FINAL BLOG TASK - Post No. 10 (Sathiz)

1.    How was the entire learning experience in this module for you? Did it meet your expectations?

The five months I spent to learn this module is definitely a worthwhile experience. We (the students) were not only sitting there in the classroom to have lectures, but we also had the opportunities to discover and learn about the history and development of various media industries. Furthermore, the basic theories of mass media effects and issued that were taught in class could be very useful in everyday life. Therefore, the lessons taught throughout this module certainly did meet my learning expectations.  

2.    What were some of your best memories/experiences in this module? Why? What did you gain from these experiences?

The classes were generally conducted in a way where it inspired and motivated students to explore further in this field. At the same the presentation of the learning materials enables us to understand it better and remember it longer. Apart from these, the class activities were largely group activities which besides promoting teamwork also encouraged us to express and share our ideas and knowledge with one another. Through these activities, sometimes members in our group manage to come up an idea which others have not even thought of. This helped us to widen our knowledge in this subject.

3.    Name at least 3 key takeaways for you from this module.

Learning this module has been an amazing experience. My brain has absorbed so much information and I have had the chance to learn so many things about mass communication. Here are my three takeaways from this module:

                i.        Able to distinguish between mass communication and mass media.

               ii.        Able to recognize the roles mass media in people’s everyday life (Individual assignment: critical/cultural studies approach to studying films/music/literature).

              iii.        Able to state various types of mass media as well as the factors influencing mass communication process.

4.    What are the areas that the lecturer can improve on to make the module better for future students?

In my opinion, the lecturer has been excellent in doing his job. The lecturer always explains the points clearly and his learning materials are very well organized and interesting. Besides, the lecturer gives the students plenty of opportunities for asking questions about the tutorials and assignments. Hence, I believe that the lecturer is ideal on all the aspects.

5.    Was this module helpful in preparing you for future modules and your degree in the future?

As I am intending to do Bachelor of Mass Communication, this module has been indeed very helpful. This module has enhanced my interpretation and analysing skills, teamwork, video shooting and the list goes on. I find this module to be very helpful as this module serves as a basic and fundamental element for me to continue my degree in future. 

Blog Assignment 8 (Sathiz)

1. What is the message conveyed by the ad?

The one and a half minute video ad conveys a message to end gun violence, a part of a campaign by Mayors in United States. This particular video ad begins with a number of celebrities listing mass shootings from Columbine to Virginia Tech. The main objective of the ad is to push for more effective gun control legislation in the wake of the December 14^th shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown which took the lives of 20 innocent children and six adults. This ad encourages the public to support the Demand a Plan campaign whose goals are to make sure that every gun buyer faces a background check and push for stricter penalties against people who purchase guns on behalf of others.   

2. What persuasive technique is being employed?

There were several persuasive techniques being used in the video ad including Celebrity Spokesperson, Emotional Appeals and Repetition. Among the entertainers making appearances in the ad are Beyoncé, Jessica Alba, Rashida Jones, Selena Gomez, Jennifer Aniston and many more. The appearances of many artists attracts the attention of the target audiences the campaign more visible and easily persuaded. As for emotional appeal technique, the ad induced fear of losing someone they loves to the audiences. This ad, thus make a viewer to have a strong feeling about the Demand a Plan campaign. In the ad, several words such as ‘how many more’, ‘enough’ and ‘demand a plan’ are being repeated several times. The repetition technique is used in this ad to overcome the audiences’ reluctance in believing the importance of the campaign. 

3. Who is the target audience?

The audiences the ad aim to reach out are the adults as well as elderly people in America. The stars in the ad plead the Americans to support the Demand a Plan campaign which disapproves the legal gun violence. People who obtain the guns could be a bigger threat to the country and it is proven by the massacre in Sandy Hook Elementary School proves. The ad indirectly requires the of age citizens of America to be aware of illegal gun purchases and usages. As it turns out,  the usage of the words such as “as a mom, as a dad, as a friend, as a wife, as a husband, as an America” in the ad clearly shows the target audience the ad was trying to reach out.

4. Is this an effective ad? Why or why not?

In my opinion, the ad is very effective. The appearances of many artists in this ad make the citizens to become aware of the campaign, Demand a Plan. There are chances where the target audiences are easily convinced the presence of many entertainers in one single ad.  It encourages many people out there to support their motive which is to end gun violence to prevent to loss of many innocent lives. The emotional appeal technique which is used it this ad proved to be very effective. It causes the public to have a strong sense of disapproval against gun violence. 

