READ and DISCUSS.

The End?

2009-03-14T22:22:00.005+08:00

This is going to be the last entry on this COM101 blog....*waves goodbye*

But first up...a recap on our lesson on Wednesday. :)

CMC (Computer Mediated Communication) and the community.

Let's look at the different aspects of community life affected by CMC.
Shall elaborate them a little.

=> Family & Interpersonal Relationship

The internet can either enhance or reduce closeness in a relationship.

First let's see how it reduces closeness in a relationship

Many people try to reunite online because it's so easy, says Nancy Kalish, a professor of psychology at Cal State Sacramento and author of the book "Lost & Found Lovers: Facts and Fantasies of Rekindled Romance."

Kalish says most people go looking for lost loves, initially, out of curiosity. First loves in particular are most often sought out online, she says, and they pose the most danger to real-world relationships for two reasons: biological and emotional.

First, she says, when two people meet in the adolescent years (between 16 and 22), they start to form their identity together and break away from family. In those formative years, "you define what love is and what you want from a partner, and when you lose that, you lose that piece of yourself."

Extracted from CNN article : "Easier to mess up love life on social networks"

This article says that social networking sites can actually affects one's marriage. Personally i kind of agree to this article to a certain extent. Although the internet can help us build relationships, we might be also breaking some unconsciously.

For example, someone who is using the internet so often would probably neglect their family and friend.

On the other hand, let's look at the positive aspect of the internet and how it can enhance closeness.

For people who are having a long distance relationship, they can communicate with their partners online. I also have friends who actually chat to their parents often in MSN. I think this is a pretty good way of communicating with your family.

=> Social life - religion, support groups, culture

CMC also infiltrated our social life. Many support groups are formed. Not only this, people with similar interest would gather together to form a community. One good example is the communities in Livejournal.

I really make use of this communities frequently to update myself.
Here are some communities that I've joined.

A community for fans of this boy band to gather.

Basically in this community, we share information, icons/wallpapers that we made and some media of this band.

A community for people who likes/collects gloomy bear to gather.

People who are looking for certain gloomy merchandise or are selling their own will gather here. Information on how to spot fakes are also shared.

A community for people who likes this Japanese drama to gather.

Screencaps of the drama and icons made are shared here.
Magazine scans featuring the cast of this particular Japanese drama are also posted in here.

A community for people who enjoys playing with the program "Photoshop".

Loads of tutorials and resources are being shared here.

=> Education System

The education system has also been affected by CMC. More schools are adopting the e-learning system. I remember in our secondary school days, during the SARS period, schools made use of the e-learning system to give us homework. (Although my teacher still prefer the old fashion method of snail mailing our homework to us..=.=)

Just look at SIM. They make use of the internet to let us check our timetables. And UBlearns enables us to download our notes and check our test/exam results.

It's all within a click. *CLICKS*

=> Work place and business

In a work place, there are performance appraisal that have to be done. A corporate company also make use of their email frequently to contact clients or inform the employees of upcoming events. In the place where I used to work, they make use of e-newsletters to inform us about upcoming/recent events.

Video conferencing is also widely use now. Some MNCs even make use of video conferencing to interview prospective employees.

I believe that many people also often make use of MSN during their normal working hours to chat or gossip at the workplace.

=> Government, legal and medical

CMC has also infiltrated the government.

I'm sure everyone is familiar with the SingPass website.

SingPass is the common password used to transact with different Government online services. One can check their CPF and more...

E-banking is also very popular nowadays as you can check your account balance easily. One can also transfer money at the comfort of their own home.

This marks the end of my entry~
Basically just an informative entry. :D
Please do comment on this entry or my previous entries.

You are free to comment on all entries XDXD

Just to thank y'all for commenting~~ :D

CMC

2009-03-08T15:52:00.005+08:00

About 15 to 17 years ago, I can be found on mIRC almost everyday. I was fat and ugly and the only way to start conversation with anyone (especially the opposite sex) was through chat rooms and private chats. There are rooms that I hung out and than I started having regular chatters which became online friends. Some even started chats over the phone. And when this list of friends grow, I had to start writing down their nicknames, real name, mobile number, when we chatted online, age, sex, occupation, school and what other details that’ll help me remind which online friend he/she was.

