MH17 News Features and Values

Everything that happens around us, whether a natural disaster or a bad being born, is immediately classified as to either being newsworthy or not. The news on television is a virtual happening that has occurred or is occurring and is broadcasted to us in the comfort of our own home. News comes in many medium forms such as the newspaper or the news segment on television. These news has gone through various management team and has been carefully constructed into the story that is worthy of our attention. The worthiness of the news may arise problems such as is it the truth or a packaged story? But what I am focusing on in this blog post is about the features and values that goes into the making of a news to determine its worthiness.

The recent tragedy that happened for the MH17 flight was publicly broadcasted over the news tabloid, for weeks the only news that was worthy of our attention was this. The MH17 tragedy news can be categorized as having a “transient” quality, it is a news that is ultimately unexpected but its broadcast seemingly decreases day by day and finally stops unless there was any new insights into the investigations. Transient news is a news that is only temporary as its importance decreases with the decreases of new information. Narrativisation is another feature that helps construct the “story” of MH17 tragedy, it is pieced in a storyline and the reporter will narrate according to its line. Following narrativisation is visual imperative, like a children’s storybook, visual is important in order to give viewers a glimpse of what’s happening along with the narrator explaining the visual images.

News values is another important aspect of a news segment in order to establish its news worthiness. Cultural proximity is the closeness of the news to the viewers according to their culture, there were several Australians on board the flight which made the news closer in terms of culture which helps viewers relate. The rarity of this news increases it worthiness because something that is totally unexpected provokes curiosity in viewers. Once MH17 has hit the headlines, it possess the continuality value because viewers requires that constant update regarding the tragedy with any new insights into investigations. Negativity, though it is not plausible to state negativity as worthy of news, it is the negativity that puts drama in the news segment, which interest viewers in terms of a storyline. The negativity projected was about the cause of the downing of flight MH17 caused by a pro-Russian separatist that accidentally shot down the plane and another issue was about the regulations that were not laid out about Russia and Ukraine airspace being a no-fly-zone.

All these features and values are what made up the news and increased its worthiness for the attention of viewers. Without these qualities, the news would bore viewers and may not even attract their attention. News organisations fighting over diminished resources, audiences and public trust still need to question their values to justify their existence (Lee-Wright, P).

Reference:

Lee-Wright, P, “News Value: An Assessment Of News Priorities Through a Comparative Analysis Of Arab Spring Anniversary Coverage”, JOMEC Journal, University of London.

The Englishness in Sherlock Holmes

Elementary vs Sherlock

Drama is a situation or story that usually involves some sort of conflict. Drama when translated across cultures, locations and nationalities varies according to what they are accustomed to. The prime example this week similarly from my last blog post is Sherlock Holmes. From its first feature in a novel in 1887, the Holmes name represents this ideal figure of an idealised Englishness and is imaginary and constructed (Frew, C 2014). The UK series Sherlock took up the idea of Sherlock Holmes character and adapted the series in a very traditional way by sticking closely to the original story in order to keep its Englishness. The American adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, Elementary, though it follows through the guideline of the original story, it has incorporated many Americanised television features and values such as the sexual tension between characters, sympathetic characters, and its set in New York. However, the series didn’t entirely changed its originality by keeping a trait of Englishness in the series as seen in the character’s accent, Holmes’s background and influences from London to give it that touch of proper-ness.

It has been presumed for a while now that the Englishmen are proper, they possess certain qualities of being more looked up to. The UK and US version of Sherlock Holmes both garnered much success in their very own way. Focusing now on Elementary, its profound difference from Sherlock (UK) was that Watson, which originally according to the story was a male and share a sort of “bromance” with Holmes, was played by a female instead. This gives viewers a more different perception as to the relationship of Watson and Holmes but it was relatable to American audiences. Another significant difference was the villain in the story, Moriarty, also originally played by a male, was played by a female and nonetheless was Holmes’s previous lovers. This created the sexual tension between characters that excites the audiences. Americans are accustomed to sexual references in American dramas.

