Used In Researching Audiences Media Essay

Used In Researching Audiences Media Essay Methods concentrate on counting and statistics and focus on in-depth analysis of information dissemination. According to Hartley (2002, p. 11), The audience is a construction motivated by the paradigm in which it is imagined, that is to say the different paradigms may cause the location of the audiences role to be disparate. To research on this, various methods are needed. Referring to cultural studies, quantitative and qualitative are two of the most widely used methodologies in the field of audience research; in which, moreover, qualitative methods have been regarded as generally preferable because they place emphasis on cultural meaning (Barker, 2012). Specifically, ethnography and interview are two of the most popular methods which belong to qualitative methods and have been widely used in audience research during 1980s-1990s. This paper will focus on ethnography method and interview method and then critically analyze them by reviewing relevant studies. It will construct by three parts. The first and the second part will lay out the theoretical dimensions separately of these two methods with looking at the advantages and limitations of them by using the leading research projects from 1980s-1990s; for example: Dorothy Hobsons research on housewives with radio and television ¼Ã¢â‚¬ ºJanice Radways research on women reading the romance ¼Ã¢â‚¬ ºDavid Morley focuses on the Nationwide audience. In part three, these two methods will be compared and contrasted. Ethnography used to be taken in anthropology study primordially, which is a branch of science describing a kind of culture or ethnic groups. Essentially, the ethnography method is a holistic description of cultural membership (Lindlof and Taylor, 2002). Specifically, according to Fetterman (1989), it is a process begin with in-depth and rich investigating, followed by interview, record review, perspectives assessing, exploring the organizational connections, and finally write a report to be published. The characteristics of ethnography can be divided into three aspects: Firstly, it uses the holistic research viewpoint. The ethnographer attempts to describe the culture or the social group through the research of history, religion, politics, economy, and environment; therefore, it emphasizes the contextualization of data (ibid). Similarly, Geertz (1973, p.16) highlights that ethnography is thick description, ethnographers grasp the complexity of social community and culture by using th is thick description and restore audiences interpretation from a small range of text  structure to social and historical environment. Secondly, in this process, ethnographers should keep an open mind, trying not to leave out any information. They do not mind spending several hours even only chatting with interviewees; they do a great deal of observation so that they can truly understand the real lives of audiences via equal communications. With discourse analysis, researchers can trace the social power factors behind the words which interviewees have said. However, this does not mean that researchers can conduct the interview with no explicit objectives; a framework reflects their own intention is still needed to carry on an open style interview, seeking information as much as possible. This issue was pointed out as with an open mind not an empty head by Fetterman (1989, p. 1). Thirdly, fieldwork is the most important factor in designing ethnographic method. Ruddock (2001) states that ethnography is attractive because it is based on naturally occurring data rather than artificial materials. This method requires researchers conduct the fieldwork in a natural environment: entering into the community of audiences instead of sitting in their offices and doing research in written form. It usually involves in-depth observation and investigation of a specific audience group or some cases. As Hammersley and Atkinson(1983cited in Barker, 2000) highlight that, researchers often immerse in the context, they participate in peoples daily life for a long period of time, observing what happens, watching the audiences, listening to their opinions, asking questions, analyzing what people do with media, and how they make sense of it. Above all, using ethnography in audience research compensates for the inadequacies of past studies. Ethnographic audience research had become a trend in the 1980s, and there were several studies becoming classic works afterwards because they have adopted the ethnographic method. In the multiple cases of ethnography studies, Radways research which focuses on women reading the romantic fictions is recognized classic work. She  connected the pleasure women felt in reading romantic fiction with the subordinate status of women in the patriarchal family and then investigated them; and she found that the reason why women read romantic fictions was related to evading the pressure of onerous housework. Radway (1984) demonstrates that the women treat reading the romance as a kind of independent declaration; they seek to rebuild their gender subjectivity in utopian fantasy in order to resist patriarchal culture. In early stage, her focus of attention was text analysis, later changed to reception research. At that moment, the content of text was no longer important, but reading itself is the process which establish the meaning and pleasure between text and reader, and the results cannot be predicted by the text itself (Curran, 1991). It seems to be undoubted that Reading the Roman plays a vital role in culture studies, largely due to the important ethnographic finding of cultural consumption it