Media Text Inquiry

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/21/health/global-insulin-shortage-diabetes-intl/index.html
How could the text be read and interpreted differently by two different readers?
Throughout the Study of Reader, in the article "40 million people with diabetes will be left without insulin by 2030, study predicts" shows how can be people's reaction of reading certain article could be different based on their own situation; typically people who are concerned with the issue will be people with diabetes or people who have family member with diabetes, while other people who do not have any relation with diabetes will not feel any fear through this article.

If the text had been written in a different time or place or language or for a different audience, how and why might it differ?
In the Study of Reader, culture and the text, in the article "South Korean pastor Lee Jae-rock jailed for raping followers" brings us to think about how the text could be different based on its time; as the me-too movement started to emerge in Korea, many people started to speak up with their happenings; which ends up with various news articles related to this situation.

Written Task 2 practice

If the text had been written in a different time or place or language or for a different audience, how and why might it differ?
It is important to know how the text was written under what circumstances. For example, in the text For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside of Marriage was talking about negative events happening on single moms in America, and even though the birth occurring rate outside marriage is increasing worldwide, the statistic depends on the countries. Therefore the place the text was written is highly important as the information might differ based on the culture or country.

How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?
Based on the writer's view of a social group, it can be represented differently in the text. If the writer's view of a social group is negative, the text will create a negative atmosphere throughout the text, or the opposite will happen either. In the text For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside of Marriage talks about the single moms and the rise of birth rate occurring outside of marriage by providing supporting quotes, statistics, and interviews of the reason of rising number of single moms- so the reason for them being a single mom is not their choice.

Practice IOC - 5 short passages from TEWWG

https://www.dropbox.com/s/umz01uz8gmjw0im/Practice%20IOC.m4a?dl=0

(Voice recording)

I was unavailable to do all 5 passages, so I only finished 3 of them. 

I will add other 2 right after I go home tonight.

Passage #1, Chapter 3

"'Cause you told me Ah mus gointer love him, and, and Ah don't. Maybe if somebody was to tell me how, Ah could do it." 

"You come heah wid yo' mouf full uh foolishness on uh busy day. Heah you got uh prop tuh lean on all yo' bawn days, and big protection, and everybody got tuh tip dey hat tuh you and call you Mis' Killicks, and you come worryin' me 'bout love." 

"But Nanny, Ah wants to want him sometimes. Ah don't want him to do all de wantin'." 

"If you don't want him, you sho oughta. Heah you is wid de onliest organ in town, amongst colored folks, in yo' parlor. Got a house bought and paid for and sixty acres uh land right on de big road and . . . Lawd have mussy! Dat's de very prong all us black women gits hung on. Dis love! Dat's just whut's got us uh pullin' and uh haulin' and sweatin' and doin' from can't see in de mornin' till can't see at night. Dat's how come de ole folks say dat bein' uh fool don't kill nobody. It jus' makes you sweat. Ah betcha you wants some dressed up dude dat got to look at de sole of his shoe everytime he cross de street tuh see whether he got enough leather dere tuh make it across. You can buy and sell such as dem wid what you got. In fact you can buy 'em and give 'em away." 

Passage #2, Chapter 8

"Janie! Janie! don't tell me Ah got tuh die, and Ah ain't used tuh thinkin"bout it." 

"'Tain't really no need of you dying, Jody, if you had of—de doctor—but it don't do no good bringin' dat up now. Dat's just whut Ah wants tuh say, Jody. You wouldn't listen. You done lived wid me for twenty years and you don't half know me atall. And you could have but you was so busy worshippin' de works of yo' own hands, and cuffin' folks around in their minds till you didn't see uh whole heap uh things yuh could have." 

"Leave heah, Janie. Don't come heah—" 

"Ah knowed you wasn't gointuh lissen tuh me. You changes everything but nothin' don't change you—not even death. But Ah ain't goin' outa here and Ah ain't gointuh hush. Naw, you gointuh listen tuh me one time befo' you die. Have yo' way all yo' life, trample and mash down and then die ruther than tuh let yo'self heah 'bout it. Listen, Jody, you ain't de Jody ah run off down de road wid. You'se whut's left after he died. Ah run off tuh keep house wid you in uh wonderful way. But you wasn't satisfied wid me de way Ah was. Naw! Mah own mind had tuh be squeezed and crowded out tuh make room for yours in me." 

