Cultural Theory Essay Australian Tourism Essay Example

Cultural Theory Essay Australian Tourism Essay Example Cultural Theory Essay Australian Tourism Essay Cultural Theory Essay Australian Tourism Essay The Australian tourism advertisement that was released earlier this year, complete with the tagline â€Å"So where the bloody hell are you? † was one of the most controversial government-funded ads in recent memory. The advertisement was created and funded by Tourism Australia and screened on domestic television in dozens of countries around the world. The release of the ad prompted considerable worldwide discussion: it was initially banned from British television by the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre, due to the ad’s use of the word ‘bloody’ and its perceived connotation as a profanity (â€Å"Brits ban ‘bloody hell’ TV ad†). I have chosen to analyse this advertisement because it is a recent, controversial text filled with many complex images that portray what it means to be Australian. The advertisement portrays the following Australian locales: outback pub; secluded beach; ocean-side saltwater pool; kangaroo-inhabited golf course; open patio house; remote offshore tropical island; Uluru, Australia’s center; Sydney Harbour; barren desert (refer to appendix for a full description). The implied negative consequence of ignoring the advertisement is that potential tourists will be unable to visit and experience the beauty of the Australian landscape. Australia is portrayed in multiple ways by this text. As it is a tourism advertisement, its purpose is to convince foreigners to visit our country. According to the representations of Australian culture that are put forth by this text, we Australians value alcohol (primarily beer); engage in physical activity, no matter the age; frequent our many beaches; appreciate our native fauna; value family life; respect our indigenous citizens, and are generally sociable people. Each of these depictions of what Australians represent and value are tied to the process of ideology. The term ‘ideology’ is rooted in the work of Marx. He argued that the dominant ideas and viewpoints in society were that of the ruling class (â€Å"Questions of Culture and Ideology†). Althusser submits that there are two sides to ideology: one that consists of the actual living conditions of people’s lives, which is not false; and a set of meanings which misrepresent class and power within society, which is thus false. As many of the scenes and situations depicted in the focus text are irregular and stereotypical, the advertisement is ideologically constructed to depict Australian culture in a particular light. Ideology can be thought of as a sophisticated filter, through which our worldview is perceived (â€Å"Ideology†). Personal ideologies and societal ideologies may differ: whereas a society, by and large, may subscribe to ideologies of peace, democracy and justice, an individual may hold opposing viewpoints and thus, opposing ideologies. Within our focus text, Australian ideological values such as equality, respect and the importance of family are prevalent. The Australian tourism ad is one that is rife with complex imagery, whose purpose is to represent Australia. Semiotics, the study of signs, refers to the way in which particular images, text or objects can be used to create messages, which are often a part of a larger system of signs. For example, a green light is generally interpreted as a sign to ‘go’, within the larger context of a traffic light-controlled motor vehicle intersection. Once isolated and taken out of that context, the green light makes little sense. Consider an example from the text; the casual manner of the man who tells us â€Å"Bill’s on his way down to open the front gate† ironically suggests that this is a petty task, until the shot of a vehicle driving across a vast landscape conveys the message that such a seemingly simple task is, in fact, quite an ordeal. When discussing semiotics, ‘myth’ refers to a sign or series of signs that depicts one term within a system as indicative of all other terms. Furthermore, the simplification of signs known as ‘indifferentiation’– the refusal of difference (Thwaites 68) – perpetuates myths by silencing all non-dominant terms or voices. For example, within the focus text, the producers are guilty of mythic indifferentiation by suggesting that the only place that Aboriginals have within Australian culture is as an entertainment source for non-Aboriginals. Though it is unfair to write the advertisement off as largely mythic in its semiotic construction and thus not indicative of wider Australian culture, I have, for the purpose of this essay, ntertained the thought. A ‘metonym’ refers to the association between terms, either in part or whole. Thus, the scene in the bar metonymically suggests that all Australian men work hard and enjoy a cold beer – served by a woman, no less – at the end of a day’s work. The choice of an attractive young woman in a bikini to represent beach culture m etonymically invokes sex. The purpose of this sign is to physically attract foreigners to Australia through the use of a sexually attractive woman. Whether or not this specific sign is aimed at a particular sex is irrelevant: the woman in the bikini nonetheless represents happiness, health and virility. These traits are exhibited by a majority of the Australians in the ad, and are thus metonymically indicative of the rest of the Australian society. The very idea that all Australians are happy and healthy is, of course, ridiculous. For example, it is estimated that half of Australia’s population is overweight (â€Å"About Overweight and Obesity†) and approximately one in twenty Australians is currently living with depression (â€Å"Understanding Depression†). Imagine if you were a European and saw an ad on television that portrayed Australians as they are in reality: for example, if the beautiful blonde bikini girl was replaced with an overweight man with a disgusting smoker’s cough. While this may more closely mirror reality, it would be an extremely poor marketing decision. The signs that appear in this text are all carefully chosen for the purpose of appearing attractive to an overseas market. The producers’ attempt at political correctness in regard to the Aboriginal people largely misses the mark. While their native musical instruments of rhythm sticks and didgeridoo, and the spiritual icon of Uluru are well-represented and tasteful, the final scene featuring Aboriginal people dancing and the quoted line, â€Å"And we’ve been practicing for over forty thousand years† invokes a connotation that effectively reduces the entire Aboriginal people to little more than a tourist attraction, assumedly for the rich, white Europeans that the advertisement is largely aimed at. While it is highly unlikely that the producers of the text intended for this to be the denotation (or ‘preferred reading’, Thwaites 62) of the scene, the fact that it can be easily read in this manner, as derogatory toward the Aboriginal people, is demonstrative of the many different ways in which signs can be read. The Australians that speak in the advertisement use short, simple sentences to convey their messages. The language is constructed in this manner for two reasons: firstly, because it was broadcast in countries where English might not be prevalent, and thus the producers wanted to simplify the language as much as possible; in addition, they attempted to capture the manner in which an ordinary Australian speaks, which is something that they achieved well. Furthermore, the one word that caused quite a stir, â€Å"bloody†, is not even worth batting an eyelid at, as an Australian living in Australia. Tourism Australia’s Manager of Strategic Insights, Lawrence Franklin, suggests that the use of the word â€Å"tapped into real perceptions of the irreverent, self effacing nature of Australians† (â€Å"Bloody hell, does research work? †). While the word was apparently politically incorrect enough within other cultures for them to attempt to ban the advertisement, the colloquialism is so institutionalised within our society that the so-called â€Å"great Australian adjective† is well and truly a part of our vernacular, endorsed far and wide, from the average citizen right up to our Prime Minister (â€Å"Australia’s Bonzer†). The inclusion of golf as the choice of sport to portray Australian-ness is a strange one. The creators of this text clearly wished to send out a particular image of Australian sport; instead of showing scenes from a popular team sport for which Australia is well known, such as rugby league or cricket, the producers chose to show the financially exclusive sport of golf. This sign attempts to convey a message of sophistication. I suppose that golf is more of an internationally recognised sport than the other two mentioned, and the producers decided to make a safe bet on a commonly played game, rather than alienate their audience by displaying an unfamiliar sport. Tourism Australia’s â€Å"So where the bloody hell are you? † television advertisement is an undoubtedly well-produced, well-researched product that adequately represents a majority of Australia’s culture, people and values. When analysed using semiotics, ideology and ordinariness, it is exposed to be a rich text that provides many points of discussion. While it is next to impossible to coherently convey everything that it means to be an Australian within a one-minute audio-visual presentation, the ad was, overall, fair in its depiction of the Australian way of life. References and Works Consulted â€Å"About Overweight and Obesity. † Australian Government Department of Health and Aging. 30 September 2002. 1 June 2006. health. gov. au/internet/wcms/publishing. nsf/Content/health-pubhlth-strateg-hlthwt-obesity. htm â€Å"Australias bonzer. So why the bloody hell arent you guys here? † Times Online. 