Jenn: TV

A Korean TV show called, “Ac-Nyu Diary (악녀일기)” is a reality show which portrays the life of wealthy girls over three seasons. Some of them use over ten million won a month, while the others enjoy getting Prada and Gucci handbags from fifty different men they date. They are spoiled girls who spend their parents’ money as if they use water, and think they are on top of everyone. However, they are never to be under estimated. People who watch the show might think they are spoiled and have got nothing to be proud of, they usually get jealous watching those rich girls. One of the blog says the show is attractive because it shows the audience what they do not possess. The girls on the show are pretty enough to have men who are obedient and who serve expensive products at their feet. These girls are characters who you always think they only exist in the internet or movies. Any girl should dream of a life in which she could order the world around with her money one time. The show fulfills the presumptuous little dream and gives satisfaction.
It is ironic that the TV show contains the cause of poverty. Today, the gap between the wealth and the poverty is getting even larger. When few of the population possess a tremendously huge amount of money, in the inversely proportional ratio, people with little money happen to get even less money. Nevertheless, people, who watch that show, naturally see that it seems nice and novel to live like the rich spoiled girls. The power of TV medium has the greatest influence on people who watch it. TV makes people think in certain ways. It changes people’s ideology and the way to analyze situations. When people keep watching the show without acknowledging the risk, people will not be conscious of what should be done and to what they should look up to.

poverty

www.poverty.com is a a site in which its name says it all. It is about worldwide poverty. When you first enter the site, there is a list of attention-grabbing peripherals. For example, the world map that represents every death that occurded during the hour by hunger. At fist, I thought, “how is this [getting all the information of every child’s death] possible?” but as I read, on the bottom of the page was an explanation: Note: The world hunger map display above is representational only and does not show the names and faces of real people. The photographs are computer composites of multiple individuals. More over, there is a list on the left side of the webpage that displays the following: Problems of Poverty, Solution to Poverty, and What can you do. Seeing the list, I thought to my self that the website displays poverty as if it was nothing. The only solution the website has is ‘international aid.’ “Almost all of the deaths from hunger and disease that you see on this site can be stopped. The cost to do this is about $195 billion a year, according to the United Nations. Twenty-two developed countries below have pledged to work towards each giving 0.7% (a little less than 1%) of their national income in international aid, which would raise the $195 billion. Some countries are slow to meet their pledge.”(www.Poverty.com). The listings of the cause of poverty are all the case in third world countries, such as Africa. The list consists of: hunger, AIDS, pneumonia, diarrhea, tuberculosis, malaria, and measles. As for common sense, most of these should be obvious. However, diarrhea was new to me. After reading about diarrhea, it isn’t the diarrhea that I knew. It was a ghastly disease. “Diarrheal diseases such as cholera and dysentery kill about 1.6 million people each year, almost all of them children. Diarrhea is most often a result of unclean water, unsafe sanitation, or poor hygiene.” (www.poverty.com). The cause of the disease, which is unclean water, unsafe sanitation, or poor hygiene, explains the cause in third world countries.

As for the impact of communication, I personally think that this website is on the edge. The information provided looks serious. Moreover, since it is a website with a big name, I think that the makers of the website are serious about worldwide poverty. The way the website gave its information is also convenient. The links provided on the sides can get us the exact information that the user is looking for. For example, I had questions about diarrhea causing death, so I went to the diarrhea section and found out in depth about diarrhea causing death. However, if I call back to the power point that informs us on a “reliable” site, which told us that a website with flashy attention grabbers should be held of suspicion, this site is on the money. As soon as I entered the site, as noted above, there was an attention grabbing flash. Moreover, the information provided on the first page was minute. Therefore, as noted above, I think that this site is on the edge. As for the creators are unknown, background information is hard to grasp. Nevertheless, the information provided seems credible and serious.

www.poverty.com

Jenn: Music

“In the Ghetto” is a famous song sang by Elvis Presley in 1960’s. The term “ghetto” was popularly used in the late 60’s, with many poor neighbor everywhere. More and more people got “ghetto” as the time went by. When Elvis Presley was a young man, he lived in the period of the poverty in America. When he produced the song “In the Ghetto”, he already knew it would be a hit. Once he was certain that the song would be popular, he sang it to draw attention of the citizens to the poor neighbors. The lyrics contain a story of a little boy. A pregnant woman was thrown out in the ghetto, and no one was willing to help her. Then a little boy was born in the ghetto, while the mother was morning another hungry mouth to feed. As the baby grew in the misery, the boy grew to learn stealing, fighting and performing violent behaviors. He was angry at the world and at himself being born in it. The devastating story of the little boy ends on a street of the ghetto, as he killed himself with a gun he’d stolen.
“In the Ghetto” contains a socially conscious message. The song, with a story of a young boy who lived a heartbreaking life, was a hit as Elvis Presley had expected. For the first time, many people were informed with the serious reality of their neighbors. In the middle of the song, Elvis asks “don’t you know he [the little boy] would be an angry man someday,” warning the people to move before it is too late. The song ends with another baby being born in the ghetto. It leaves the space for the audience to think of what they should do from then on to improve the situation. By one powerfully popular singer, the message of poverty and its seriousness was sent to the mass.


