Aging And Marriage Essays - Human Sexuality, Gender, Personal Life

Aging And Marriage Reaction Paper: Marriage and Aging A big aspect in keeping a marriage successful is how much communication occurs between the two people involved. For a healthy relationship there is a need for quite a bit of communication. Communication, as stated in class, is one of the key elements to a successful marriage. There has to be some open discussions and trust in the relationship to make it anywhere. If you can not talk to your partner you will not be able to solve problems in a healthy manner. You have to be able to tell your partner things to help you learn and mature with them. You have to learn how to compromise and help each other out. Communication has to be part of your relationship in some way. You cannot go through your life not talking to your partner about important issues that you should be able to talk to them about. Another important issue discussed in class was homosexuals and marriage. Homosexual marriage is an important issue because it deals with a relatively large minority of the United States. This issue is important today with respect to many different ideas. There are so many ideas of morals, family values, and those of equality, constitutionality, and right to privacy. The aspect with the most relevance is constantly left up to debate. Homosexuals are 'gay' due to a combination of factors. These factors are environment and society-the outside influences- and genetics. Hence, homosexuals do not decide their own sexuality, nor do heterosexuals. Therefore, homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals, one of these rights being marriage. This is why it is of great importance to public policy whether or not homosexuality is predetermined. I am not homosexual and I am not writing this to defend homosexuals. I just believe that the whole issue is unfair towards homosexuals. Marriage goes beyond the benefits, however. The institution of marriage is a very respected one, and holds much sentimental value for many people. In America, all men are to be created equally. Does this exclude homosexuals? Many think so simply because they believe that marriage is not a right, but a privilege. This argument means that because gays are not going to bring a child into the world naturally, they do not deserve the privilege of marriage. That doesn't seem fair. Different age groups hold their own opinions with marriage issues. Some young people, ages 18-25 are used to gays because gays have emerged in this generation. Middle aged people may feel fine with the issue or ticked off. People with families could feel that homosexual marriages around their community are different and unappealing. Older individuals have gone through the aging process and have not been familiar with gay issues until recently in the past twenty years. Since they are older, they are more old fashioned and are used to thinking the way they thought years and years ago. This is simply that a man and a woman fall in love, get married, have children and grow old together. But a homosexual marriage is an issue that these older citizens need to be faced with. Women make up majority of that older population and have a life expectancy that is longer than men's. As a result of longer lives, women are expected to experience chronic illnesses and disabilities. They are also more likely to live alone, be single and become poor in their old age. Visiting a cemetery, you can notice that the majority of the people deceased were elderly men. This concludes maybe that men were more of the hard workers before, who gave women the opportunity to take better care of themselves and in turn they lived longer lives. The elderly are treated differently all around the world. The percentage of elderly people in the United States has tripled since 1900, the population of elderly is expected to double between now and the year 2030. Not only is the number greater, but they are also living much longer. Even though there is a large population of elderly people in the United States, we as a society overlook them as if they aren't there. I think it is wonderful when I see

