Week 5 : Who owns the newspapers and TV stations in your country? Do you think this has an effect on the news that you hear?

     In Malaysia, the government owns most of the informative media outlet, ranging from the newspaper to the TV stations most of the information media outlet seems to be in controlled by the government (e.g. Bernama) or owned by component parties of the Barisan Nasional coalition government (e.g. the Media Prima group, which is owned by the United Malays National Organization. Media Prima Berhad (Media Prima), a company listed on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia, is Malaysia’s leading integrated media investment group. The Group currently owns 100 percent equity interests in TV3, 8TV, ntv7 and TV9. In addition, the Group also owns more than 98 percent equity interest in The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad (NSTP), Malaysia’s largest publisher which publishes three national newspapers; New Straits Times, Berita Harian and Harian Metro. The Group also owns three radio stations, Fly FM, Hot FM and One FM. Since the informative media is controlled so highly by the government, the alternative media which are Malaysiakini and The Malaysian Insider take advantage of the government's pledge not to censor the Internet despite its stronghold on most of the mass media.

There are over 30 newspapers and tabloids published mainly in Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil. The most prominent newspapers include The Star, New Straits Times, theSun, Berita Harian, Utusan Malaysia, Sin Chew Jit Poh and Nanyang Siang Pau.  

(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Malaysia | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Prima)

(source: http://tristantsk.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/a-brief-guide-to-the-malaysian-newspaper-industry/)

     Based in the above information found around the internet, I'm surprised by the results that most of the mainstream media are sharing or controlled by the same owner. That's mean that the informations that we heard and watched from the radio to television and the newspaper are all being filtered down to the same kind of altered or distorted informations. Media imperialism is one of the most common governing method that you can see in any country because it can be used to control the people in the country to think what the government wanted them to think about. For this reason, most of the sensitive issues are being censored and we won't get the chance to see them in the mainstream media and we can only hear this from the alternative media which is the Internet. For me, I would usually get the news directly from the Internet but we should be always beware that we can't only relying on one source of the information, it's always a good practice to have two to three reliable source for the serious issues before we  can come to our own conclusion to the news that we are concerned about.

WEEK 4 TASK

Write a short essay about 400 words about the below stated issue: news and you.
How often do you read the paper or watch the news on TV? How important is it for you to keep up the current events?

     Every second there are something interesting happening around the world, whether you like it or not it will have direct and indirect effects to the world. Knowing about the events that happening around the world isn't just to help you in your social conversation but it may help you in so many different ways. Newspaper and TV are considered as the ‘old’ medium for the informative media today but they are both still the most common media you can find in every household. The influence of reading the newspaper and watching the TV news are come from the elderly from the family mostly and this process didn’t skipped in my family too.

     For me I am not really the reading type but I do enjoy reading some books once in a while and I’ll try to keep it as a habit as I know how much it will benefits me. As for reading from newspaper, I do have this habit when before I introduced to the Internet. It’s not that I prefer to read from a screen than the paper, I personally really enjoy to read through the paper. For me I just think that it’s so much easier to get everything done just from browsing through my laptop.

     Watching the news from the TV to get the info is quite different from reading through the newspaper, with the help from the reporter and the video that they are showing to us, it’s much more interesting and easier for us to get to the point. The bad thing about it is, it don’t really give us much time to think about the issues as they continually feeding us with different issues. This will make us think differently and make different conclusion about the news at the end as we could only review our thought about the news at the very end.

     It’s very important for us to keep up with the current events, it will help us to acknowledge the behavior of the society today and keep us self conscious  about  the need for us to change for the society. Something you think is normal may be viewed as unnatural or even obscene from another culture of the world. For this we may need to review ourselves on why do they think this way and is it okay to really think this way or even maybe we should do something in order to change the way we are thinking for the development of the society behavior. 

     As a conclusion, it doesn’t matter how we get the news whether it’s from the internet or from the old traditional media, we may choose what ever in our own preferences. The most important part is what kind of things did we get from them and how do we make those knowledge to be useful in our life. Knowing is knowledge.

WEEK 3 TASK

Write a short essay of about 400 words on the ‘subject-matter’ stated below:

What is theater? How do you think theater, as a media form, communicates message to 

it’s audience?

