7th Post- Could we possibly live with this?



The past versus present versus future. People and cultures have developed and progress over space and time. Everyday, new technologies are being created to make life a whole lot more easier and comfortable for us. We see societal norms breaking new boundaries, testing and shaping our culture at the same time.

In the past, conservativeness was more prevalent than what it is today. We can easily spot couples making-out in public spaces, sometimes venturing deeper into more explicit acts that are very often frowned upon. Sexuality, and all that surrounds it has been shedding its taboo factor and is slowly opening up. By opening up, I'm ascribing it to how early kids are exposed or have had sexual intercourse. In fact, US teens are constantly being ridiculed if they have yet to lose their "virginity status" before turning 21.

A very recent article reported by the Straits Times:
(http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_446405.html)

"statistics also point to people becoming more sexually aware from a young age. A survey last year of 226 sexually active teens between the ages 10 and 19 found that three of them had their first sexual encounter at 11."

My point is, as time lapses, what other changes will we see next? Could Singaporeans live in a culture where it is approving for a same-sex relationship to exist? Could we instead of "giving private space" to homosexuals, be able to live openly and harmoniously with them where men are free to hold hands in public and where consensual love is welcomed?





Countries like Netherlands, Canada, Spain, Sweden and states in the US have legalized marriage/adoption rights to gay and lesbian couples. I reckon that eventually, like all other previous global issues, it will reach the shores of Singapore as well.Cultural Imperialism and it's influences will slowly be crossed through the different national boundaries with specific channels used such as the media and the pressure on governments to conform to the guidelines of global human rights, legalizing the rights of homosexuality. However, this future possibility might take a little while for Singaporeans to warm up to.

There are two sides to a coin, but the coin still exists. We cannot be ignorant of that fact.

Effects of Mass Media

Television has become so powerful in sub-consciously shaping our perceptions that we have grown oblivious of it. Humans enjoy and crave visual stimulation; we find it pleasurable and entertaining because it stirs our thoughts and emotions- that’s why we are able to sit in front of the television for hours. Television has become such an impactful medium in enriching or deforming the way we perceive things. As such, the images that are being portrayed on television screens are a reflection of societal values.

An example of cultural transmission in mass media would be the contrast of television roles played by actors and actresses in the 60’s or 70’s as compared to present day. In drama series back then,women are often typecast as domesticated or play a more traditional role such as being a full-time housewife or the sole child- care bearer. They are also often portrayed as being more emotional than men, lacking the inability to control their emotions well and being over neurotic. Men however were stereotyped as the domineering of the two genders, encompassing of masculinity, strength, skill, guts, success and having a strong self esteem.

Conversely, as society progresses on and changes, so have the representations of gender roles. Men are now seen going against the grain in playing the role of the domesticator whilst women are more career-minded and holding higher positions of authority in workplaces. Scripts in television serials have also created women to be portrayed as the dominant power of the two in a relationship with men appeasing their every need. This is a stark difference in comparison to the past where women are shown to be submissively waiting after their husband and making sure that they are comfortable. These roles that have recently broke new ground, depicts the transition of the so called stereotypical “male gender superiority” mindset to a level-playing ground where women can now have equal standing as men.

Actors and actresses play an important role in projecting the ideal image of how women or men should look. Actresses tend to have conventional beauty traits such being tall, thin, with very long legs, perfect teeth and hair, and skin without a blemish in sight. They often appear in beauty or clothing-line advertisements reinforcing the need to look conventional, or the need to obtain that ideal image or body size. Similarly, actors have certain physical traits that appeals and sets the ideal image for men in society to sought after- masculinity, tall, tanned, nice eyes and perfect teeth.

However in media communication theories, it describes how the mass media can often be made used of and exploited. The negative effects that arises from it can often create or generate wrong projections on society and it's culture. This can be further illustrated in examples of beer advertisements;in general, people are not particularly bothered or concerned about the portrayal of men and women in a political or moral sense. If they see something different in an advertisement, it catches their attention, it makes them laugh. It seems that less interest actually lies in the ethical or health issues but of the comedy factor that can come out of these portrayals. Advertisers have been changing their campaigns to correspond with the changing lifestyles.