Medicalization Of Deviance Essays

Medicalization Of Deviance Essays Medicalization Of Deviance Paper Medicalization Of Deviance Paper In layman’s term medicalization of deviance can be explained medical tag to unethical and social behaviors. Medications are available to cure any and usually every disease from anxiety to drug addiction, homosexuality, vandalism, unattractiveness, mental disorder etc. Introduction The procedure through which functions previously recognized by religion and the law in terms of defining what is normal or desirable versus what is deviant being labeled by some of the medicine. As we move ahead with time, medicine has made its ground stronger. Mecialization of deviances has altered the prospect of criminal minded to sick. For example, due to medical involvement drug and alcoholic addicts punishment has been replaced due to many form of deviance. Advantages Medicalization of deviance has many positive sides to it. It has given civilized outlook to medical deviance. Legal and moral issues now have been given a shape of deviance. Acts are no more considered good or evil but sick or well. This deviance had also made many conditions legal. Treatments for these medical deviances are not looked down upon but given a lot of regards. Remedies for such social controls appear to be more effective and flexible (Schneider, W Joseph, Conrad, Peter, 1992). Disadvantages Like every term, medicalizaton of deviance also has darker aspects to it. It makes individual take undue advantage of their actions using it as an alibi. They become irresponsible and consider medicine morally neutral. All the immoral actions are given leverage under this umbrella. Social controls are managed through medical prescriptions and an individualistic approach is build for these complex problems (Schneider, W Joseph, Conrad, Peter, 1992). These deviance can also be an analysis of medicalization of disorders. Forms of Medicalization of Deviance After the spread of medicalization of deviance unaccepted appearance (obesity, short height, skin disease, unattractiveness), life events (Birth, death), unethical believes (racism, cast and creed, mental disorder) and actions (taking drugs, drinking alcohol, gambling, sexual activities, physical abuse) started to fall under this category. Creating deviance as illness grants a humanitarian standing making it different from evil or crime. Due to deviance the historic trend of tagging illness is now given a new term which is more civilized (McGann, PJ, Conraad, Peter. 2007). Medicalization of Deviance amongst athletes Taking drugs to stimulate an athletes’ performance is considered unethical in every field of sport. No theory or term can justify this act. It is the duty of an athlete to make sacrifices to achieve top performance, be regular with their practices, stay committed and perform well. Boosting performance by taking alcohol and justifying it by calling it cultural norms or peer pressure is in my opinion wrong. Athletes will do any or go to any extent to remain in the game. But that makes them cross their moral limits. Deviances amongst athletes can be positive and negative. Positive deviance is when someone sports man looses extra weight to fulfill their requirement (gymnastic, swimming, skating). These behaviors trail the standard of sports ethic from health to unhealthy extent. Where as in negative deviance athlete’s behavior crosses the ethics of sports ethics (missing practices, not performing well, disobeying coach) (Atkinson, Michael, Young, Kevin, 2008). Conclusion Medical terminologies have been now adopted to understand such disorders. In my opinions it is imperative to draw a thick line between actions and illness that should and should not fall under this category. Curing a drug addict is certainly not bad but doing drugs in defense of mental disorder is wrong. Deviance of medicines should avoid being used as an excuse. References Atkinson, Michael, Young, Kevin (2008). Deviance and Social Control in Sport. Human Kinetics McGann, PJ, Conraad, Peter. (2007). Materializaton of Deviance. Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Retrieved on July 9, 2009, from http://sitemaker. umich. edu/pjmcgann/files/mcgann___conrad_2007. pdf Schneider, W Joseph, Conrad, Peter. (1992) Deviance and Medicalization. Temple University Press.

HBC Atlantic Computer Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

HBC Atlantic Computer - Case Study Example Jowers must empower the Cardena’s hardware oriented sales force with relevant information regarding the importance of PESA software so that they can use this differentiating element as their major sales principles to convince their customers. For example, DayTraderJournal.com would need at least 4 Ontario server costing overall $11656 [(basic price of $1700 + $1214 cost per server)*4]. Thus, by buying Atlantic package, company would be saving around 50% of the initial expenses on servers and $3642 of annual recurring cost on 3 servers every year. The target market would react favorably because they would be hugely saving on not only the servers but also the annual expenditures incurred on running the servers. The Atlantic bundle is cost saving because it does the work of 4 Ontario servers, thereby saving extra cost on 3 servers. Moreover, the customers would also be enjoying the exemplary after sales services of Atlantic for which it has already established market

BUS499 MOD 1 CA Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

BUS499 MOD 1 CA - Essay Example The new management also planned to convert the organization’s 30 percent of the incremental revenue to operating profit. The company’s third goal was to double its earnings per share. On the basis of which agencies were making money for the company and which were not, the company categorized its business units into three categories namely ‘lead, drive, and prosper’ (Melter). Each agency category has been assigned with different strategic charges. The business units that had less than 50 employees and were less likely to become a gigantic agency ever were categorized as prospers. The company’s most business units fell under the prosper category. Since prosper units were not expected to attain a tremendous growth rate, the strategy chosen for this type of business unit was to achieve high profit margins. The business units that had 50-150 employees were categorized as drive agencies which were assigned with the goal of maintaining or gradually improving their revenue base in addition to expanding their margins. Finally, the largest business units like New York, UK, and China were given the lead agency status. Since lead agencies were expected to achieve rapid growth and to allocate lion’s share of the investment, the company management paid particular attention to this type of business agency. The strategy specifically created for lead agencies was to develop ‘permanently infatuated clients’ and to particularly focus on large revenue earning clients. In addition, the organization also developed several strategies that greatly related to a customer perspective. One of those strategies was to create ‘big fabulous ideas’ or BFIs that are able to â€Å"transform the businesses, brands, and reputations† of the clients (Melter). For this, the organization stated the need of an ideal environment and inspirational leadership in every unit. The firm’s key strategy was to