Passage #3, Chapter 9

Before she slept that night she burnt up every one of her head rags and went about the house next morning with her hair in one thick braid swinging well below her waist. That was the only change people saw in her. She kept the store in the same way except of evenings she sat on the porch and listened and sent Hezekiah in to wait on late custom. She saw no reason to rush at changing things around. She would have the rest of her life to do as she pleased. 

In what ways could Wallace's theory be applicable to [Their Eyes Were Watching God]?
How could this novel specifically develop empathy and emotional intelligence, as well as contribute to the self-awareness of the reader?

Wallace's Theory is people should be thinking about different people's perspective. Simply, people tend to forget the importance of surroundings if they are too close to our daily routine like Wallace made a comparison with young and old goldfish at the beginning of his essay. It is also related to [Thier Eyes Were Watching God] written by Zora Neale Hurston because throughout her novel, it develops the emotion of Janie in detail with much explanation of surroundings or atmosphere of the situation which leads the reader to eventually think in the way how Janie does. Also, the flow of the novel is quite simple and time-based, which allows the reader to understand the situation easier than other novels which keep skipping between multiple points of view in different time periods, which might confuse the reader. As the novel flows naturally, the readers can easily feel emotionally related to the protagonist even though the reader doesn't really have any of the similarities based on their culture or race. As Emotional Intelligence is based on people's ability of empathy, and this novel has many of the aspects of developing empathy throughout reading process, the novel [The Eyes Were Watching God] helps the reader to develop their empathy and emotional intelligence.

how the genre, narrative voice, and structure of Things Fall Apart are influenced by context

Explain how Achebe's choice of narrative structure relates to this learning outcome from part 3 of the course?

learning outcome: demonstrate how the formal elements of the text, genre, and structure can not only be seen to influence meaning but can also be influenced by context.

Achebe's signature structure of "Things Fall Apart" of spiraling all over the basic information of Igbo culture and Okonkwo's conflict between other characters at the beginning of the novel and suddenly develops into great conflicts between societies(Igbo and Christianity) best represents Achebe's choice of narrative structure that relates to the learning outcome. As Achebe is periphrasis throughout his beginning of the text, develops further understanding of the Igbo society which is not common for the other foreigners to specifically know, or relate to them. Therefore Achebe is providing opportunities for the readers to understand the structure of the primitive society of Nigeria and their story of getting colonized by British Christianity, due to their lack of understanding. If Achebe did not form his novel in this way of speaking(periphrasis), it could not be able to express deep emotions and religions of the Igbo society which won't let the readers to personally relate the foreign society with them, the aim of Achebe wanted to deliver. 

Introduction - Religion

The personal history of an author can have a significant influence on the way meaning is constructed in his/her writing. 

Personal history of an author can significantly influence the novel "Things Fall Apart" on how the plot and the meaning is constructed, because as the writer can express his/her personal beliefs or understanding of certain situation throughout the passage and the writing style might vary based on the author's ideology or background information they have.

It is almost impossible to not put the personal history of an author in the passage of his/her, because as the novel is one product of the author based on his/her imagination, which requires the person's thoughts. For example, in "Things Fall Apart" written by Chinua Achebe, Achebe have expressed how the British have colonized Nigeria in the 1900s. If Achebe was not Nigerian, he might not have a thought about the colonialism of British power, and he couldn't be expressing the history and culture of Igbo society in depth at the beginning of the novel. Also, as he is a Nigerian, he knows the pain of the country getting colonized by other powers, which further makes him deliver what he was thinking about the world. 

TFA Okonkwo Character Analysis

- What is the significance of Okonkwo’s character? What does he represent or is symbolic of? 
Okonkwo's characteristic is reaching for the achievement of prestige. As he is working hard for prestige and honor of himself, he hates laziness of his father, as well as his first son, Nwoye. I personally think Okonkwo is symbolic of patriarchal personality.


- What is the purpose of Okonkwo’s character within the text? 
As Okonkwo is the main character of the novel, he is the main reason why the conflict occurs in the story. For example, while Okonkwo was mad at his family about his banana tree got killed(even though it wasn't dead; his second wife just took some of the leaves to cover foods) and he was beating his own wife and even try to shoot her with a gun as he got too aggressive, if Okonkwo's characteristic was not aggressive and hardly search for honour, the conflict might not have been made, and definitely the story will not be interesting if there is no conflict. 
What I am trying to say is the character and his(or her) characteristic differs hows the situation goes in the whole story as different people react in the different ways, as the real world works in the same way.  


