Group Blog..Sorry for the late entry...

Media is a medium to spread news and information to the rest of the world. Corrupt means to induce harm to society. Put it together and you will understand that we are trying to say that this medium that has been in contact with us for many generations is the cause of many evils and thus harming our society. Our motion is that the house believes that the media is corrupting our society. Biasness in media is nothing out of the ordinary these days as news is sensationalized in order to achieve maximum revenue. Why is biasness affecting our society? For example, between the TIME magazine and its other local counterparts, the cover picture and description of the O’J Simpson case was drawn him to look as though he was the guilty party instead of taking a neutral stand. This shows that the magazine had portrayed him as a criminal before he had the chance to face a proper jury. This is racial biasness at work. This affects our society as it spreads the message that feeling biased towards another ethnic culture is okay. This is one possible cause why the number of racial discrimination cases is on the rise. Another example was the Maria Hertogh case that happened in Singapore a couple of years ago where newspapers bad-mouthing the opposition race resulted in a horrific riot that left many dead and dozens more injured. Who knows, even some might even be fake.
Corruption is the degradation of the society's moral sense as well as misleading the society by painting a false picture of matters. The media corrupts our society by airing various risqué advertisements which promotes promiscuity and makes people feel that promiscuity and watching obscene material is socially acceptable. This results in many children, teenagers and young adults starting to get attracted to watch obscene material and they may even get addicted to it. Moreover, the media also airs many advertisements which promote materialism. This inculcates materialism in children from young and may result in them growing up to become cold-hearted and selfish people who care for nothing but money so as to pander to their material gratification. The media paints rosy pictures of many things. For example in Iraq, during Saddam Hussein's 'reign', the BBC did not publish articles about the former Iraqi dictator dirty deeds. In 2003, CNN's chief news executive Eason Jordan admitted that for the past decade the network has systematically covered up stories of Iraqi atrocities. Reports of murder, torture, and planned assassinations were suppressed in order to maintain CNN's Baghdad bureau. The media has shown that it is indeed capable of misleading us by not reporting truths about issues which might concern their interests. The mass media do indeed makes up stories sometimes. Let me give you another example. I quote from http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?es=FB0910FA395B0C728DDDAC0894DB404482 :Investigation by team of New York Times journalists finds reporter Jayson Blair committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud while covering significant news events in recent months; major findings are these: he filed dispatches that purported to be from Maryland, Texas and other states, when often he was in New York; fabricated comments, concocted scenes and lifted material from other newspapers and wire services; also he selected details from photographs to create impression he had been somewhere or seen someone, when he had not.

The problem with the modern media is they do not have a sense of social justice. Do you agree?

I agree that modern media do not have a sense of social justice as nowadays real life examples suggests that monetary benefits are priority of the media. This is in the sense of publishing of risqué advertisements, fabricating news to attract readers to buy more newspapers for money and creating vulgar songs to attract the unsuspecting youths to support the production. This is due to the fact that media consumers thrive and are most attracted to provocative and controversial issues.

Firstly, the publishing of risqué advertisements like the “Kat Jes” healthy yoghurt sweet, are used to attract viewers to purchase more of the product. It shows Heidi Klum naked in a bath tub but with most of her body covered by their yoghurt sweet. Such type of visual appeal tends to motivate people to unnecessarily spend money to buy the product.

Secondly, fabricating of news to attract readers is also a ploy used by the media to gain more viewers and revenue. This can be seen especially from the paparazzi around the world. In Hong Kong, these false reports tend to cause superstars to feel insulted or disturbed. Two of the many incidences were that of the death of superstar Leslie Chung and Show. Both are popular Chinese music artists that are affected by the false reports of the media. For Leslie Chung, he was suffering from depression, which was contributed partially by the paparazzi. It resulted in his decision to commit suicide, leaving behind his family, friends and fans to mourn for him. In the case of Show, the paparazzi falsely accused him to be a drug abuser. This made him push for a lawsuit against the press for defamation and his innocence in the case.

Thirdly, the media has the tendency to create vulgar songs to attract youths. This is especially prominent in the United States of America, where free speech is entertained. Thus songs like “I wanna love you” by Akon and P.Diddy(If I am not wrong) is the corrected version of the actual song named “I wanna **** you”(no offence intended). Another song, called the “**** song” is also commonly circulated among mobile phones and music players. Such songs play on the lines of being provocative and controversial, thus bringing more attention to these singers, aiding them in their advertising and popularity.

In conclusion, we can tell from here that as long as monetary benefits can be reaped, the media would not hesitate to take any actions, even if it harms the society, in order to achieve the benefits.