The beauty of it all, is that none of us ever get to meet in person nor have seen how each other looks like. (Even if photos had been exchanged online, that doesn’t mean the photo is the real deal!)

Extracted from the post "Facebook is like mIRC" in Claudia.sg

I'm sure all of you remember this familiar icon.

MIRC.

A tool we often use in the secondary school days to make new friends or to entertain ourselves.

As what I've mentioned in my first post here, when I was still young and immature, I used to create several identities and go online at one time. Sometimes I act that I'm a cool guy and would laugh at girls who are so desperately looking for a boyfriend. (Yes I know this is very mean of me. It was a long time ago and I sincerely apologise to any victims out there...>.<) But anyway. this is related to Computer Mediated Communication and Personal Identity.

One reason why chat rooms and social networking websites are so popular is because in cyberspace, you can be anyone you want too. You can be a guy, or a girl ( Gender bending) . No one cares about how you look ( Self acceptance online) . Ok...maybe they care but they don't know how you look like. Even if they've seen your picture...what they see might not be what they get. With programs like Adobe Photoshop, one can eliminate all his/her physical flaws....(Photoshop IS really a magical tool)

But chatting online could be dangerous to a certain extent.

Anonymity. You never know who you might be talking to. Especially in the "irc days". Lots of men go into chatrooms (and i believe they still do) to look for something much more than a normal chat. Things could get ugly. Also, there is also danger that people are just experimenting their different personae in the internet. You could be their victim.

But not everything about the cyberspace is bad. I made a few friends from forums and then started talking to them online. 2 of them are my close friends now. We've known each other for nearly 5 years and we still go out frequently. (Also happens to be a coincidence that one of my online friend is my sister's ex-colleague. )

It is also said that people tend to reveal more about themselves when they're online. This is something I agree with. Whenever I have problems, I would talk to my online friends as I'm someone who cares a lot about my "face" (爱面子) . I also find it easier to express my inner thoughts when I chat with my friends over the MSN. Some things are really difficult to express face to face.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another issue that I would like to bring up is about blogs.

We read our friend's blog, famous bloggers blogs, and sometimes even blogs belonging to people we dislike/hate.

Do you find your blog a place for you to rant?
Do you think that you can say anything you want because it is your blog?

OR

Do you have certain reservations about what you blog about?

The blog is a pretty powerful tool.
It can let you know so much more about someone just by reading their blog BUT it could also get y0u into trouble if you're not careful of what you blog about.

Is it really ok to reveal so much in our blogs?

Oh well, different people different views.. :D

(P.S: Do drop your comments about communication online and blogs~~)

Happy Bath Day!!!

2009-03-01T16:28:00.005+08:00

This week I learnt about the mass media. What is mass media?

Mass media is something that is around us all the time. It is everywhere and is a form of communication from one to many. Basically, an organisation communicating to us people, getting us to buy their products.

There are many forms of mass media ie. TV, Magazines, Radio broadcast and etc....

Now I'm going to talk about my own thoughts on the media communication itself :D

To me, I feel that media can be powerful especially in mediums like advertisements. As what the moderate effects models has suggested, the media is powerful to a certain extent, and audience are powerless to a certain extent.

Personally I am one who become pretty powerless WHENEVER i see an advertisement with my favorite artistes in it. If they're endorsing an item, there is a ~~99%~~ high chance that I'll be buying that particular item...

Here are the commercials / advertisement of some items i bought due to how they were being advertised.

VERMONT CURRY

KOSE HAPPY BATH DAY PRODUCTS

Let's take a look at this particular Happy Bath Day product....
By having the artiste endorse the item, even their song is being played in the commercial. The song title? "Happy Birthday"...

Happy Birthday. Happy Bath Day.
Happy Birthday. Happy Bath Day.
Happy Birthday. Happy Bath Day.

Even when you are listening to that song from the boy band, you will always hear the word happy bath day in it too.

It just so happens that the way Japanese pronounce birth and bath sounds pretty much similar.

Take a look at the commercial :D

In my own opinion, I think this actually influence us in a way to buy products because of the persuasion methods used from the mass media. Like in the case above, we tend to link the song in the commerical and the product together in a way.