Television is perhaps the most influential form of media in terms of shaping the ideal image as well as world views as defined by our cultures.

2 typical funny BEER Commercials:
This one is HILARIOUS!

Think Groupthink.

Groupthink- To conform or to combat?

Humans have a natural call to groups. We go through life in search of soul-mates and finding connections that tie one another together, establishing friendships and relationships.

My groups consists of belonging to a student body- a group of people studying in UB-SIM, a sports group, and to my circle of friends.

But the question is, who are we in these groups?
Groupthink as defined by research psychologist Irving Jarvis, describes it as a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group; when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.

Are you the one that would go with the flow of things without questioning or asking about the decisions made? Like sheeps following the herd, unsure of where or who you might be following? Or are you the one that would be speaking up when you think someone is wrong and saying that it's wrong?

In my opinion, the concept of groupthink is not definitively wrong because the fact is, it will somehow exist in any situation. For example, when someone from the group doesn't agree with your stance on a particular topic (whether you like it or dislike it), then suddenly, a larger group of people starts to agree with the opposing person on his opinion,that would still be "groupthinking."

However, when groupthink is not handled correctly, the consequences can be rather dire for the group and sometimes for the people around it. One famous example of groupthink gone wrong would be the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

Groupthink was a contributing cause of failure on the day of the launch. In the meeting of managers with one of the contractors, their decision to ignore their engineer's recommendations was the result of collective rationalization and self censorship( all symptoms of groupthink). The space shuttle eventually went into a system failure and disintegrated apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members.

What was so horrific to me was the fact that some of the managers knew that the shuttle was not ready to launch, yet, they kept mum about it.

Often, we face such situations where a bad decision is being called and we keep quiet. It might not be as serious as losing lives over it, but the more important and crucial point would be for us to speak up and identify the error.

Combat groupthink if necessary, be the devil's advocate and make known your stance.

Let's talk about ♥!

Scene from the movie: New York, I Love You



Often, in relationships, we get so caught up being comfortable with one another that we start taking each other for granted- going down the road of "boredom" and forgetting about needs and the "spices".

From this short snippet of the movie, we see a couple in the midst of an argument. Her point of relational need, was for her boyfriend to bring her to different and new places to explore together. However, from the boyfriend's perspective, he didn't see that need to, instead he felt that it was good enough to just visit a park in the city or go about their daily routine.

Feeling thwarted about always having to be the one initiating and planning dates, she gets frustrated at the lack of pro-activeness from her boyfriend. Thus, the rise of conflict- conflict arises when some of the most important needs in a relationship conflicts with another.

Little did the girl realize, her boyfriend was about to surprise her by planning a trip to Rome as they were arguing on the street! (Now, how sweet is that guy.)

I believe that in maintaining relationships, understanding each others needs are very important and crucial in the success of it. With time, the novelty of being together will start to wear off, then what? You realize that you begin to get sick and tired of how predictable it becomes; or how the connection seem to stop along with the closeness that you've experience in the beginning.

What do we do then?

Ask yourself what was the motivation in being with your partner during the relational formation and development stage- the root of it all! If you find yourself thinking that it was more about how attractive he/she looked in physical appearance rather than similarity/ complementarity, you might be in a little pickle. You'd soon enough find that maybe physical appearance isn't strong enough to sustain the relationship through. Perhaps dissolving the relationship would probably be the better option.

But who am I to talk about love or how love should be? (I'm just here to show a connection on how the video illustrates relationship maintenance process.) Maybe I'm speaking from past love experiences or stories that I've heard from friends, but one thing is for sure, that boyfriend in the video really loved his girl ( taking her to the one place in the world that she wanted to go, come on, you've got to give him props!)

So what is your ideal idea of love?

P.S You've got to catch NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU!

On Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication

Take a moment to watch this video that could potentially change how you value your life:


Throughout this video, both verbal and non-verbal communication can be seen. Because I have talked about verbal communication in previous week's post, I would only briefly touch on it and focus more on non-verbal communication.

Verbal Communication can be identified through the narration and the interviews of both the man and woman. It can be seen when they effectively communicated their emotions and feelings through this short clip.