5. What would you change to make the ad better? Why?

The ad is lack of background music. Therefore I would suggest adding suitable background music to the ad as it would attract the audiences’ attention. Besides I would also suggest adding more pictures related to the shooting incident in Sandy Hook Elementary School. This would indirectly initiates the Americans to protect the innocent lives from becoming victims of illegal gun shooting activities. Before ending the video ad, I would add a few urls and website addresses which would link them to the pages containing information about the campaign activities. This enables them to learn more information and facts about the campaign.

(Video ad url : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64G5FfG2Xpg)

Blog Assignment 7 (Sathiz - Zahrin - Max - Arisz)

Campaign Title : Driving Safe with BMW

Organised by : Hustlers PR Marketing Sdn Bhd.

1.  Information Gathering

• The audience who we aim to reach out to are people who can’t seem to get their hands off their mobile devices, even when driving which are young students who just received their driving licenses and young adults who are tech savvy and seem to incorporate their devices in their daily lives even when not necessary especially when driving. These ages range between 18-25. Within the same age group are also youngsters who are very confident of driving under the influence of alcohol in which results in very unfortunate circumstances for the drunk driver and the safety of the drivers around him.

• Many people which include Malaysians have a strong habit of being late and to further communicate to someone that they are, in fact, late, many people tend to text on the go which is now a glowing habit amongst people to adopt. Another is social media. People are so addicted to social media to the extent that they have a constant need to let everyone know where they are, whether it is twitter, Facebook, Instagram, 4square etc., people tend to update their locations for friends to acknowledge. Traffic is also a main factor to why people bring their phones out while driving; trying to update other people about traffic in the area they are in.

• Many people seem to think that texting or utilising their phones while driving has become such a social norm that some are unaware it is even a crime! It doesn’t seem to alert people that texting while driving is not safe because it has become part of their lifestyle and that it has been something they have been doing since they started driving. People also seem to think that driving drunk has reached a certain appeal to them. Driving drunk and surviving is somewhat a way of gaining respect from their peers into thinking that “This lad is a legend for driving drunk home after that much of a binge!” People take it as a challenge to gain absurd respect from their friends into thinking that they are safe with a drunk behind the wheel.

• The problems needing to be solved is to not completely change the lifestyle of people by telling them not to text and drive and not to drink and drive but to merely alter their reality of the situation to create better understanding toward the public at the issues at hand. Hence, the campaign: Drive safe with BMW! It is to help people understand that the current lifestyle they lead is very unsafe and that certain measures need to be taken to ensure the safety of the public. Main problems are obviously the vehicular accidents that are caused by the issues. Texting and driving and drunk driving are the two biggest factors that lead to car accidents today. With more people adopting this lifestyle, the number of accidents on the road will seem likely to increase. Lives are also lost in the process of a mere sending of a text or one glass a bit too much. 

2.  Planning

• Make a campaign and hire famous actor and actress to attract certain age of people, tell them their feeling of driving recklessly and it doesn’t make you looks cooler.

• Get the people from the campaign to wear certain colour of shirts to show that they are supporting this idea of not driving recklessly and alcohol before driving.

• Create a Facebook page, instagram or twitter to promote the idea to all people around the world. 

3.   Communication

The 3 key messages for this campaign is

• THINK! Don’t drink and drive or text while driving.
• Get caught drink driving and you’ll be processed like any other criminal.
•  Put it down! Do not text and drive.

The social platforms

• Twitter

We will give up to date tweets to tell our followers about the importance of their safety on the road.

• Facebook

We will make a page or group about road safety and we will also make a competition inside the page and group.

• Instagram

We will post pictures of people that used our advice and they also can post their pictures to our instagram by using #Derive

• Myspace

We still believe that they are still leftovers people in Myspace and by that also will use that social platform too.

• Tumblr

By using tumblr , we can make it as our official blog about road safety and stuff. It will be our main social platform when we will write and post everything there first.

Our “grand plan” is to make sure that we educate youth drivers out there about road safety since the death toll of youth drivers nowadays are increasing so we will launch events, promotions, advertisements and small carnival by us soon.