Essay on my Favourite Book Snow White

Essay on my Favourite Book Snow White Snow White was the heroine of the first full-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in 1937. Snow White is young, pretty, virginal, sweet-natured and obedient. She doesnt mind housework because she is sure that a rich young man will soon come and take her away. When Snow White is afraid, she runs away and falls down in tears. When she finds shelter in a dirty little house in the woods, she immediately cleans it from top to bottom. When she lives there, she continues to do the housework: the group of (small) working males who live in the house clearly need a mother to clean for them, so this is Snow Whites natural role. SHELTER is something that protects you and keeps you safe from weather or from dangers Snow Whites only enemy is her wicked and powerful step-mother. (Another typical Disney character is the evil older women, who has a lot of power. She is always destroyed.) WICKED: bad, evil A STEP-MOTHER is a woman who marries someones father after their mother died Snow Whites wicked step-mother tricks Snow White into eating a poisoned apple and she falls into a coma. The dwarfs cannot help her. Snow White must wait until she is rescued by the kiss of a handsome prince, and then she rides off happily with her new love. TRICK: (v) to fool or deceive When someone is in a COMA, they are completely unconscious and cannot be awakened This is typical of Disneys movies. Young women are naturally happy home-makers; they wait (like Snow White in her coma) until a man comes along to give them life. Something is TYPICAL if it has the usual qualities of a type of thing. After Snow White, Disney used other fairy tales for his movies, for example Cinderella (1950) and Sleeping Beauty (1959). The heroines and their stories were very similar to Snow White. FAIRY TALES: stories that are told to children about magical places and people Then, in 1966, Walt Disney died and the Disney Company did not produce any good animated films for a long time. Then, in 1989, the company produced a new, and very successful, cartoon feature film, The Little Mermaid. FEATURE FILM: a full length movie The Little Mermaid Ariel, the mermaid, is the heroine of the movie. It seems that Disney did not pay much attention to the Womens Movement: Ariel is the same as the earlier Disney heroines, except that she is somewhat sexy and wears a bikini made from shells. And the answer to all her dreams is to get her man. Ariel will do anything to make the prince fall in love with her. She even gives up her voice so that she can have legs. (What message does this movie give to young girls Keep quiet and be beautiful?) But Disney movies have happy endings, and so Ariel gets her voice back and she keeps her prince. On the other hand, she loses everything else. When she becomes human and marries the prince, she must leave behind her underwater home, her father and her friends. She gives up everything in her life for romance. Thats OK for a fairy tale, but it is not a good idea for young girls in real life. MERMAID Mermaid Many women complained to Disney about The Little Mermaid, and Disney promised to think more carefully about womens roles in future. They hired a female screenwriter for their next movie, Beauty and the Beast (1991). Disneys publicity people promised that Belle, the heroine, would be modern, active, and even feminist. SCREENWRITER: the person who writes the words of a movie Beauty and the Beast The press thought Disney had done a good job, but the only real improvement is that Belle likes reading! BELLE is the main woman character in Beauty and the Beast However, the most important problem in this movie is not the Disney companys idea of an independent woman. The problem is how Disney changed the hero, and the message of the story. In the original story, the Beast looks terrible and frightening, but he is really kind and gentle. The message of the story is that you should not judge someone by what they look like. An ugly outside can hide a loving heart. Disney changed this. The company decided to create a Beast with a very serious problem. Disneys Beast terrifies his household and frightens Belle, his prisoner. The Beast does not attack Belle, but the threat of physical violence is present. In the Disney movie, Belle changes the character of the Beast. Her beauty and her sweet nature change him from a beast into a prince, from someone who is cruel, into someone who is kind. So the movies message is very different from the message of the fairy tale. SWEET-NATURE: being kind and pleasant The movie says, if a young woman is pretty and sweet-natured, she can change an abusive man into a kind and gentle man. In other words, it is a womans fault if her man abuses her. This is another dangerous message for young girls because it is not true: if Belle lived in the real world, she would almost certainly become a battered wife. Someone who is ABUSIVE treats people very badly ABUSE: (v) to treat someone very badly BATTERED: badly beaten Aladdin Princess Jasmine, the only female character in Aladdin (1992), is a lot like Disneys other women. But