4 February 2006. 31 May 2006. timesonline. co. uk/article/0,,3-2055531,00. html â€Å"Bloody hell, does research work? † Australian Market Social Research Society. April 2006. 29 May 2006. mrsa. com. au/index. cfm? a=detailid=2095eid=121 â€Å"Brits ban ‘bloody hell’ TV ad. † Sydney Morning Herald Online. 9 March 2006. 30 May 2006. smh. com. au/news/national/brits-ban-bloody-hell-tv-ad/2006/03/ 09/1141701625132. html Barker, Chris. â€Å"Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. † Questions of Culture and Ideology. Ch. 3 pp. 57-87. Ideology. † Elana Starr. 31 May 2006. http://www89. homepage. villanova. edu/elana. starr/pages/ideology-cinema. htm Thwaites, Tony, Lloyd Davis and Warwick Mules. â€Å"Introducing cultural and media studies: a semiotic approach. † Interaction of Signs. Ch. 3 pp. 48-74. Altheide, David L. â€Å"Media Hegemony: A Failure of Perspective. † Public Opinion Quarterly 48. 2 (1984). â€Å"Understanding Depression. † BeyondBlue: The National Depression Initiative. 24 November 2005. 31 May 2006. beyondblue. org. au/index. aspx? link_id=7. 246tmp=FileStreamfid=263

How to Address Your Elders, Your Doctor, Young Children… and Your CEO

How to Address Your Elders, Your Doctor, Young Children†¦ and Your CEO How to Address Your Elders, Your Doctor, Young Children and Your CEO How to Address Your Elders, Your Doctor, Young Children and Your CEO By Michael Sonia asked us for tips on writing effective office emails, especially when addressing medical doctors, CEOs, your elders (those older than you), and your juniors (those younger than you). Should your salutation be, Dear Bill, Dear Dr. Williams, Mr. Ramirez: or Hi Bob? If youre as old as me, you were never taught in school how to address email messages, because email hadnt been invented yet. But you were taught something about etiquette and respect. Still, customs and expectations change, and depending on the circumstance, any of those salutations might be correct. Here are some general principles (with an American slant) for salutations in letters or emails, following on our article How to Format a US Business Letter. Honor your addressees. In a day of spam and junk mail, its a privilege for someone else to be willing to read your correspondence. You need to believe that. Dont be proud or lazy when you write a letter or email. Choose a salutation that will make your recipient feel honored. If you are writing to a superior or an elder, you would generally begin your email with Dear Mr. Jones or Mr. Jones,. Email is inherently less formal than a paper letter, so Mr. Jones: (with a colon) is less common. Match the formality of your addressees. If youre replying to an email from one of your peers (someone who isnt a person of authority), you can often take your cue from how the sender addressed you. Since publicists often greet me in emails with, Hi Michael, I always reply to them with, Hi Vijay or Hi Amanda. Dont make your addressees feel old. My parents, who were raised in the Old South (USA), taught me to address older people as Sir and Maam, to use Mr. or Mrs. and to never call older people by their first names. So what does that mean? That when you call me Sir, you probably think Im old!Of course, Americans are less formal than other nationalities. In many other cultures, age is rightfully respected, and its an honor to be treated as older. But American peers (people of your own age or position) might consider Mr. or Mrs. overly formal. Children enjoy feeling older. As a child, I was tickled to receive letters from my grandmother (born before 1900) addressed to Master Michael Moser. But usually, you address those younger than yourself by their first name. Pay attention to the email signature. It will include titles that your recipient wants you to note. If his email signature, at the end of his message, says, Richard McManus, MD, it means hes reminding you that hes a medical doctor, so make sure you call him, Dr. Manus. If it says, Brig. Gen. Robert Watson USAF (Ret.), call him, General Watson. People spend years of hard work earning such titles, and dont cast them off lightly. Abbreviations for other doctorates include PhD and LLD call them all Dr. The initials DD mean Doctor of Divinity and you sometimes address their bearers as Rev. (short for Reverend) instead of Dr (short for Doctor). Other military abbreviations include Col. (Colonel), Maj. (Major), and Lt. (Lieutenant). Treat them dearly, if you think they would appreciate it. I was taught in school to begin all letters with Dear. Thats especially appropriate if you want to communicate warmth or affection. For some business emails, such as those to strangers or adversaries, the salutation Dear is not credible. They know that you dont feel affection for them, and they dont feel affection for you. On the other hand, calling someone Dear can help build warmth and affection, and sometimes can help defuse an angry exchange. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Business Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Is She a "Lady" or a "Woman"?The Letter "Z" Will Be Removed from the English AlphabetUsing "zeitgeist" Coherently