Not only this, fellow fangirls would probably like to support their idols by buying the product that they endorse. Some people I know have bought the happy bath day product although they hate the smell of roses.

As I am one who actually *coughs coughs* succumb to these influences sometimes, I feel that the mass media is a pretty powerful tool to a certain extent. But then again, we still choose if we want to buy a product ourselves. Like example if someone who has no interest in the product and the artiste endorsing it, he/she will probably choose not to buy the item.

What do you all think about this matter?

Do you also feel that a product with endorsement is much more effective with a plain one?

Do you think there are subliminal messages in a commercial? ( Eg. The Happy Bath Day product. Having the boy band's song "Happy Birthday" in the commercial)

"Form a group consisting of 4 members!"

2009-02-22T20:14:00.003+08:00

Here's something that we always hear since Primary school.

"Form a group. Not more than 4 members in your group!"

Many of us will start discussing among ourselves, and form a project group within our own clique of friends. But have anyone realise that forming a project group with your close friends might result in groupthink?

This is just my own opinion.

There was once that i did really badly for my project (during polytechnic) and we don't really know why. Ok. Maybe we did procrastinate and all. But I was sure that there must be something much deeper than that.

I didn't realise what it was till I learnt about groupthink.

Groupthink: A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action. -Irving Jarvis

Basically, groupthink happens when the group is too close together.

Back then, me and my group mates just got into a new specialization. We got into a new class and was feeling uneasy about the new environment. Therefore when we were asked to do a project, we formed a group.

We had some symptoms of groupthink and we didn't know about it then.

Some of the symptoms we had was:

- Collective rationalism

We did not give any thought to the website that we had to do although the teacher repeatedly reminded us about it. We placed our priority on the application instead and ended up having no time to do up a website.

- Self-censorship

We tend to withhold ourselves even when there is a difference in opinion. Eg. If I feel that some graphics for the project is not suitable, I would just keep my comments to myself instead of voicing it out.

- Illusion of unanimity

We agree with everything. There was no conflict or whatsoever because we agree with everything. When one of the member ask if the website looks ok, we all reply that it looks fine.

This resulted in us creating a horrible website and application.
I would show you an example if I could but apparently I was so affected by the project that i deleted everything related to it.

Groupthink resulted in a negative result on our project. But of course, there were also other factors contributing to our failure.

Eg. For all 4 for us, our interest is in film and video. And we can't really get over the fact that we can't get in that specialization. Noone in our group was excelling in making graphics and scripting. We like to procrastinate a lot etc.....

But of course later on in my school years, I start to learn how to take on the role of a leader and a member.

My final year project in poly was one of the most pleasant experience I've ever had. There was a balance between all 3 tracks.

- Task Track ( the process that helps us accomplish our goals )
- Topic track ( we discussed about issues or concerns we had within a group )
- Relationship Track ( we bonded well, encouraged each other when we had trouble in our work and we had fun. )

The outcome of the project was successful.

I was really worried that I could not keep up with the pace of the project. But thanks to the encouragement i received from my group/school mates, I gained confidence in myself and was able to accomplish things that I thought was impossible.

( Me and my final year project peeps. M&M's version)

To me, doing a project in a group is very different from individual work. But thanks to all the group projects that we are exposed to, I'm sure each and everyone of us start to learn how to compromise and even resolve a conflict.

So what are your thoughts about group works?
Any interesting experience to share?

LOVE SHUFFLE (ラブシャッフル)

2009-02-15T22:53:00.008+08:00

This week we learned about interpersonal relationships. The different kind of relational formation and developments and the Knapp model of relational development.

Sounds really complicating when I say it in that way right?
To put it in simpler words, what we learned this week was how relationships between 2 person is formed and the steps to 2 people getting together or breaking up. TADAA~ :D

Personally I don't have any experience whatsoever and so the only thing that comes into my mind when we were going through this topic is this particular Japanese drama.