there is another very worrying thing about this movie, its racism. Listen to some of the songs, for example: I come from a land. where they cut off your ears if they dont like your face. Its barbaric, but hey, its home. RACISM: the belief that people of your race are better than people of other races BARBARIC: violent and cruel And look at the characters. The evil characters, like Jafar, look very Arabic. On the other hand, Aladdin, the hero, looks and sounds like a fresh-faced American boy: his skin is much paler, and he asks people to call him Al, an American name, not an Arabic name. FRESH-FACED: clean and innocent. Something is PALER than something else if it is lighter-colored or whiter. Of course, Disney does not intend to offend people that would be bad business. Most people who watch the movies are probably caught up in the Disney magic and dont notice these things. But thats the problem. One way in which Disney creates the magic is by using stereotypes that people respond to without thinking. Aladdin looks right for a hero; Jafar looks right for a villain. We dont think about it. If you are CAUGHT UP IN something, you are very involved and interested in it. STEREOTYPE: a fixed image or idea of what a type of person is like. By using quotation marks [RIGHT for a hero], the writer makes clear that she means this ironically. The Lion King The Lion King does the same thing. The characters are animals, but their voices show racist stereotypes. Even though The Lion King takes place in Africa, two white American actors are used for the voice of Simba, the hero. However, the hyenas who are bad characters in the film, speak non-standard English and are played by actors like Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin. The villain, Scar, suggests homosexuality. And, of course women (the lionesses) are weak and need a male hero: when Simba runs away, the lionesses cannot protect themselves from the evil Scar and must wait for years until Simba returns to save them. RACIST STEREOTYPES: a fixed idea of what people of different races are like. HYENAS: an African animal that feeds on dead animals; its cry sounds like a laugh. SUGGESTS HOMOSEXUALITY: gives the idea that he might be homosexual. Pocahontas After The Lion King, Disney became interested in the idea of multiculturalism and made Pocahontas in 1995. This movie mixes Disneys favourite story of the princess- in-love with a real story from Native American history. That is a problem because Pocahontas was a real woman, and she was very different from the Pocahontas that Disney invented. To give only one example: in real life, Pocahontas was a child when she first met the hero John Smith and there was no romance between them. When Pocahontas met Smith again years later, she called him father. MULTICULTURALISM: the idea that it is a good thing to include people from many different cultures. But there are even more serious problems with the Disney version of Pocahontas and the video follow-up, Pocahontas II. The movies ignore the real fate of both Pocahontas and her people. The first movie ends cheerfully with peace between the colonists and natives; in fact, many, many of the Powhatan Nation (Pocahontas people) were later killed. COLONISTS: the first groups of people who came from Europe to America, to settle and make a home for themselves IGNORE: do not show As for the real Pocahontas, she was kidnapped and held hostage. She was forced to become a Christian and behave like a civilised white woman. She was married to a colonist who believed that the civilisation she grew up in was evil. Later, Pocahontas was taken to England, to help advertise the colony of Virginia. In England, she was homesick. She became ill and died before she could return to her homeland. CIVILISED: from a more advanced society. The quotation marks around the word show that the writer is being ironic. HOMESICK: feeling sad because you are away from home None of this is in Disneys movie. And that is very worrying, because many people believed that they were learning about history when they watched Pocahontas. Mulan Disney has done a similar thing with Mulan (1998), the story of a Chinese hero. The real Hua Mu-Lan lived so long ago that her story has become a Chinese legend a legend that Disney has reinvented so that it fits the pattern of a young woman in love. LEGEND: a famous story about a great hero Disney created Shang, a male hero for Mulan. He is her commanding officer. In the movie, Mulan is wounded in battle and everyone finds out that she is a woman. Her punishment is death but Shang cannot kill her, so he sends her away. After the war he comes to find her and marry her. In the military, your COMMANDING OFFICER is the person who gives you orders. Disney has done it again. Brave, kick-boxing Mulan does not look like Snow White but, in fact, the life of a Disney heroine has not changed very much. Men still have power over them (Shang quite literally decides whether Mulan will live or die); and the best thing that can happen to them is to marry the hero and live happily ever after. KICK-BOXING: a kind of fighting that uses both punching and kicking.

