Influences of Media & Pop Culture on Our Worldview.
“Several risks to pediatric health are literally staring children in the face. It’s time to call the doctor.”
Want to share this old, but great article from the Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin. Very interesting points about how media cuts into many issues such as obesity, eating disorders, attention disorders, violence, sex, and drug use and how Medical Professionals need to deeply consider how much media has an influence on the development of these.
It has been no secret that the Chinese government censors the media. China has received great criticism over their internet censorship such as blocking historical content that hurts the government’s image (i.e. tiananmen square), monitoring skype message, replacing Olympic faces with “prettier” faces to enhance their image, or unfair jailing of protestors during the Beijing Olympics and lying about it.
Search engines had no choice but to comply to the Chinese government’s demands in order to make inroads into China’s 1.3 billion population. Thus it is big news today that Google announced they will no longer comply and will pull out of China if needed be. This was partially a response to a sophisticated and targeted attack on their corporate infrastructure. Google found an organized attack that originated from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property. It was an attack targeting 20+ large companies from different range of businesses. However what made this attack significant was that there is strong evidence that the primary goal of the attacker was to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activist. They also discovered that independent of this attack, that the email accounts of these human right activist were “routinely accessed by third parties” via phishing scams and malware placed on their computer.
China has been heavily criticized in the past for unfairly monitoring and putting down human rights activist. In the Beijing Olympics, China communicated as if their people were free to voice their opinions but had strict and often unfair methods of jailing anyone who would protest (most protests has to do with human rights). The Chinese government is also notorious for unfairly jailing activist as well as people of faith.
When Google launched in china, they noted “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.” It seems Google has finally had it and has thrown down the gauntlet.
“These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”
Basically, no more censorship or we bounce. The choice is up to China. Whether other search engines will follow suit is still to be determined.
This isn’t the first time Google and China butted heads. China’s CIIRC (China Internet Illegal information Reporting Center) has several times made demands for specific items to be blocked and has even blocked full sites like Google, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr when sites did not meet their demands.
Search Engine Shares in China: Google, Baidu, MSN, Yahoo
Yahoo had long ago pulled out of direct competition in China but since then took the tactic of making investments into local search players. Yahoo has been sued several times by pro-democracy advocates who claimed Yahoo gave personal information to the Chinese authorities. In November ComScore showed that Baidu had 62.2% of the Chinese search market while Google only had 14.1%, MSN at 5.1%. However Analysys International, a research firm in Beijing, said that Baidu’s share was closer to 58.4% in Q4 compared to 35.6% in Google. As of last tuesday, Baidu’s shares jumped in stock price.
How will China response? This is not just an issue between Google and China, but a political issue. Google doesn’t have the power to convince China to change it’s ways and China will not lose out on much by letting Google go, however China can’t be happy with bad press they are receiving through this ordeal and the political aftermath if Google eventually has to leave.
[UPDATE] As expected, China gave an indifferent response. Basically anyone who wants to do business in China must follow their laws. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu, “The Chinese government administers the Internet according to law and we have explicit stipulations over what content can be spread on the Internet.” If Google sticks to their guns, they’ll have to simply move their way out of China. But should they?
Avatar recently screamed past the $1 billion mark, easily placing itself as the second highest grossing film in history right behind titanic, which not by coincidence was also directed by James Cameron.
Everyone has heard the talk. The CG is stunning. The immersive land of Pandora is breathtaking. Viewing a movie in 3D finally was worth the extra $2-3. All that talk is true. It’s really an awesome piece of work and the visuals is well worth the ticket price.
When you visit movie sites and read the user reviews, you would think this is the movie of the century. A+’s all around. Best movie ever. Highest praises you could possibly mark. But is Avatar the best movie ever?
Check out these photos of billboards put up at Kaiserdamm metro station in Berlin, Germany. The original ad was for Britney Spears, Leona Lewis, and Christina Aguilera’s new albums. However Mr. Tailon, Baveux Prod., Kone, & Epox put up giant photoshop stickers to transform this giant ad into a “street art”.
Pretty clever, though it is still vandalism.
Wasn’t this a pretty clever stunt?
2009 seems to have gone in a blur. Every year seems to go faster the one before!
As we look back at the films of 2009, it was really a huge for the film industry. Several movies had record-breaking box office figures and we saw the success of more sequels then ever before. As we speak Avatar, a movie that cost half a billion dollars to get out, is ringing up the box office.