It is called: Love Shuffle (ラブシャッフル)

Please click on the relationship chart below to view it in a bigger size.
(Please do take a look/refer to this relationship chart constantly as it tells a lot about this drama. :D)

Synopsis:

"Usami Kei is a salaryman who has risen in status due to his engagement with Mei, the wealthy daughter of his company's president. Shortly after she breaks off the engagement, a power failure leaves him stuck in the elevator of his apartment building. Trapped with him are three others living on the same floor - Airu, a trilingual interpreter, Ojiro, a model photographer, and Masato, a psychiatrist. While waiting, their conversation hits upon their love lives and the question of whether there is truly only one fated partner for everyone. As a result, they decide to try "shuffling" their relationships with each other. -- Tokyograph"

(Banner and synopsis taken from : DramaWiki )

Here's a short commercial ad to promote this drama.

Love Shuffle is actually about these 4 people who stays in the same floor of an apartment. However, they have not met each other before until one night when they were trapped in a lift. They talked about their jobs and Usami Kei emphasized on his problem with his fiancee, Kagawa Mai.

( The 4 of them trapped in the lift. )

They kinda bonded during the time when they were trapped in the lift and one of them came up with an idea. Love Shuffle. The initial idea was to help Kei as by switching partners, the rest of them could try to let Mai have a better impression of Kei.

( Love Shuffle starts! )

However, all this love shuffling gets into something much deeper.

No spoilers here as this drama is still currently airing in Japan and I've only watched up to episode 4. I'm really curious if they will stick to their original partners or will they find someone else who's more suitable for them by the time this drama ends.

As you see from the relationship chart, there are 4 different kind of relationships in this particularly drama. Going Steady, Engagement, Adultery and a relationship between a doctor and a patient.

The different couples are all going through a difficult stage.

First, let's take a look at the relationship between Usami Kei and Kagawa Mai.
Usami Kei is actually came from a normal family while Kagawa Mai comes from a rich family. They got together NOT because he is eyeing on her family's fortune.

Let's take a look at how Kei and Mai met.

This is Stage 1: Initiating Stage.

In this one scene, Mai had hurt her leg and Kei was a member of the patrol team. He found Mai and this was how they started their relationship.

However in time, Kei was being introduced to Mai's father,

Mai's father gave Kei a high salary job in the company and even provide him with lodging in a luxury apartment. Later on, even Kei himself was unsure if he stayed together with Mai because of Dissimilarities/ Complementarities.

Kei got anxious when Mai wasn't so sure about the wedding. It could be actually due to the fact that he could lose his job and even a place to live in if Mai broke up with him. He became dependent on Mai and have fear of losing all these benefits if their relationship ends.

Next, let's take a look at Stage 2: Experimenting.

This happens all the time in this show as they'll be switching partners for the entire series. Each time when they're with a different partner, they communicate through small talks and disclose more about themselves. Eventually some of the participants of love shuffle did have a change of heart and gained an interest in another guy/girl.

Basically in this particular scene, the shuffled couple is making small talks and the woman, Airu was revealing more about her past to the man, Ojiro. During this process, there was self-disclosure and you can see a certain amount of reciprocity from their non-verbal cues.

I'm guessing that when the drama is nearing the last few episodes, the 5 stages of coming apart will be present among the couples. They'll probably start to have a stagnant relationship with their original partners. But then again this is just based on my personal views :D

People who are interested can watch this drama too. Personally, I think it has a pretty innovative storyline.

The main point of this show is also something to think about.

"While waiting, their conversation hits upon their love lives and the question of whether there is truly only one fated partner for everyone."

That is an interesting question to think about.
What are your views on this drama? :D

SAYONARA.

2009-02-10T22:59:00.002+08:00

Just want to share with all of you this promotional video.
This is a song by a Japanese band "ORANGE RANGE".

It is really interesting how you can interpret the story in this video just by the non-verbal cues.

Enjoy and do try to spot some of the non-verbal cues shown in this video.

SAYONARA by ORANGE RANGE.

Doubt.

2009-02-08T21:07:00.000+08:00

DOUBT MOVIE REVIEW
(*PS: May contain spoilers)

Here is the official trailer:

Synopsis:

"It's 1964, St. Nicholas in the Bronx. A charismatic priest, Father Flynn, is trying to upend the schools' strict customs, which have long been fiercely guarded by Sister Aloysius Beauvier, the iron-gloved Principal who believes in the power of fear and discipline. The winds of political change are sweeping through the community, and indeed, the school has just accepted its first black student, Donald Miller. But when Sister James, a hopeful innocent, shares with Sister Aloysius her guilt-inducing suspicion that Father Flynn is paying too much personal attention to Donald, Sister Aloysius sets off on a personal crusade to unearth the truth and to expunge Flynn from the school. Now, without a shard of proof besides her moral certainty, Sister Aloysius locks into a battle of wills with Father Flynn which threatens to tear apart the community with irrevocable consequence. "

Written by Miramax Films

I feel that this is a very interesting movie as it is very subjective.

