Media Representatin of Women in Sport free essay sample

Major Essay Current society is built upon stereotypes and constructions that are predetermined by previous generations’ views. One of the most recognised historical constructions is the patriarchal theory, that the female is subservient to the male. However, this construction of gender power is slowly equalising, with the rise of feminist groups in the latter part of the 20th century giving reason for this occurring. Nevertheless, gender battles are still occurring, particularly in the sporting industry, which remains male dominated. Female sport has been given much notoriety over their uproar in the past decade, but is finding in a male controlled industry it is difficult for women to receive help from governing bodies. Female sport is marginalised compared to male sport, largely due to the sexualisation of the athletes themselves. Professionally they are receiving very little media coverage in comparison to males and in an amateur sense; females are being stereotyped as a result of the images of ‘athletic’ sexualised women displayed in magazines such as Zoo, Sports Illustrated and Alpha. We will write a custom essay sample on Media Representatin of Women in Sport or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The media has evolved female sport into sexually appealing entertainment and doesn’t give the sports that have not been sexualised, enough coverage. (Maria Sharapova Bikini) The media have constructed their own image of what a female athlete ultimately looks like by posting images in their magazines, â€Å"characteristics favoured in visual media are those commonly associated with feminine beauty, such as smiling, unblemished skin, slender and toned physique, and long blonde hair† (Schell n. d. ). Maria Sharapova pictured below is the perfect example, and even though she isn’t the number one female tennis player and hasn’t been for some time, she is still one of the most popular and most followed players in the women’s circuit, she was the highest paid female athlete in the world come 2006, earning more from endorsements than prize money (Carr 2006). We see in Australia the sexualisation of sports like Netball, where women in the ANZ Championship wear skin tight, short dresses to play, making it appealing to male audiences. We often see at the Australian Open, similar length dresses or skirts that leave little to the imagination. Venus Williams sent the media into frenzy in 2010 with her skin colour underwear visible as soon as she moved around the court, to which she designed herself (Eurosport 2010). Tennis uniforms are becoming a fashion statement more and more every year, which is always judged by the media when someone wears something even slightly risky or sexy. Anna Kournikova was the pioneer in making tennis ‘sexy’ with her risque photographs in the magazine Sports Illustrated (Cover pictured below). Former tennis player and feminist rights activist Billie Jean King gave a response to the Anna Kournikova Sport illustrated photographs with this, â€Å"It doesnt bother me at all if some of the guys come out to watch womens tennis because they want to see a beautiful woman. Who could hold that against Anna? Still, its unfortunate when others with a high skill factor dont win the endorsements. Sure, the good-looking guys get more endorsements, but the difference in mens sports is that the ugly ones get their share, too. †(Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles 2000) In America, ‘sexploitation’ is taken to another level at a professional level, particularly in the sports of wrestling and in the gridiron league Lingerie Football League. In these competitions, females wear very little, going down to the bare minimum. Pictured below is an image of the Lingerie Football League, clearly the uniforms (Lingerie Football League 2009)(Anna Kournikova 2000) leave little to be desired, but are used to entertain to a male dominated audience. These sports are both considered to be female sports in their own right, but we also see the sexualisation of women in male sports, particularly in professional sides in the form of cheerleaders. Cheerleaders provide entertainment during the sporting breaks, which we often see during breaks in male sports, providing a view of females in general as sexual objects and inferior to the male ‘athletes’. So from our perspective it is clear that the media has constructed a view that the amateur female athlete must be ‘sexy’ in order to be able to succeed, we don’t read in magazines or see photographs of less attractive female athletes, they have excluded them for what in their mind is good reason, sex sells. However it is creating an unrealistic image of the perfect female athlete, they are not judged by how good they are at hitting, catching, shooting, running or jumping, but by how much they can get paid for taking their clothes off. (Caple, Greenwood Lumby 2010) Another cause for concern over female sport is that professionally they are not getting anywhere near enough media coverage and money as their male counterparts. The media cover male sport in far more depth; in fact a study in 2006 by South Australian Premier’s Council for Women found just 4. per cent of coverage was about female sport () and on Foxtel approximately 10 per cent was about female sport (Senate Standing Committees on Environment, Communications and the Arts 2006). The chart below shows the volume of news coverage that all the different sports receive, which not surprisingly shows Tennis as being pretty much the main female sport that is being covered, with very little else in comparison to male sport, even horses gain more exposure than females. So while females are being splayed all over the magazines in compromising poses and clothing, they receive very little coverage of them competing within their sports. So even though the â€Å"Australian women’s swimming team at the 2004 Olympic games secured more medals than their male counterparts. The women’s hockey team, the Hockeyroos have frequently dominated international competition, winning Olympic gold and international championships on many occasions. The Australian women’s netball team has won eight of eleven world championships†(Senate Standing Committees on Environment, Communications and the Arts 2006), we still don’t see these teams play, other than at major sporting competitions like the Olympic and Commonwealth games. The lack of exposure can be hurtful to professional female athletes, in an interview with former Australian netball player explains her pain, â€Å"’I went very close to an emotional breakdown’ Ellis said, describing a time when she was struggling to combine her work as a solicitor, a marriage and the daily demands of club training and competing for Australia. (Magnay 2006) So while professional male sportsman have sport as their only profession earning a large salary in doing so, most women who compete at the top levels of their sports don’t actually receive any payment for their services, or if they do, they definitely couldn’t live of it, so majority of them have normal day jobs, which in itself would be stressful, but in conjunction with family, training and games, they must lead extremely demanding lives, which hardly seems reasonable. The inability of female sport to be fully professional and given similar or equal coverage in the media leaves the representation of women very much being subservient in a male dominated industry. The representation of the ultimate female ‘athlete’ projected as a result of the sexualisation that has occurred in higher level sport today has created a flow on effect into the amateur level of sport. Solmon et al. (2003) found that college-aged women who perceive a sport as gender-neutral are more confident about participating than are women who identify a sport as masculine. †(Hardin and Greer 2009, 207) Which is a direct result from media exposure, they see sports on television almost every day; recognize that it is a male sport as the athletes are male and then deem it too masculine to try. There is also the issue of sexuality discrimination when a female becomes involved with sport; because we see the masculine sports on television, any participation in such by a female has become deemed as homosexual, constructed by our culture and media, â€Å"so when a female is called a ‘dyke’ or ‘lesbian’ in a derogatory manner, she may alter her actions and dress to be ‘more feminine,’ downplay her athletic talents, or avoid sport altogether†(Schell n. d. ). This has become a common problem with women’s amateur sport, particularly sports that are deemed to be too masculine for women to try such as cricket (Burroughs, Seebohm and Ashburn 1995, 29) and Australian Rules football (Hillier 2006, 18) that there is an automatic stereotype of being homosexual. The social construction that female participants are labelled as homosexual in male dominated sports is a media formed fallacy. The reason why this has occurred is that in past societies, homosexuality was frowned upon and when a female athlete is found to be a lesbian, then the media reveals it to the world, the stereotype builds. This happened to the Australian women’s cricket team in the opposite fashion when â€Å"it was reported that female cricketer, Denise Annetts, had been dropped from the Australian team and had alleged that her sacking was due to her heterosexual preference and marital status. †( Burroughs, Seebohm and Ashburn 1995, 29) This built the reputation than women’s cricket still holds to this day. Nowadays there has been a movement towards helping women’s sport grow more. There have been the new Australian digital television channels which allowed channel Ten to show Netball during the day on their channel ‘One’. ABC still broadcast lawn bowls and women’s Basketball fairly often, and just this year, channel Nine started broadcasting female Twenty20 cricket that was played before the men’s game. So there has been improvement in the coverage regard, however women across the globe are still victims of sexploitation, which is undermining the coverage solution because we are still able to receive the media’s representation of females in sport as marginalised and subservient to a male industry. Until this is solved and females stand up against this, then there is little chance they have in improving their image in the sporting industry. Reference List Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles. 2000. Sportsletter. 12 (1,2): 2009. Quoted in Messner 2002, 100. Anna Kournikova. Image. 2000. http://sportsillustrated. cnn. com/vault/cover/toc/9744/index. htm (accessed May 20, 2011). Australia. Senate Standing Committees on Environment, Communications and the Arts. 2006. About time! Women in sport and recreation in Australia. Volume 1. Canberra: Senate Printing Unit. Burroughs, A. , L. Seebohm, and L. Ashburn. 1995. Sporting Traditions. The Journal of the Australian Society for Sports History 12 (1): 29. Google. www. google. om. au (accessed 21 May 2011). Caple, H. , K, Greenwood and C, Lumby. Image. 2010. http://www. ausport. gov. au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/356209/Towards_a_Level_Playing_Field_LR. pdf (accessed May 20, 2011) Carr, J. 2006. Maria Sharapova has become the sport’s most marketable icon. http://mariasharapova. wetpaint. com/page/Endorsements (accessed May 20, 2011). Eurosport. 2010. Australian Open Cheeky Venus outfit shocks crowd. http://uk. eurosport. yahoo. com/24012010/58/australian-open-cheeky-venus-outfit-shocks-crowd. html (accessed May 23, 2011). Hardin, M. , J. D. Greer. 2009. The Influence of Gender-Role Socialization, Media Use and Sports Participation on Perceptions of Gender-Appropriate Sports. Journal of Sport Behavior 32 (2): 207. Questia. www. questia. com (accessed 19 May 2011). Hillier, L. 2006. Safe Spaces: The upside of the image problem for same sex attracted young women playing Australian Rules football. International Journal of Football Studies 8 (2): 18. Google. www. google. com. au (accessed 21 May 2011). Lingerie Football League. Image. 2009. http://www. stuff. co. nz/sport/2834471/New-Lingerie-Football-League-under-debate (accessed May 20, 2011). Magnay, J. 2006. Women deserve sporting chance: Ellis. http://www. smh. com. au/news/sport/women-deserve-sporting-chance-ellis/2006/08/02/1154198205721. html (accessed 20 May 2011). Maria Sharapova Bikini. Image. n. d. http://www. dailybum. com/ (accessed May 20, 2011). Messner, M. 2002. Taking the Field: Women, Men and Sports. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Schell, B. n. d. (Dis)Empowering Images? Media Representations of Women in Sport. http://www. womenssportsfoundation. org/Content/Articles/Issues/Media-and-Publicity/D/DisEmpowering-ImagesMedia-Representations-of-Women-in-Sport. aspx (accessed May 20, 2011). Short Research Essay Reflection What strengths and weaknesses did you identify in your Short Research Essay? My short research essay was not quite as good as what I had hoped, the topic Sexual Abuse in Sport: With a focus on the AFL was too narrow, it was not a smart decision to give myself such a small focus, which basically narrowed myself down to Australian texts only, which wasn’t easy. I did find a fair arrange of resources, but perhaps didn’t utilise them as much, and just relied on my own theory. The need to rely on stereotypes and overuse of emotive language also hampered my essay. How did you use the tutor’s feedback to improve your work for the Major Essay? I firstly acknowledged the fact that my essay used too much emotive language and made it a conscious focus to not try and use it so much, to what effect I am not sure, it is a habit in my writing that needs fixing for the future. I also rewrote my whole essay, broadening the topic to women in sport, which meant I could find an array of sources. I also have cleared up my analysis and hopefully the referencing has improved. All in all I believe that this essay is a far improvement on the short research essay.