provides. However, some debates challenge this view: methodologist queries about empirical research and epistemology; feminists argue the relationship between feminists and real women; populist question its critical project. Modleski (1986, cited in Wood, 2004, à ©Ã‚ ¡Ã‚ µÃƒ §Ã‚  Ã‚ ) accuses Reading the Romance has over liberated the pleasures the women get from reading fictions. Ang (1988, cited in Wood, 2004, à ©Ã‚ ¡Ã‚ µÃƒ §Ã‚  Ã‚ ) states that the book does not take the possibilities of pleasure and fantasy seriously enough. Lauren Berlant (1987, cited in Wood, 2004) argues that Radway placed too much emphasis on describing the female identity. Although there are many critics about her study, undeniably, the concept stressing the interacting between diverse disciplines which advocate by Reading the Romance lays a f oundation in cultural studies and is regarded as a leading project for over twenty years, until now it has still been used as a compulsory reading for students to learn. In addition to print media, Dorothy Hobsons research on housewives and the mass media cannot be overlooked. The data is shown in Hobsons unpublished MA dissertation A Study of Working-Class Women at Home: Femininity, Domesticity and Maternity. Through talking with housewives, Hobson (1980, p. 85) found that television and radio are never mentioned as spare-time or leisure activities but are located by the women as integral parts of their day. As for those housewives, television and radio were regarded as the important elements in their daily lives, even their work and rest time were formulated by broadcast. They considered the broadcast programs as a friend and a crucial way for them to contact with outside world and to eliminate loneliness. Based on gender differences the understandings of television can also be divided into two worlds; which means men and women have dissimilar preferences. This study marks the beginning of gender analysis on audience. Turner (1998) explains that Hobson did not take the audiences into the world of an academic researcher, while it was she who participated in their world. She entered into the audiences house, watching soap opera with them, observing and interviewing them during that period. After the programs finished, she used to talk with the audiences in an open type for a long time. She asked the audience to determine what is interesting, what do they like or dislike or what do they concern about in those programs they had watched before. The audiences were encouraged by her to tell the reason why the program is popular or why it is criticized by them. To conclude, both these two studies carried out by Hobson and Radway have great significance in the history of audience research. Hobsons study is the first time that ethnographer study on the female audiences, and it is considered to be the first time in the history that ethnography is truly applied in audience research. The main contribution of this study is that it states the specific meanings of gender in the case of dealing with housework. Radway concurs in and further develops Hosons viewpoint of gender differences; she concerned with the common populaces power in domestic context of consumption. In terms of the method in audience research, using ethnographic method should be a kind of progress or breakthrough because it has opened up an unprecedented field of research. The results of such research are conducted by the researchers personal participant experience. The aim of research changes from a one-sided issue extends to an overall scope of daily life; researchers get out of their offices and enter into common peoples living room experience their real livesà ¢Ã¢â‚¬ Ã¢â€š ¬ à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ Ã¢â€š ¬ at least the visible behavior in their lives. Although this approach is still debatable; however, as Zoonen (1994:146) claims, in terms of the location of the researchers, there is no single truth in the world; the reason why we acknowledge the truth is due to the participation of researchers, they learn to tell us, or to depict detailed map. However, some limitations are still exist in ethnography. First of all, the relationships between researcher and researched is difficult. Due to the fact that people often tell the truth to whom they are familiar with, so it is not easy for researcher to integrate into the community and to gain their trust. Ruddock (2001) notes that it is important to arrange researcher and researched in a relatively equal position. Moreover, ethnography requires researcher to stay with the community for a long period of time; for instance, several months or even two or three years. Therefore it is a time-consuming task; it may take a significant amount of human and material resource. Interview Many researchers have found that interview is a particularly appropriate method to understand the experiences and opinions of researched. Kvale(1996, p. 1) proposes that if you want to know how people understand their world and their life, why not talk with them? As a most widely used method, it has three remarkable characteristics: to begin with, it is ordinarily a one-to-one, face-to-face conversation; it involves individual interaction between researchers and researched. The interaction built by interview is different from those usually found in public lectures, meetings or group discussions. Holstein (2001) suggests the relationship between researcher and researched is like a kind of friendship because of the equal and intimate conversation. Livingstone(2010) points out that interviews adapt the way of research with rather than research on interviewees, it seems to be more personalized and humane. The second