Archive for the 'Current Events' Category

Culture

In “Commercialization of Art Broadens Its Impact,” Emily Ross discusses the increasing accessibility of art to the public and its potential to enrich our lives and communities. As common symbols of expression and creativity to all cultures, art is a culture universal and an integral part of our non-material culture. By highlighting its increasing accessibility to “lowbrow,” Ross has demonstrated the occurrence of cultural integration in our society, where high culture, popular culture, and even subculture such as “graffiti-inspired art” are moving towards a “general brow”, empowering and enriching our lives and communities.

Robert Worth examines the material culture of traditional Yemenis architecture in “After Shaking Off Medieval Sleep, Yemen Finds Dreamland of Architecture” from a multicultural perspective. Constructing buildings with traditional means not only preserves Yemen’s culture, but also support the beliefs and values that favour traditional methods, such as the cooling effects during summertime. Despite the cultural lag that occurs while modern shops occupy the “cultural heart” of the Old City, continuing means of employing traditional construction technology has ensured the cultural transmission of the building trade for “hundreds of years.”

Kathy Li authors “Vancouver Asian Film Festival” and explores its history, purpose, and significance in Vancouver. Discouraging the ethnocentric “martial arts stereotype,” Li examines the festival from a multicultural perspective that promotes better understanding of Asian culture in our society through a cultural relativist approach. Indeed, this film festival serves a purpose of cultural integration and broadens “Asian culture perspectives” beyond popular culture stereotypes.

In “Canadian Soldiers Wage a Subtle Battle in the Taliban Heartland,” Matthew Fisher reports on the Canadian military’s efforts of engaging the Afghan people through multicultural and cultural relativist means in order to achieve military goals. There appears to be a change in tactics, ones that contradicts the military’s believes and values of being “ready for war.” Despite an ideal culture of being “honest” with a presence to “assist,” Gwynne Dyer’s theories of socialisation suggest otherwise, where we understand that the real culture of the military is, in fact, more violent and aggressive, which leads us to the next topic on socialisation.

Socialisation

Gwynne Dyer wrote a strong and slightly satirical commentary titled “U.S. Radicalizing its Muslims.” The socialisation of Muslims in America into radical militants is the result of mass media coverage, peer group influences, and personality changes associated with the American invasion of Muslim countries. Dyer suggests that the U.S. media plays a role in the socialisation by avoiding the “obvious fact” that foreign invasions have repercussions. It can be argued that radicalised individuals have been gradually socialised by society, their peer group and significant others — in reaction to external events — to the extent that their personalities and superego have been altered to agree with more radical beliefs.

Charlie Savage discusses the implications of transforming an Illinois-based prison into a facility used to house detainees from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in “Illinois Prison May Be Path To Closing Guantanamo.” If the plan is approved, the total institution would be effective in isolating inmates from the rest of society and maintaining manipulative control by administrative staff. The 200-cell compartments would maintain “strict control” of inmates, and with the aid of sophisticated surveilance equipment, it would strip away the inmate’s established identity. Furthermore, plans of converting the prison into an institution with a beyond-Supermax specification that allows “individual confinement and isolation” would be effective in reconstituting a new sense of self.

In an article titled “You Gotta Have Faith,” Amy Chan confronts the reality of rejections in relationships and advises readers to not accept a rejection by a significant other personally through accepting themselves as they are. George Herbert Mead states that interacting with others is key to developing a socialised self, which is often done through the exchange of symbols. In her article, Chan reveals personal coping strategies that were developed as a result of being socialised with multiple relationship failures. Chan’s subjective element of the self, the “I”, was initially full of doubt and uncertainty. However, she has come to realise, and now even advises others, that one ought to be accepting of the way one is — demonstrating an understanding of the self that requires imagining from the other’s point of view.

In “Twilight Relationship Unhealthy, Professors Says,” Sandra McCulloch disscuses the film’s implications of socialising young people. By portraying an “unhealthy relationships” between the sexes, the film allows young viewers to potentially engage in observational learning through imitation, play, and games. Since we refer to the generalised other in evaluating ourselves, the film’s popularity is able to socialise a large number of viewers into believing that relationships portrayed in Twilight are normal or part of widespread cultural norms. This article also addresses various other issues: gender and power imbalance; social interaction and roles; the mass media’s ability to influence; the degree to which popular culture defines our standards of acceptability for daily living.

Social Interaction in Everyday Life

Dr. Davidicus Wong shares his experience as a family physician in “Family Physicians Need To Innovate” and examines the evolving role of this profession as innovations are adapted. Despite having a high achieved status, family physicians are “overworked” and “undervalued.” In such a circumstance, the physician’s role changes as innovations are implemented to address problems. With such innovations, the physician’s role set would also contain the roles of the therapist and administrator. One wonders whether role strain would occur, and whether the social interaction between physicians and patients would change.

In his humorous article titled “We’ve Become a Land of Hand-Scrubbers”, Mitch Albom points out our increased use of hand sanitisers. Evidently, some role ambiguity is presented as one is no longer sure whether to shake hands or to simply “nod,” causing a disruption in everyday social interactions. Furthermore, from the perspective of ethnomethodology, we are made aware of handshakes, otherwise an unconscious and routine practice. When the handshaking convention is broken, we then realise, as Albom stated, that the “old ways” are gone and replaced by Purell.