A Letter to My Future Self Essays

A Letter to My Future Self Essays A Letter to My Future Self Essay A Letter to My Future Self Essay After lunch and sitting in English class. Wondering why I have to write this letter to my future self. I dislike the fact that I cant think of anything to write about myself. It is very frustrating because. Who cant write about themselves? This is one of the things that bother me the most. I am a eighth grade student for Tazewell middle school. Very quite on the inside of class. But on the outside, I dont shut up. I dont know what my goals are but, I either want to be a professional basketball player or go into the marines. I dont like school whatsoever but, thats the only way Im going to make something of myself. I dont know if its school or the people I go to school with. Hate to say it but some days I would rather be at school than at home. I am concerned about passing because in some classes we take a lot of test and thats a serious problem. A few reasons I really like myself is I can get along with anyone. No matter what as long as your cool towards me an d a good person. Then youre alright. Some things I dont like about myself is I get mad very easily. I have a temper and I really dont like being upset. I enjoy playing basketball for JV because, I got to play a lot and in really good at it. Another reason why I really liked it is because I am only in the eighth grade and started Junior Varsity. My world is great, I have everything a teenager could ask for. I live with my mom and my older brother. I live in a 3 bedroom house. Got a big room to myself but I sleep in the living room. Because our couch is so comfortable. I go to a school with people I know and like. Some of the techies are cool, some can be mean for no good reason. I live in a pretty good neighborhood but there is just one down fall about it. The name of my street is Elm street. When I first moved here I was creeped out. But now Im use to it. Its not just the street name that creeps me out. Its the fact that it is right next to a grave yard. I guess th

Final Project IEP Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

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Nursing theory - Research Paper Example Nursing research and practice involve providing proper clinical care and also care that is concerned with coordination (Roe & Webb, 1998). It is defined as the study of a problem in the field of nursing. It is essential in terms of development in the sector, and also creates the basis for nursing practice. When it comes to nursing research and practice, those involved in providing the proper medical care have a role of ensuring that the participant of the research is catered for in terms of safety and maintenance (American Nurses Association, 2010).  They also make sure that there is proper consent involved and that the data collected is correct since it will be utilized as a reference at one time or another. They also ensure that data collection, recording and storage is done well, and the process followed up. There are certain factors that are involved and relate to nursing research and practice. They include; client, environment, health and nursing. The client or the person who is involved needs to give consent before the research begins, when it comes to nursing research and practice. Proper consent from an individual is required since it gets the researchers one step closer to figuring out the main cause of the problem in the medical field and also to figuring out the best way to deal with the current problem. It is also essential that consent be given before the collection of data is done. In order for the research to bear fruit, then there is a need to be cooperation, both from the researcher and the individual being researched. A willing client gives much better results than an unwilling one. Another factor that relates to nursing research and practice is the environment (Roe & Webb, 1998). The proper environment should be present for a better chance of collecting the required results. Suppose the problem is within a certain area, then the best approach is to

