Media : Good or Bad?

The mass media plays a very important role in everyone's lives, especially in today's world. Be it the television, radio, newspapers, or even magazines, these media channels all share the same main functions. According to Charles Wright, there are 4 functions of the media : Surveillance (information), Correlation (analysis and evaluation), Cultural Transmission (education and socialisation of receivers), and Entertainment (enjoyment and gratification).

Just a week ago, I saw an article on Today which caught me attention immediately. Entitled, "Teen Sex and the 'P' Factor", this article (http://www.todayonline.com/articles/279770.asp) begins by blaming the media, Internet, lack of parental support and discipline in schools for the hike in sexually-transmitted infections among youths in Singapore. Yes, the media. Citing tv drama shows such as Gossip Girl and the OC, the writer is trying to convey the message that constant media bombardment of such tv shows have influenced teens in one way or another.

(Picture Source: http://gossipgirlchat.com/new-gossip-girl-promos-every-parents-nightmare-more/13/)

Such tv shows often revolve around teens and sex, whereby high school kids shown having sex, getting pregnant, and swapping partners. In the article, the writer touched on how young people, when repeatedly shown the same messages, etch these messages in their memory, and soon pick them up. Quoting from the writer, "Television, movies, videos, music and the Internet all bring a new set of people into teenagers' lives. They see these characters as friends who begin to influence their lives". This clearly illustrates one of the media communications theory, the Powerful effects theory. According to this theory, the mass media is influential and audiences are passive. The media has a very powerful effect on the audiences. This can be supported by the rise in STDs among youths. However, I feel that the media should not be solely blamed for this phenomenon. Parents should actually take on the role of an educator, and educate their children on such issues. Teens consuming such tv shows should also be able to differentiate entertainment from real life, and not simply mimick what they see on television.

(Picture Source: http://gossipgirlchat.com/new-gossip-girl-promos-every-parents-nightmare-more/13/)

Yet another commercial which sparked concerns by a few parents would be a perfume advertisement by Dolce and Gabbana. On local prime time television, the commercial featuring a male model only clad in a pair of white briefs and a female model in a see-through white blouse hugging and kissing each other was aired. Parents who saw the commercial with their children around them felt that the commercial was suggestive and unsuitable for broadcast during prime time, especially since children will be around watching it.

(Picture Source: http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20081024-96137.html)

Personally, I feel that the consumption of media should be supervised to a certain extent, whereby parents, teachers, and even peers, take on the role of educators to transmit and impart the right values and thinking. Audiences have the right to decide what television shows they want to consume, and they too, should take responsibility on what they watch. TV shows such as Gossip Girl, the OC, Sex and the City, should be taken as a form of entertainment whereby audiences seek enjoyment from them. They may also act as a form of cultural transmission whereby parents can make use of these shows to educate their children on the dangers of having underage sex and dealing with drugs.

(Picture Source: http://www.cartoonstock.com/blowup_stock.asp?imageref=cgo0204&artist=Goddard,+Clive&topic=television+Media)

Many times, it is up to us, the consumers, to decide on whether we want to be exposed to the mass media or not. We have the choice to subscribe to certain television channels, purchase certain magazines, and tune in to preferred radio stations. Moreover, the mass media is a very useful tool when is comes to transmitting emergency messages and information. An example would be the recent tainted milk powder incident, where people from all over the world were informed almost immediately about the tainted products that could not longer be consumed. Therefore, I feel that the media plays an important role in educating us, informing us, as well as exposing us to other cultures and values that we may not be able to experience in our society. Ultimately, it is up to our own interpretation and decision on whether we want to let the media influence us.

What do you think? Do tv shows like Gossip Girl impart the wrong sort of values to teenagers? Comment!

Campaigns, a Singapore Culture?

Culture, what exactly is it? Does it actually shape the way we think and influence the way we behave? Well, according to Daniel Klophf, culture is "that part of the environment made by humans", including tangible objects such as possesstions, and intangible objects such as customs and values that bind a group together, giving them a sense of commonality. Culture tells us who we are, what groups we belong to and how we live our lives. Thus, in short, we can say that cultures are templates for living.

Instead of discussing about other cultures, I have decided to touch on our Singapore culture on a different perspective. When asked, "What do you think is our Singapore culture?", many of our responses would contain things like "Singlish, multi racialism, kiasu-ism, fines, and even ERP gantries." For me, the recent "Goodness Gracious Me!" campaign organized by The Straits Times, caught my interest and it somehow made me feel that such campaigns are becoming more and more like a part of our culture. The 'Goodness Gracious Me!' is a project by The Straits Times to get Singaporeans to think about others, starting with clearing their food trays after eating. Posters and stickers will be displayed in foodcourts, eateries, and coffeeshops to encourage Singaporeans to return their trays and clear up their mess after eating.