But not all is lost in translation, there had to be traits of originality from the original story otherwise the story might instead become a joke. Holmes in Elementary still possesses his English accent and his posture are always stiff and quite direct in his remark which is similar to the British version of the series. Elementary still needed to persuade viewers that Holmes did indeed have the authority to solve crimes because of his direct personality and blunt humour that might put viewers off, it is that fine line between creating a character that is “weird” yet “wise” building up the character platform.

Drama when translated across nations are inevitably modified in order to suit the different cultures, locations, and nationalities. However, a trait from home must be adapted into the series in order to keep its originality that was what made it successful in the first place. Good Holmesians know that every adaptation is a new twist, a hopefully intriguing spin on a comfortable theme (Asher-Perrin, E 2014).

Reference:

Asher-Perrin, E 2014, ‘Battling Super Sleuths: The Awkward Case of Elementary, Sherlock, and Building the Better Adaptation’, available online at
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/02/battling-super-sleuths-the-awkward-case-of-elementary-sherlock-and-building-the-better-adaptation

Frew, C 2014, “Sherlock and Elementary: Representing Englishness in Drama”, Powerpoint slides, University of Wollongong.

Comedy Lost In Translation

AUS vs US

Adaptation, according the Collins English Dictionary is something that has changed or modified to suit new conditions or needs. Therefore, film adaptation is the process of producing an idea of an existing film to in turn produce another film that shares similar values and meanings but is translated according to its culture needs. A prime example of this is the character driven television situation comedy series “Kath & Kim” that has garnered much success nationally in Australia winning two Logie awards and establishing a pop culture in Australia. Internationally, its success on British television inspired its adaptation by Greg Daniels who subsequently was the same producer of the American adaptation of the British sit-com “The Office” (Turnbull, S). Kath & Kim (US) was looking for the same success road as The Office however after the series was premiered, its viewers dropped significantly after the first episode was aired and the series was cancelled after just 17 episodes.

Focusing now on the American version, the plot revolves around the life of mother and daughter, Kath and Kim, their life is portrayed through a sense of humour which was a big success in Australia. Kath was played by Molly Shannon and Kim was played by Selma Blair. In the first episode alone, the similarity towards that Australian version was almost parallel, Kath announces that she has a boyfriend and the reaction from Kim was appalling as in the first episode of the Australian version of Kath & Kim, with Kim challenging Kath about being all “tizzed up” inside only to learn about Kath’s new boyfriend. The series was criticised for being “a pale imitation of the original”, Kath & Kim’s character was not monstrous enough to fit the original role, but ultimately, the argument was that the characters didn’t generate enough irony that the original comedy held which was what made it successful in the first place (Turnbull, S).

According to Turnbull, The problem here was that the humor wasn’t translated across cultures, and this has partly to do with the casting of the characters and the irony that was lost in translation. Kim in the Australian version imagines herself as a horn-bag while her performance shows sufficient evidence to show herself as self-deluded and foolish whereas Kim in the American version is actually trashy and dramatic enough to fit her role as a tabloid queen. This eliminates the humor from the irony that was what the viewer’s actually got from the original version. The heart of the comedy wasn’t there which was what sank the show’s ratings and speared quickly to its end.

Comedy is indeed a universal language but when translated among cultures, it needs to be pinpoint accurate in order for it to be a laughing stock for the other viewers. The way a film is produced should have thorough research before production begins, by affiliating one’s series success on another is an error even in translation because not all comedy fits well with cultures. One’s insult may be another’s joke.

Reference:

Turnbull, S, Television Comedy In Translation, Metro Magazine, Vol. 159, pp. 110-115

“Bending” Cultures in Media Capitals

In this week’s lecture, I came across this new yet foreign hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic but the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural (Huntington, 1993). This statement proves evident through the various news media broadcasting about International conflicts such as wars and violence. The most recent news to hit me was the war between Iraq and Gaza, Russia and Ukraine. A quick glance through these happenings shows the obvious signs of a difference in culture that provoked these wars. Huntington’s claim that the clash of civilizations will dominate global politics are somewhat true, however not in every case does violence solves our problems.