and the most important aspect is it is usually deep-going. The questions should not as simple as which magazine do you read? or how often do you read it?, they are much more complicated. It is conducted on the basis of individual matters; for instance, interviewee themselves, cultural knowledge, personal experiences and opinions. Interview is a useful and effective way for researchers, which enables them to investigate the root driver of interviewees certain actions and their interpretations towards different circumstances. Lastly, interview is commonly used in addition to other methods or collaborate with them to collecting data. David Morley uses interview method and applies Stuart Halls (1980) encoding/decoding model (He claimed that a message cannot be regarded as a ball which is passed on one by one simply, it should be understood as a process which the program producer encode it and the audience decode it) to the empirical studies. Morley (1980) researches the BBC(British Broadcasting Corporation) evening news program Nationwide, and the purpose of this study is to test the audiences interpretations of television information and the different understandings related to their social classes or stratums. That is to say, through the Nationwide research, Morley tries to prove the process of meaning generated depends on the TV message and the social structure of the audience. Morley has arranged 29 groups of audiences according to their occupation, each group had 5~10 people. These 29 groups are divided into four types: managers, students, TU officials and shop stewards. Morley made them watch two BBC evening news programs: program A was Nationwide in May 10th, 1976 and program B was a similar program in March 29th, 1977. Then he used focused interview and group interview to investigate the diverse understandings from different groups. Focused interview analyzes some specific situations of the participants, which means to understand their subjective experience, and then get the responses of them. He transformed the entire interview questions from open style to structuring type, such as do you think using the word to describe X is appropriate?'(Morley, 1980). He believes that focused interview conforms to the natural situations, and the more structuring questions can make the topic even more real and natural. Morleys research provided empirical proof for Halls encoding/decoding model and it evoked strong repercussions in the field of mass culture while also incurred a lot of comment. Some scholars think Morleys study is not very successful, because it has not broken away from the traditional empirical study which considered the social backgrounds as variable quantity. Turner (1990) criticizes the research of Morley have several drawbacks: Firstly, the community structure of the participants seems to be too simple dividing into four main categories. Moreover, the participants are not distributed in a natural situation, their interpretation are separated from the typical and real environment of television watching since general people usually watch television in the evening at home. So it is questionable whether their interpretations are reliable. Secondly, as participants are assigned with the people in same social class to watch TV programs, their interpretation can be influenced by other s in the same group; The last defect is in the the connection between television program and audiences; are the viewers willing to watch Nationwide which Morley provide to them? The television content are given by researcher instead of chosen by the audiences themselves, this situation makes the research biased. Morley (1986) also acknowledged that this research has ruined the result because of the rough supposition. Nevertheless, scholars still regard his study as an important turning-point in audience research, he transfers audience research from viewing the structure of text to exploring how the audience deal with the text, and the reformation makes a considerable impact on the development of reading ethnographic method (Moores, 1993). In the same way, Ang(2006) notes that The Nationwide Audience has generally been received as an innovative departure within cultural studies, both theoretically and methodologically. For Morley himself, he has profoundly awarded from the deficiencies and revised methods in his later research to respond to the criticism of this study. In 1986, Morley launched another study of audience research with interview methodFamily Television. In this study, He aimed to find what affect peoples viewing experience, especially the interaction between family dynamics process and television-watching behavior. At first he attempted to study on the family social location and class identification; however, he found that the principle through all the researched family is closely related to gender issue. So he began to study the gender differences impact on the viewing practices. He chose 8 topics and selected 18 households as a sample and the researchers personally entered in these families to interview the family members. The interviews aimed at both parents and children, generally last for one to two hours. In order to leave space for thinking and asking questions, the entire inte rviewed process is not structured. Moreover, due to the presences of other family members, as well as the complicated interview questions, Morley was confident to get to the real interpretation. By using such a participation and observation method with interviews, Morley (1986) learned that the living-room politics heavily impact the family viewing reception so that it resulted in various viewing experiences for different family members. For these