(Picture Source: http://www.stomp.com.sg/)

In Singapore, it has become increasingly common to see foodcourt aunties going around to help clear the dirty tables after our meals. Even in fastfood restaurants like McDonalds and KFC, the service staff there will help us to clear up after we leave. Thus, many of us conveniently leave our trays uncleared. This "culture" is definitely foreign in other countries, where people immediately clear up and return their trays after finishing their meals. As such, this "Goodness Gracious Me" campaign was organized to encourage Singaporeans to be more considerate and gracious. So, how successful has this project been? Recent reports have shown that this campaign has been successful in several foodcourts and people have started to become more civic-minded (http://www.straitstimes.com/STI/STIMEDIA/sp/sg_gracious/story-moremaking.html). This shows that Singapore is actually more of a collectivist country, whereby people are highly interdependent and we are willing to conform to cultural norms. Besides that, we are readily influenced by others and there is a great tendency for us to "follow the masses" For example, if we realize that every table around us clears their tray after eating, we tend to do the same thing too.

(Speak Good English Movement, launched in 2000 and Speak Mandarin Campaign, launched in 1979)

Besides this tray-return campaign, Singapore also organized campaigns to encourage Singaporeans to be billingual and good speakers. With Chinese making up a major portion of our population, it is essential that as Chinese, we are able to speak our language correctly and properly in order to converse with others. Not forgetting our first languange, English. The Speak Good English Movement is a nationwide movement to encourage Singaporeans to speak grammatically correct English that is universally understood. Although Singlish has been constantly been part of our culture, it is still imperative for us to be able to grasp the English language properly and at least be able to converse in proper English, instead of Singlish.

Next, we also have the "Clean Public Toilets Campaign". Many of us may have seen the poster (on the left, Source : http://app.nea.gov.sg/cms/htdocs/article.asp?pid=336) in most of our public toilets. But, how many of us actually know that it is actually a campaign launched since 1983 to motivate users and public toilets providers to act collectively make clean public toilets possible? Some of us may find is absurd that the goverment has to launch such campaigns to encourage Singaporeans to be a considerate bunch of people and adopt good toilet habits.

Be it comic strips, cartoon caricatures, or even not-so-appealing posters, the campaigns launched here as in one way or another managed to influence us and the way we behave. Yet another campaign that was widely debated would be the National Anti-Smoking Campaign organized last year. With media and print advertisements of graphic health warnings depicting some smoking related diseases and conditions such as stained teeth, mouth cancer and black lungs, these posters were aimed at creating a reverse psychological effect on smokers. (Picture Source: www.getformesingapore.com/teenyboppers.htm)

(Picture Source: http://www.singaporekindness.org.sg/about/courtesy.html)

Not forgetting our familiar gold lion mascot, Singa. Singa is actually a character created inconjunction with the Singapore Courtesy Campaign in 1979, encouraging Singaporeans to be more kind and considerate to each other, so as to create a pleasant social environment.

Having talked about a few of the many campaigns that we have in Singapore, I feel that campaigns are beginning to become a part of our culture. As defined by Trenholm, culture is learned, shared, dynamic and multifaceted. These campaigns teach us to act in a certain manner, and we soon become so well programmed that we seldom stop to think that out culture is learned. Cultures are also group understandings whereby belonging to a culture means according to the group norms. This can be clearly illustrated with the returning of trays after we finish our meals. Culture is multifaceted, where is affects every aspects of our lives, even the way we communicate and our perception of others. In foreign countries such as the United States, it is a norm to see people returning their trays in McDonalds. However, when Americans come to Singapore and find that we do not have the culture of returning the trays, they may have a different perception of us. Probably a negative perception of self-fishness and lack of consideration. Thus, in order to prevent misunderstandings and misperceptions, we all should be open communicators who are comfortable with co-cultural and cross-cultural diversity.

(Picture Source: http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au/library/media/Image/id/634 )

Besides the countless campaigns that we have, what other factors do you think are a part of our culture? Is the "campaign culture" a new form of communication here in singapore?

Isolate?

With the great advancement of current technology, people are able to communicate and interact with each other even though they may be countries apart. As our society is becoming increasingly integrated, it is inevitable for us to form groups in order to meet our own needs.

(A group picture of my colleagues at our BBQ. some have already left the company)

A group is a collection of individuals who, as a result of interacting with one another over time, become interdependent, developing shared patterns of behavior, and a collective identity. Most of the time, people form groups to meet interpersonal needs. According to William Schutz (psychologist), we have 3 interpersonal needs - the need for inclusion (to establish identity by associating with others), need for control (to prove one's worth by making effective decisions), and need for affection (to develop close, caring relationships with others). Cohesive groups also provide support and commitment, making individuals feel encouraged when faced with complicated tasks.