Media capitals, then, are sites of mediation, locations where complex forces and flows interact. They are neither bounded nor self-contained entities (Curtin, 2003). One example that comes to mind is Nickelodeon, an American basic cable and satellite television network broadcasting cartoon programs aimed at children and adolescents aged 8-16. I’ve been a loyal viewers even at the age of 20, and my favourite program by far is The Legend of Korra.

The series follows Avatar Korra, the successor of Aang from the previous series, as she faces political and spiritual unrest in a modernizing world. The feature of this series is Korra’s ability to “bend” all four Elements: fire, water, air and earth. Though this program’s young audiences are mostly in the West, the animation was set in an Asian-influenced world. With Korra’s ability to “bend” elements, this is the classical myths of a type of Chinese Martial Art that has been long foretold in Asian histories. The drawings are very similar to Japanese anime and has faced various claims that it is an anime work.

In the synopsis alone, I have been able to identified three different culture that has come together to work on a project that has since became a critical and commercial success in the West. This program obtained the highest viewers for an animated series in the United States in 2012. Therefore, this goes back to my understanding of our ever evolutional world that even though claims of the negativity of the clash of civilizations has been evident and has spread all over the media. There is no saying that it is a bad thing, from what I see, the clash of civilizations in “The legend of Korra” was an amazing art piece. And I can so say about this because media capitals are places where things come together and, consequently, where the generation and circulation of new mass culture forms become possible (Curtin, 2003).

Reference:

Curtin, M 2009, ‘Media capital: Towards the study of spatial flows’, International journal of cultural studies, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 202-228

Huntington, S 1993, ‘The Clash of Civilizations’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3, pp. 22–49.

Crossover Cinema

Continuing from the last blog post, I further analyse the concept of the globalised film industry through to crossover cinema. Crossover cinema is used to illustrate an emerging form of cinema that crosses cultural borders at the stage of conceptualization and production and hence manifest hybrid cinematic grammar at the textual level, as well as crossing over on terms of its distribution and reception (Khorana, 2014). This is the incorporation of two different cultural background influencing each other to create an end product, and in this case, a movie. Attempts at cross culturally producing a movie has not been most successful, however, the Hollywood movie, “Slumdog Millionaire” based in Mumbai, India, was a successful attempt at crossover cinemas, winning 8 Oscars, even though the confidence for its success was slim.

According to Khorana S, the inter-text and the extra-text of the cross cultural films is intrinsic to a crossover film. This leads to the emergence of issues such as Bollywood’s attempt at promoting cross cultural film in hopes that one day it will make it into Hollywood and their renowned film statuses. My understanding of this is that if Bollywood’s main aim is to enhance its cross cultural elements in a film in hopes that western audiences would pick up on it and decides to watch it, their search for a Western audience may not come to fruition (Khorana 2014). There is an underlying understanding that there is a certain practice that Hollywood adopts and its secret has been a success for a long time now, other global film industries has been trying to figure out what this practice is and trying to walk in Hollywood’s footstep.

Another issue that arises is audience’s interpretation of a foreign film. Watching today’s news on Middle Eastern countries, all we see is violence and war, murder and rape. Audiences unknowingly succumb to the conception and perception that the media is broadcasting and thereby influences our opinion on Middle Eastern countries. A crossover film may harm a country’s reputation because of an opinion from non-Arabic viewers. Sensitive issues such as suicide bombing and religions in Arabic movie are reflected as “crazy” and “insane” to Hollywood viewers because of their limited understanding of the cultural meaning in a film and the realistic lifestyle of the Middle Eastern and their religion. Here’s a video on the perceptions of Arabs and Americans film:

All in all, what we must really understand is that the success of crossover film industry definitely play a role in portraying globalisation all around the world. The Slumdog Millionaire film was a huge success as it portrays Mumbai poor lifestyle in contrast to the rich lifestyle at Taj Mahal and the fated love story of the characters.

Reference:

Khorana, S 2013, ‘Crossover Cinema: A Genealogical and Conceptual Overview’, Producing a Hybrid Grammar, pp. 1-7.