4.  Evaluation

·        

• It is undeniable that youngsters nowadays spend way too much time on Facebook. Therefore, the Pages or Groups created in Facebook would be an ideal platform to convey messages on the cons of drunk driving as well as texting while driving. People across the globe are free to express and share their experiences on drunk driving and texting while driving on these pages and groups. This indirectly will raise awareness about this issue among the youngsters.

• Instagram is always a fun way to deliver a message as it displays photos. With the given editing options, we can be as much creative as can. We can add our own style to the photos. This will evidently increase attention of users to the photos in Instagram. These kinds of posts usually get comments and interactions from the other users.

• In a recent survey, it is concluded that one of the best way reach the youngsters, apart from Facebook, Twitter or Instagram is Tumblr. Tumblr has the power to attract a ton of traffic to the blog as it is indexed and contains a lot of social sharing. The microblog option in Tumblr allows sharing the posts quickly and easily with the social communities. Furthermore, Tumblr also allows bloggers to post images, videos, links and more. These can certainly provide the adolescents to obtain information on the issue that has been raised, that is, texting while driving and drunk driving. 

Radio Station Hustle.Fm

Blog Assigment 3(Sathiz- Zahrin-Max-Arisz)

Introducing Company Name

Company name: Football Crazy

Mission : To ensure that every single one of our consumer get to know the latest news of the sports event and happening and increase the sensitivity of people towards the truth and reality and able to identify it the news accurately.

Vision : We contribute ourselves to the people, giving our 100% and give out the best and accurate news to our readers.

What does your book/magazine publishing company specialises in?

Our magazine specialises in Sports either international or local. The main target for our magazine company  is that we want to give our readers all the latest news ,gossip, rumours  and scandals  about sports and players they love either on or off the pitch. We also want to be the world’s best sports magazine.  On how we want to plan our target group is by using this methods.

-Target Market is the customer group that you feel will most likely want to buy your products or services. This group is defined by your customer profile.

-Customer Profile is a detailed profile of your typical customer. For individual consumers, it includes information such as age, income, gender, marital status, profession and buying habits. For businesses, it includes the types of business, number of years in business, number of employees, annual revenues and products or services sold.

-Demographics are the characteristics of a population such as size, growth, age, income, gender, marital status and buying habits. This information helps you decide whether this target market is large enough for your products or services in the target area.

-Market Analysis is an analysis of research data that results in determinations about the marketability of a product or service in the given market.

    

 One of the few ways for us to increase our company revenue are through using the media   worldwide by making advertises to promote our sport magazines. By using this method we can increase our company revenue because when more people know about it the higher chance we can get money from our customers.

Describe the content of your book/magazine? What are the key topics or issues would your company choose to focus on?

As a magazine documenting and collecting information about football around the world, the content will consist of the happenings of several football leagues around the world, such as the Barclays Premier League in England and the La Liga in Spain etc. Majority of the football season will have matches being played around the world and our magazine will be covering a full report of the biggest matches being played in mainly Europe and Asia with a special coverage segment dedicated to our national football league here in Malaysia. A player profile of interest will be reported in every issue if the player has been garnering global attention for his performances for his club where the player's biography, early career, personal life etc will be covered. Another segment called, Future Stars will also be issued in the magazine with many top scouts reporting to us on the latest in football youth academies around the world. When the football season takes a break for several months, the magazine will come up with a segment until the season starts again called Transfer Season. Transfer season will focus on the buying of new players and controversy of the oh so dramatic transfer season. Big money moves and their details will be scrutinised to the fullest to give fans of the magazine a legitimate source of information. The magazine will also cover everyday of the week in a segment called "On this day...", where we remind fans of the sport of some historic key events that had happened on a particular day in football. Another segment called Managers choice will be conducted where a manager of a football team could choose his dream starting lineup which would consist of players the manager would deem as the best players in the world. Our magazine chooses to focus on these aspects of the game as many football magazines consist mainly of transfer rumours and score predictions. Our magazine aims to be more detailed in a footballer's life and the importance of the sport to the rest of the world and that football is not just a sport, but also a way of life.

What are some of the key methods you will utilize to promote a book or magazine in your company’s repertoire?