Was Sister Aloysius really concerned about the welfare of the student Donald Miller, or was she just trying to drive Father Flynn out of the community because she wants to be in control of the school?

Was Father Flynn really innocent? If he was innocent, why did he resign? My own views is that he is guilty in a way and that is why when Sister Aloysius threatened to reveal his past, he gave in and resigned from his position.

Another interesting thing about the movie is the use of non-verbal cues. Not just non-verbal cues for us to interpret but also non-verbal cues for the characters in the movie to interpret.

From this movie, it is easy to see that Sister Aloysius have a certain power in the school. Let's take a look at this short 5 seconds clip here.

Through this clip, you can see that from Sister Aloysius used a type of non verbal communication (Haptics- Study of touch in communication). When she hit the boy's head, it shows that there was an expression of power. It shows that Sister Aloysius have a control over the students in the school.

Another non-verbal form of communication is the boy's expression after he has been hit by Sister Aloysius. This shows further emphasis on the power that Sister Aloysius have.

Not let's take a look at another short clip. It is really interesting how this small non-verbal cue in the movie led to Sister Aloysius's suspiciousness.

Look at how the blond-haired boy, William London acted when Father Flynn grabbed his wrist. He pulled away almost immediately. This non-verbal cue (Kinesics - Study of body movement/body language) caused a misunderstanding. At the later part of this movie, Sister Aloysius admitted that she was wary and suspicious of Father Flynn because of that.

This shows how non-verbal cue could actually bring out a message much stronger than words. No matter how hard Father Flynn tried to convince Sister Aloysius that he was innocent, she refused to believe him and only believed in the things that she saw.

As the saying goes, "action speaks louder than words". This is being clearly shown in this movie.

Another non-verbal cue that I felt was depicted very well in the movie is this :

PICTURE 1

PICTURE 2

As you can see from the objects/artifacts, it is easy to see the difference in social status between the priests and the nuns.

In picture 1, the priests have a feast on their table and were drinking wine whereas in picture 2, the nuns were only having a simple meal and were drinking milk. There is also a major difference in the setup of their dining rooms.

That scene in picture 1 also gave me a bad impression of Father Flynn (the one sitting on the left). In the scene, he was eating good food while gossiping loudly about some woman who was fat. To me, these actions should not the makings of a priest. Therefore when I continued watching the movie, my views of the priest became biased.

I actually wished that he was being caught of having an inappropriate relationship with the student because I feel that he was not suitable to be a priest. This again shows how one's action can actually affect the perception we have towards someone.

The above are just some examples of the non-verbal cues in the movie. If you're interested, do watch the movie and give your comments too.

Comment Comment Comment! And let's discuss about the movie :D

Perception.

2009-02-02T15:59:00.006+08:00

(*Note: This is going to be a little dry so please bear with me...>.<)

Perception. Something that happens around us all the time.

From what I learned in the last lesson, perceptions are influenced by psychological factors and social factors. Our perspective of something changes all the time according to how we think, what we experience and what we expect.

I'm going to blog about how organisational principles affects the way we organise the information before coming up with a perception towards something. :)

There are 4 ways to organise information:

1. Similarity
2. Proximity
3. Figure & Ground
4. Closure

I'm going to provide some examples to explain the ways we organise information.

First example, look at this picture:

What goes through your mind when you're looking at this picture?
How do you think these guys related to each other?

I believe you can answer that almost immediately.
They are a group. A ~~superb~~ boy band.

Why?
Because of the costumes they are wearing. They are wearing the same clothes. This similarity between them causes us to group them together.

Next up. Take a look at this commercial.

The man took a picture with a woman sleeping and sent it to his friend.
His friend perceived the picture in a different manner from what actually happened...