Craig and Marc Kielburger highlighted the shortcomings of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in their article titled “Countries Ratified Rights of Children, but Things Haven’t Changed.” Particular examples in the article highlight the extreme role conflict children suffer from in countries where poverty and war are widespread. As these children are burdened with the ascribed statuses of soldiers, sex slaves, servants, and family heads, they are often associated with negative master statuses. Ultimately, their development and social construction of reality are severely impaired.

The concept of themed on-campus residences are explored in “AMS Looks at Installing Themed Housing,” by Victoria Biernacik. It is evident that such a change in residences, from a source of “partying” and “social distuption” into “hubs of interactivity” would affect a resident’s personal space and role. One’s personal space would be affected because learning would not only take place inside the classroom, but inside residences as well — a space most frequently associated with relaxation and privacy. Also, Dramaturgical Analysis suggests that one may behave differently according to the setting. It is likely that the residents will gain a role set comprised of the tenant, student, classmate, and even tutor.

Media

Brian Stelter addresses the role of MSNBC and its progressive hosts in challenging the policies of President Obama through “Opposition, From Right and Left.” Contrary to the Hypodermic Needle model of broadcasting, MSNBC engages its audiences through an approach that encourages active and critical thinking. This is supported by the Active Audience Theory, which states that viewers internalise a preferred meaning through active interpretations and understanding of the content. It can be argued that viewers of MSNBC take a negotiated audience position — taking some parts of the message but critically examining others. The article also notes that MSNBC will shortly be sold by General Electric to Comcast and raises the question, in today’s economically volatile world, of the political economy of the mass media and the possibility of continued vertical integration.

In a case where students were prosecuted for conducting investigative journalism that resulted in the exoneration of numerous men, David Carr discusses the story in “Prosecutors Take Aim At Student Muckrakers.” According to Chomsky and Herman’s Propaganda Model, the legal pressures experienced by these students represent a form of Flak. Evidently, the students’ work was directly against the prosecutors’ interests. By threatening the students with legal actions, prosecutors act as a media filter in hoping to discourage such investigative journalism.

David Akin describes Stephen Harper’s recent visit to India in “Harper To Meet India’s Leading Man Today” and examines his sophistication in embracing India’s popular media stars. By meeting with Bollywood celebrities and touring the studio of a popular Indian reality show, Harper’s message may resonate with Indian Canadians, depending on their means of negotiating meaning. Stuart Hall’s Cultural Studies Paradigm suggests that audiences use an ideological template to encode, decode, and negotiate meaning. Depending on one’s existing background knowledge of the situation, one may take the dominant, negotiated, or oppositional audience position.

As the print media faces dramatic restructuring, Richard Perez-Pena discusses the implications of Newsweek’s reform in “Glimmers of Progress At a Leaner Newsweek.” As revenue models change for Newsweek, a business “heavily dependent on advertising,” its advertising strategy follows. With Advertising as a key filter of the media in Chomsky and Herman’s Propaganda Model, one wonders the extent to which power dynamics will shift between advertisers and publishers, especially during a time of “unprecedented shift in the economics.”

Gender

In his article, Michael White introduces us to female bartenders in Vancouver who thrive in the craft despite a occupying a traditionally male-dominated position. As a social construct, gender consists of norms and expectations that encourage sex-appropriate behaviour. Some male bar-goers, unfortunately, hold conservative, patriarchal, and sexist values, and often look down upon, question, and challenge the gender role of females as bartenders. However, females are beginning to assume “authority”  in the craft as their gender role slowly changes.

Diana Coulter’s article, “Fair Game or Beyond the Pale? Indian Men Adopt the Skin-Bleaching Trend,” focuses on the increasing numbers of Indian men who seek cosmetic skin-bleaching treatment. In “The Body Beautiful,” Beverly Matthews claims that girls confirm to a degree of power structure through their personal appearances, which are used to achieve social goals. Indeed, one Indian customer agrees that even for men, there is “more competition to look presentable in the corporate world today,” which confirms with Matthews’ idea that personal appearance is used to achieve social status and power, and to avoid costs associated with deviating from the norm. As well, these men judge themselves by imagining how others would perceive them, through an Imaginary Audience.

In “Men’s Dirty Secret: We’re Lazy,” Micah Toub reveals the intimate power structure in the house between men and women that defines gender roles and determines the sharing of domestic work. Not generalising that all men are “lazy,” Toub discusses the “identity costs” (or lack of) for men to engage in house work while examining the male role as an individual gender role orientation. This suggests that beliefs about appropriate gender roles are developed through socialisation over a lifetime. As well, examining this relationship from the micro level gender structure, we see that there is a correlation in the female-male interaction between a man’s contribution to housework and child care and a women’s “sexual attraction” towards him.

In Larry Goldenberg and Barry Rich’s article titled “The Men’s Health Crisis in British Columbia,” the authors discuss the health crisis through exploring social determinants of health for men and addressing the need to improve men’s health. By recognising that larger “societal and cultural” factors affect men’s health, the authors examine this inequity through the macro structure level of gender analysis, where the concept of self examination needs to be advertised, and structural investments to male-defined-approaches to health made. As well, from the individual gender role orientation basis, the authors suggests that middle-aged men need to “model” for young boys in order to refine and encourage the role of self-care for men.