Promoting a magazine is not an easy way but there are few methods we can utilise to promote our magazine. Football Crazy is producing magazine for football and the latest updates can be seen in the magazine. First of all Football crazy can be promoted by giving readers a glimpse of what’s in the magazine thru social media. In the current era, most of the teenagers will spend their time in social media like facebook,twitter,instagram and blogs. Either way, Headline glimpse are great way to hook readers who might otherwise have missed a story in which they have interest. Once we got their attention for our magazine we can move further by letting them know more about the magazine and encourage them to buy our magazine “Football Crazy”. We also can ease their burden by redirect the readers to a web version or to a magazine stand to purchase a hard copy. Other than that, choosing the cover shot also playing a big role in promoting a magazine. “Football Crazy” cover shot will be chosen by the latest news. Most of them will buy a magazine when  they see the latest pic of the players or when there is a hot news on the cover shot. We can attract the buyers by choosing the best cover picture for our magazine. Other than that, giving away free gift to the buyers also will increase the sale of the magazine and will promote our “Football Crazy” magazine.  In this world people like/love to buy something when there is free gifts. Football crazy magazine will come along with a free gift of players signature posters. Nowadays teenagers like to collect posters. This will attract the crowd towards the magazine and also will increase the readers. For example, once a person bought the book with free poster he will suggest to another guy and he also will buy the magazine. This will go continuously  and our magazine will be promoted national wide.

Newspapers are dying (Assignment 2) (Hustlers--Sathiz--Arisz--Zahrin--Max--Uri)

Introduce the issues

Digital news are increasing drastically in the upcoming years. Newspaper companies are worrying on how traditional newspaper print will compete and plan to survive in the future. Some of the discussion that were talked and brought up are why consumers or readers now prefer picking or subscribing to online sources of news. Many newspaper companies now are struggling on how to maintain their newspaper print and their audiences. A number of newspaper companies had already filed for bankruptcy and some are forced to laid off thousands of employment due to the advance technological digital online sources. This had erupted awareness towards the newspaper industries that more and more consumers and readers are subscribing to digital news sources for information news. The discussion also brought up the advantages and disadvantages of digital news and paper print news. According to the video clip reports, the internet surpassed newspaper as main news source in year 2010. Also, reports stated that half or smartphone owners say they tend to use their devices for news. On the other hand, according to investor Warren Buffet, who's company bought several newspaper earlier May claims that quote :" we must rethink the industry's initial response to the internet. The original instinct of the newspaper then was to offer free in digital form what they were charging for in print. We will favour towns and cities with a strong sense of community. If a citizenry cares little for its community, it will eventually care a little about its newspaper, we will focus on small and mid-sized papers in long establish communities."

Summarise what the panellists in the video discussed

They are saying that New Orleans will soon become the largest US city without a daily newspaper , this is because  traditional news outlets have been struggling to find the perfect online business model, with many of us too used to getting our news for free. Some newspaper companies, such as the Tribune Company, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Freedom Communications, have filed for bankruptcy protection. The New York Times reported a 73 per cent gain in circulation thanks to digital gains after establishing an online paywall  - in fact, it now has more digital subscribers than print subscribers on weekdays.

In your group’s opinion, after taking in the viewpoints of the panellists, do you agree that newspapers are dying a slow death?

                              In our group’s opinion, we agree that newspapers are dying a slow death. Introduce of smartphones mostly affects the newspaper production as many people just using their smartphones or their Tablets to read the latest news. There are a lot of applications that used in the mobile device to read the daily/latest news. We also can view the news anytime and anywhere we wanted to, examples are we can use our smartphones to check out the news even in the toilet, and also reading the news in public transport. Other than that, social networks also helps the teenagers to get update the latest news like Facebook, twitter and so on. On the other hand, we don’t really have to pay to get attach to the latest news, so we can save the money for other purpose. Through look for news in the internet, we can save our times so that we don’t have to drive out to get the newspaper on daily basis. Nowadays, we don’t have to carry the newspaper with you everywhere like a nerd and preventing the newspaper from being folded untidily. Besides, we can also save our environment by reducing the paper-use so that we can reduce cutting down trees to save the world from pollution. The information shown on the Malaysian newspapers is not that trustworthy as before, as for information, newspapers nowadays are under surveillance. Adding to that, nowadays consumers are likely to be producer as well. People like to talk about news, forwarding the news to their friends and family members. So this has made a great impact and value to the newspaper industry where verbal communication travels faster than newspaper and this has created a second layer news because some people's output can be someone's input.