empirical differences, Morley recognizes it is not caused by the biological characteristics of men and women; however, it depends on their different social roles in family. For men, family is a leisure field, while it is more likely to be a workplace for women. Since domestic environment is constructed by gender relations, it leads to a variety of viewing experiences. However, Stevenson (2002) maintains that although Morleys study reflects the different patterns of media in constructing social life, such life is actually surpassing the fact of the belief. In other words, Morley tends to overly emphasize the importance of audiences interpretation capacity in ideology. Although there are some criticisms, the contribution of Morleys two studies cannot be ignored. Similarly, As Tuner (1998) points out, Morleys study break through the theoretical model encoding/decoding put forward by Hall (1980), Hall concerned text is the key point of the way that viewers decode the text; however, Morley focused on the social process itself of audience watching television. Turner (1998) confirms that Morleys study directly lead us to attach importance on the social forces which produces audience, reduce attention from text and audience. It stresses more extensive study on practice and discourse of everyday life. In summary, with facing (to) a totally unfamiliar world and objects, comprehensive and detailed descriptions are urgently needed. The holistic view and detailed fieldwork which contained by ethnography is in response to these needs. In other words, ethnography is a detailed report records the entire process and various kinds of approaches for researched. However, as all the other research methods, ethnography has its own limitation which is that not all of the social activities can be measured via participant observation or personal interviews. For instance, ethnography cannot be used to research the events of the past, it only can be carried out at present. In addition, ethnography cannot handle large-scale case study, such as large organizations or the whole country (Hammersley Atkinson, 1983). With mention to interview, it is useful and effective in collecting data, researchers can understand the experiences and perspectives through communicating with researched. Moreover, interv iew is also a good way to make audiences feel equal and relax. However, it is not suitable for all of the audience research. For example, it may not be able to insight into the role of the people or organizations which are outside the world of personal life of interviewees. To conclude, as two of the most popular methods, ethnographic and interview are often used in cultural studies to explore indepth under a particular circumstances. As academic trends which grow out of specific historical context, and with the care of individual subjectivity, cultural studies always pays close attention to powers in practice of cultural phenomenon, constructing audiences as active users of media. It places audience in the social context; therefore it breaks through the empirical audience research successfully. Even though scholars still have some controversy, the paradigm raised by the school of cultural studies really provides a different landscape of the interaction between audience and culture, which firmly establishes the characteristic status in audience research. Reading List: Fetterman, D.M. (1989). Ethnography: step by step. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Hartley, J. 2002. Communication, cultural and media studies: the key concepts. London: Routledge. Barker, C. 2000. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. London: SAGE. Lindlof, T.R. Taylor, B.C. 2002. Qualitative Communication Research Methods. California: SAGE. Ruddock, A. 2001. Understanding audiences: Theory and method. London: SAGE. Geertz, C. 1973. The interpretation of cultures. New York : Basic Books. Hobson, D.1980: Housewives and the mass media. In Hall, S (ed.), Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies. London: The Academic Division of Unwin Hyman, pp. 85-95 Turner, G. 1998. British cultural studies: An introduction. London: Routledge. Purdie, S. (1992) Janice Radway, Reading the Romance, in M. Barker and A. Beezer (eds) Reading into Cultural Studies, pp. 148-64. London: Routledge. Radway, J. 1986. Identifying Ideological Seams: Mass Culture, Analytic Method, and Political Practice. Communication, 9, pp. 93-123. Wood, H. 2004. What Reading the Romance did for us? European Journal of Cultural Studies, 7(2), pp. 147-154. Zoonen, L.V. 1994. Feminist media studies. London: SAGE. Sonia Livingstone, Giving People a Voice: On the Crticial Role of the Interview in the History of Audience Research, Communication, Culture G. Critique 3 (4, 2010): 566-71 Kvale, S. 1996. Interviews : an introduction to qualitative research interviewing Interviews. London: SAGE. Holstein, J.A. Gubrium, J. F. 2001. Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method. London: SAGE. Morley, D. (1980).  The Nationwide Audience: Structure and Decoding. London: British Film Institute. Tunner, G. 1990. Audience in British cultural studies. Boston:Unwin Hyman. Morley,D. 1986. Family Television: Cultural Power and Momestic Leisure. London: Comedia. Moores, S. 1993. Interpreting audiences: the ethography of media consumption. London:Sage. Ang, I. 2006: On the politics of empirical audience research. In Durham. M. G (ed.), Media and cultural studies : keyworks. Oxford: Blackwell, pp.174-194. Stevenson, K. 2002. Understanding Media Cultures: Social Theory and Mass Communication. London: SAGE. Hammersley, M. Atkinson, P.(1983). Ethnography: Principles in practice.New York: Tavistock.