Bollywood for Hollywood

 

Directing the focus now unto the Global Film Industry, it is easy to make an assumption that Hollywood is and always will be the most successful film industry on the global scale. Hollywood remains strong and posts impressive figures every year despite its dwindling economy (Source: onlinemba.com). With its head turning figures and stunning actor and actresses walking down red carpets, who would have the will to deny these forces.

However, it is important that we understand that on the other side of the globe, there is a film industry known as, Bollywood. You’d be surprise with how much they are one and the same with the Hollywood film industry. Let me explain, Bollywood, is the India’s version of Hollywood. Adopting its name from Bombay, now known as Mumbai, it is the heart and soul of every citizens in India, catching audience’s attention from its catchy Hindi songs and choreographed dance moves, colourful costumes and its dramatic storyline. According to Rosenberg M, fourteen millions Indians goes to work on a daily basis in the Bollywood film industry, which is equivalent to 1.4% of their 1 billion citizens. It is one of the main driving forces for India’s economy providing thousands of jobs every year.

The success of a Hollywood film depends heavily on culture clashes as seen in recent times with the emergence of contra-flows. It is the shifting of direction of cultural influences to the Global South and blurring ‘the boundaries between the modern and the traditional, the high and low culture, and the national and the global culture’ (Thussu, 2006: 175). Hollywood is like an octopus with tentacles extending across the globe. Through the incorporation of multi-culture influences, Hollywood has manage to attract audiences not only through domestic movie ticket purchases but also international revenues from foreign movie goers.

Let’s shine some lights on this with the movie, Slumdog Millionaire. The movie, based in Mumbai, illustrates the nitty and gritty lives of the poor with the shiny aspirations of the new India. It can be categorised as a ‘hybrid’ movie, directed by Briton Danny Boyle with the leading actor born and raised in England. It almost instantaneously stole the heart of everyone in India from the slums to Taj Mahal and even in the States. By creating this whole new market of movie goers, Hollywood was able to open up a new targeted market segment while educating and broadcasting a culture other that the western culture on the big screen was one of the most risky yet successful decision ever made.

Slumdog millionaire went on to win 8 Oscars and was on the top of the list on the box office list and International movie goers played the majority roles in this. It is then easy to see why it is necessary to explore the opportunity globally instead of confining your given knowledge. You wouldn’t know if that orange is good until you’ve tasted it.

Reference:

Thussu, D.K. (2006), International Communication: Continuity and Change, 2nd edn,
New York: Oxford University Press.

International Students Horror Stories

Internationalising education in Australia is the third or fourth largest export industry, varying with the price of gold at any one time (Marginson 2012). It is seen as an evolutionary money-making sector that has grown exponentially over the years totalling to A$19 billion a year and is subsequently an educational and social experience for the international students in Australia. With that, decisions by parents to send their child over to Australia to study in the past decade has wavered because of all the media attention concentrated on the safety of these students.

Australia is a peaceful country with its significant value of mateship, fair-go and true blue experience. Once upon a time it was the dream country to study in, but with the recent cases of international student being the victim of theft, robbery and even murder, parents are starting to think twice about sending their child over to study abroad. Issues such as the universities and colleges not paying enough attention to these international students and their safety are increasingly being publicise. Some cases are forced to argue that students are not taking enough precautions to prevent these incidents from happening.

Take the Garg case for example, Nitin Garg, 21 years old studying Bachelor of Accountancy in Melbourne was murdered while he was heading to Hungry Jacks to work his night shift (Welch, D 2010). Autopsy shows he got stabbed with a knife wound across his chest and died on the way to the hospital. This was a turning point for Indian international students and the larger international communities. Presses in India was furious with the treatment their citizens were receiving.

On the one hand, arguments from another Indian student also named Nitin states that the crime has nothing to do with the victim’s ethnic background protested, “I think, mate, I think crime is bloody everywhere. Go to any country and you’ll find crime” (Welch, D 2010). And on the other hand, a young Muslim Indian named Syed suggested “The Government is not taking any action and the police also don’t care. The persons are getting attacked day by day and no action is being taken.” (Welch, D 2010). Other theories from Welch states, “Indian students are seen as a “soft targets” and “walking ATMs” because of their flexibility to work night shifts and perception of their wealthy backgrounds” (2010). Authorities from AIC emphasised that the current study does not allow for conclusions to be drawn regarding the role of racial motivation in these crimes (AIC 2011, p. 169).

