, while the more merciful ones have focused and concentrated on the Health Plan problem and are giving the Obama Administration more time to solve them.
Should the Obama Administration, fail to recoup the losses so far, they might go down the Bush Administration route.
Seeing the political and verbal blunders Bush has had throughout his 2 cycles in the White House, has garnered me way more confidence that Barack can fill in the shoes and turn around the land of opportunities to the land of greater opportunities.
Though it will take time, but just like any other interpersonal relationship, It needs to have a, like Duck’s Model of Relational Dissolution mentions, a Dyadic Process where President meets his countrymen and discuss the situation. Let’s not forget that Obama also meets his administrative team i.e Social Process and seek advise from the respective heads.
For now, the fate of the US is a process of time & much important decision making
Talking about inter-personal relationships this week got me motivated to post a personal entry about myself (yes egotistical, much)
We are who we presently are thanks to our experiences and values imbued in us when young. Who we are a year from now is determined by 2 factors: the people you hang around with and the thoughts in your head.
I come from a family that wasn’t broken, far from it. I lived in a place where my parents could afford to put a roof under our heads and I was able to have a rather average childhood. I suffered the usual cuts and bruises that almost every child has, except for a certain molestation case in a public toilet, but I shan’t dive into the details.
I was extremely overweight during my primary and secondary school days. I was rather shy and not exactly outgoing due to my weight and insecurity, and hence turned to (comfort, literally) food. When asked by my parents which period in school was my favourite, my answer was Recess. Being rejected by 13 girls did not help in my insecurity but I decided to lose weight during upper secondary school and felt a bit better about myself.
Tragedy struck in my polytechnic days when my father had brain tumour and only knew it 3 months before he passed on. I didn’t really like him for the longest time because he was child-like and often never took me seriously, something to which my idea of a father didn’t synch with. I didn’t really know how to feel for him during the 3 months and it only struck me that I no longer had the opportunity to see him again was when we were sending the coffin into the incinerator. And now, I hate myself for feeling that way.
My mother has always told me that my father was her best friend. And that your best friend is your life partner and vice versa. I used to believe in it till I got cheated on by my first and only partner. We lasted for 3 months during my BMT days, and I called it quits upon finding out. Since then, I never believed that friends and lovers are somehow connected. Friends, to me, are a priority and a cut above a special someone, just for the pure fact of the fear of rejection and betrayal.
I was involved in a mega church during my polytechnic days and back then I considered myself a Jesus freak. However, that severely affected my polytechnic grades in film studies and I found myself being in the below average ranking. Luckily, UB was grateful enough to give me a chance for me to pursue my interest in Communications so here I am.
I am, by nature, an extrovert. I am extremely opinionated and vocal about my feelings and stand on certain issues. I have been often chastised for being extremely head strong about certain values but I have in time learnt to curb this attitude. I’m used to being gossiped and talked about. It’s inevitable but I’d rather not “Shut Up & Sit Down” because if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
I wouldn’t consider myself a sporty person per se, but if there’s one thing I’m extremely passionate about, that would be Volleyball, and in particular, Beach Volleyball. I look forward to trainings with my private team every saturday at the beach. There’s something about the sun, sand & sea coupled with spiking a perfectly served ball that gives me that adrenaline rush.
Many people notice my hair color when I entered UB, my hair color and style changes every time I enter another phase in life. You could say that my hair represents the bookend of which something significant starts or ends. Of recent, I ended something extremely emotional and heartfelt and hence I went back to black with a short crop.
So there you have it, this essay hasn’t fully shown my experiences and beliefs, but hopefully it gives you insight on the vocal ex-blond haired boy in your lectures. I seek neither sympathy nor attention with this entry, but rather an insight whilst you draw your own conclusions and perceptions (ah-ha, this is after all, a com101 blog) about me. See you in class people!
Verbal communication is something that we do every. single. day.
It’s something that is easily overlooked as it happens too frequently! It’s one of the basic fundamental skills we possess, as an human being.
I was looking at various articles both online and in print and nothing spoke to me as much as this video clip below.
(well, maybe for the fact that i’m engulfed with readings from all modules whilst putting myself at gunpoint after looking at the tests & projects given)
The clip above is popular US Comedian, Ellen DeGeneres giving the commencement speech for Tulane University’s class of 2009.
February 16, 2009
Mike Strecker
New Orleans native Ellen DeGeneres, a twelve-time Emmy Award-winning stand-up comedian, actress and host of the popular talk show “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” will be the keynote speaker at Tulane University’s 2009 Commencement, May 16 at 9 a.m. in the Louisiana Superdome. …
(extracted from http://tulane.edu/news/releases/pr02162009.cfm )
Commonly Guest Speakers at Commencement Ceremonies are to be alumnis of the respective university and impart their words of wisdom towards the newly graduating class, but as a New Orleans native as well as her star status, Ellen was invited to speak.
Verbal Communication is used in this type of communication. She addresses the graduating batch of students with the aide of a microphone (duh).Ellen also utilises the full use of the English Language by recalling previous experiences and through the recollection, sends her intended message towards the students.
The 4 subsytems of the language system is present here: Phonemes, Syntatics, Semantics & Pragmetics.
Her speech shaped thoughts and perceptions of who she is and what she said. For example, she said she is a homosexual and she references that lifestyle (00:36-00:42) through relating her living quarters with her domestic partner. Through insights on how her house is, would the viewers start to form let their cognition be influenced and perhaps, in a long shot, have a swayed opinion on homosexuality in general, but I digress.