Understanding Abuse Individual Assessment

Understanding Abuse Individual Assessment In day to day life abuse activities are growing rapidly and the measures to prevent them are also getting more specific .The exercise of power by the state on this sector is the most important thing to solve this problem. The government bodies are making different plans, policies to prevent abuse and create a healthier society and the nation. Mckibbin et al (2008) states that range of legislation and policies are designed to protect individual, groups, and vulnerable adults from abuse these are- The Care Standard Act 2000 Confidentiality policy Whistle Blowing Policy Physical Intervention Policy Complaint Procedure in Care Home Confidently and disclosure Trust is an integral part of our ability to provide consistent high standards of care and such it must not be broken. A persons trust is not a right but a special privilege, which means you must exercise care and thought in your handling of confidence. 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If there is a high risk, evaluate whether levels are adequate and if not have the flexibility to have extra staff on one given shift. Rotating high risk jobs thus ensuring the same person is not always at risk. The team should also have the ability to evaluate a task and decide what action if any is necessary. Make sure a senior member of staff on duty can make quick decisions if necessary. Ensuring the whole staff team is aware of particular guidelines, Risk Assessments and Care Plans. Making available the appropriate information for a particular task to be understood so that this can be undertaken with minimal risk. Staff training is essential for all aspects of our jobs and can give staff some of the necessary tools for coping with and lessening violence. This should encourage a more positive body language and this in turn should lessen violent episodes within the service. We clarify with all residents that violent behaviour is not acceptable however we shall not judge or condemn their behaviour. You must acquaint yourself with and abide by all and each of the issues current for the time being of the Companys Using Physical Intervention Policy. The Company revises all such policy and procedural documents on a regular basis responding to changes in contemporary care practice, the needs of the Company and the needs to ensure continued efficiency. The responsibility to maintain awareness of and act upon on-going revision of such documents remains wholly that of the individual staff member. Although these various statements and procedures are not formally expressed terms of your Contract of Employment, compliance is regarded as important by the Company and failure to abide by the same way lead to disciplinary action. Other policies Legislation implements by the Care Standard Act 2000 and the CQC aims to ensure that care home operates in a legal way in the release of care to the customers. Health and Safety at work Act 1974 is to give and preserve safe and healthy working conditions in workplace. Data Protection Act 1998, it is applies confidentiality. Disclosure Act 1998 about abuse and whistle blowing. The Human Rights Act 1998 shows a whole range of rights and freedom of people. DOH (1998) Strengths and weaknesses in current legislation and policies: In every policies and programmes there can be strength and weakness side so it s the important factor to identify which one is strength and weakness factor . We can make our strength more stronger and decrease or eliminate the weakness when we are well known about these factors. Here are some of the strength and weakness factors in current legislation and policies; CRB Check (Adult protection): CRB and POVA will give that the employee (candidate criminal offence report) but it is doing only in the UK. When candidate from abroad did crime there in his back home country, CRB in UK wont show those crimes, in that case its better to check the foreign police clearance certificate as well. Whistle Blowing Policy: Its the way to Improve the legislation practices and is a democratic option to build a healthier policy. But in some cases whistle blowing can create misunderstanding between the staffs and can decrease the motivation and security of the employees and can lead to worse condition as well. Complaint Procedure: It will improve the service at the same time most demented people wont be able to complaint due to their disability Residential Care Home Manager Managers may direct workers directly or they may direct several supervisors who direct the workers. The manager must be familiar with the work of all the groups he/she supervises, but does not need to be the best in any or all of the areas. It is more important for the manager to know how to manage the workers than to know how to do their work well. Annie Phillips (2003) Manager should have sufficient qualification and experience and no bad remark in Criminal record Bureau (CRB) records. (Frances 2004). Customers may be various and to meet the variety of their requirements, as a manager we have to be clear about what exactly each is seeking, what is needed is a way of thinking about the array of customers of residential care home. Social care council The general social care council is responsible for registration of all social care workers. The council regulates their conduct and their training. It will support for the setting and maintaining good practice standards. (Frances 2004). With having higher powers of operation in this sector social care council should be highly responsible for the better conduct and operation of the activities. Care Assistant These group of people are the direct responsible groups who cafà © the target group so they should be well trained, and to be as per the standard set by the council. Workers should free from CRB and required to register with the council and need to be appropriately qualified (minimum NVQ 2) Should be able to give personal care, followed best practice, allow the residents to maintain their dignity, privacy and respected their individuality through out. (Frances 2004) Working practice and strategies used to minimise abuse Answer 3 Approaches To Adult Protection There are many working practices implemented to minimise abuse in Health and Social Care Sectors the practices follows Adams (2007) states that in England, multiagency codes of practice aiming to tackle and prevent abuse of vulnerable adults developed in the light of the publication of the official guidance No Secrets (DOH and Home Office,2000). Protection of Vulnerable Adults (POVA) Adams (2007) states that The protection of vulnerable adults (POVA) scheme was introduced in England and Wales in a phased programme from 2004,as required in the Care Standard Act 2000.This formed a list of persons considered not fitting to with vulnerable adults in England and Wales. People considered harmful to vulnerable adults could be referred by health and social care setting managers or employers of care for enclosure on the inventory These providers also could request for checks alongside the POVA list as part of an application for a CRB disclosure regarding persons apply for vacancies in care work. National minimum Standard were introduced for residential care Under the POVA actions safeguarding adults partnership have been set up from 2005 in each CQC area. Alerts may be triggered by inspectors, sometimes when inspecting or investigating a complaint. Safeguarding inspectors will deal with any safeguarding adults matters arising from this. Where there are concerns about the fitness of the manager of an establishment, registered person, or service or a breach of the Care Standard Act 2000, the CQC could be the main investigating agency. A safeguarding plan should be produced through a case conference, normally reviewed within six months. Complaint Procedures Registered providers of health and social care services are bound by law to produce a complaints procedure, specifying how service users, carers or patients can complain about the services. The procedure normally involves the complaint being investigated or responded to first by the service provider, although if the complaint is made to CQC inspection. The CQC may decide itself to carry out an investigation. Whistle blowing This usually involves a person making public some aspect of a group or organisation which they feel is wrong, dangerous, deficient or otherwise needing putting right through public attention. It is the activity of telling a third party, apart from colleagues or the employer, about malpractice. It will be unusual if any worker in the health and social care services does not come across some aspect of whistle blowing. This can arise directly or indirectly in three major ways, where: You are the whistleblower: you notice practice you feel is not acceptable and you consider telling a third party, outside the line management, about it. A colleague is the whistleblower: you see another person blowing the whistle on practices they consider unacceptable. The whistle is blown about practice involving you: where someone complains about, or blow the whistle on, some practice with which youre connected. Case Conferences Pritchard (1996) states that Case conference is very imp[ortant in to prevent abuse. A case conference brings people together to share their views and to discuss their work.It should be a forum where people can discuss their concerns,vent their feelings and anxieties and support each other. It is also a tool for organising future intervention. In summary the main purposes of a case conference are to: Exchange information in a multi disciplinary forum Assess the cliens situation and the degree of risk Make decidion and recommendation which are to be implemented Participants attending a case conference have several tasks to perform, namely: To give and share information The information given must be accurate.the participants gives factual information about the people they know( victim,abuser,or other important personnel). Obviousely participants voice their concerns,but they must also