Developing Joined Tables for Data

Developing Joined Tables for Data 4. Pre-Joined tables Consider creating tables of pre-joined data when two or three tables should join on a normal format by an application although the disadvantage of the join is not allowed, the pre-joined tables should: Consist no redundant columns (matching join criteria columns) contain only those columns completely essential for the application to provide its processing requirements Be made frequently using SQL to join the normalized tables. When the pre-joined tables are created the disadvantage of the join will raise a problem only once [Dick] [25, 41]. Since every new query does not cause a problem for the overhead of the table join process a pre-joined table is queried very effectively. 5. Report tables Most of the time developing an end-user report using SQ is possible. These sorts of reports need special data manipulation or formatting. Consider creating a table that displays the report when specific highly visible or critical reports of this kind are needed to be seen in an on-line environment. Then by using SQL and/or another report facility this table can be queried. In a batch environment The report should be made by using the suitable mechanism (application program, 4GL, SQL, etc.). then in sequence It can loaded into the report table. The report table must: Consist one column for each column of the report Have a clustering index on the columns which make the reporting sequence Not destroy relational tenets (such as, 1NF and atomic data elements) Page15 In order to carry the results of outer joins or other complex SQL statements Report tables are suitable. a simple SELECT statement can be apply to retrieve the results of the outer join rather than the complex UNION technique If an outer join is executed and then loaded into a table. Some RDBMS products support an explicit outer join function that can be a substitution for the UNION depicted. After all, based on the implementation, the explicit outer join can be simpler or more complicated than the UNION it replaces. [25,41]. 6. Mirror (duplicating) tables   Ã‚  It is necessary to divide processing into two (or more) different components in case of very active application system which needs creating duplicate, or mirror tables. Consider an application system that has very heavy on-line traffic during the morning and early afternoon hours. Both querying and updating of data are involved in such traffic. On the same application tables during the afternoon decision support processing is also performed. It always seems that the production work in the afternoon to destroy the decision support processing causing dead locks and time outs frequently. Creating mirror tables is a solution to remove the problem in this condition. Background set of tables is available for the decision support reporting and a foreground set of tables for the production traffic. In order to keep the application data synchronized a mechanism must be established to periodically migrate the foreground data to background tables. One such this kind of mechanism would b e a batch job executing LOAD and UNLOAD utilities. in order to maintain the effectiveness of the decision support processing This must be done as often as necessary. It is worth noting that since the access needs of decision support are usually significantly different than the access needs of the production environment, various data definition decisions like indexing and clustering may be selected for the mirror tables. Page 16 7. Partitioning tables Fragmentation or partitioning is a mechanism normally used in relational databases to decrease the execution time of queries. The terms Fragmentation, Partitioning, and Clustering in databases domain is inferred to a table split into smaller data sets to support the management of very large volumes of data properly. As mentioned before, two ways of achieving fragmentation are existed: vertical and horizontal [218]. Vertical fragmentation makes the designer able to group attributes of a relation into smaller records. For instance, a dimension may be split in order to have the name and city attributes in one partition and the remaining attributes in another partition. As a sequence, more records can be retrieved into main memory when a query asks name, because they consist fewer attributes and therefore their size are smaller. Contrarily, horizontal fragmentation split a table into smaller tables with the same structure but with fewer records. For instance, if some queries need the lat est data while others access older data, a fact table can be horizontally partitioned based on some time frame such as years [234]. Therefore, since smaller data sets are physically assigned to different partitions, these smaller data sets significantly facilitate administrative tasks, enhance query performance when parallel processing is used, and provide access to a smaller subset of the data (if the user?s selection does not refer to all partitions). During physical data warehouse design Fragmentation techniques should be selected. Oracle [213] provides four kinds of horizontal partitioning methods: range, hash, list, and composite. Each of them has different merits and design considerations. In range partitioning, the rows of a table are partitioned based on a range of values. In hashing partitioning, the rows of a table are partitioned according to a hash function used for an attribute of the table. Lastly,

the culture of disbelief Essay example -- essays research papers

Page 2 THE CULTURE OF DISBELIEF   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The culture of disbelief is a book written to people who are very interested in religious beliefs, liberty and all the influence that religion cause into the public square. Carter argues that religion should not be present in politics, education, and so on. . Moreover, Carter is not about one’s person beliefs, he makes demands of its adherents, and wishes some kind of hope for their lives. The preface of this book shows perfectly with it’s titles what is The Culture of Disbelief going to talk about (e.g. How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion). Therefore, it takes us to the point where readers implied a connection between religion with law and politics. The author states in page 3 that in political and legal culture faith does not really matters, therefore, I agree because there is a lack of knowledge and understanding of too many people that devote themselves to someone or something, without giving the remarkable importance reli gion has. Also, Carter states that people have to believe in something else, and do not take your religion so seriously. God as a Hobby:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Our society thinks that people believe in things just because they want to believe in something to keep them busy.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å" When citizens do act in their public selves as though their faith matters, they risk not only ridicule, but actual Page 3 punishment†#. This example of Nati...