International students are often perceived to be from a rich background because of their ability to study abroad even with the high currency exchange rate. Because of their living-away-from-home conditions, perpetrator of crimes usually target these students because of their vulnerability of living alone. However, facts be told, crimes happen all around the world, to prosecute Australia alone is a biased judgement, we must view these students as strong and brave because moving to a whole new country all alone is a difficult process, all with fitting in and getting accustom to a new culture, feelings of rejection and alienation are struggled throughout the process.   

Reference:

Larsen, Payne & Tomison 2011, Crimes against international students in Australia: 2005-09, Australian Institute of Crimes, Canberra, accessed 31 August 2014, http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/5/C/2/%7B5C2C2F3E-584B-498E-A694-A25FC8FC7C86%7Dcaisa.pdf

Marginson, S (2012) ‘International education as self-formation: Morphing a profit-making business into an intercultural experience’ Lecture delivered at the University of Wollongong, 21 February 2012, available online at http://focusonteaching.uow.edu.au/content/groups/public/@web/@cedir/documents/doc/uow119828.pdf

Welch, D 2010, Horror Indian summer, The Sydney Morning Herald, weblog post, 9 January, viewed 31 August 2014, http://www.smh.com.au/national/horror-indian-summer-20100108-lyw0.html

Globalisation: We Are The World

(source: progressivechristiaity.org)

Globalisation, to put simply, makes up every aspect of our lives, from checking the weather forecast in the morning, making a freshly roasted cup of coffee to typing up this very blog post, it involved some sort of globalisation traits. It is an international community influenced by technological development and economic, political and military interests characterised by interdependence, interactivity, interconnectedness, and the virtually instantaneous exchange of information. (Khorana 2014)

Helen & Kean (2002) found the birth of globalisation started as far back as the thirteenth century, when Marco Polo first started trade routes in spices and Christopher Columbus in Tobacco. Then on, it grew and evolved to the mid 1800s up to the World Wars with start-ups in infrastructures, technological advancement and world trade boomed. The great depression sent countries protecting their economies and financial status and from 1945, globalisation stabilised and continues to flourish until today.

Globalisation has many positive and negative effects, whether they cancels each other out is still a mystery yet to be solved. It is undeniable that globalisation has allowed countries to freely trade goods and services encouraging worldwide competitions and boosting the economies. Consumers and the market benefits from the increase in consumer choices and the profit margins of countries. Information are able to travel to their destination instantaneously at the click of a button, this availability of information almost immediately increases production and efficiency. Advances in technologies raises the standard of living and quality of life while increasing investments worldwide

However, where there is success, there is repercussions. The downside of globalisation shows unfair trade practices, wealthier countries have more accessed to education and information allowing them to monopolise the poorer country’s economy. Comparing a third world country to a wealthy country, small business in the third world country would never be able to expand their trading because of the domination of multinational company. Their inability to invest in technology because of their financial status lowers their productivity and efficiency. Investors in wealthier easily outsource their labour markets to these third world countries to take advantage of their cheap labour wages and skills availability.

As the saying goes, the richer gets richer and the poorer gets poorer. In order to reduce and eradicate this inequality, perspectives on globalisation should change, whereby globalisation should be harnessed for the benefit of the world’s citizen, trade liberation should be encouraged and governments are in place to provide stability for the market. Globalisation should be used for poverty reduction. Organisations such a World Vision are In place to challenge those unjust structures which prevents the poor to flourish in the worldwide economy. Our perspectives of globalisation should be that the citizens of earth strives to live in peace and harmony, helping out one another, because we are the host on earth, and it is everyone’s responsibility regardless.  

 Reference:

Khorana, S 2014, ‘BCM111: International Media and Communication’, powerpoint slides, BCM111, University of Wollongong, delivered 6 July 2014.