highlight the strength of a situation not just the negatives. Any gaps in information should always be identified and acknowledged. To assess the level of risk While handling a case of suspected abuse always need to do a risk assesment it is very important in case conference. Decide on registration Few authorities have at risk register for adults.where they do exist conference participants must know what know what the defined criteria are for putting a person name on the register. Co ordinate future intervention This will involve the formulation of a plan,which will state the tasks and responcibilities of everyone who will be involved. The keyworker will be responcible for ensuring that the plan s implemented and reconvening the case conference if there are difficulties in implementing the plan. Following are some suggestion for further improvements in working practices to minimise abuse in health and social care context When any one going to works for health and social care setting thet must check against POVA and CRB. POVA they can check new staffs with the provisional body whether they are free from Abusive offence in the United kingdom but here there is a drawback in case if the new employee is from outer United kingdom it will be harder to find whether the employee had any Abusive offence in their country. So we can ask particular employee to give references and police clearance from their own country. So as employer of the organisation get a full detail of the new employee further more every employee must have a proper relevant training such as Manual handling, Adult protection and many more so as manager of the organisation make sure all the staffs are well trained for the job and the manager must do supervision and appraisal the the employee. Whistle blowing is a good practice and it also got some disadvantages for an example in a residential care home all employees are from a certain country and in this team no one whistle blow about their country people to prevent this the manager always employ different ethnicity employees to the organisation and manager educate their staff about abuse. Communication and working in partnership is very important in minimising/preventing abuse in health and social care if not there are many more cases like Baby P,Victoria Climbie can happen future. 1 identify and review exiting working practice and strategies designed to minimalism abuse in health and social care context As we know abuse is a violation of an individuals human and civil rights by any other person or persons. So these violations should be restricted and some of the strategies to limit the abuse are being implemented everyday. Its very important to identify the practices and strategies to minimise abuse in health and social care sector. Some of the practices and strategies are as follows. Safeguarding vulnerable adults: These special group of people need support from the society and nation and its the responsibility of the nation to protect them and help them to live. Domestic violence: Domestic violence has remained as a chronic problem in social sector. Strong support of family, friends and society are the base for preventing this problem. Government has also made strict rules regarding the domestic violence. Racial harassment: Any type of behaviors that makes you feel distressed, alarmed or afraid can be categorized as harassment. This can include: verbal abuse, such as name-calling, insults or racist jokes vandalism and racist graffiti nuisance phone calls, texts or emails bullying, intimidation and threats Physical abuse or violence. Working practice Verbal and oral communication Communication both with the service provider and user, involved in their care and support is necessary if any potential for harm and abuse is to be minimised. Care must be taken when communicating information, verbally to ensure it remains confidential. For example that is not overheard by others. Written records must be kept in secure place and only accessible to that person who need to know or are responsible for those communications. Use of IT in sharing information between professionals Now days mostly health and social care organisation use computer to keep data about service user. It is important to make sure that data remains protected under the Data Protection Act 1998. Important information specially documents of abuses which are highly sensitive and disclosure of this information can be occurred harm for victims, should be stored by using password. Any kind of data share between professional must be informed individuals before sharing. Anti-oppressive practice In relation to supporting and protecting adult from abuse important information should not be withheld from those who have a right to that information. According to the British Law a person is innocent until it is proved that is guilty and it is important therefore that worker and other do not jump to conclusion or make assumption about a persons guilt. Adult Protection procedures are in place to make sure that no one is treated in oppressive manner which is abuse itself. So before knowing the abuser its not legal to assume them. Anti-discriminatory practice Everybody should take care in avoiding any kind of discriminatory practice when identifying, reporting and acting to protect individual from abuse. Individual legal right is that when investigating any case of abuse involve with them, they should free from any kind of blame and miss judgment. Frame work of assessment The aim of framework of assessment is protecting vulnerable people. There are different types of framework can save people from being abused. To minimise abuse in institutional care recruiting is so important. Proper selection of employee can reduce abuse in many ways, the process of selecting POVA employee can be clarified as follows; Is it a care position set out sub sec. 80(2) (c) of the Care Standard Act? Continue with recruitment/selection process including CRB disclosure where Appropriate Conduct recruitment /selection process including CRB check No Yes Await CRB disclosure and conformation of POVA check. Is it a care position set out sub sec. 80(2) (c) of the Care Standard Act? Yes No Apply for POVA first check as waiting would put provider of care breach of statutory staffing requirements POVA first check shows that a person with the same name and date of birth is on the POBA list Yes No No Do not offer employment in a care position in a care home or with a domiciliary agency No Offer employment subject to CRB disclosure and conformation of the POVA check Await CRB disclosure and final POVA check. Offer (or confirm) employment in a care position in a care home or with a domiciliary care agency Does CRB disclosure indicate that person should not be employed in a care position? Does conformation shows that applicant on the POVA list Strategies Working in partnership with service user Care sector agencies working in partnership is only part of the overall strategy to protect vulnerable adult from abuse. Enabling service users to recognise abuse and knowing how to alert others to this another important strategy. Decision making process and forums Local authority social service departments are responsible for adult protection and has set adult protection forum. If not then the local policy and procedure will describe the decision making process in situation where suspected or actual abuse require investigation. Strategy between professional and within organisation Working in partnership is also crucial, especially when the service user is accessing a number of different services. Effective communication between professional and organisation is important to ensure that the service user is protected. Communicating information about changes, significant event and action ensures that all those involved with supporting the service user are monitoring their well being so that they shouldnt be abused. Effectiveness of policies and strategies Use of IT in sharing information is protective and secure than traditional paper work besides to make quickest service use of technology is also important. Oral communication between care professional is remain confidential which means this information is not overheard by other people. Anti- oppressive practice and anti-discriminatory practice decrease chance of further abuse and frame work of assessment shows how to assess service user or assess employee before entering care work (POVA framework, diagram 1.1) Working in partnership within service user helps to stay closer with service user and give the opportunity to know their needs and demand. Multi agency working is very crucial to protect vulnerable adult from abuse which lacks in only one agency. Implications To do further improvement in care profession to protect vulnerable person from being abused local authority should closely monitor proper implementation of legislation. Care organisation shouldnt send care worker to the work, before making sure that they are skilled enough to work otherwise the same thing will happen what was happened in the case of Victoria climbie and Baby p. Those two children died in their early age under the same authority because of lack of experience of care worker. Conclusion: Abuse has very bad impact in the society. Without preventing abuse activities in the society its very hard to develop and development and civilization may get worst. It should be removed from our society by making sure the proper implementation of rules and legislation. We have to consider that abuse destroys individuals hopes, desires and interest of life and finally leads to a great social problem in the community and a nation. Recommendation Changing individuals mentality is most important to minimize abuse. Besides. working in partnership is also a way to diminish it. Step of government and help of Non Government Organisations (NGOs) is extremely needed to remove it and make it a permanent result. Thus as we know abuse is a social problem and cannot be solved through ones effort only so every members of society should play active roles in preventing abusive activities.