The media is corrupting our society. Do you agree?

Yes, I fully agree that the media is corrupting our society. In my point of view, the evidences of these actions are prevalent in our everyday lives and can be seen almost anywhere.

One of the main aspects of media corruption is media censorship. The initial purpose of censorship was to filter out any fictitious news or information that harms the image and reputation of the countries. However nowadays, the role of censorship had been blurred. Examples would be governments using censorship to remove negative news and cast themselves in positive light while editors use censorship to prevent publishing any news that risk offending any important figures in the society, thus benefiting themselves. Unknowingly, the media has shrouded our points of view by doing so and this can be noted locally: how often do you see the local government broadcasts news about their achievements on catching illegal immigrants as compared to broadcasting the news on the number of illegal immigrants that slipped under their noses? How often do you see schools announcing the achievements of various student groups as compared to announcing that of the groups that had nearly made the mark? The answer will be there will be more focus on the former than the latter for both cases. From these, we can see that the media today is corrupted as the supposedly good censorship practice have become a weapon for people to self-benefit.

Another aspect would be the making up of stories just to gain more viewers and popularity. This is done so as to select the best news to put on the front page, such that people will be most attracted to follow up on. An example would be the reports the on Israeli air strike in year 2006 that had supposedly struck the city of Qana, which had suffered a similar fate in April 1996, as indicated by the media. However upon further investigation, it was found out that the strike had occurred at a ‘hamlet approximately a mile to the north of the village, called Khuraybah (also known as Al-Khariba)’. Due to the influence of the media, this city eventually became the ‘“Qana” in cotemporary accounts.’ This shows the affluence of the media and thus has the ability to corrupt the society. "http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/08/part-1-introduction.html"

Although these are just two points, the tip of the iceberg of this issue, however, I believe people can see the extent of corruption on the society the media is able to introduce.

Is technology as good as it seems in the world today?

In this 21st century, the age of technology have came and swept across the world in the waves of tsunami. Now, people in urban areas, regardless of rich or poor, inevitably find their lives closely intertwined with technology, be it in the form of mobile phones, computers or music players. It hooks onto the masses as if a widespread addiction had occurred, with people undergoing symptoms similar to those of drug withdrawn symptoms whenever they lose contact with technology.

However behind its beautiful facade, is a side of negativity of the technology we have at our fingertips, which people tend to be oblivious to; firstly, as stated above, technology may prove to become a drug-like entity, causing addiction among users. Next would be the ineffectiveness of information transfer and not forgetting the impacts of technology on our world.

First of all, the problem of game addiction is widespread, especially in countries like the United States and Japan, where technology advances very rapidly as compared to other countries. These game addictions are mainly associated with computers, be it arcade game machines or home computers, and there has been reported cases of people playing computers non-stop for several days, neglecting the fatigue of their mind and bodies and demand for energy. These cases eventually ended in these addicts losing either their lives or sanity.

As the saying goes, “there will always be two sides to a coin”. Thus when people say that information can be disseminated very fast with technology, there would be loopholes in the system that people overlook. A simple example would be the jamming of networks on major festive occasions like the Chinese New Year, when people send festive greetings in the forms of MMS or SMS. Another example would be the recent mass murder in Virginia Tech University. On the day of the shooting, alert messages that would have averted the disaster was sent out. However due to network failure, the message came too late at 9.50am, where students and tutors had already started lessons and was not able to check their mails over either the internet or Blackberrys, thus resulting in the massacre becoming reality. This is undoubtedly an ironic twist to all the tribute paid to the goodness and effectiveness of technology.

Regardless of anyone’s rebuttal, the undeniable bitter truth of technology is that it has impacted our world to a large extent. Take into view the American society; Due to the emphasis on human rights, the American youths can easily gain access to violent materials which are not suitable for their age. In this sense, there has been increasing proportions of aggressive youths in the population, resulting in more home violence and crimes committed by youths.

Thus I urge people out there to try and see the two sides of technology and understand that we should not rely too much on technology as it is not all good and as reliable as portrayed in the façade of technology we see.

Nowadays, the mass media do not report the news; they make the news. Discuss this with references to recent events.

Yes, I fully agree that the mass media nowadays do not always report the news in an objective tone, but instead makes the news out with some fictitious content such that to attract readers and generate revenue in this materialistic.