How many transformer movies were there? How many alien movies? How many remakes of old series? Batman returned with a bang. Terminator returned with a thud. So did Star Trek. The fantasy genre is exploding off the coattails of Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter now followed by vampires and greek mythology. Comic book movies continue to be popular from Wolverine to Watchmen. Pixar continues to bring out masterpieces such as UP (saw it, loved it) and others produce movies that breaks my heart because it truly is a depiction of our degrading culture: Bruno (did not see it).
I barely remember but luckily through the power of YouTube and the people’s desire to create mashups of just about everything, we can watch this 2009 film mashup. Enjoy.
I’ll start –
Best: UP (Pixar) & Star Trek (J.J. Abrams) – Ok I cheated and picked two.
Worst: Knowing (we went expecting to watch Monsters vs Aliens, then we switched… never watching anything nicholas cage is in again).
Google still reigns the search world with 65% search share (data from comScore Oct). Yahoo currently holds shy of 19% search share though that figure is expected to rise once the Yahoo/ Microsoft deal is complete.
You’ll find the data quite revealing about what our culture truly cares about.
Note that these are searches on Yahoo & Bing. This does not include Google.
Hey Clean Cut Media Readers,
During this thanksgiving holiday, I am very thankful to have YOU, the readers here on Clean Cut media. I am even more thankful for those of you who have started to engage the posts by commenting with your thoughts. I would hate for readers to miss out on the interesting comments and poll results on past postings. Some of the comments are very interesting and we would all benefit from hearing the thoughts of each of you! So please visit some of the past articles, check out the comments and polls and share your thoughts! As always be courteous or should I say – Clean Cut.
Have you read some of the comments made by our readers? Most of the posts on Clean Cut Media end with open ended questions in the hopes that collectively we can discuss the influences of media and our culture. I truly hope we can get to a point where we can post up topics and it is the COMMUNITY that will create the “real” juicy content through the discussions and commentary. So help us out! If you find the article or a comment made by another user interesting, please let us know your thoughts!
Teenager Kills Mother, Shoots Father Over Halo 3
– The comments have been a bit one sided due to the influx of readers coming from Halo Forum sites. What are your thoughts? Agree or disagree?
Clean Family Friendly Movie Reviews & Rating
– Many users have contributed to this list. We wanted to create a list of family friendly movies so users can know what movies are safe both for themselves and their children. Please be as detailed as possible when you contribute!
Creativity: Amazing 3D Building Art
– The art postings on Clean Cut Media always brings out a flurry of comments expressing their awe and delight in what they’ve seen. Check all our 3D Chalk arts postings.
Movie Review: Watchmen Morality Review
– Lot of interesting takes on this movie. What are your thoughts? If you didn’t see the movie, it’s ok! Still give us your take!
AdBlock Plus: Blocks All Ads on the Internet
– Have you downloaded this awesome plug-in? Eliminates Ads altogether!
Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince Movie Review
– Too much emphasis on teen love? Is the message behind the film good? Give us your thoughts?
Polyamory Relationships & Cultural Subjectivity of Truth
– Again, heavy feedback from the Polyamory community. Word got out about this posting via twitter. Comments are mostly by Polyamory participants. Your thoughts?
Which is your Favorite Street Art – 820+ Votes
Users voted on their favorite 3D Chalk Art piece. River Rafting & Coke Bottle have run away with this.
Do you use Facebook and/or MySpace – 630+ Votes
In this article, we discussed the growth of Facebook vs Myspace. This poll helped determine who uses MySpace and who uses Facebook. Facebook easily is the most popular.
What is the Most Amazing – 300+ Votes
Users again voted for the most amazing Chalk Art. Dive Plank edged out Batman and Robin!
Which 3D Building Art is Your Favorite – 280+ Votes
Users love these opinion polls! Which one was their favorite? The one I voted for, the building ripped open. Really incredible. Check it out.
Have sites like YouTube helped or hurt our culture – 70+ Votes
Has Youtube helped our culture by enhancing the proliferation of information? Or has it somewhat hurt our culture? See how the votes are panning out!
Those who are interested in Social Media Marketing tend to follow this blog for the statistical summaries and commentaries. There is a lot of information out there and users have found it useful to find it all consolidated on a couple posts. “ReTweet” is something fairly new on this blog, so it hasn’t picked up just yet, but hopefully it will continue to grow in the future. See the list below!