Most importantly, groupwork enables group synergy to occur, whereby every member in the group is encouraged to do their best to complete the task. Personally, I feel group synergy is especially critical in work groups. I would like share my part time working experience to help illustrate this point. Currently, I am working as a part time service crew at a well-established café, with about 29 branches in Singapore. The particular branch that I am working at is located in the Central Business District area, meaning that our customer pool is mainly the working adults. Besides that, our branch is one of the few 2-storey outlet, with a cosy bean bag seating ambience on the 2nd level. Heres a few pictures of my workplace:

(Level 1)

(Level 2)

As our outlet is a double-storey shophouse, effective communication is important to ensure that we are able to run our daily operations smoothly. Besides that, our kitchen is located on the first level only, meaning that someone has to be always sending the food to the second level once it is ready. On the contrary, drinks are prepared on each individual level on the spot. In my work group, everybody plays a different yet important role. Due to limited pictures available, I will just touch on a few prominent roles to give you all a gist of what I am trying to illustrate.

(Picture drawn by a fellow colleague, Goh) (From L to R: Miss M.F, me, Miss E., Mr J., Mr M., Miss F)

Quite evidently, my managers (Miss E & Miss F) take on the role of Standard Setters. A standard setter is a person who express maintenance standard and applies standards to group process. Miss E. always ensures that the services we provide is up to standard, and the food and beverages that we serve are of high quality.

Mr J., a fellow part-timer, takes on the role of an Encourager, encouraging all of us to cheer up and persevere whenever we encounter difficult customers and have to find proper solutions to satisfy them.

Mr M., on the other hand, acts as a Gate-Keeper, always very open to new ideas on ways to improve our service quality and the way we interact with customers.

Our Harmoniser, would definitely be Miss M.F, a very bubbly lady with no tempers at all. Her friendly disposition makes everyone feel happy even though there may be disagreements. With a positive and enthusiastic mind, she is able to relieve tensions and mediate disagreements. For example, an angry customer may be frustrated at having to wait for quite some time for his order. Miss M.F. would approach him and patiently explain to him (in her sing-song voice) the situation and not make the customer feel that we have forgotten his order. Most of the time, the remaining bulk of us take on the role as Observers, Followers, and Information Seekers. When encountering a difficult situation where we (part-timers) are not able to make a decision, we usually have to seek information from our managers who will then advise us on what to do. As Observers, we also play a very important role of observing our customers and offering feedback on how to deal with specific customers. Not forgetting, our Energizer, Mr E., who never fails to make funny faces and dance along our music just to make the atmosphere more lively and not make us feel so tensed up when handling large crowds of customers.

As we all can see, communication is a need, especially when we are working together as a group. With efficient communication and increased interaction, we will be able to understand each teamplayer better, making work much easier and pleasant. Most of the time, we need the help of other people to accomplish a task. In this case, a service crew would need to be informed by the kitchen crew about the correct table number to serve the food to. Thus, it is essential for us to learn to work well in groups.

Lastly, I will just briefly mention about my wonderful and enriching group experience I had during secondary school. My CCA in secondary school was Guzheng (a type of Chinese musical instrument) Ensemble. As the whole ensemble only consists of one instrument, playing a piece of music requires great group cohesion and teamwork.

(Front Row: Chairperson, Vice Chairperson)

In the ensemble, we had a Chairman, also known as a Coordinator in this case. She is always the one sitting at the front first position, cueing us on when to start playing the first note and when to pluck the last note. The rest of the team are mostly followers and observers, occasionally taking turns to contribute our opinions on how to improve. In our ensemble, our girls are a closely knit group as we have a small group size, making interaction with each other relatively easy and comfortable. Besides that, we are very interdependent on each other because if someone is a beat slower or faster, the whole piece of music will be ruined. In order to stimulate bonding, we often organize practices and gatherings together after school. Furthermore, as we are all from the same cohort, communication is unproblematic as we get to see each other quite frequently. When preparing for competitions, our teacher-in-charge, and fellow schoolmates from the Military Band steps in to act as Evaluators/Critics to evaluate our group performance and identify areas of improvement. Needless to say, every single member in the ensemble acts as precious acts Contributors because with one member less, the music piece may not be as perfect as before. With a common goal and a common passion for music, our ensemble was able to work towards achieving group synergy. As a result, we managed to clinch a Gold Medal for the Singapore Youth Festival Central Judging Competition! CHEERS!

(SYF 2003, Gold Medal)

Having written so much, do you think group communication is important? Or do you prefer to live in isolation? Do share your opinions and Comment!