Hey Blog!

We discussed a little bit about Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood in class, so I wanted to share with you guys what I learned

First of all Hollywood was the “birthplace” of movie studios.

Since its time of inception, Hollywood has proved to be a source of inspiration for Bollywood. Bollywood is basically an Indian version of Hollywood. It has long been considered a member of TWC (Third World Cinema).

I need to highlight the cultural strenght of Bollywood, even though the ideal in Bollywood is to be more western they’ve still kept tight reins to their traditions and culture. On typical thing with Bollywood movies is the singing and dancing. It’s a bit more musical movies with a lot of emotions. Another thing is their beliefs; In almost every movie, they show some videoclips of their Gods in hinduism or maybe showing a scene where an actor is asking for help from his hindu-God. This shows that Western cultural imperalism can be stopped in third World countries.

And we can ask ourselves; If there were not elements of western culture that TWC identify with, would Hollywood have such a global success? Well, both yes and no. Hollywood movies are in Engish, and English is a lingua-franca. That leads to the fact that it’s easier for Hollywood to spread globally than it is for Bollywood. Bollywood on the other hand has a small amount of movies in English, or even with subtitles. Therefore, Bollywood doesn’t reach that much out globally compared to Hollywood.

Btw, unless you’ve been living under a rock I guess you’ve heard about Nollywood! No? Don’t worry,, the first time I heard about it was in one of my IE classes. But surprisingly, Nollywood is today the largest film industry. Basically, Nollywood is a “low-budget” film industry in Nigeria. Usually Nollywood movies don’t make it to the cinema,  only on DVD’s.

While Hollywood and Bollywood produce kind of a “get-away from reality” movies, the Nigerian movies focus on the problems in their society, such as poverty and crime. Even though the movies are in low quality, they show the reality of the society in Nigeria.

 

Sources:

http://www.psu.edu/dept/LAOnline/blogs/LASCapstone/2013/03/bollywood-hollywood-and-globalization.html

http://www.desiblitz.com/content/influence-hollywood-bollywood-dance

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121632501511962929

This wilderness management program is actually an advertisement! The purpose of this advertisement is to attract people into volunteering to the program.

Let’s take a look at the beginning of the text: it’s starts with “you”, and it doesn’t stop there. They continue using this word throughout the text. This makes the reader the target.  So this text is written in a way to adress you personally, and the language is focused on you! It’s based on personal interests and plays out on “saving the planet”.

The author of the text uses imperatives, for example “live and work..” “..do your bit”, “make a difference..”. This is to make the reader not only read it, but take actions. You know the difference between “honey you should probably go clean your room” and “go clean your room!” yea it’s kind of like that.

Another thing to notice in the text is the emotive words such as “overwhelming, breathtaking and astonishing”. They are convincing words that makes the reader feel that Svalbard is a beautiful place.

Lastly the text also have a metaphor :”nature’s precious jewel”. This metaphor is used to give the readers a desire to protect this beautiful area.

All in all, this a very easy and a good  convincing advertisement with language features and literaly devices.

Sources:

Paper in class

Only when Europe is experiencing crisis at close range, we are concerned about the things that are happening far away. Once refugees stands outside of our door, then it becomes important to help in the war’s neighboring areas.

Distress in the close areas has been there for a long time, we just didn’t wanted to see it until the need came to us.

This year, hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers traveled by sea to Europe. The external borders in Germany are falling, registration and receptyion apparatus for asylum collapses and refugees die on the run. Europe really has something to learn from those who knows how to deal with such crises.

Usually when refugee crisis arise, the aid agencies are quick and effective, but obviously they need money in order to help. International aid agencies, cooperating with the UN, has for 4 years been helping two million refugees in Turkey, a  million in Lebanon and a million in Jordan.

Let’s take a closer look to the Syrian refugees, one of the most biggest refugee crisis so far this year. Because of the Syrian Civil War, more than 4 million syrian have left the country during the course of war. The refugee crisis began in 2011. The war has become more deadly since foreign powers started to interfere in the conflict.