Oppression in Cry Freedom Cry, the Beloved Country :: Cry the Beloved Country Essays

Oppression in Cry Freedom   Cry, the Beloved Country  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚      For years the government of South Africa suppressed its black population. Oppression that wasn’t deserved, oppression based on difference in color. In both of these works, the cries of South Africa were heard. The cries of the black people that are the foundation of South Africa, the blacks that were the heart of what South Africa was all about. In both stories, there is the fact that the only way to change your ways sometimes has to come through suffering. In Cry Freedom, we   see change through extreme suffering in the character of Donald Woods. Woods starts out in the movie as being not really open to the ideas of black consciousness. He sees them as only getting the blacks into more trouble. After meeting Biko, he starts to warm up to the ideas the blacks hold precious, but when Biko dies, Woods becomes a whole new man. Immediately, Woods begins to notify the public about how these blacks are being treated. He changes the way he goes about fighting for the rights of the blacks. Before, he only stood behind the black population of South Africa. After Biko’s death, he leads them. He is looked down upon by most whites, and hate crimes, like when the police came to his house and shot through the windows,   are committed against him and his family. Yet still, he fights. He moves his whole family away and writes a book to help the plighted blacks in South Africa. After Biko’s death, he begins to see himself as the only o ne who can continue Biko’s hope for South Africa. In Cry, the Beloved Country, every character involved goes through severe suffering and it leads to change. Kumalo goes through tremendous suffering, with the death of his son. He has to face it, and begin to understand the many problems in the lives of the black population in South Africa. He leaves Johannesburg   with a new and improved view on the changes taking in place in the South Africa that he used to know. We see Kumalo’s change after he returns to Ndotsheni. â€Å"Kumalo began to pray regularly in his church for the restoration of Ndotsheni. But he knew that was not enough. Somewhere down here upon the earth men must come together, think something, do something†(Paton 263). He now realizes that praying isn’t enough, that he has to work toward making South Africa a better place.