Social Networks in Asia: Korea, Japan, China, India, Hong Kong, Singapore etc
YouTube Statistics – The Ultimate Time Suck
Polyamory Relationships & Cultural Subjectivity of Truth
Teenager Kills Mother, Shoots Father Over Halo 3
Twitter Statistics: Visitor Growth
Social Media Statistics Video – Growth & Impact
15 Beautiful HDR Photography Art
Below are the most visited postings on Clean Cut Media this year. I’ve only linked the ones not linked above. Don’t want to link you out!
Movie Review: Watchmen Morality Review
Teenager Kills Mother, Shoots Father over Halo
Teens Sharing Nude Photos Online
– I really hope people are finding this article for the right reasons.
Influence of Media Advertising in our View of Life
– Pretty straightforward title. Very old post that started it all.
Israel Palestinians Media War
– Interesting post on the digital media war waged in the middle east.
Girl Self-Esteem Image Issues
– Great piece about Media’s affect on girl’s self image. Lots of Statistics.
Pro Anorexia Pro Ana Sites
– Discussion about Affects of Social Networks on Pro – Anorexia Groups.
Famous Manipulated Photos, Pre-Photoshop
– Take a look at famous pictures from history that were photoshoped for various purposes.
Hope that was helpful to help you navigate around the site. Please let us know which article was your favorite. Also please comment on the ones you find interesting and give us your take!
– Media Influence
The sex-ed lobby has always claimed it was all about health—teaching kids how to stay safe. But in reality, their goal was not preventing disease, pregnancy, and emotional distress. It’s about indoctrinating them into a radical ideology—sexual freedom….What’s the result of this [sex education] teaching? One in four American girls now has a sexually transmitted disease. – Breakpoint
Dr. Miriam Grossman M.D, a board certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist, recently wrote a book called “You’re Teaching My Kid What?”.
She writes about the fact that sex educators as well as the SIECUS [Sexual Information and Education Council of the US], the organization that sets the standard for sex education, are not presenting the medical facts thus rather than empowering people to make the right decisions, they are giving them a false sense of security with disastrous results.
One example is how sex educators urge kids to avoid pregnancy by engaging in oral sex. But what about the medical facts?
Pepsi has been known as a company not afraid to push limits and try out new innovative methods in reaching it’s potential consumers. Have they gone to far?
AMP’s latest attempt to utilize social media became a huge controversial issue. AMP is an energy drink company owned by Pepsi. They have always utilized guy-centric advertising focusing on extreme sports and women. Their marketing approach is a tamer version of another company called AXE who uses extremely risque and degrading advertising.
AMP launched an Iphone app called “before you score” that helps men score with women. Within the application itself, the app breaks down women into 24 categories and provides various pickup lines and suggestions. Examples of such categories are “Rebound Girl”, “Twins”, “Foreign Exchange Student” and even “Married”. Depending on the type of person she is, it is suggesting specific things to say as well can be used to find specific places to eat. The whole point is to convince the subject that you share her interest with the overall goal of getting them into bed. The iTunes store has a description that says “roadmap to success with your favorite kinds of women”.
Let’s think about the culture pepsi is promoting here.
A new report for the Nielsen Company reported that in September 2009, the average U.S. Internet user spent approximately 68 hours online per month. The figure may not seem all that staggering, but consider this: The average American watches 153 hours of television per month (1Q 2009) [Nielsen’s A2M2 Three Screen Report].
All the recent posts have been about heavy topics, so here is a breather both for the artists out there as well as the casual video viewer. I’ve put together links to a few well made (and of course Clean Cut) short videos & short films. I’ve only included ones you may have not seen. So no pixar shorts!
Short videos are very difficult to create because the producer needs to sum up a quick story within a very short time frame usually around 1:30-2 minutes. Short films can range anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 minutes. To develop a story, create the right mood and have character development in such a short period takes much planning and creativity. Below are some of the excellent short films & videos I’ve ran across in the past.
This discussion is not about abortion, but let me lay it out as an example to make a point. Everyone has heard the abortion arguments before: the argument for life and the argument for choice. Is abortion wrong because the child is a human being and no one has the right to kill a child? Or should abortion be considered a valid option because it is in the right of the mother to determine whether they can or want the child? How about the right of a person to kill oneself? Do old sickly people have the right to end their own lives? Can other people assist them? Stop them? The debates continue but underlying these discussions is a much deeper battle: the battle in the validity of the sanctity of life.