- How does Okonkwo’s character contribute to big ideas?
As Okonkwo's character looks for his honor and prestige, he does anything if that keeps his honor high up. When people in his village decides something and it is personally bad for Okonkwo, he doesn't show his emotion and keeps on doing his work as it is the type of being "manly" as his personality. 

3 important moments in TFA

I think the most important plot of TFA is following: 1)Okonkwo accidentally kills Ikemefuna, 2)Okonkwo gets vanished from the village, and 3)Okonkwo commits suicide.

1) Okonkwo accidentally kills Ikemefuna
I think this is the first "crisis" of the whole story that Okonkwo accidentally kills Ikemefuna, and because of that, Okonkwo gets vanished from the village, and that is the beginning step for climax of this novel.

2) Okonkwo gets vanished from the village
This could be a small climax and another crisis at the same time, as Okonkwo gets vanished from the village because of 1), and because of his vanishment and while he was out of the village, the village gets colonized by the British power. This novel's protagonist is Okonkwo, therefore the emotion shift on him gives the most important scene of the whole story.

3) Okonkwo commits suicide
This could be the biggest climax and the conclusion of the story because as Okonkwo's emotional shift in the final stage of the novel gets very aggressive on the change of the culture in his village while he was gone, and it took Okonkwo to kill himself at the end of the novel.

Why would Achebe choose to set his novel prior to and during the arrival of the colonial administration as opposed to during the context of composition?

Why would Achebe choose to set his novel prior to and during the arrival of the colonial administration as opposed to during the context of composition? 

I think Achebe wanted to show the cultural shift in his country by the colonial administration during that time period. Which could make him very distressed while writing, because I personally think when you are talking about your country’s history and culture and your country have been colonized once by another certain country, it is painful to talk about it as it is grey part of your own nation. I have the similar opinion, as I am Korean and Korea was colonized by Japan during WW2, I personally don’t want to talk about that time period because us Koreans got numerous violence by the Japanese government. However, I want to correct some of the assumptions that might have been made from foreigners who don’t specifically know about history of Korea, as I am Korean who supposed to know the “actual’ history of Korea, and correct other people if they know it in different ways- There are certain cultural misunderstandings such as Koreans can barely understand Japanese language as they are neighbouring countries and Korea have been colonised by them, but it is not true, as Korean and Japanese language is totally different, non of the grammar, alphabet, and structure of the language are the same. 

I felt like Achebe wanted to show similar ideas in Things Fall Apart. As many people don’t specifically know what culture or history of Nigeria, and from that people have wrong/untrue assumptions or stereotypes based on that. Chinua Achebe almost used half of the novel to express the atmosphere of the Nigerian tribe, to fully deliver the actual image of the Nigerian tribes who are not commonly accessible for other people who don’t relate closely. 

[Enter CAIUS MARCIUS]

Hail, noble Marcius!

MARCIUS Thanks. What's the matter, you dissentious rogues,

That, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,

Make yourselves scabs?

First Citizen We have ever your good word.

MARCIUS He that will give good words to thee will flatter

Beneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs,

That like nor peace nor war? the one affrights you,

The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you, 160

Where he should find you lions, finds you hares;

Where foxes, geese: you are no surer, no,

Than is the coal of fire upon the ice,

Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is

To make him worthy whose offence subdues him

And curse that justice did it.

Who deserves greatness

Deserves your hate; and your affections are

A sick man's appetite, who desires most that

Which would increase his evil. He that depends 170

Upon your favours swims with fins of lead

And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust Ye?

With every minute you do change a mind,

And call him noble that was now your hate,

Him vile that was your garland. What's the matter,

That in these several places of the city

You cry against the noble senate, who,

Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else

Would feed on one another? What's their seeking?

MENENIUS For corn at their own rates; whereof, they say,

The city is well stored.

MARCIUS Hang 'em! They say! 180

They'll sit by the fire, and presume to know

What's done i' the Capitol; who's like to rise,

Who thrives and who declines; side factions

and give out

Conjectural marriages; making parties strong

And feebling such as stand not in their liking

Below their cobbled shoes. They say there's

grain enough!