Customer Service Essay -- Business Management Studies

Customer Service Customer service consists of the various ways in which a business looks after its customer. A business that wants to provide a comprehensive high quality customer service must be aware of, and be able to analyse, customer needs, and also to set up systems to ensure that those needs are catered for from the first enquiry to after-sale service. Customer service consists of a wide range of activities. The purpose of these is to make sure that customers are happy and will return again and again. Every business should remember that customers are the factors, which affect demand for the product. It is one of the greatest importance, therefore, for the organisation to know its customers- who they are, what they need and how it can satisfy those needs. Customer service is one of the most important ingredients of the marketing mix for products and services. High quality customer service helps to create customer loyalty. Customers today are not only interested in the product they are being offered but all the official elements of service that they receive from the greeting they receive when they enter a retail outlet, to the refund and help that they receive when they have a complaint about a faulty product that they have paid for. Logo: Sainsbury's - making life taste better Introduction to Sainsbury’s Sainsbury’ is a high class retail store that supplies to a wide range of products mainly dealing with foods but now, starting to ...

Shakespeare :: essays research papers

Personal life His life was a good one for the times, no money struggles or divorced parents. His father didn’t expect him to fallow in his footprints like most parents, but, he would have liked it. Instead his father wanted what was best for him. In turn he fallowed his dreams of acting, writing and producing plays. His childhood was hard working; he went to the king’s new grammar school. He also studied Latin and Greek which he incorporates in his plays. When he was 18, he was married to Anna Hathaway, aged 26. Their kids names were Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. Burbage’s influence on Shakespeare Both Shakespeare and Burbage were 20, interested in theater, both part of the lord’s chamberlain’s men and both seeking success. Burbage invented the actual name â€Å"theater† and paying at the doorway of the theater instead of in it. The Theater had to be taken down so they took it apart and set it back up on the bank side of London and named it the â€Å"Globe†. For the observers eye of Shakespeare’s plays in the Globe The performances would start at approximately 2 o clock in the after noon unless the flag was up, which meant that the weather was too bad to host the play. Part of the Globes roof was open and the rest was thatch making it easy for the weather to cancel performances. Its octagon, kind of circular shape and being 3 stories tall helped to create its name, the Globe. Up too 3000 people could fit in the Globe and payments went 1 penny for a ground view and 2 pennies for a gallery seat. The stage was a thrust stage with secret entrances and great performances until it burned down from a shot of clothe in a cannon that landed on the roof. The Globe was no longer a Theater. Life as an actor There are 10 key points to the life of an actor. 1. It was a long day 2. You had to repeat shows lots 3. Memorizing your lines 4. You had to be very skillful in portraying different personalities 5. Had to be entertaining for the audience

Gattaca Viewing Essay

Gattaca Viewing Essay Themes in texts are what make them interesting and engaging. A text which has a number of intriguing themes is the feature film Gattaca, written and directed by Andrew Niccol, and released in 1997. One particular theme which is evident in Gattaca is the idea that the most important key to a person’s success is not their genetic material but their ambitions, drive and determination. This theme is explored in the film through the conventions of performance and characterisation, camera angles, camera shots and by music/sound.Early in the film Gattaca, Vincent undergoes a transformation. Prior to the transformation Vincent is seen as an unconfident person with bad body language, baggy clothing and glasses which all indicates that Vincent is inferior. Vincent wants to be able to work at Gattaca but he knows that he can’t make it in because of his genetic material (heart problem), so he meets German (broker) who helps Vincent undergo the transformation. When German asks Vincent how committed he is to the project; Vincent says â€Å"I’d give 100%,† to which German replies, â€Å"That’ll get you halfway there†.This shows you how much effort Vincent has to put in to get into Gattaca, but with drive and determination on Vincent’s side he not only gets into Gattaca but one of their elites. After Vincent’s transformation from a â€Å"borrowed ladder† to a valid his attitude and looks had changed completely. His posture and body language had become almost perfect and his attitude to life had also transformed completely; making him look like a professional. You can finally see the complete transformation when Vincent has his interview at Gattaca, when he looks into the mirror.You can see that Vincent is impressed with what he has transformed into. During the film Gattaca, the mission director at Gattaca was brutally murdered, in which Investigators took control of Gattaca and checked everyth ing, everywhere and everyone, gene to gene. When Vincent sees all of these people searching for clues and evidence he slightly loses faith and starts to rethink his whole dream. The investigators find a suspect, but no details are given except a picture (of Vincent) and the fact that the suspect