Disambiguation - Definition and Examples in Language Studies

Disambiguation s in Language Studies In linguistics, the process of determining which sense of a word is being used in a particular context. In computational linguistics, this discriminative process is called word-sense disambiguation (WSD). Examples and Observations: It so happens that our communication, in different languages alike, allows the same word form to be used to mean different things in individual communicative transactions. The consequence is that one has to figure out, in a particular transaction, the intended meaning of a given word among its potentially associated senses. While the ambiguities arising from such multiple form-meaning associations are at the lexical level, they often have to be resolved by means of a larger context from the discourse embedding the word. Hence the different senses of the word service could only be told apart if one could look beyond the word itself, as in contrasting the players service at Wimbledon with the waiters service in Sheraton. This process of identifying word meanings in a discourse is generally known as word sense disambiguation (WSD).(Oi Yee Kwong, New Perspectives on Computational and Cognitive Strategies for Word Sense Disambiguation. Springer, 2013) Lexical Disambiguation and Word-Sense Disambiguation (WSD) Lexical disambiguation in its broadest definition is nothing less than determining the meaning of every word in context, which appears to be a largely unconscious process in people. As a computational problem, it is often described as AI-complete, that is, a problem whose solution presupposes a solution to complete natural-language understanding or common-sense reasoning (Ide and VÃ ©ronis 1998).In the field of computational linguistics, the problem is generally called word sense disambiguation (WSD) and is defined as the problem of computationally determining which sense of a word is activated by the use of the word in a particular context. WSD is essentially a task of classification: word senses are the classes, the context provides the evidence, and each occurrence of a word is assigned to one or more of its possible classes based on the evidence. This is the traditional and common characterization of WSD that sees it as an explicit process of disambiguation with respect to a fix ed inventory of word senses. Words are assumed to have a finite and discrete set of senses from a dictionary, a lexical knowledge base, or an ontology (in the latter, senses correspond to concepts that a word lexicalizes). Application-specific inventories can also be used. For instance, in a machine translation (MT) setting, one can treat word translations as word senses, an approach that is becoming increasingly feasible because of the availability of large multi-lingual parallel corpora that can serve as training data. The fixed inventory of traditional WSD reduces the complexity of the problem, but alternative fields exist . . ..(Eneko Agirre and Philip Edmonds, Introduction. Word Sense Disambiguation: Algorithms and Applications. Springer, 2007) Homonymy and Disambiguation Lexical disambiguation is well suited particularly for cases of homonymy, for instance, an occurrence of bass must be mapped onto either of the lexical items bass1 or bass2, depending on the intended meaning. Lexical disambiguation implies a cognitive choice and is a task that inhibits comprehension processes. It should be distinguished from processes that lead to a differentiation of word senses. The former task is accomplished fairly reliably also without much contextual information while the latter is not (cf. Veronis 1998, 2001). It has also been shown that homonymous words, which require disambiguation, slow down lexical access, while polysemous words, which activate a multiplicity of word senses, speed up lexical access (Rodd e.a. 2002).However, both the productive modification of semantic values and the straightforward choice between lexically different items have in common that they require additional non-lexical information.