Cultural Studies/Critical Theory Monday, Apr 28 2008

I think that it is very rare that we can pick up a magazine or watch a television show today in which the average person is being represented in society. The average person being shown through the media is usually caucasian, thin, rich, tan and beautiful. In the days of photoshop and airbrushing, we hardly get to see normal everyday, average people, and this is something that is contributing to making the average person powerless, because these images are not real and do not represent the average person living in society today. 

I think that corporate control is a pretty scary thing, it prevents us from hearing, seeing and knowing the truth about certain issues around the world and because these corporations have so much money they are willing to do anything so that it stays this way. I think that these stories involve anything that will hurt their company’s image and who knows to what extent they have been breaking laws and using people as scapegoats in order to do so. 

I think that it is the people with the most control and the most money that are able to sway the media into putting certain spins on stories in order to rank higher in ratings or sell more magazines and newspapers. Because of this, we are seeing one side of the story through a skewed interpretation. 

Ideology to me, can be re-defined as a way in which we take representations of images and words and look at them while we interpret and place meaning on things that society has given importance and power to and in doing so, we create our own spin on them which is greatly influenced by the meaning that has already been constructed through the media. 

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Narrative Paradigm Tuesday, Apr 15 2008

 

Yes, I think that there is a difference between a story and a simple sequence or chain of events. I think this because although the story is based on a sequence of events, it is the anecdotes in between that make it a story instead of facts being repeated to someone. When we tell stories, we are relaying information in a way in which our target audience will want to listen and become engulfed in what we are saying. I think that it is usually helpful to have a beginning, middle and end to a story to help it flow along well. I also think that it is helpful for a story to have a storyteller that relies heavily on feedback from an audience. Since we are constantly communicating non-verbally as well as verbally, I think that we can create stories non-verbally without an audience that we know of, however, people may tend to pick up on the story we are telling without us even being aware of it. I think that this is where the meaning of a story is assigned, and I think that both the storyteller and the audience give it meaning, the storyteller by the way he or she relays the story and the audience by the way he or she interprets it. 

I think that we tend to live in a narrative paradigm, because we are sometimes clouded by the media and their interpretation of how a story is told, which is sometimes skewed so that they will be able to shock people by tweeking information in order to sell magazines, newspapers…etc. 

 

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Obama Speech Monday, Apr 14 2008

Act:  A speech given to United States citizens in order to call to their attention issues surrounding the country that we live in and how they will be handled when Barack Obama is elected President.

Scene: A country in need of change for a better, stronger and more unified America

Agent: Barack Obama, presidential candidate hopeful

Agency: American citizens hoping for a new united America brought on by the reassurance of the best candidate for the job.

Purpose: To unite a group of people ( American citizens) and alert them of the need of a new America, one that will result in choosing a candidate who will unite the citizens of the country by the promise of a new America built upon hope that will ultimately result in change.

 

Response:

I have never actually viewed one of Obama’s speeches, and after watching this one I was quite impressed with his public speaking capabilities as well as the amount of passion that he had behind everything that he said. I specifically liked when he called upon each one of us as citizens to make a change. This made the speech seem more intimate and personal, it took it to a level of overall concern for each and every one of us as Americans and showed his genuine interest in “fixing” all of the problems surrounding the country to date. I thought that Burke’s Guilt-Redemption Cycle was most clearly used when Obama made reference to 9-11 during his speech. He makes reference calling out people for using it as a tactic to “scare up votes”and “win an election”. At this point in the speech, he is making them and the incident the scapegoat, in order to get rid of guilt, as we have learned occurs within the cycle while speaking in public to an audience.

 

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Extra Credit: Sunday, Apr 6 2008

1.) MMC communicates as an organization because it is built up of several various departments that work together to accomplish a certain goal. The goal happens to be educating students from a Liberal Arts perspective. MMC communicates this in these different ways and to different people such as staff, faculty and the student body by enabling a shared belief from each different side. Through taking the information received by the college, enabling the professors to share and expand on their knowledge, and ultimately having the students participate in an open-minded and no one answer mindset, MMC functions in a trickling down of information that works circularly, no matter which end of the spectrum you fall under, to contribute what you can in order to further your Liberal Arts education. 

 

2.) In thinking about organizational culture, I would describe the culture at MMC to a prospective student as, a very open-minded atmosphere where each subject is approached with a variety of understandings and interpretations. There is almost never only one way to answer the questions that arise when discussing topics and subjects in the classroom at MMC. I think that it is a place for each of us to bring what we have learned or interpreted from the subject at hand and listen and learn from others what they have as well.

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Information Systems Approach to Organizations Sunday, Apr 6 2008

Having more meetings as opposed to fewer meetings enables the organization to work through the confusion or different interpretations of the problem at hand. I think that Weick’s basis of action over inaction is a very smart plan of attack. When an organization doesn’t address issues as soon as they are presented, there is a window of time that is automatically opened that can in turn create chaos and misunderstanding within the organization privately and publicly. For me, the most interesting part of his theory was his response to those who criticized his “shoot from the hip” approach, where he stated that, ” When you are lost any old map will do. When you are confused, any strategic plan is better than inaction  because it animates and orients people. Act first, then figure out what those actions might mean”. (287)

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Functional Perspectives Sunday, Apr 6 2008

After reading chapter 17, I think that there are many parallels between the four functional requisites of task groups and the body’s need for respiration, circulation, digestion and elimination. I think that the four functional requisites of task groups: Analysis of the problem, Goal Setting, Identification of alternatives, and Evaluation of positive and negative characteristics coincide with carrying out a decision just as our bodies take what we put in them and carry out the tasks that we need to have taking place within us in order to survive. In groups, we are forced to think outside of our own minds and call upon others to contribute to the problem within the situation at hand. This enables us to work together in order to accomplish a certain goal. This is happening the same way within living systems when they work together to regulate and maintain homeostasis within our bodies. There is no way a living system could exist without the interaction and working together of all of the systems within it, in order to eliminate the bad things that we need to get rid of in our bodies, just like this, groups take the problem or issue at hand and work together until it is worked out and resolved. 

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