Why?
Because in the picture, the man was very close to the girl. The close proximity makes it easy for anyone to perceive this picture differently from the actual situation.

Lastly, here's a comic to show how people organise information by figure & ground and closure.

This boy here Archie, moved his Principal's artwork to the office because he feels that it is dangerous to leave it lying around in the workshop classroom. He then proceeds to clean up the workbench.

Just then, the Principal came back and he perceived the situation in a different way.

Why?
-> Ship gone and only a mess left.

That is the only thing that he focused on. He ignored all the other possibilities and focused on only the ship. (Figure & ground)

Soon after, with all the information that he obtained and organised, he forms a closure. He tries to fill in the missing pieces and decides that Archie has ruined his ship.

It was only when he saw the ship in his office that he realised his perception about Archie was wrong.

With that I end my post about how people organise information.
Please do leave your comments on how you think of the examples given. :)

Cat fight anyone?

2009-01-24T01:47:00.003+08:00

Just somewhat related to COM101 but basically I just want to blog about this cause this experience is kinda overwhelming for me.

Just after the lecture today, I went to Bugis Street to do some last minute new year shopping with my sis...we were chatting happily when suddenly we heard a high pitched voice:

"SHUT UP! I SAY SORRY ALREADY LOR!!!"

It was so sudden that everyone was drawn to the commotion.

A couple of girls were sitting in the store (selling shoes) and this Auntie was shouting at them...being the typical kaypoh Singaporean, me and my sis stood there the entire time. And after quarreling for a long long time (they even called the police...=.=) , they finally left the store.

This was what happened:

-> Auntie accidentally stepped on Girl 1's foot.
-> Auntie apologised.
-> But due to all the noise around the place, message was not received.
-> Girl 1 thinks that Auntie did not apologise.
-> Girl 1 said a vulgar word.
-> Auntie heard and feel offended.
-> Auntie starts quarreling with them.

It's just pretty amazing how something so trivial can trigger an argument and almost a cat fight. It was kinda depressing to see this kind of things happening. The Auntie's daughter was so scared and shocked that she kept crying. But obviously, no one actually took notice of that.

My personal views? Teenagers and young adults in Singapore should learn to respect people who are older than them. It was even hurting for me to hear them say things like: "So old already! Can prepare to go into the coffin" to that Auntie. And they actually laughed while saying that. All because of one small misunderstanding.

Although the girls dress well and were carrying branded goods on them, but so what? To me, their personality seems pretty...pretty ugly.

Just to share something I saw today.
Please read the post below too about Internet as a medium of communication and discuss discuss discuss. :)

Hello do I know you?

2009-01-22T22:24:00.001+08:00

People communicate with each other through different kind of mediums. And for me sadly, I spend more than half of the day in front of a computer so I communicate through the Internet most of the time.

Programs (ie. MSN, Yahoo! Messenger,IRC) and websites (ie.forums, facebook) are common tools that we use to make contact with people from overseas. And for people who are more shy, they can actually make friends through these mediums.

But sometimes what you see might not be what you really get.

For example:

Credits to: macfuenzal@flickr

Sadly, this is happening most of the times in chat rooms nowadays.
And just to share with all of you guys something even more shocking!
...
...
...
When I was still young and ignorant in secondary school, I used to pose as a guy in chat rooms just to get back at the people who I don't like. It was kinda easy because somehow I knew that both of us have a different perception of a chat room.

The meaning of a chat room to most girls in secondary school is to make more friends or to even find a boyfriend. So I made use of the medium to send a message to them which they often interpret it as something else.

(Side note: no worries i don't do these kind of things now. (: )

But of course! There's always two sides to a coin. Something positive can also come out from these mediums. Forums are one of the best place to get to know someone because people who visit these sites have the same interest. For example, if you join a forum based on Japanese dramas, you can totally find lots of people who watch them.

Through these mediums, people who basically have the same interests will start interacting with each other by contributing in the forum. This is one of the way I get to know more friends through the Internet.

Just a reminder to all though!
Do not get overwhelmed by the Internet and miss out the most classic yet important method of communicating and making friends. Some things are still better said face-to-face.

Wooo~ This sums up my entry for the day!
Please feel free to discuss this topic with me if you think that it's interesting :D