Fences Research

The Impact of Physical and Psychological Boundaries in August Wilson’s Fences The early 1950’s was a time of enormous importance because of the Civil Rights Movement which emphasized equal rights for blacks and whites. According to the book Approaching Literature, this time period became very familiar to August Wilson, the author of the play Fences. Wilson, an African American man, was raised by his mother and his ex-convict father. For a short period of time, before moving back to his old neighborhood, Wilson lived in a primarily white neighborhood where he experienced the feeling of being on the â€Å"outside. When he was in the ninth grade he had a teacher that believed there was no way he could have written an intelligent, twenty page research paper on Napoleon Bonaparte, so she accused him of plagiarism. This incident pushed Wilson to drop out of high school and teach himself. From that point on, he began educating himself by reading through the section of black a uthors in the local library. Wilson had strong views and opinions about the rights of African Americans.So much so, that he wrote quite a few plays concerning this major part of history. (1024) In Wilson’s play, Fences, how does he use psychological and physical boundaries to show the emotional separations between his characters? Baseball becomes the most prominent image in Wilson’s play. Troy Maxson, the protagonist of the play, spent many years learning and playing this game. Sheri Metzger, the author of An Essay on Fences, believes that â€Å"Baseball defines Troy Maxson’s life and provides the measure of his success. (1) As we already know, in his prime, Troy was a great baseball player and he strongly believed that he was not given the opportunity to play in the major leagues because of the color of his skin. He constantly compared himself to the ball players that made it to the major leagues, such as Hank Aaron, saying â€Å"I can hit forty-three home ru ns right now† (1048) This not only represents the fence that restricts the achievements of blacks and their constant struggle in a white society, but also Troy’s psychological boundaries between himself and mainstream America.On a first analysis of the physical boundary that exists between father and son, Troy and Cory, we must look at their relationship. Their bond was typical of any teenage boy and his father; they generally got along. The boundary comes up in the play when Cory asks Troy to sign the papers that would allow him to go to college on a football scholarship. But when Troy refuses, claiming that â€Å"the colored guy got to be twice as good [as the white player] before he get on the team,† (1047) the boundary becomes very real.He also notes that even if they do let black players on the team, â€Å"They sit on the bench and don’t get used. † (1047) Troy is still so angry over what he sees as his own lost opportunities with baseball and the injustice of it all that he can’t take any pleasure in the fact that his own son is getting a once in a lifetime opportunity to play football in college, for free! He is still stuck in the past where he was refused a chance to play professional baseball. He is bitter because deep down he is afraid that his son will go on to be more successful than he ever was.The scene where Cory comes at his father with a baseball bat illustrates quite a different image of the traditional father-and-son backyard baseball game we see in movies or books. This shows the huge gap in their relationship and Troy’s need for control. According to Gerald Weales, the author of Review of Fences in the Commonweal, â€Å"Troy not signing the papers for Cory was a destructive act that lead to this final confrontation between the two. † (1) Troy feels the need to confine Cory within his authority, but Cory hates being stuck behind the fences his father has put up; so he escapes, leaving h is family behind.Yet, when Cory returns, we find that in his attempt to free himself he has become bound within the confines of a far more strict institution; the Marine Corps. Metzger argues that â€Å"Cory finally escaped his father’s authority, just to be placed under the authority of people far more strict and controlling. † (3) Another physical boundary exists between husband and wife, Troy and Rose. At the beginning of the play, Troy is building a fence for Rose although he sees absolutely no use for it.Because she’s so focused on keeping all the people she loves safe and inside its walls, Rose is completely unaware that the fence is actually pushing her loved ones away. Since spending time in prison, Troy views fences as restrictions or limitations, so he is in no hurry to build Rose’s fence. But as the play goes on we see that after eighteen years of marriage, Troy feels confined by the responsibility and loyalty that come with it and needs to bre ak out of those constraints. He wants so badly to be free from the ties of marriage that he has an affair with