Reasons why Syrians are fleeing from their home:

Children’s safety: Children in Syria have lost their loved once, lost their schools, hope for future and all the things we barely appreciate because we are so used to these goods. So children’s safety will be very high priority for the Syrians that are fleeing from their homes. The Syrian children are the nation’s hope for a better future.

Ruined infrastructure: In Syria, education, healthcare system and other infrastructure have been collapsed. The economy in this country is shattered. This also is a very big reason why they are fleeing from the country.

Violence: As I mentioned, because of the Syrian Civil War, many people have been killed, many people are homeless and many people are alone.

The refugee’s greatest needs:

The refugees need all the basics to maintain their lives. Food, clothing, health care and a household. Clean water and sanitation facilities are very important and basic needs.

When it comes to the children, they need a safe environment, and a chance have fun and go to school. Adults need employment and have job for a living. Now that the winter has arrived, the refugee’s also need warm clothing, shoes and heaters.

 

Sources:

• HumanRightsWatch– Author: HumanRightsWatch- Published:NOVEMBER 16, 2015
• Wikipedia– Author: Unknown- Published: September 25, 2015
• Wikipedia– Author: Unknown
• BBC news – Published : November 25, 2015
• UN News Center

Press freedom (or freedom of speech) is the freedom of communication through various electronic mediums, such as social media, news websites and commercials.  Even though many countries are in a good situation when it comes to press freedom, there are till some with a critical situation.

(Picture Credit: Reporters Without Borders, Link)

Accoarding to Reporters Without Borders, Countries such as Russia, India, Indonesia and mexico are in a difficult situation. I wanted to focus on press freedom in China it’s the largest country among the other few countries with very serious situation.

over many years the Chinese government has kept tight reins on media. The reason why is to avoid potential upheaval or subversion of it’s athority. It’s tactics often involve strict media controls using monitoring system, shuttering down websites and punishing journalists, activists and bloggers.

Accoarding to Freedom house (link in the below) China was concidered as worlds most restrictive country in 2012 with press freedom. The scores from 2013 weren’t  any better. The score was 83, where 0 is the best and 100 the worst.

Then how free is Chinese Media?

This is a very tricky question. Cause you see, China’s constitution does ALLOW it’s citizens freedom of speech and press, but the vagaueness of Chinese media regulations allows authorities to crack down on news by claiming that they expose “state secrets” and endager the country. This reason is not always the truth. Censorship in China is largely seen as a way to maintain the rule of Communist Party of China. It basically helps to prevent unapproved separatist, reformist and religious ideas from organizing and spreading themselves.

 

(Picture Credit: PoliticalCartoons)

Factors that influence the press freedom

First of all, moral is one very important factor that influence the press freedom in China. It may sound weird, but some censorship has been justified as upholding propar morals. This includes limitations on violence in films and limitations on pornography.

Secondly, the Chinese culture. The political party in China has used censorship to “protect the country’s culture”. During the Cultural Revolution, foreign literature, religious works and symbols of Chinese culture were considered “reactionary”and became targets for destruction.  However, much greater cultural freedom exists in China today.

Lastly, (well there are some others too but,hey who got so much time to write all of them) the censorship in China has been charged for being used not only for political proctionism  or morals and cultural values, but also for economic proctionism. The PRC party banned the website of the French organization Observatoire International des Crises in 2007 after it posted an article on the risks of trading with China.

So just to sum up in a few sentences, censorship in China is so extreme is to prevent political conflicts, not let the Chinese citizens  learn about the past failure mistakes the political party made, and to have a good image of China internationally.

Sources:
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In the beginning of our IE we discussed in the class about Police brutality and racism in the US. After everything I learnt and discovered from this topic, I’m really starting to dislike the U.S (thanks Erica!)  Police brutality is basically the abuse of power by officers. Even though the term “poice brutality” is applied of causing physical harm, it may also involve psycologial harm. That can happen through using threats that are outside of the police law. Not a day goes by without news of another police brutality case or stuff like that. But now that is happening on a daily basis, should we people start questioning if this is the new “norm”?