An example would be the recent passing on of the richest woman in Asia, Nina Wang. News reported that she passed away leaving behind $4.2billion inheritance to her personal fortune teller, Tony Chan Chun Chuen. This was then continued by several days of speculating the relationship between Madam Nina Wang and Mr Tony Chan Chun Chuen. Why is all this unnecessary speculation happening? Why are the reporters not letting her pass on with a good name, and instead accuses of having an affair with Mr Chan? The most obvious reason would be because the readers like these gossipy news. In this way, readership would definitely move up the revenue chart, and more revenue will be generated.

Another example of the media making news is the coverage on the debate on Ministerial Pay rise. The debate raged on over several weeks and despite MM Lee made the point during the parliamentary meetings that Singapore is a very small country, and thus we require an elite and effective government that can bring us to greater achievements. It is in view of this that the ministers pay must be raised to meet the current benchmark of the working world as if the ministers’ pays are to little, a brain drain situation, where talents will choose to move to private sectors due to high pays, will occur. The end result: Singapore will sink into oblivion. Many people had sent in their views to the forum of The Straits Times. This has help them meet their expectations; By choosing to report this news over other more trivial news, such as the banning of the film about ex-political detainee (on The Straits Times on 11th April 2007), more readership and revenue have been generated.

The points I stated above are just a tip of the iceberg on how the mass media works but the undeniable fact is that making or reporting of news all comes down to one point: the news that will attract the attention of the readers and generate more revenue will get a lot of coverage by the mass media.

"Youtube has no ethics, its been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money." Do you agree?

I do not agree to the claim stated in the question that Youtube is unethical and created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money. As people said, the Internet is a medium of free speech. Thus the ethicality of the website comes directly from the users. The undeniable fact is with more freedom, comes more responsibilities. However, with the recently uploading of the video, which features the graffiti over the king’s face, show how users of the website do not fully understand their responsibilities. Besides, I feel that with the growing stress level in the current economy, the setting up of Youtube not merely as a money tree and entertainment hub, but it is also to provide people with an alternative to express themselves and relieve themselves of the pressure they feel on their shoulders.

In my point of view, I believe that everyone has different cultures and traditions. Although some of us may find it hard to tolerate these cultures and traditions, everyone has rights to believe in the things they want. In this sense, mutual tolerance and respect for each other’s beliefs should be present and that no one has the right to comment on each other’s beliefs.

As common knowledge tells us, to the Thais’, their king is similar to their god. The Thai population worships their king and would not tolerate any sort of disrespect shown to their leader. I remember the last time I went to Thailand, one of my friends jokingly told me that when I am there, I must be alert and look at the floor as I walk, lest I step on their currency notes and have the Thai’s mob me due to stepping on the king’s face on the dollar note. On the surface, it was a joke. However, upon looking deeper into it, one can realize that is the intensity of the admirable respect and loyalty they have for their king, especially in this materialistic world, where most of the existing population are only self-concerning.

People ask, “Is Youtube a medium created merely to generate money and entertainment?” My answer would definitely be a no. Probably I am generalizing, but if it was purely for income and entertainment, would the funeral and life of the late Steve Irwin be featured on it? Is this unforgettable tragedy a source of entertainment? Not forgetting that it was the wife of Steve Darwin who volunteered and suggested that the video be broadcasted, would it still be considered a gimmick to earn income by placing it on Youtube? I believe by just this simple example, somewhere in our hearts we have found the answers to both the questions.

‘The teenage years are the best years of one’s life.’ Would you agree with this view?

In one point of view, whether the teenage years are the best years in one's life is relative and people would have different opinions based on their experiences in the period of time. However on hindsight, as it is the period of time that lets us experience more and opens our eyes to the outside world. To some, negative experiences such as loss of loved ones, constant betrayal by friends or years of solitude, may lead to them having the worst, most miserable years of their lives. For others, friends may flock and form a band of friendship around us, as if an invisible shield that protects us from the evils of the world. Nonetheless, I feel that teenage years are the best years of our lives.

Just as the saying goes, “silver lining on the dark clouds”, some of us may face heartbreaking events like separation of friends or loss of family members, but it is also in these years that we can grow up in terms of our mental fortitude. Coming together and parting with one another is part and parcel of life. Separations may make us miserable and depressed, but it is through these ups-and-downs that our true grit is put through the test and honed. Besides, it is through these experiences that help us mature in our thinking and read things or situations in depth and be aware of the situations. In this way we would know what to do in order to reply in an appropriate manner. It is also only in these difficult times can we see the identities of our true friends.

In these sense, crowded by friends, surrounded by friendship, experienced enlightenment, helping us grow and mature into good and critical thinking individuals. Under such circumstances, none of us should be growing up in solitude, growing up in depression as long as one does not shut himself out from the world and takes the world in an optimistic light.