"In The Ghetto by Elvis Presley Songfacts." Song Meanings at Songfacts. 7 Sep. 2008 http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=469.
"Elvis Presley In The Ghetto lyrics." LyricsFreak — ( A-Z Song Lyrics ). 7 Sep. 2008 http://www.lyricsfreak.com/e/elvis+presley/in+the+ghetto_20048735.html.
http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=zmVFnhO3A98

Jenn: Music

Ten years ago, there was an idol group in Korea, called “g.o.d.” The group was composed of five attractive young men. Their popularity did not seem to stop increasing. Once they got extremely popular, they revealed their past: when they had nothing. When the five were young and fameless, when they were preparing to be singers yet, they were drastically poor. They had nothing except for their talent in music and a tiny apartment on a rooftop. A music producer made a song out of their past, called To Mom. The lyric goes, “When I was little and my mom worked at the field, we were poor. Once I got sick and tired of ramyun which I ate every meal. So I begged my mom to order jjajangmyun, and she took 2000won from her sock and ordered one bowl of jjajangmyun. When I asked why aren’t you eating, she answered, I hate jjajangmyun…” The song To Mom made every young people in Korea cry. Songs are highly effective that millions of people listen to it for more than fifty times. The group g.o.d. had tremendous number of fans who worshiped them. When the group presented To Mom, the effect the song had on teenagers in Korea was huge. It gave the teenagers a chance to think about poverty, and they thought of ways to help powerless people like g.o.d. members were used to be. All it took was one short song to move teenagers’ hearts to think about poor. It was truly the power of media.

Jennifer: Stereotype

One stereotype people have about me is that I would be comparably mature than others in my grade. It is because I belong to the older group of people in my grade, and I talk like a mother. I have a little brother who is three years younger than I am. Since long ago, I used to take care of my brother like a mother. Like every other sibling in the world, we argued a lot. However, I always looked after my brother when no one asked me to. Even in my dorm, I am the oldest girl. Girls say that I am like their older sister or even a mother. They often accidently call me “Mom!” Many people also assume that I am extremely honest with everything so that I tempt to express my emotions anytime I want.
I sometimes assume that Chinese do not wash themselves. That is one stereotype I have towards Chinese. Personality by blood type is one stereotype I have. Person with blood type O should be out-going, bright, honest and funny. Blood type B should be aggressive, a big mouth and loves meeting people in opposite sex. Type A should be shy, sweet but bursting out when with anger. Type AB should be either a genius or a psycho. Many Koreans have this stereotype when judging others when they first meet.
I think stereotypes are from judging or assuming something about others you do not know, with uncertain factors. Sometimes stereotypes are correct. However, not all Americans love sweets, not all Chinese do not take a shower and not all Asians smell like garlic. I personally think stereotype is not quite beneficial. Thinking of someone having a stereotype about me is not a pleasant thought. Sometimes one makes prejudice out of a stereotype.

povertyy

As students, we have probably all used wikipedia to get some sort of information for a project or presentation. However, if we take the “is-it-reliable?” power point, it is not reliable at all. First off, it does not have a published author. Anybody can post anything on wikipedia. However, I do not think that teacher know the truth about wikipedia. If the posting is not true, wikipedia deletes the posting within 24 hours. Enough said about wikipedia, I decided to look up poverty on wikipedia. If I search “poverty” on wikipedia, I can probably get enough information to do a couple hours speech on poverty. However, teachers wouldn’t accept it because the reason noted above. It isn’t reliable because anybody can post information. Moreover, the uploaded information is from other sites, which are cited at the bottom. I personally do not think that teachers know about this. Therefore, teachers see wikipeda as an unreliable source. Furthermore, because the author is anonymous, it is hard to tell if it is biased because the author is anonymous and we, as readers, do not know anything about the author and, or his/her background. It I easy for the author to post information only based on his opinion.