is an invalid.There are many different scenes in which Vincent almost gets caught, but one of the tensest scenes was when Vincent went on the treadmill for his training. Prior to this scene we see Jerome clip a heart rate monitor onto himself and we see him ride his wheel chair so they can record his heartbeat, which we figure out that Vincent is going to end up using it. When Vincent goes onto the treadmill we see him quickly switch heart rate monitors and then we see him jogging. Then we see two investigator walk into the gym facility where everyone is getting there heart rate checked, including Vincent.While the investigators are talking to the doctors we, the viewers can hear Vincentâ₠¬â„¢s heart beat (non-diegetic), which slowly builds up the tension. Then when the investigators and the doctor are talking about Vincent, his Heart beat monitors recording finished early so we can hear his real heartbeat which is going really fast so he quickly unclipped his heart rate monitor and walked off. This shows you the risks and challenges that Vincent faces every day and the ways he deals with them.At the beginning of Gattaca Vincent and his brother Anton play a dangerous game called â€Å"Chicken†. Chicken involves Vincent and Anton battling against each other and against the great force of nature as they swim out into the ocean as far as they possibly can until one gives in or turns back. Both Anton and Vincent are presented through high angles to show their inferiority and insignificance compared to rough and wavy ocean. There are also scenes in which they are displayed through eye level shots to show that the conditions are equal to both of them.Later on in the film Vincent and Anton go back out into the ocean and have another game of Chicken in which Vincent, against all odds beats Anton. This is a significant part of the film because Vincent finally realises that he can achieve anything and he can finally travel into space. â€Å"It was the one moment in our lives that my brother was not as strong as he believed, and I was not as weak. It was the moment that made everything possible†. Camera angles help support the theme that the most important key to a person’s success is not their genetic material but their ambitions, drive and determination.At the end of Gattaca, Vincent was only moments away from achieving his goal to go to Gattaca. At the same time Jerome is preparing to end his life. These two scenes are intercut so we can see Vincent finally getting onto the rocket and achieving his goal while Jerome is stepping into the incinerator preparing to kill himself because he lived a miserable life, having perfect genetic material but a lack of determination and drive. This scene is extremely tense because we feel emotionally overwhelmed; happy for Vincent and sympathetic for Jerome.We also feel quite emotional because we know Jerome is going to die happy and we know that he was happy to be part of Vincent’s transformation: â€Å"I got the better end of the deal. I only lent you my body †¦ you lent me your dream†. This is the final scene of the film that completes the theme. Vincent made his dream come true, not because of his genetic material but because of his ambitions, drive and determination. It is evident in the feature film Gattaca, by Andrew Niccol that the key to a person’s success is not their genetic material but their ambitions, drive and determination.Gattaca is full of interesting ideas and themes which are explored throughout Vincent’s journey. The conventions of performance and characterisation, camera angles, camera shots and music/sound all help deve lop the theme. I believe that this would have to be one of my favourite movies because of all of the representations and because the story behind it inspired me to become a better person. I would also recommend this movie to anyone because it reaches out to a wide target audience and I would definitely rate it a 10 out of 10. By Anthony (hshs)

Mr. Omijie Famous

A Brief History of School Guidance and Counseling in the United States The history of school counseling formally started at the turn of the twentieth century, although a case can be made for tracing the foundations of counseling and guidance principles to ancient Greece and Rome with the philosophical teachings of Plato and Aristotle. There is also evidence to argue that some of the techniques and skills of modern-day guidance counselors were practiced by Catholic priests in the Middle Ages, as can be seen by the dedication to the concept of confidentiality within the confessional.Near the end of the sixteenth century, one of the first texts about career options appeared: The Universal Plaza of All the Professions of the World, (1626) written by Tomaso Garzoni. Nevertheless, formal guidance programs using specialized textbooks did not start until the turn of the twentieth century. The factors leading to the development of guidance and counseling in the United States began in the 1890 s with the social reform movement. The difficulties of people living in urban slums and the widespread use of child labor outraged many.One of the consequences was the compulsory education movement and shortly thereafter the vocational guidance movement, which, in its early days, was concerned with guiding people into the workforce to become productive members of society. The social and political reformer Frank Parsons is often credited with being the father of the vocational guidance movement. His work with the Civic Service House led to the development of the Boston Vocation Bureau. In 1909 the Boston Vocation Bureau helped outline a system of vocational guidance in the Boston public schools.The work of the bureau influenced the need for and the use of vocational guidance both