another woman, Alberta.Although, in his mind he broke free of those marital boundaries, realistically, he just put up yet another fence. Rose later finds out about this affair and then Troy tells her that Alberta died while giving birth to their daughter, Raynell. Troy, being the thoughtless man he is, begs Rose to take care of his illegitimate daughter. And Rose, being the kind woman she is, agrees to raise the child because she knows that Raynell is an innocent child who was simply born into a bad situation. Rose tells Troy, â€Å"Raynell will have a mother, but he will be a womanless man for the rest of his life. (1071) Later, after Alberta’s death, Troy finally completes the fence. But rather than finishing it for Rose, as originally intended, he does it for his own reasons of keeping out danger and death. Meanwhile, Rose is still trapped with the responsibiliti es and pressures that life brings. But towards the end of the play we see that she escapes Troy’s fence, only to exchange it for one established by the church. According to Metzger, â€Å"Religion provides its own fences and restraints, and for Rose, who decided to stay with Troy, the church offers a haven within its institutionalized walls. (1040) Rose willingly puts herself behind a fence that is a little more bearable, saying, â€Å"Jesus builds a fence around me every day. † (1040) There are also some psychological fences in this play that Troy has absolutely no control over. The mental hospital where Troy confines Gabriel offers one example of that kind of fence. Gabe, who suffered permanent brain damage as a result of injuries he received while serving in World War II, now thinks of himself as an angel. Although Troy views this fence as something that’s irritating and in his way, Gabe, unaware of all of this, continues on in his childlike innocence.Troy h as a guilty conscience because he institutionalized Gabe and then used his disability money to pay for the house that he now lives in. This incident further breaks down the relationship between Troy and Cory because when he finds out what his father has done, Cory treats him with open disrespect and tells him that he no longer counts. Once again, we see that Gabe simply isn’t aware of these things, therefore he’s unaffected by these events that dramatically change the others’ lives. Gabe’s persistence shows hope for the future. According to Joseph H.Wressling, the author of Wilson’s Fences, â€Å"Gabe, just like Rose, illustrates unconditional love. † (3) Now that Cory and Troy’s relationship has no chance of any reconciliation, Cory leaves and Troy loses any hope of ever seeing his son again before he dies. Cory doesn’t return again until the day of his father’s funeral when he finally meets his sister, Raynell. Cory, s till remembering the broken relationship with his father, did not want to attend the funeral. But Rose convinced him to go and pay his respects to his father because he never meant any harm. Troy had always said that he had given his children everything he could.Cory didn’t always agree with his father, but he overcame that and broke down a barrier and finally forgave his father. Before the funeral Troy’s simpleminded brother Gabe, with his trumpet, came to blow open the gates of Heaven for Troy’s arrival. His attempts at blowing his trumpet failed because there was no mouthpiece on it. But Gabe, in his childlike innocence improvises. He begins to dance about and sing to the Heavens for his brother. Finished with his dance and satisfied that the gates of Heaven are open and ready for Troy, Gabe says, â€Å"That’s the way that go! † (1083).Wilson uses many of his characters and their relationships to show their physical and psychological separations between each other and the world. By the end of Fences, all of Wilson’s characters are bound by a fence of some sort. Although Raynell stands behind the fence that her father finally finished, she is expected to go far beyond that boundary and strive for a better future than her father and everyone else. She shows that there is hope for the future. Works Cited 1. Metzger, Sheri. â€Å"An essay on Fences. † Drama for Students. Detroit: Gale. From Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Nov. 2010. 2. Schakel, Peter J. and Jack Ridl. â€Å"August Wilson's Fences – A Form in Depth. †Ã‚  Approaching Literature: Writing Reading Thinking. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 1024-083. Print. 3. Weales, Gerald. â€Å"Review of Fences in the Commonweal, Volume CXIV, no. 10, May 22, 1987, pp. 320-21. † Drama for Students. Ed. David M. Galens. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 1998. From Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Nov. 2010. 4. Wessling, Joseph H. â€Å"Wilsonâ€⠄¢s Fences. † Explicator 57. 2 (Winter 1999): 123-127. Rpt. In Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 222. Detroit: Gale, 2006. From Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Nov. 2010.