Brave New World: Utopia or Dystopia Essay

The novel Brave New World has often been characterized as dystopia rather than utopia. Nevertheless, the superficial overview of the novel implies a utopian society, especially if judging by what the Controller said to John, the Savage: People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get. They’re well off; they’re safe; they’re never ill; they’re not afraid of death; they’re blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they’re plagued with no mothers or fathers; they’ve got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they’re so conditioned that they practically can’t help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there’s soma. (Huxley, 2002: 151) Enjoying themselves in feelies, electromagnetic golf and in soma they are never worried, sad, nor solitary. The most frequent sentence pronounced in the novel which describes the people’s emo tional state of mind is „Everybody’s happy nowadays.â€Å" People spend time at work, spending money on new things, having fun and sex which does not involve any deep feelings or love relationship. The moment we take a deeper insight into this society, ideal perfection, or utopia, immediately disappears. The human kind is artificially generated, people are conditioned to suit their social roles in the Community, they are unconscious that their lives are carefully planned, manipulated and controlled by a few leaders. This picture does not imply a Brave New World to be a utopian society. Opposite to utopia stands dystopia, defined by dictionaries as „an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful livesâ€Å" (Hornby, 1995: 362). A little bit softer tone of this definition can be applied to Huxley’s society. People do not live in a fear, they do the job they are predestined to and therefore comfortable with, they lead the life they are made for, without making any arguments, and the most of all they are satisfied and happy with the way the things are. „All the people who, for one reason or another, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life. All the people who aren’t satisfied with orthodoxy, who’ve got independent ideas of their own.† (Huxley, 1995: 155) are punished. But â€Å"Brave New World has its own gentler punishments: for non-conformists, it’s exile to Iceland, where Man’s Final End can be discussed among like-minded intellects, without pestering â€Å"normal† people – in a sort of university, as it were.â€Å" (Atwood, 2007: par. 17). Contrary to this civilized society, there is another smaller society, a Savage Reservation. John, the Savage, raised in the Reservation, has been taken to the Other Place. He was eager to go there as his mother told him beautiful stories about that civilized world. People living in the Reservation are considered not to have been „civilizedâ€Å" and they lead their lives as people did before, in harmonization with nature. They believe in marriage, they are monogamous and religious. Family is important to them. All the aspects of their lives are considered as uncivilized by people from the Other Place who consider them primitive. They still undergo the process of aging and mourn when someone dies. Growing old is artificially stopped in the Other Place, and death is accepted as the usual end. In a Hospital for the Dying eighteen months – old – children get accustomed to death. „All the best toys are kept there, and they get chocolate cream on death days. They learn to take dying as a matter of course.† (Huxley, 1995: 109). This society, the World State, has its motto „Community, Identity, Stabilityâ€Å" which governs its citizens’ lives. The society is arranged so that apart from the division to social classes, everybody is part of one unit, one large community which is controlled by only a few people, called the Controllers. The Controllers created the environment which suits people’s lives in order to benefit the Community. Identity is related to the Bokanovsky process. This process creates identical people, twins of the same qualities. They can hatch out up to 96 twins from only one ovary and a gamete. These armies, or sets of identical people with same abilities serve the Community. Therefore „Bokanovsky’s Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!† (Huxley, 1995: 7). Community has to be stable in order to survive. They strive for stability, â€Å"the primal and ultimate need.† (Huxley, 1995: 31). For this reason, apart from bokanovskification, controllers do their best to satisfy people’s impulses and vices, so they arranged â€Å"no strain on the mind or the muscles. Seven and a half hours of mild, unexhausting labour, and then the soma ration and games and unrestricted copulation and the feelies.† (Huxley, 1995: 153). Unrestricted copulation and the proverb â€Å"everyone belongs to everyone else†, repeated for so many times during hypnopaedic lessons, complete one another together. They can copulate with anyone they like whenever and wherever they want. Moreover, it is quite impolite not to do so. Having been raised in this manner it was so strange for Lenina when the Savage rejected to be intimate with her. Unlike Lenina, he relies on monogamy and romance, which in the World State are considered as „a narrow channelling of impulse and energy.† (Huxle y, 1995: 29). Even though they are not burdened with problems, people in the Brave New World are deprived of most human qualities. They cannot think for themselves as they have literally built-in instincts, aspirations and abilities. They are ufamiliar with what the term family connotes. What used to be the base of a prosperous and a healthy society is now regarded as something unnecessary, impure and offensive to talk about. When the Controller talked to students about family and relations in family „one of the boys, more sensitive than the rest, turned pale at the mere description and was on the point of being sick.† (Huxley, 1995: 27) since the negative attitude and feelings towards family and family life are embedded from their early childhood. The Controller once more reminds them: â€Å"And home was as squalid psychically as physically. Psychically, it was a rabbit hole, a midden, hot with the frictions of tightly packed life, reeking with emotion. What suffocating intimacies, what dangerous, insane, obscene relationships between the members of the family group!† (Huxley, 1995: 28). According to Atwood „The word â€Å"mother† – so thoroughly worshipped by the Victorians – has become a shocking obscenity.â€Å" (Atwood, 2007: par. 18). Wherever in the novel characters mention mother it drew impure connotation, like „that smutty word againâ€Å" (Huxley, 1995: 27) „full of mothers–therefore of every kind of perversion from sadism to chastity† (28) or â€Å"the word made Lenina look uncomfortable† (79) and finally â€Å"To say one was a mother–that was past a joke: it was an obscenity.† (103). One of the main characters Bernard, an Alpha plus, an intellectual, occasionally shows independent opinion. When he and Lenina were in a visit to a Savage Reservation and saw two mothers breastfeeding, Bernard noted: â€Å"What a wonderfully intimate relationship,† he said, deliberately outrageous. â€Å"And what an intensity of feeling it must generate! I often think one may have missed something in not having had a mother. And perhaps you’ve missed something in not being a mother, Lenina. Imagine yourself sitting there with a little baby of your own. †¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Huxley, 1995: 76) Such an observation was not something somebody would notice in that way, nor say out loud. Lenina is shocked. She looks for soma to calm her down. Her reaction is not unusual, most of the people coming from the World State would react this way for they reproduce artificially and do not take care of the children. The controllers developed many ways to manipulate people’s lives. Reproduction, which used to be the primary goal for all species, including the humankind, is now artificially carried out in laboratories. There are the so called „hatcheriesâ€Å" where human babies are hatched out of bottles and conditioned to fit their anticipated social position. The positions are occupied according to the level of their intelligence. Huxley used the Greek alphabet to name positions, starting from Alpha, the most intelligent people, and ending with Epsilons, morons who are capable for manual work. Different components are given to them while they are in bottles, as well as the amount of the oxygen. This manipulation with lives and deciding upon the role in the society in the Brave New World is a dehumanizing act. Mustapha Mond, one of the controllers, proudly explains to the Savage, who is getting more and more disappointed with what he has seen, the great biotechnology of people mani pulation „his conditioning has laid down rails along which he’s got to run. He can’t help himself; he’s foredoomed.† (Huxley, 1995: 152). Another element of manipulation is soma. It is a kind of a drug, distributed by the State, which brings about pleasant feelings, makes people happy and easygoing, with no side effects. â€Å"Soma promotes a superficial hedonism and causes alienation from the kind of â€Å"real human life† that we know. Furthermore, soma is used to keep the social order as it is.† (Schermer, 2007: 121). When his mother dies in the Park Lane Hospital for the Dying, the Savage encounters Deltas who are about to get their portions of soma. Thinking of his mother, Linda, who died as a slave he decides to free the others. He cries out â€Å"poison to soul as well as body.† (Huxley, 1995: 145) and asks them if they would rather be slaves and puppets, than to experience manhood and freedom. He creates chaos among Deltas when he starts to throw the soma pills out of the window. Deltas panic and attack him. In the end policemen spray the soma cloud into the air and play the Voice of Reason and the Voice of Good Feelings. â€Å"Two minutes later the Voice and the soma vapour had produced their effect. In tears, the Deltas were kissing and hugging one another–half a dozen twins at a time in a comprehensive embrace.† (Huxley, 1995:147). Peace and social stability were restored. World State controllers apply the so called hypnopaedic lessons to manipulate people’s psychology. Hypnopaedic proverbs, rhymes, prejudices and wisdoms are played to children while they sleep. The hypnopaedia turned out to be â€Å"the greatest moralizing and socializing force of all time.† (Huxley, 1995: 21). Moreover, hypnopaedic lessons are not the same for all social classes. For example, when Lenina, the Alpha, saw Deltas she noted â€Å"what hideous colour khaki is.† (Huxley, 1995:42) the hypnopà ¦dic prejudices of her caste. Among many of the themes hypnopaedia covers, some of them are about â€Å"hygiene, sociability, class-consciousness and toddler’s love life† (Huxley, 1995: 99). They also use the hypnopaedic rhyme â€Å"Ending is better than mending. The more stitches, the less riches.† ( Huxley, 1995:35) to encourage people to get rid of old things and constantly buy new ones. In this way they created a society accustomed to get rid of the old things and immediately replace them with the new ones. „The novel provides a prophecy of a world of test tube babies, genetic engineering, and social control.â€Å" (Carter and McRae, 2001: 433). This prophecy turned out to be in practice nowadays. Test tube babies are for those who cannot have children in natural way and genetic engineering is used to improve organisms. Ordinary people know almost nothing if those are used for manipulation and creating lives or organisms to compromise humankind. Huxley saw the beginnings of consumer society and therefore incorporated it into the novel. „There was the conscription of consumption. Every man, woman and child compelled to consume so much a year. In the interests of industry.† (Huxley, 1995:35). Nowadays there are numerous shopping malls in cities attracting consumers. Buildings and roads are full of billboards as well as mass media with advertisements which hypnotize masses and make them anxious to spend money. „Brave New World eliminated all problems, sense of loyalty or compassion, love for art and philosophy, as well as any other activities which can lead to individual thinking or even more dangerous to induce passion or feelings.† (Koljević, 2002: 133). In this way Huxley tried to warn the society of his time what can to happen to humankind if people are deprived of activities which can induce individuality, like philosophy, art, religion, family, and above all freedom, to be free to make their own choice and think for themselves. Likewise the existence of one community in the novel, the contemporary world is under the process of globalization, erasing borders between countries, and turning into one global village, one state, offering the same products worldwide and promptly delivering information. The present world is a mixture of the futuristic elements which Huxley mentioned, but it retains all activities which enable people to show their skills, their individuality. In the end the Savage dies. â€Å"The Savage seeks the admittedly narrow freedom to be unhappy rather than to escape into an induced, tidy and controlled soma dream.† (Sanders, 1994: 556). Despite his eagerness to live in the World State with all amenities it offers, he realized that he would rather feel pain if it meant to be free, than to be happy and at the same time to be someone’s slave. Brave New World developed technology to manipulate people. Its dystopian environment eventually killed the Savage, a representative of true moral values which raised the question: Will the true moral values resist as technology and science move forward? Nobody cannot stop their development, but can make use of them for proper purposes. Hopefully the humankind will be smart enough to take out the best of its history, develop science and technology to benefit people, and prevent creating uniformity and sameness to preserve the diversity of human souls. Bibliography 1. Atwood, Margaret. (2007). Everybody is happy now. Retrieved November 5, 2012, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/nov/17/classics.margaretatwood 2. Carter. R. & J. McRae (2001). The Routledge History of literature in English: Britain and Ireland. New York: Routledge 3. GaÃ… ¡parić, Velimir. (2011). Vrli novi svijet – Novi Svjetski Poredak. Retrieved November 2, 2012, from http://2012-transformacijasvijesti.com/novi-svjetski-poredak/vrli-novi-svijet-novi-svjetski-poredak 4. Hornby. A.S. (1995). Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. Oxford: Oxford University Press 5. Huxley, Aldous. (2002, May 18). Brave New World. Retrieved November 6, 2012, from http://www.idph.com.br/conteudos/ebooks/BraveNewWorld.pdf 6. Koljević, Svetozar. (2002). Engleski romansijeri XX veka. Beograd: Zavod za udÃ… ¾benike i nastavna sredstva 7. Sanders, Andrew. (1994). The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press 8. Schermer, M. H. N. (2007). Brave New World versus Island – Utopian and Dystopian Views on Psychophar macology, Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 10:119 –128