Theater is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance. Elements of design and stagecraft are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. The specific place of the performance is also named by the word "theatre" as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, “a place for viewing”) and θεάομαι (theáomai, “to see", "to watch", "to observe”).

Modern Western theatre derives in large measure from ancient Greek drama, from which it borrows technical terminology, classification into genres, and many of its themes, stock characters, and plot elements. Theatre scholar Patrice Pavis defines theatricality, theatrical language, stage writing, and the specificity of theatre as synonymous expressions that differentiate theatre from the other performing arts, literature, and the arts in general. Theatre today includes performances of plays and musicals. Although it can be defined broadly to include opera and ballet, those art forms are outside the scope of this article.         (Source: Wikipedia)

As a media form, theater is much more costly and need more participation than the other media form. The best result would be watching it live rather than watching through the recorded screen since the atmosphere is much more different. The performer of the theater is as much as important than the content of the theater itself. Unlike other medium that is published after it’s had been polished, theater is a one shot performance that had been rehearsed again and again just to perform it right at the particular moment. Theater is a medium form that are much more different than the others, it usually convey the message to the audience indirectly. The audiences need to reflect what they have seen from the performance and what kind of message did the performer trying to tell them.

Media Forms

[ Visual Media]

Printed:  a means or instrumentality for storing or communicating information, the print media responsible for gathering and publishing news in the form of newspapers or magazines...

Newspaper: Information about recent events or happenings in printed form...

 

Magazine: A periodical containing a collection of articles, stories, pictures, or other features.

Book: A set of written, printed, or blank pages fastened along one side and encased between protective cover. A printed or written literary work.

           

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Billboard: A panel for the display of advertisement in public places, such as alongside highways or on the sides of buildings. An introductory list of highlights from the program or text that follows, as in a broadcast or magazine. 

Signboard: a board carrying a sign or notice, esp one used to advertise a product, event, etc.

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[ Sound Media ]

Radio: Communication of audible signals encoded in electromagnetic waves. Transmission of programs for the public by the re]adio broadcast.

[Hybrid Media: Visual + Sound ]

Television: An electronic apparatus that receives such signals, reproducing the images on a screen, and typically reproducing accompanying sound signals on speakers.

Film: a form of entertainment, information, etc., composed of such a sequence of images and shown in a cinema, etc.

Mobile Device: small, hand-held computing device, typically having a display screen with touch input and/or a miniature keyboard...

Internet: the single worldwide computer network that interconnects other computer networks, on which end-user services, such as World Wide Web sites or data archives, are located, enabling data and other information to be exchanged Also called the Net...

[The contents and information included the images above are all taken from the internet (http://www.thefreedictionary.com , www.wikipedia.org) ]

               

WEEK 2 TASK

Write an essay of about 400 words:
Identify at least four/cultural groups and what media do you think they use.

            Different group of social group may have different type media preferences. Their preferences are usually affected by the advances of the technology. As the technology moving forward the media may need to be adjusted in order to meet the people needs. There are several social group which may show us  what kind of factor may influence the preference of different type of media.

            For the business social group, the media they are using are mostly the mobile media device. This make sense as they need to constantly moving from place to place to meet their client. This type of social group will certainly prefer their media gadget to be mobile and performance may come in second. The type of mobile device they are using are usually range from smart phone to tablet, even the laptop may seems to be an elephant nowadays.

            As for the elderly social group, their media preferences are usually more traditional as they have hard time to cope with the changes of the technology. Their learning ability are certainly not as fast as the young ones anymore so this type of social group usually will not choose to keep up with the trend.

The type of media they will usually be using are newspaper, TV News and radio.

            The social group for the media workers are usually using the media device that are great with performance. They usually need to create high quality graphics in order to present them to the other media consumers. Advertising are evolving along with time too, as you looked back to the older times TV advertisement with today TV advertisement, the difference can clearly show that today’s ads have included a lot of graphic techniques that are impossible to achieve at the old time. This social group will usually use the PC or laptop with high performance.

            Last but not least, the college student social group are usually the most up to date group. This social group’s media usage are also the most variety one. Most of the college student in average will spend up to at least 4 hours of internet surfing a day in order to help their assignment and also be a part of the social networking activity. The more the time they spend on the internet the more the technology trend information they will be getting, this may lead them to have more desire for the lastest technology.

The media device the college student use may vary from smartphone, PC/laptop, tablet and so on…