On August 9 2014, an 18 years old African American boy named Michael Brown was shot by a white  police officer (Darren Wilson, 28). This leaded to an excisting tention among the majority-black-city, and protests urepted.  You might be thinking “oh he must’ve done something very bad to deserve that” yea, he stole several packages of cigarillos and shoved the store clerk. Three minutes, it took ONLY three minutes from the time officer Wilson confronted Brown, until the officers arrived on the scene to fine Brown dead. Those three minutes have been the source of headlines, protests and unrest in Ferguson.

There was a time when hearing news like these was not so common, but today, with the help of technology, it feels like it’s happening every other minute. But does that mean that the amount of police brutality cases 10 years ago were few? I doubt it. The main reason why we see it so often today is because of our smartphones. We are so used to social devices, so it’s very obvious that we’ll share what’s going on around us to the rest of the world. There are so many cases who became headlines because of some streetwalkers who decided to film what whas happening and upload it on youtube, facebook and other social medias.

Cases like Michael Brown’s are numrous. Like for example Eric Garner, also an African American man who died in Staten Island after a police officer put him in a chokehold for about 20 seconds during the arrest. This leaded to protests and charges against police brutality.

 

Or what about Scott Freddie Gray who died after suffering a spinal cord injury while in a police custody. Did I forgot to mention that he was a black guy too?

It’s sad, but we can’t deny the fact that police brutality in the U.S has a strong connection to racism. According to www.washingtonpost.com  50% of americans say racism is a big problem. 5 years ago only 33% admited/recognized that racism is a big problem. “International Humanist and Ethical Union” (link and description in the below) have published statistics that shows us that on average black people are shot dead by white police officers almost twice a week. Mostly those African American’s are under age 21.
In my opinion the racism problem in America has changed a lot in a positive way in the past 10 years due to protests, news headlines and social media. Now since people are getting upset by these videos of police brutality, they are speaking up against it. This will (and is)  lead to more strict law for police officers. If we look back in the history, americans are actually becoming more aware of the problems and starting to stand up for their rights. A lot of these cases like Michael Brown, Scott Gray etc could have been avoided if the police force followed a more strict law.

Link to International Humanist and Ethic Union: www.iheu.org

CitizenFour (2014) is a documentary film  directed by Laura Poitras, conserning Edward Snowdan and NSA.

In summer 2013 the jounalist Glen Greenwald started to publish a bunch of articles about the american government spying on every single citizen. The medias all over the globe began to question where all of this information actually came from. Who was the whistle blower?

In a hotelroom in Hong Kong it was a man who had left his life and his loved once behind, sitting there and knewing he might never see them again. The directer was also in that room with this man, who wanted her to tell his story to the world.  This man’s name is Edward Snowdan who was a senior government employee in the intelligence community. He already knew contacting the filmmaker Laura was an extremely high risk, but he only wanted to help expose the massive surveillance apparatus set up by the NSA (National Security Agency, without being the centre of the attention. He didn’t want people to focus about him, but rather what he is exposing to the world.

On June 21, the US government requested the hong Kong government to extradite (transfer a criminal/suspected to another country). Snowdan managed successfully to depart from Hong Kong, but the US government cancelled his passport before he could connect to Havana, therefore he got stucked in an airport in Moscow for many days. On Agust 1st, the Russian Government grants Snowdan asylum for a period of one year.

The film closes with Snowdan, Greenwald and Poitras meeting once again, but this time is Russia.

There are two groups of people out there; One who thinks Snowdan is a brave hero who exposed to the world how the government is misusing their power, and two, those who thinks he had no right to do what he did and the government is only doing it to protect our country from terrorism etc etc.

For me, Snowdan is a hero and as a hero he should get credit. I mean, think about it! How many terroism activists has been found with this method? And why did NSA lie when they were asked if they spied on citizens.

When I first watched this movie in class, I was having much more fun staring at the floor than focusing on the screen, but when the boring part was over (the first 15 minutes) it turned out to become quite exciting! So I would definatly recommend you to at least try to understand what this documentary is about. Try to understand that this is in real life and it’s happening out there, without our knowledge.

so guys, before you search anything on Google, remember; someone is watching! JK,..or am I?