(Peter Bosch, Productivity, Polysemy, and Predicate Indexicality. Logic, Language, and Computation: 6th International Tbilisi Symposium on Logic, Language, and Computation, ed. by Balder D. ten Cate and Henk W. Zeevat. Springer, 2007) Lexical Category Disambiguation and the Principle of Likelihood Corley and Crocker (2000) present a broad-coverage model of lexical category disambiguation based on the Principle of Likelihood. Specifically, they suggest that for a sentence consisting of words w0 . . . wn, the sentence processor adopts the most likely part-of-speech sequence t0 . . . tn. More specifically, their model exploits two simple probabilities: (i) the conditional probability of word wi given a particular part of speech ti, and (ii) the probability of ti given the previous part of speech ti-1. As each word of the sentence is encountered, the system assigns it that part-of-speech ti, which maximizes the product of these two probabilities. This model capitalizes on the insight that many syntactic ambiguities have a lexical basis (MacDonald et al., 1994), as in (3): (3) The warehouse prices/makes are cheaper than the rest. These sentences are temporarily ambiguous between a reading in which prices or makes is the main verb or part of a compound noun. After being trained on a large corpus, the model predicts the most likely part of speech for prices, correctly accounting for the fact that people understand price as a noun but makes as a verb (see Crocker Corley, 2002, and references cited therein). Not only does the model account for a range of disambiguation preferences rooted in lexical category ambiguity, it also explains why, in general, people are highly accurate in resolving such ambiguities.(Matthew W. Crocker, Rational Models of Comprehension: Addressing the Performance Paradox. Twenty-First Century Psycholinguistics: Four Cornerstones, ed. by Anne Cutler. Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005) Also Known As: lexical disambiguation

The giver Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The giver - Essay Example For instance, to add a love angle to the movie, the age of Jonas is elated to 18 years instead to 12 which transform the lens through which the society is viewed. Furthermore, there are significant contrasts in the ending of both the book and the novel, which accrued enough criticism. However, these are the apparent contrasts while many other inherent contrasts will be revealed in the paper. Therefore, the paper aims at exploring how the gist and theme of the books and its movie adaptation have been kept intact whilst adding various contrasts to both. The first contrast which changes the entire outlook of movie from what the movie had predicted is that the movie leaves out the essence of the Jonas character by readily jumping to the part where he is being prepared to receive the memory. In the book, there are chapters (around nine) dedicated to breathe in the look and feel of the utopian community where the rules and laws are explained over how deeply they impact Jonas. However, the movie simplifies this aspect by stating that rules and customs in the utopian community are somewhat strict. Therefore, the book tends to explicate the principles regarding classless society, government control, respect for elders, and conformity to values with more intensity. In instances where Jonas seems to deviate by the rules, the sense of shame can be sensed by the readers, an element missing in the movie. Furthermore, the movie also deviates from the essence of what comprises a perfect or an imperfect society, since the movie puts the entire bu rden of imperfection with respect to the sameness of the community on the elders. In other words, the movie merely leaves an impact where the audience tends to view the elders as the villains of the story i.e. the reasons behind the utopian community being flawed. However, in the book, one can feel the impact of belief systems and the inherent values where the joys and

Prevent crime Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Prevent crime - Essay Example Other than the mentioned, the police are important in maintaining law and order. For instance, during public gatherings, the police should balance the right of the public to assemble with the need to ensure that other citizens can move about freely. When it comes to crime prevention, individuals commitment and participation in crime prevention tremendously help in preventing some of the criminal activities such as theft. Citizens help in creating a safe and nurturing the local environment by observing and reporting any suspicious criminal activities to the police. Because of this, the police should be in good terms with the local citizens so as to acquire important information which they might not have. In a nutshell, crime prevention is a communal responsibility between citizens and the police. Therefore, I fully agree that the police should work hand in hand with the locals to reduce crime rates. It is therefore important for all the security department to alias with citizens in curbing any form of criminal