Would the nobility lay aside their ruth,

And let me use my sword, I'll make a quarry

With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high

As I could pick my lance. 190

MENENIUS Nay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded;

For though abundantly they lack discretion,

Yet are they passing cowardly. But, I beseech you,

What says the other troop?

MARCIUS They are dissolved: hang 'em!

They said they were an-hungry; sigh'd forth proverbs,

That hunger broke stone walls, that dogs must eat,

That meat was made for mouths, that the gods sent not

Corn for the rich men only: with these shreds

They vented their complainings; which being answer'd,

And a petition granted them, a strange one-- 200

To break the heart of generosity,

And make bold power look pale--they threw their caps

As they would hang them on the horns o' the moon,

Shouting their emulation.

Telling my friend who haven't read Coriolanus before

Hey, I just noticed that you haven't read Coriolanus written by William Shakespeare before!
Which is quite sad, but it's okay. Because from now, Coriolanus will be your favorite book of the year!

Caius Martius, who is the main character of the play, is a lower class hating person who thinks the plebeians(citizens) don't deserve any political power, and he is also a hero of the Rome, as he wins the battle with Volscians, and he gets the nickname, which is also written on the title: Coriolanus. In my personal opinion, it's easy to explain Coriolanus' personality as a "Bully in the high school". Why?   He's cool, as he turned the Volsces upside down, he's strong as everybody knows. As Coriolanus is the strongest of the school(Rome), he wills to become a leader of the plebeians. From that, Coriolanus had to lower the position and ask the plebeians for votes. As everybody knew that he could be the strongest leader, everyone voted. But, if something always goes fine, that's not going to be much interesting as you thought, right?

At this point, the tribunes, Sicinius Velutus and Junius Brutus come in. They claim that Coriolanus cannot be the best leader as his personality, that he always has been rude to people and his aggressive dictions. Sicinius and Brutus temped the citizens and make them get the votes back from Coriolanus. Because of that, obviously, Coriolanus gets mad and that became the greater reason to prove that the tribunes were right: Coriolanus is not suitable for the leader. They decide to vanish Coriolanus, which is "forced change of school" for the "bully".

Volumnia, who is Coriolanus' mother, was keep showing tenacious personality from the beginning of the play. Even she said "Away, you fool! it more becomes a man than gilt his trophy: the breats of Hecuba, When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier than Hector's forehead when it spit forth blood at Grecian sword, contemning." to Vergilia, who is Coriolanus' wife when she freaked out that Coriolanus came back all bloody from the war. Now you can see how Volumnia is creepy. However, she totally changes her position when Coriolanus vanished, even though Coriolanus himself wasn't stressed at all. Volumnia was begging Coriolanus to not leave. He leaves anyway, like an obstinate teenager, and he was planning for the revenge. 

Revenge! You can see how this play goes so interesting! It will take way more time to tell the whole story and I also don't want to ruin the masterpiece by shortening it too much, so it's going to be the better idea to read it by yourself, later on, I guess. I'll borrow you my book if you want to! 

Pop Culture

Media messages are representations of the world. We depend on the media to understand our world and different cultures.

This statement is true, that the media represents the culture and the world. Which means, the people who are from totally different countries might get ideas(even though some stereotypes) based on the media. Because of that, we need to be conscious about our behaviors based on the media, which might harm and misrepresent our own culture and life. For example, there was one girl from a foreign country have told me that she had some stereotypes before she actually came to Korea because some of the Korean dramas are handling the episodes about early eras of Korea. Therefore she got stereotypes such as "Koreans still wear traditional clothing" or "They still have the traditional building all around", etc.

There could be some misunderstanding of my culture, therefore I always am conscious of my behavior on the social network service, such as Facebook, because my behaviors are being recorded on the system and everyone can see it.

It has to be the same in the pop culture, as the pop culture represents the basic culture of the society or community or even a country. Therefore people need to be conscious while being on the pop culture as it can be the basic information for the people who aren't familiar with.