To conclude, suggest some new, innovative ways for newspapers to attract young readers like yourself.

      In my point of view, newspapers can attract young readers by providing more detailed pictures to get the further insight stories. Most of the young readers don’t like to read the news that written page by page. Youngsters mostly like to see the pictures and get to know about the news. News must be short and sweet and the pictures must tell them the whole story. Other than that newspapers should provide some interesting characters that makes the article more attractive. For example in Japan there is app that used to attract youngsters/kids to read newspaper by showing the animation on the device. We also can attract the young readers by making the title of the article bigger and interesting. Other than that, journalist may need to expand the boundaries of what they traditionally consider ‘news’. The news that they writing must be relevant and must be supported by research or any pictures so that youngsters can believe in it.  Most of the youngsters are not buying or reading the newspaper because of the story changes and non-fact stories. Journalist also need to find ways to make complex, on-going storylines accessible to people who perhaps haven’s been following every word since day one. The news that they serving to young reader must be fuller, more relevant and easier to digest. This will encourage the young readers to read the newspapers compared to online news. Young readers are just looking for some easy stuff to go about rather than buying newspapers and holding it for the whole day. We also can attract the young readers by making the title of the article bigger and interesting. The title must attract them to read the news.In Conclusion newspapers must enclose with all the point above to win young readers market. Its not the easy task to ask the young people to read the news rather than creating something new.

Mass Media as a Storyteller (Assigment 1) (Hustlers--Sathiz--Arisz--Zahrin--Max)

One of Malaysia’s leading television hits are a legitimate example of what makes media a cultural storyteller: Oh my English. The show is based on a group of school children, venturing their way through secondary school life, with most of the cast lacking grammatical skill. This programme is a perfect example of how cultural values shape the way we think and what not because English being the universal language of the world, helping Malaysians become more literate in the language allows Malaysian to branch out economically and socially. Unbeknownst to the audience, though it may seem the cast is learning English, fellow Malaysians who are on the same boat as the cast are also learning as they watch. This automatically alters our perception of thought as it has become a cultural belief that Malaysians should learn to speak proper English in general. As the ministry of Education had tried to suggest a more English based education system, Malaysians, however, did not absorb the method the ministry had established. Oh my English was a brilliant alternative to that as in today’s society, younger children prefer to learn visually, which is a prime example that mass media influences the audience with cultural values which help us think, feel and act differently. As the plot suggests, a group of Malaysian students learning to speak English, it is certainly relatable to many, many Malaysians which fatherly enforces the fact that mass media is a cultural storyteller as it showcases the lives of not just these group of children but also the lives of actual Malaysian students struggling with their English. Oh my English is certainly living up to the expectation due to its overwhelming popularity and truly serves its purpose as a Malaysian cultural story teller. Many students around Malaysia have responded well to the television show and acknowledge the shows main moral values.

 

Media is a storyteller where we can get information from all over the world. It keeps us up with the latest news and happenings. Media, specifically internet, brings the world into our thumb in one touch/click access. Almost everything can be shared via media from anywhere and anytime.

 

Storytelling is a sharing and interpreting experience between the storyteller and listener, the 3 values and beliefs from the TV programme that influence, is the importance of English Education among Malaysians. ‘Oh My English’ is a program that helps the people to improve their English and to realise their mistakes in term of talking and writing skills. Most of Malaysians doesn’t use the proper English when they talk and this can be very confusing for the foreigners to understand. In Malaysia if you talk in English it seems look like you are showing off but actually it isn’t . Oh my English teaches people that English is not for showing off but it is vital. Other than that this type of programmes will bring unity among the Malaysians since Malaysia is a multi-race country. Oh My English contents the concept of 1Malaysia that could be a good connector among Malaysians. This programme also based on education that helps the community to improve their speaking skills in English since it’s an International language. This type of  TV programme also suitable for all age groups. It’s a comedy based show with education value and it’s an acceptable programme by all society.

 

As a conclusion, media has the biggest responsibility on delivering the news to people in a different way by stories.  This process of storytelling can convey the ideas differently and the audience can get the information accurately. This can help the youngsters to learn and catch the points easily.