Free Essays on Its Not Strange To Mistake Change For Progress

â€Å"It is not strange†¦to mistake change for progress.† Millard Fillmore At the beginning of the story, Manor Farm is prospering. However, the animals are very tired and often unfed. The cruel owner, Mr. Jones, is often drunk, and neglects taking care of the animals. They are desperate for any change. Meanwhile, Old Major begins talking of his â€Å"Socialist Utopia†, where the animals would overthrow the unkind owner and establish their own government, Animalism, where all animals are equal. The exhausted, underfed animals agree to this, because it appeals to them as a place where they would be happy. Animalism was captivating in part because the animals were desperate for a change. In the Battle of Cowshed, they overthrew the farmer and his wife and accomplished what they had set out to do. They renamed the farm â€Å"Animal Farm†, and established the Seven Commandments, which basically stated that no animal was to have contact with humans, or kill another animal. The last of these was â€Å" All animals are equal.† The animals bega n to do everything on the farm themselves. By the end of each day, they were still exhausted, however, they ate as much as they liked. They also believed that there was a difference between working at Manor Farm and working at Animal Farm: they now weren’t working for some human who didn’t feed them, but were working for their own benefit, because all the crops they produced would be divided equally among them. This mentality continued in the more feeble-minded animals until the very end. However, some of them were beginning to see a significant attitude in the pigs (the wisest animals, and self-appointed leaders) after only a short time. The pigs begin, little by little, to take more food than the rest of the animals, covering it up with: â€Å" The pigs need more food, for they are managing the whole farm†. As time goes on, they take more and more food, and change the commandments to suit their n... Free Essays on It's Not Strange To Mistake Change For Progress Free Essays on It's Not Strange To Mistake Change For Progress â€Å"It is not strange†¦to mistake change for progress.† Millard Fillmore At the beginning of the story, Manor Farm is prospering. However, the animals are very tired and often unfed. The cruel owner, Mr. Jones, is often drunk, and neglects taking care of the animals. They are desperate for any change. Meanwhile, Old Major begins talking of his â€Å"Socialist Utopia†, where the animals would overthrow the unkind owner and establish their own government, Animalism, where all animals are equal. The exhausted, underfed animals agree to this, because it appeals to them as a place where they would be happy. Animalism was captivating in part because the animals were desperate for a change. In the Battle of Cowshed, they overthrew the farmer and his wife and accomplished what they had set out to do. They renamed the farm â€Å"Animal Farm†, and established the Seven Commandments, which basically stated that no animal was to have contact with humans, or kill another animal. The last of these was â€Å" All animals are equal.† The animals bega n to do everything on the farm themselves. By the end of each day, they were still exhausted, however, they ate as much as they liked. They also believed that there was a difference between working at Manor Farm and working at Animal Farm: they now weren’t working for some human who didn’t feed them, but were working for their own benefit, because all the crops they produced would be divided equally among them. This mentality continued in the more feeble-minded animals until the very end. However, some of them were beginning to see a significant attitude in the pigs (the wisest animals, and self-appointed leaders) after only a short time. The pigs begin, little by little, to take more food than the rest of the animals, covering it up with: â€Å" The pigs need more food, for they are managing the whole farm†. As time goes on, they take more and more food, and change the commandments to suit their n...