Target audience

 https://swashleycreative.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/tomsspread_wired_for-web1.jpg

This advertisement is targeted for men, who are willing to hide their smell of sweat after playing sports with deodorants, therefore this advertisement is appealing for the need to achieve. It shows a cropped image of man; half of it is wearing a sports uniform and holding a dirty soccer ball, and the other half is wearing a black suit with a watch- which visually shows the effect of the deodorant: that it will hide any other messy smells and clear them to magically make other people that the man is neat and tidy, compared to what he actually looks like. This advertisement is using pathos as a way to persuade, to appeal to emotion that men want to smell nice to women. The idea that women like sportive men, however, they don't like their body odor. This advertisement is using that idea as the way to persuade.

Does advertisers have a moral duty to avoid stereotyping?

Advertisers use stereotypes of people to persuade. Because of that, the debate is becoming bigger that as a form of mass media, advertisement creators should have moral duty to avoid stereotyping people. In my personal opinion, I disagree this statement. The reason why the idea "advertisers should have the moral duty to avoid stereotyping people" is the size of mass media is huge, therefore it might give stereotypes to the consumers while they watch the advertisements. However, if the consumer gets stereotypes based on what they watched advertisements on YouTube or television, that is because of their gullible personality, not because of the advertisement. In that case, young children are more gullible then adults, therefore the duty is on adults around the children. For example, if some advertisement shows stereotype in their commercial and young kids have watched it, their parents have the duty to tell them the reason why the advertisers have used the stereotype to persuade, and tell them to not to have the stereotype because of the advertisement. However, this education at home is not working well. As kids are getting more closer to the mobile phones and SNS as time flews, they get more time using their devices then talking to their parents face to face. Because of that, children get easily exposed to stereotyped advertisements, and they also get stereotyped ideas in their mind. The worse thing is, if the stereotype gets recognized by younger age, it is easier to fix. However, as time goes, people tend to have more time on their devices compared to having conversations with people offline, therefore it becomes a vicious cycle. For example, now in South Korea, students who are between 14 to 18 are too much affected by the stereotyped commercials, now they think the ideal look of women are pale skin color, red lips, big eyes- especially they use colored contact lenses to make their pupils look bigger. Which leads to another bad vicious cycle, that teenagers don't have much money on their hands, they search for cheaper items, which doesn't have any information about health effects. 

Of course, the advertisers are the one who made the advertisement stereotyped, therefore they should be changing their commercials to not to be too stereotyped. However, as consumer's sight, the advertisements should be attractive, natural, and unaffected. Also, it has to be more attractive compared to other competitors, they need to create their commercial more stimulate and sensational. I personally tell my friends that commercials are made to convince you to buy their products, not to tell you the ideal type of people, therefore you all need to get more self-attachment and confidence about yourselves.

Gender inequality Advertisements

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvjUtU9viuc

This YouTube video contains 6 different advertisements that show gender roles in life due to gender stereotypes that women are the people who are housekeeping, and working as the housewives. Therefore those commercial easily shows women using their product due to creating familiarity. But gender roles are mostly quite not right as the ideas come from stereotypes of gender. Not only women are working at home and cleaning, men also belong to housework. In Korea, this kind of gender roles were more serious issue coming through 21st century, because as most of the Asian countries do, due to Confucian ideas, some aged people still have idea that men are better than women, and women need to stay at home looking after the kids, be housewife and men are the people who are mainly getting profit for the family as the idea of men are in higher class compared to women. However, since the beginning of 21st century, people started thinking of both women and men are equal and there are no differences between anyway.

What commonalities/differences exist between your chosen advertisements in terms of how gender is presented?
In my personal opinion, this advertisement was created with gender role which is an old type stereotype in the society- that women only do the housework and men are not. However, as time flew, people's perspective has been changed, which led to the idea of women also can work outside the house, men also can do housework and look after the kids. But, women are the people who bear babies and easily gets most of the responsibilities while looking after the baby at home. That caused the stereotype that women are the people who work in-house.

What do your chosen ads reveal about how your industry/product is marketed to consumers?
As I explained earlier, advertisements should create familiarity, not abnormality- as the company wants consumers to buy their product and use them in real life. In that case, the role of advertisement is to show how comfortable/easy the product makes during the real-life situation and make the customers have an idea of purchasing the item.

What do your ads reveal about society?
It reveals about society's stereotypes on gender roles. Commonly, in the media, gender role of women are housewives, looking after the kids, etc and for the male, it is working outside and get profit. Which was quite true in the past, but the world has been changed. However, the advertisements are showing the stereotypes which are still there in people's mind.