As Language is a symbol, her jokes are often analogies, such as the popular Common-Cement. (00:50-01:05) which engagies the analogy of finding a crack in a perfectly shaped cement would “break your mother’s back”. (probably in reference to having an imperfect academic qualification & potential family disappointment)
As Ellen is a comedian, she didn’t face much language-based barriers to the students. She didn’t use Exclusionary language (but perhaps inclusionary by being pro-homosexual), she did not use any complex terms that ordinary people wouldn’t understand (i.e Bypassing) so hence there was a general belief that everyone pretty much understood the gist of the speech.
The speech was also a general success as she referenced Popular Culture in her speech. E.g The Pussycat Doll’s “When I Grow Up” (07:28-07:36) and Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance” (09:24-09:31). She also referenced Barack Obama’s recent win in the US Presidential Elections! (05:36-05:38) “This was when we just had white presidents” (In reference to the thought of US Television accepting an openly homosexual TV host)
Overall, this speech, in my opinion is a success, the message was well received, simple & understandable and Extensionally-centred (relating the puzzled and undecided path of graduates with Ellen’s pre-hosting days).
I watch this over & over again, not just for its direct message on Life’s lessons, but just on the fact that the way Ellen delivered is is pure comedic genius with a slice of life added in.
This really makes me want to graduate really soon. Could we get someone funny to speak at our commencement? Maybe, Irene Ang?
Total Word Count: 545 (without references)
Face it, we are all beautiful.
Really, we all are, aren’t we? think about it, we’re only as beautiful as we think we are. The reason why many people suffer from the lack of finding themselves beautiful is due to the yardstick set on the definition of beauty. ”having beauty; having qualities that give great pleasure or satisfaction to see, hear, think about, etc.; delighting the senses or mind” (Http://www.dictionary.com) This means we ourselves will determine how we categorise what is beautiful to us.
Take a look at the article below
http://www.inquisitr.com/34194/glamour-model-lizzie-miller-shocks-readers-by-not-being-airbrushed/
Lizzie Miller
Glamour readers are fangirling like crazy over “plus size” model Lizzi Miller.
Miller turned heads in the latest issue because of the simple fact that she resembles most readers of the fashion mag. Miller, 20, is a size 12-14 and not even technically “plus sized,” but her curvy shape is still alien to the airbrushed pages even of slightly progressive Glamour magazine.
Grateful readers flooded Glamour with emails, prompting a blog post about “the woman on p. 194″:
The emails were filled with such joy–joy at seeing a woman’s body with all the curves and quirks and rolls found in nature. (Raising a question: With all the six-packs out there, do you even know what a normal belly looks like anymore–other than the one you see in the mirror?)
And of the attention, Lizzi is grateful, too. She says:
“When I read them I got teary-eyed!” she says. “I’ve been that girl, flipping through magazines trying to find just one person who looked a little bit like me. And when I didn’t find it I would start to think there’s something wrong with the way that I looked. When J. Lo and Beyoncé came out and were making curves sexy, I started to accept myself more. It’s funny, but just seeing them look and feel sexy enabled me to do the same.”
So what do you think? Does Lizzi Miller look fantastic or is this lowering standards for stick thinness industrywide?
non-airbrushed!
—-
It’s funny that it took a professional model working at Wilhemina, a top modelling agency in the US, to do what the education systems worldwide have been doing : a healthy body doesn’t necessarily mean a flat stomach. That’s the real irony as modelling agencies would try to hide the flaws of their models e.g flabby gut.
(which would make me question the motive of this shoot: actual promotion of healthy body image or cheap publicity ploy? but I digress.)
Does the media have such power over the definition of beauty?
The media has a very powerful influence & hold on the perception of beauty. Thanks to its broad availability to the masses, the idea of a good looking person is easily convinced to the public. We see young girls wanting to grow up so fast, by wearing make up so thick that it would look like the circus came to town. Guys feel that a six pack would be the only thing on their stomachs . Why? Their perspective on beauty is set on what they see in their tween magazines & youth programmes.
We are influenced by the media according to how relevant it is to us. Let’s say, if there was a cornflakes commercial that featured happy asian kids eating the cereal, an older caucasian man wouldn’t be as convinced to buy the cereal as say, a chinese tween.
Coming back to the article, it has made a lot of viewers proud, particularly those with similar physical traits, of what they have. In the article itself, after the magazine was published, many women celebrated the idea of a non-stick thin model appearing and baring all in a photoshoot. They (the viewers) praised the publishers for showing “curves and quirks and rolls found in nature”
Though news will never decompose, it will fade in time, and if the publishers or the team behind this perception-proposal want it to be something more permanent, I’d suggest doing a series or a line of similar themes (celebriting unconventional beauty) as a follow up. Afterall, articles fade and are quickly forgotten due to the rapid frequency of change in fashion and media.
I would have probably forgotten the article in a few weeks time unless this would be made into something more frequent. This is due to the lack of constant exposure to the masses. If a pattern is repeated, us viewers would have a higher chance of remembering its message (assuming that the environment is ideal & noise factor is negligible)
before I conclude, here is Dove’s take on the mangling of original beauty in this ad. Perception/ Deception at its best!
and thus, upon celebrating the idea that being stick-thin is no longer in, I shall indulge with what i call heaven in a bowl i.e double scoop of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. Enjoy!
Total Word Count: 539 (without references)
hello SIM-UB COM101[B] people & instructor.
this is a dry test.
tweet tweet.
regards,
isaac chan zhi yang
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