The network society Essays

The network society Essays The network society Paper The network society Paper With this rise in the service sector employment there was an inevitable rise in stability in that sector. However this, lead to an increase in both upper and lower levels of the occupational structure. There was an upgrade of the occupational structure in terms of jobs that require increased skill and higher levels of information. (Castells, M. 1996: pp229) The dominance of service sector employment through information technology has lead to significant managerial developments. Call centres and telecentres are workplaces, which are designed and operate with the aim of providing telephonic customer service. These workplaces depend upon state of the art communication and information technology. (Wyatt et. al, 2000: pp184) By incorporating these technologies into the once purely human service the employer is able to monitor the agents efficiency and output in terms of customer interaction. The demand of for customer service outside working hours (Wyatt et. al 2000: pp185) has actually reshaped the working day of the call centres agents and in doing so they have reshaped and it could be said that they have taken control of their social patterns. The ambition to make every form of work controllable in order to gain a clear indication of efficiency, which can be accounted for on balance sheets, has been an ongoing process since the industrial revolution. This goal of achieving some sort of measurement system has always been achieved through technology. The question is can we attach any form of economic valuation system to a human service? The technology that is used in telecentres are being specifically designed to supply demands for technology which will be able to generate high levels of management information on performance of the individual telecentre agents (Wyatt et. al 2000: pp186) The unpredictability of the of human element in the workplace has been a taunting management ever since the workplace came into being and attempts of gaining control has been pursued ever since. Here again we see the controlling feature of a capitalist system. The question lies whether this was the reason for the transformation. Previous control of efficiency and output was gained trough the commitment of the worker which was determined by job satisfaction, in these call centres however the commitment toward the job is gained through control which is achieved by the monitoring which are common on a Fordist assembly line. In a common factory setting the worker is required to detach himself from his emotional state and attitude and adopt one that will allow them to perform the job most efficiently, this system is being brought into service sector employment by training the agents on specific techniques and attitudes in order to achieve maximum output. There isnt so much a move from manufacturing sector employment to service sector employment but merely a transformation of the service sector to ensure the control and output principals that the manufacturing sector works under. With this flexibility that the network society demands comes the issue of weakening of social intuitions and organisations that served to speak for the worker and even represent the worker. With outsourcing and contractual employment there has been a significant reduction of representation power. The fragmentation of work makes the worker to an extent expendable hence removing their control of the job itself. This fragmentation coupled with the outsourcing of labour renders unions and those they represent powerless. Castells also claims that the unions inability of unions to adapt to the changing worker and organisation has rendered them powerless. He goes on to emphasis that the new network technologies could be just as helpful the unions as it is to organisations in that they can organise labour anywhere and any time. (Castells, M. 1996: pp278). There is said to be strength in numbers, and the capitalist system has noticed this and adopted the warfare strategy of divide and conquer by this I mean there has been a polarisation of the individual in the work environment. With heightened surveillance options at their fingertips management has no need to have workers collectively together to ensure supervision hence work is organised to ensure greater autonomy. It is this transformation of work, the individualisation of labour that Castells (1996) underscores in his work on the Information Age (Castells, M. 1996: pp265). Castells emphasises that this technological transformation especially exacerbates the trend towards increased flexibility of labour. This flexibility is hidden behind the illusion of home-based work and the ability for a work environment to co-exist in a social environment. Capitalism deceptive nature is thus shown again. From control of the occupational environment capitalism goes to the next stage with an attempt to control the culture of society. Culture plays a vital role in the way we think which determines what we consume. The capitalist system has used technology of the Network Society to shape our cultures to suit their needs and objectives. It is an indirect way of shaping and directing our thoughts and emotions. According to Castells our culture is shaped by communication. Previously our languages were our form of communication in the written and heard form, however with the emergence of network technologies the earliest of which was the television (networked through the media channels) the heard written and seen are combined in order to grant the ability to convey views, beliefs and emotions (Castells, M. 1996: pp328-329). Through his writing on The culture of real virtuality Castells shows how communication technologies have become part of our lives (Castells, M. 1996: pp327-375). He however fails to address the avenue of the liberation of society due to the abundance of information and media avenue available. I on the other hand feel that it should be address due to the fact that people have that frame of mind instilled in them which is misleading. Sure there is the element of choice in the media and we choose what we watch, but the communication industry, mainly the media (which includes the internet) is a business like any other and it will broadcast what is profitable. This profitability is determined by information on individuals. It acts on human characteristics such as curiosity and amazement. So whatever amazes us and whatever we enquire about is always best for us. By feeding human character traits our thoughts and in turn our cultures are reshaped to that which exists in the virtual world and suits the capitalistic system. Pierre Levys book, Cyber Culture, (Levy,P : 1997) provides one of the most coherent and persuasive expressions of the contemporary technocultural vision. Levy argues that knowledge is no longer abstract but has become the visible and the tangible expression of the individual and groups who inhabit it; interactive networks work towards the personalisation or incarnation of knowledge (Levy, P. 1997: pp184). This ability to reshape our cultures in effect influences and affects our political ideals. The ability of the Networks and Society to be accessed by politicians has made it a vital breeding ground for election campaigns. The media space has become a battlefield for politicians with weapons such as negative messages, scandal, spin, political marketing and legitimacy (Castells, 1996 : pp362). The political struggle is dependent on the media to such an extent that the media determines consequences, actions and ideals. (Castells. 1996 : pp476). This leads me to the issue of access to the media; by this I mean that media campaigns cost allot money and if the outcome of a campaign is determined by the best media campaign, which in effect depends on the availability of capital, we can assume that those with the money determine political outcomes. We covered all the elements of the network society except for the concept of time which is linked to Castells theory of the space of hows. I have left these two aspects to the end because they actually reveal the capitalist ambitions for control through the network society. Time and space has always been factors of production, which have only been regarded as such fairly recently. New technologies and initially compressed geographical space by reducing relay time of communication. The whole ordering of meaningful events looses its internal chronological rhythm, and becomes arranged in time sequences depending upon the social context of their utilisation (Castells, M. 1996: pp462). Here we see that time itself, an uncontrollable element of human existence, which was thought to be uncontrollable is manipulated to suit consumer trends in order to achieve the ultimate goal of the capitalist system. The capitalist system has thus gained control of the time, which governed the consumers purchasing habits. With new network technologies there is now a twenty-four hour day, which does not consist of, designated times to do specific tasks (Evident in the flexible workers of the network society). This pursuit for control has lead to the relinquishing of control that space has over us. This has lead to the movement from Castells (1996) space of places to the space of flows (Castells, M. 1996: pp276). Space has been a concept, which has been used to emphasize time simultaneity which is based on physical distance between actions, which determine the ability to accomplish various tasks simultaneously. This concept however has changed with technology in the sense that the ability to accomplish more than one task at the same time is no longer bound by vicinity between tasks (Castells, M Inch. 2003: pp56). This space of flows is not just about telecommunication technology but also the pursuit of technology to link places together to achieve the common ambition (eg. Stock Markets). Castells argues that the reason access to this technology in order to form part of the network is not a matter of availability but a matter of choice (Castells, M Inch.2003: pp58). He emphasises the fairness of the space of flows by stating that the first is linked to the third world via the space of flows. This justification however is sceptical and contradicts with his theory of nodes (Castells, M. 1996: pp413). Castells space of flows is made up of nodes. These are information gathering, communication and analysis hubs. These nodes are dependant upon the Network and their inclusion in the network is determined by their value to the network (Castells, M. 1996: pp413). My argument lies in Castells (1996) mentioning the link between the first world and third world, if inclusion into the network is determined by the value to the network then it isnt a matter of fairness but a matter of exploitation, something that has been common in capitalist systems. Under ideals and principles of a capitalist system, from evidence throughout the essay we can see capitalisms fundamental tool, which is control, has been a result or cause for the various elements of the Network Society. So as a concluding point, I would say that the Network Society is a more advanced form of capitalism, which is international, and carefully hidden. IOLS 2B Technology and Work Essay Name : Kubendran Govender Student Number : 202522553 Topic : Castells Network Society. REFERENCE 1. Castells, M. (1985) High Technology, space and society sage publications, inc 2. Castells, M (1996) The rise of the network society Blackwell publishers. 3. Castells, M and Inch (2003) Conservation with Manuell Casteller- blackwell publishers.4. Levy, P (1997) Cyberculture Paris, Edisions Odile Jacob 5. Stanier, T (1983) the wealth of information: a profile of the Post industrial economy London Methusen 6. Susser, I (2002) the Castells reader on cities and social theory Blackwell publishers. 7. Sylvia Downs, (1982) who learns whom training and development 8. Visvanathan, S (2001) knowledge and information in the network society indiaseminar. com 15/09/03 9. Webster, F (2002) Routledge 10. Wyatt et al (2000) technology and inequality Routledge.

Mega events on their effct Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Mega events on their effct - Essay Example This work will take into consideration the Muslim event of Hajj as the central theme of discussion and aim to find the effect of Hajj on tourism industry in the region where this pilgrimage occurs annually. Literature suggests further research in the area of consumer behaviour in mega events tourism (Jago, 1997: 113). On the basis of this, it is important to understand the behaviour of those who attend such mega events. Value perceptions have been approached in mega events (Doukas, 2007: 62). However, further research is required to better understand religious mega events attendees’ behaviour, and particularly, value perceptions and place attachment. As far as the research gap is concerned, academic research to highlight the importance of place attachment regarding the holy places of Saudi Arabia is scarce. It is well-known that religion can contribute significantly to place attachment and this attachment is learned through performing rituals and visiting places (Mazumdar, & Mazumdar, 2004: 385-397.). Muslims from all over the world gather together at the holy cities of Saudi Arabia for performing rituals and visiting their sacred places; an act that contributes to their place attachment. It should be understood that place attachment in this case is different from others, since religious emotions are involved in this case. Therefore, place attachment serves additional purpose in this case. If tourists have a purpose of visit, other than entertainment, the behaviour and choices may differ. Since Muslims visit Saudi Arabia due to their religious beliefs, they have a special kind of relationship with this place. Research should be directed towards revealing the differences in behaviour of people if they have a place attachment different from the normal ones. Additionally, an analysis of the perceived value of this form of tourism is an area that has

The rock'n'roll era and beyond Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

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