Ryman & Kean, H 2002, Globalisation: the poor must come first, World Vision internal paper, delivered June 2002, <http://www.worldvision.com.au/Libraries/3_3_1_Aid_Trade_and_MDGs_PDF_reports/Globalisation_The_Poor_Must_Come_First.pdf> 

Appadurai, A (1996) ‘Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy’ Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 27-47

O’Shaughnessy, M and Stadler, J (2008) ‘Globalisation Media and Society (fifth edition) Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 458-471

Time to hand the rest over to the big guys

(picture source)

Time does fly doesn’t it, yesterday I remember enrolling for classes, and today, I’m finishing up my first ever university assignment. Not going to lie, I can’t wait to get this over with and see what’s next in store for BCM110! Before I go on, I’d like to personally thank our lecturer, Professor Sue Turnbull and our tutors for being such a great help in completing this assignment. Looking back, we’ve covered various aspect of the media in our everyday life from discussing about the media effects model, semiotic readings, the importance of authoritative media controller, the public sphere to the term “moral panic”.

Before I’ve taken this subject, I’ve never wondered about significant connotations embedded in an advertisement and how cunningly marketers were able to influence our mind as consumers. I’ve taken an interest in semiotics readings on how we understand what we understand and why we understand it, how there’s always a signifier and signified in a sign and how we interpret them with our mental concept. For instance, I did a blog on semiotic readings using an advertisement from BMW selling their premium used cars, on analysing the piece, I manage to identify its denotations and connotations which brought me to my understanding of why marketers used sexualities as a technique to attract customers in buying cars. Since then, I’ve definitely gain a deeper understanding into what it means about marketing, and how semiotic readings play a huge role in creating a successful marketing campaign

Last but not the least, one of the major help I’ve gotten was from reading fellow student’s BCM110’s blog on WordPress in order to give me an idea about the topic of the week. Furthermore, these blogs are all unique in their own ways talking about the same topic but phrasing and portraying them differently, it gives me the opportunity to challenge their ideas by commenting on their post, gain more knowledge from the readings and act as a platform of support. All in all, I look forward to the rest of this session and can’t wait to get back into blogging again even after this assignment is due!

 

Isaiah Washington’s anatomy

(picture source)

If you are like me, a hardcore fan of Grey’s Anatomy, well then you must’ve heard of the dramatic exit of Doctor Preston Burke, played by Isaiah Washington, from the series when he was fired for insulting co-star T.R Knight with a Homophobic slur. His exit came so sudden viewers were confused and upset and up until now, this controversial issue never came to a close because all three co-star involved in this issue had different version of their own recount of what exactly happened. However, after months of suspense from producers whether or not to continue his role, Washington was ultimately fired even after “executive counselling” and his issue of statement apologizing for his “unfortunate use of words during the recent incident on-set”

The first hand recount of the story, by Washington himself, stated that he was in an argument with his co-star, Patrick Dempsey, regarding punctuality of the set, the argument started heating up and he finally said “a lot of things I’m not really proud of”, he recalled directing the line “there’s no way you’re going to treat me like the B-word, the P-word or the F-word” towards Dempsey. Knight was merely just a spectator and had no involvement whatsoever, his claim on this issue may just be a stunt for gaining more attention from the media.

Knight called Washington a “liar” and that “everyone heard it”, so here’s another side of the story that doesn’t match up to Washington’s. On top of all this turmoil of rumour, they’ve been speculation that there was a triangular love affair going on between Ellen Pompeo, Patrick Dempsey and Isaiah Washington, the fight between Washington and Dempsey started because of Ellen therefore pushing Washington to his limit and saying things he regretted.

Fans of Grey’s Anatomy at first was reluctant to accept the exit of Dr. Burke however after much debate, Washington does look like the “bad guy” among this issue. The story doesn’t end here though, Washington is set to return for a cameo part in mid season 10 to serve as part of a farewell storyline for Sandra Oh’s character, Dr. Christina Yang. This is sure to create some controversial spark in the media!

Reference:

Fleeman, M 2007, Isaiah Washington Explains Why He Used Slur, People, Viewed 7th April 2014, <http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20044381,00.html>