in the United States and other countries. By 1918 there were documented accounts of the bureau's influence as far away as Uruguay and China. Guidance and counseling in these early years were considered to be mostly vocational in nature, but as the profession advanced other personal concerns became part of the school counselor's agenda. The United States' entry into World War I brought the need for assessment of large groups of draftees, in large part to select appropriate people for leadership positions.These early psychological assessments performed on large groups of people were quickly identified as being valuable tools to be used in the educational system, thus beginning the standardized testing movement that in the early twenty-first century is still a strong aspect of U. S. public education. At the same time, vocational guidance was spreading throughout the country, so that by 1918 more than 900 high schools had some type of vocational guidance system.In 1913 the National Vocational Guidance Association was formed and helped legitimize and increase the number of guidance counselors. Early vocational guidance counselors were often teachers appointed to assume the extra duties of t he position in addition to their regular teaching responsibilities. The 1920s and 1930s saw an expansion of counseling roles beyond working only with vocational concerns. Social, personal, and educational aspects of a student's life also needed attention. The Great Depression of the 1930s led to the restriction of funds for counseling programs.Not until 1938, after a recommendation from a presidential committee and the passage of the George Dean Act, which provided funds directly for the purposes of vocational guidance counseling, did guidance counselors start to see an increase in support for their work. After World War II a strong trend away from testing appeared. One of the main persons indirectly responsible for this shift was the American psychologist Carl Rogers. Many in the counseling field adopted his emphasis on â€Å"nondirective† (later called â€Å"client-centered†) counseling.Rogers published Counseling and Psychotherapy in 1942 and Client-Centered Therapy in 1951. These two works defined a new counseling theory in complete contrast to previous theories in psychology and counseling. This new theory minimized counselor advice-giving and stressed the creation of conditions that left the client more in control of the counseling content. In 1958 the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was enacted, providing aid to education in the United States at all levels, public and private.Instituted primarily to stimulate the advancement of education in science, mathematics, and modern foreign languages, NDEA also provided aid in other areas, including technical education, area studies, geography, English as a second language, counseling and guidance, school libraries, and educational media centers. Further support for school counseling was spurred by the Soviet Union's launching of Sputnik and fears that other countries were outperforming the United States in the fields of mathematics and science.Hence, by providing appropriate funding for educa tion, including guidance and counseling, it was thought that more students would find their way into the sciences. Additionally, in the 1950s the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) was formed, furthering the professional identity of the school counselor. The work of C. Gilbert Wrenn, including his 1962 book The Counselor in a Changing World, brought to light the need for more cultural sensitivity on the part of school counselors.The 1960s also brought many more counseling theories to the field, including Frederick Perl's gestalt therapy, William Glasser's reality therapy, Abraham Maslow and Rollo May's existential approach, and John Krumboltz's behavioral counseling approach. It was during this time that legislative support and an amendment to the NDEA provided funds for training and hiring school counselors with an elementary emphasis. In the 1970s the school counselor was beginning to be defined as part of a larger program, as opposed to being the entire program.There wa s an emphasis on accountability of services provided by school counselors and the benefits that could be obtained with structured evaluations. This decade also gave rise to the special education movement. The educational and counseling needs of students with disabilities was addressed with the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975. The 1980s saw the development of training standards and criteria for school counseling. This was also a time of more intense evaluation of education as a whole and counseling programs in particular.In order for schools to provide adequate educational opportunities for individuals with disabilities, school counselors were trained to adapt the educational environment to student needs. The duties and roles of many counselors began to change considerably. Counselors started finding themselves as gatekeepers to Individualized Education Programs (IEP) and Student Study Teams (SST) as well as consultants to special education teachers, especially after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.The development of national educational standards and the school reform movement of the 1990s ignored school counseling as an integral part of a student's educational development. The ASCA compensated partially with the development of national standards for school counseling programs. These standards clearly defined the roles and responsibilities of school counseling programs and showed the necessity of school counseling for the overall educational development of every student. Major Roles and Functions for School Counselors