Technology, Globalization and Chang Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Technology, Globalization and Chang - Assignment Example Others argue that there are advocates of a stiff principle that calls for change and avoidance on the grounds that it may finally lead to unexpected, unfavorable, environmental impacts. In some situations where productivity increases as a result of technology like the case of DuPont Company, exceed human activity growth, and outpace the stress on environment. In other cases, the forces of technology and environment do balance. An example of such is the saturating demands for raw materials in developed countries. Moreover, there are cases where the increase in environmental stresses surpasses advances in production (Alden, 2004). Richard Mullin observes that those people who are educated do not expect more from science since science has does not have the ability to deliver much. Basing his arguments from Aristotle’s teachings on ethics, he asserts that scientific judgment ought to be certain or otherwise, they will not be regarded as scientific. These remarks come after the realization that CFC was destroying environmental ozone layer. Therefore, DuPont managers have been unable to develop scientific knowledge since there is much uncertainty and disagreement between managers at the company. For instance, an example of uncertainty includes human made chemicals such as CFC (Benedict, 1991). The case of CFC shows that the management decisions were not certain and that the issue of harm was not certain to them. The case of CFC shows how technology may at times be abused because it is in existence but mostly, either its application or lack of application is an outcome of the same equipment that makes the other decisions in our societies. In this context primordial elements of the environment will illustrate the roles of technology and how it is applied both in creating problems to the environment and how it creates remedies for the same problems. It is significant to ask ethical questions regarding if the

Rediscovering the Link between Traditional and Modern Shamanism Research Paper

Rediscovering the Link between Traditional and Modern Shamanism - Research Paper Example Since the rituals of the shaman are very specific and distinctive it is difficult to identify which one deserves restoration. Shamanism is flexible and open, which allowed an interaction between, for instance, Buddhism and shamanism in Mongolia (Witzel 2011: 44). Hence it would nowadays be hard to identify whether the practices of a shaman in Mongolia are inspired by centuries-old Buddhist rituals or whether Buddhist practices are rooted in shamanic beliefs. This paper analyzes the changes that traditional shamanism went through in order to adapt to contemporary needs, and the impossibility of restoring the pure, original form of shamanism. Contemporary Shamanism The 20th-century shamans in Japan or Siberia embrace the belief that they are merely a rough version of past events. The shaman has evolved and thus has his/her advocates and their needs. Shamanism in post-Reformation Europe appears to thrive in its neo-shamanic form because people can create an interpretation of supernatura l occurrences which are difficult to understand or explain in the perspective of the Protestant church (Jakobsen 1999: 209). Likewise, as stated in the accounts of Laura Kendall, shamanism attracts mostly Korean housewives. Contemporary shamanism thus has gone through transformations which have matched it to the users’ needs and focuses on prophecy and the family. ... Coercion of individuals by several shamans is common in all shamanic cultures. A number of scholars, such as Hahm Pyong-choon, emphasize this point since shamanism is threatened by the exact causes of neo-shamanism’s success in the Western world. Apparently, the current threats to shamanism are major perils to its survival. Worldwide occurrences, especially industrialization, urbanization, modernization, technological and scientific progress, the powerful spread of Christianity, and westernization have all created serious threats (Meadows 2011: 105). As the heightening of individualism and disintegration of the family persist shamanism will undoubtedly be threatened further. The dissimilarity between neo-shamanism and contemporary Korean shamanism is that in the latter the bond to the deceased family members and their impact on the lives of the living is the emphasis. The core element is the family. In neo-shamanism the person focuses on those who need attention and it is thus better adapted to contemporary Western urban culture (Gallagher 2006: 82). In South America, certain healers still perform some of the healing methods of the earlier shamans but it is a quite special challenge that shamans have to face in an urban environment. Nowadays, healers act in response to immorality in urban areas, to issues of drug addiction, domestic violence, child abuse, family disintegration, and prostitution. The morality of the healer, his spiritual defenses and his capacity to change the spirit domain for the benefit of his audiences is similar to early Amazonian practices (Adlam & Holyoak 2005: 531). His healing practices definitely are different from those of the mainstream medical procedures offered, for a fee, in urban areas. The urban