Essay on television news Essay

Television news and current affair programs have become an essential part of our everyday lives in this cutting edge society today. Nine Network’s A Current Affair program is a 30-minute long current affairs program covering politics, crime, human rights, science, technology and many other areas. It is an example of a consumer-oriented program, which seeks to appeal to viewers to get the ratings and thereby generate revenue through advertising for the Nine Network. I will use this current affairs program broadcast on the 2nd November to discuss how the codes of television reinforce the narrative elements in one of the stories presented on the television screen. The current affair story I have chosen which runs for five minutes and eight seconds is about an out-of-control 15-year old Stacey who has been locked in a â€Å"wire cage† for her past seven years. She is severely intellectually handicapped and her mother is forced to lock her up for her own safety reasons. She claims that the Government does not provide sufficient disabilities services and resources in areas such as rural South Australia. Throughout the story, viewers are positioned to sympathize with Stacey’s mother, Kerry. She is portrayed as a victim of the lack of disabilities services, desperately pleading the government to take action. The different camera angles and movement, selection of film footage, background music, voice-overs and word choice are examples of techniques used to enhance the narrative elements in the story such as characterization, point of view, setting, structure and many more. The two main production codes I will focus on are technical and audio codes. The characters of this story include the current affair presenter, Stacey the 15-year old girl, her mother Kerry, a family friend, South Australia Disability Service Minister and Chris Hill the on-spot reporter and interviewee. Various shots such as close-up, longand panning shots are used to show the main character of the story Stacey behind her â€Å"cage†. She is shown clinging on to the â€Å"wire cage† like a prisoner without freedom. Viewers are in this way positioned to feel sorry for her. We normally associate imprisonment with crime and wrong doings. Here, we are presented with an innocent victim suffering from Down syndrome, being denied the basic human right of freedom through no fault of her own. There are also shots filming interviews with Stacey’s mum, Kerry. The close-up shots showing Kerry’s weary and desperate face suggests to viewers that she is also suffering from locking her daughter up in the cage for her own safety and this allows viewers to observe the physical effect of the stressful situation. This makes viewers feel sorry for her as the mother of a handicapped daughter. The shots showing South Australia’s Disability Service Minister busy flipping through his pile of work tells viewers that the minister is very busy and he has other community issues to look at. It shows that the need to help Stacey is low down in the minister’s listed priorities. Viewers react by feeling angered because the government cannot provide these services for families in need. Seeing the Minister in his city office environment contrasted with the rural setting of the Stacey’s â€Å"cage†, viewers can see the huge gap in the importance placed in addressing this problem. The melancholy background music, designed to raise emotions, is also played whenever Stacey appears on the scene, further emphasizing the sufferings of the mother and daughter. The setting of the story is also enhanced by shots showing rural South Australia and Stacey’s â€Å"wire cage†. The long shots are used to show location as isolated and deserted from the major town centres and the voice of Chris Hill further enhances it. There are footages showing the surroundings of the Stacey’s house, suggesting the danger Stacey faces if she is let loosed. The close up shots of the wire cage and the faces behind the â€Å"cage†; and the repetition shots of the opening of the â€Å"cage† reinforce the â€Å"prison† setting Stacey has been living in for the past seven years. The point of view in the story is 90% focused on Stacey’s mother, Kerry and their family friend. Viewers are persuaded to side with them in arguing against the government for the lack of disability services such as day care programs, transport services and other disability services. The footage showing Stacey interacting with the camera as she interrupts the â€Å"normal† narrative flow of the camera work by covering the camera lens show her behaviour as uncontrolled and undisciplined. It also demonstrates clearly to the viewers that Stacey has a lack of understanding of the appropriate behaviour and responses in the world around her. This reinforces the viewpoint of Stacey’s mother that this problem is not exaggerated. The current affair presenter also commented on the â€Å"lack of support provided†, further enhancing that the government is not doing anything. The sympathetic tone is created through the selection of words chosen by the voice-over and presenter. For example, Stacey home is described as a â€Å"domestic detention centre†. This emotive language is normally associated with asylum seekers arriving in our country. Other selective words and adjectives used include â€Å"barbaric† when referred to the action of locking Stacey up and â€Å"Wire Cage† when referred to Stacey’s house. This colourful language is used to make the story seem more interesting and touching. There is also a personal testimony recounting an incident from the past to demonstrate the past and present difficulties faced by Kerry and many other interviews to make the story more truthful. Values and attitudes of the Australian government are also reinforced using technical and audio codes in the story. The Australian Government likes to think of themselves as caring, helpful and supportive. They believe that they have one of the best healthcare systems in the world. This story sets on to show one of the examples of the system failing to provide services for all in the community. In conclusion, the current affair story is put together using the different narrative techniques such as characterization, setting, point of view and tone and it is reinforced through the use of television production codes such as technical and audio codes.