On wikipedia, if the searched topic is famous, such as poverty, there is more than enough information. For my case, there is a table of contents that split the information on poverty into 11 sections. By splitting the information into 11 sections, people can get the information they want rapidly. Therefore, I personally think that the way wikipedia gets its information across is convenient. Not only convenient, but also quality information. Because wikipedia also provided graphics, such as graph, maps, pictures, it can further connect to the reader. As noted above, all the information that wikipedia uses is cited. Therefore, if we can not trust wikipedia, we can go to that cited site and check out that site. However, the information would probably be the same.

poverty

Every time I sit down and open the internet and search “poverty”, the articles that pop up are all just so profound. There are many ways that a person or a city in this case, can reach poverty. This particular article was about a serious natural disaster that causes poverty just three days ago. On Thursday, Tropical Storm Hanna drowned the city of Gonaives, Haiti. The flooding is just the cover of the book. The details get worse. As you may know, Haiti isn’t the most civilized place. Therefore, there are many people who live through “poverty.” The most shocking information that I got out from this article is heartbreaking. Children at three orphanages were starving. It wasn’t only that, a convoy out of the U.N base was going to the orphanage; However, because the damage of the flood, the convoy couldn’t complete the excursion. Therefore, the children at the orphanage are probably still waiting as I write this paper. According to the author, there are not just couple tens of children, but tens of thousands of children. Now that is serious. Nonetheless, other people who are not orphanages are also impacted seriously from this flood. 250,000 people were affected by this storm, and this is only in the Gonaives region. Moreover, 70,000 people and 150 homes were damaged to some cost. Furthermore, as I am writing now, approximately half of the homes of the Gonaives region remain flooded. "These people lost everything," he [Bernard Chauve] said. "They have no water, no food. It is very bad." (CNN).

Although typical articles have authors, I could not find the author for this particular article. However, I am confident to say that the article is unbiased. Based on my past observations of using CNN, they author does a really good job of pointing out facts and opinions from every perspective. Also, the quotes and dictions used in the articled fit in best to describe the gravity of the situation to its full extent.

"The situation in Gonaives is catastrophic," Daniel Rouzier, Haiti chairman of Food for the Poor, wrote in an e-mail. "We, just like the rest of the victims ... have limited mobility. You can't float a boat, drive a truck or fly anything to the victims."

Anger and frustration was growing at the inability or unwillingness of the government and the international community to help. (CNN).

This quote was used to describe the sympathy of the chairman of Gonaives on the impact of the flood.

All in all, the articles on CNN can communicates its message lucidly to the readers by using their quotes and dictions to put and image of the situation into the reader’s mind.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/09/04/haiti.floods.ap/index.html

stereotype

When I was living in the states, I was the only Korean in my grade for two years, seventh and eighth grade. Therefore, my friends thought or called me the tallest Korean. They called me Yao Ming. Another stereotype that people have of me is that I am fat. But I don’t really care if I am for or not because I honestly do not care. Because I lived with and experienced all kinds of cultures and backgrounds, I do not really have any stereotypes of other people. I know all sorts of stereotypes but I know that majority of them are not true. For example, that white people can not jump. I know a lot of white people that can jump. Another stereotype that I have is the if a female wears make up, they do not study as much. However, there are plenty of females who wear make up and do well academically. Furthermore, depending on the stereotype, it can be either harmful or beneficial. If we take the stereotype that Koreans are work horses, it would be harmful. People will be coming to Koreans for help all the time; therefore, Koreans would not have “free time.” However, after living and interacting with all kinds of cultures and stereotypes, I personally do not think that there are beneficial stereotypes.

Stereotype

Other people look at me and almost always think that I’m a very serious and dull, rather cold person when they look at me. I think it’s probably because of my relatively tall height and facial expression when I stay still. And indeed, I’m quite shy towards the people I don’t know, and sometimes can be rather stiff in my attitude. But when I’m with the people I know well, or have known them for a long time, I become completely loose and joke around like a clown. Most of the people that know me well afterwards tell me that on the outside I look so cool and calm, but when they know me I’m actually really hysteric.
I also have stereotypes about other people, and I do make a prediction about how that person might be like from my first sight unintentionally. But normally this stereotype constantly change, especially right after I hear them talking. Normally when I see thin people with glasses I tend to think that they are very studious. When I see thin and short boys I tend to think that they are very shy and have a hard time in socializing with other people. When I see girls with thick make-up I think that they are far from studying and like to party and shop. Basically I have all the typical stereotypes about people in their appearance, with some personal view added, depending on the way the person acts or moves. My stereotype tend to miss quite often, and that’s why I try not to form any opinions about a person when I’ve just have had a look at them without having a conversation. But I cannot help the imaginative character that I create inside my mind.
Stereotypes can be good in a way, because when a person knows certain stereotypes of the society, they can intentionally portray that stereotype in how they act and wear, to make a statement about themselves without words. This can also be used as a mark of a specific group of people. At other times, for people who know stereotypes very precisely and can judge a person at their first sight with accuracy, it will be beneficial for them in knowing what relationships to have with certain people. However, normally this is bad, because every person has a multiple face inside them, very irrelevant to what they seem on the outside. Therefore the best way is to try to ignore all the stereotypical notions, and make a logical and reasonable judgment after gathering enough information about the person.

Moon Kyung (2)

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