Non Verbal Communication
In this video, we can see 2 obvious groups of people that we can classify them into- The group of American welfare volunteers and the Ugandan Siblings. The significance of non-verbal communication comes into practice throughout the entire visit to that remote village when the group of Americans was filming the video. As both groups are unable to communicate through a common language, we can see a development on the different types of non-verbal communication cues being used.

Kinesics- Study of body language and movement
In the video, we can see the body movement of the two children with polio, crawling on the ground, helpless and unable to walk. We would most likely know that they are unable to walk without the narrator telling us. To further illustrate body language, we can conclude on how the American woman felt when she was seen sobbing uncontrollably at the plight of the little children.

How was your body language when you were watching the video?

Paralinguistic- Study of Vocal non-verbal cues
In another example, both the two children cried out in pain when their older sister was washing them. We can infer that the two children is experiencing physical pain or dislike to that act of washing of the body.

The next paralinguistic example is the tone in which the narrator is narrating and the non-fluencies(filers) used by both American's when they were describing how they felt.

From the objects and environment/ living conditions that were seen in the video- a mud house thatched with grass ; a red basin and a detergent bottle used to bath the children , we can deduce that it is an undeveloped area or a remote village.

Haptics( study of touch in communication)
In many instances throughout the video, we can see the Americans gently and carefully stroking the heads of the little children, as if to encourage and soothe their pain and suffering.

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This post is rather technical in terms of identifying the different types of non-verbal communication we can deduce from the video. However, there are many other examples that can be identified, it all depends on how you perceive and relate to the video. I do hope you have learn something and go on to use or identify them in your everyday living.

Lastly and most importantly, I pray that this video has left a lasting impact on you. Be thankful that we are living in the comfort of our surroundings, be thankful that you are even using a computer to read this, because some people around have not been fortunate enough to even play with one.

Start making a difference.

On Verbal Communication: A Crown of Thorns

Please take a look at this video (And if you have already seen it, do take another look because no matter how many times you've seen this, I promise you'd still be able to laugh.)

I reckon that everyone of you had at least one laugh during the interview with Razor TV. But laughing matters aside, at the end of the day don't you feel a deep sense of shame for her, Singapore and Singaporeans alike? One would think that we would be proud as hell with our beauty queens, after all, they will eventually compete amongst top beauties of the world. I am appalled to my guts that she could emerge as the top contestant amongst many other candidates.

I think we can safely say, that Singapore does not produce top-quality beauty queens. This industry has been made a mockery of, and to most Singaporeans, it is merely a joke. The crowning of Miss Ris Low as Miss World (Singapore) 2009 has exacerbated this.

The onus is on judges to pick out the best as their decisions are a reflection of Singaporean's taste. It is extremely puzzling why they have unanimously voted in her favour. Not only is she incompetent in her thinking, her language proficiency is non-existent. The fact that she claims to want to prove critics wrong in thinking that beauty queens are bimbos, shows that she is deluded. Surely the judges could have picked up on that? Or are they as incompetent as her? It shows.

No wonder Singaporeans are embarrassed. Yes, there are many average Singaporeans who do not speak well, but they also do not throw themselves into the limelight of the glitzy beauty pageant world.

She has truly become a Singapore phenomenon and talking point for us all. To add to this, she even has her very own page in Facebook called "Booms"( named after one of her prominent line in the video)where people can actually join this group to post their opinions on.



Verbal communication is quintessential in our everyday living, and Miss Ris Low has clearly highlighted the language barriers to communication. There is such a dire need for Singaporeans especially, to master English- the UNIVERSAL language, or at least be able to pronounce and use words properly, in fear of being a mockery or a laughing stock!

On Perception : F1- A Stain to Singapore's Image?

A year after what was set to be Singapore's pride and crowning moment- holding the world's first ever night race, turned out pretty shabby after all.

News reports call this the "crash-gate" saga, after allegations that Team Renault conspired with its driver, Nelson Piquet Jr, to cause a deliberate crash at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix with the aim of causing the deployment of the safety car to the advantage of its other driver, Fernando Alonso. ( Who of course went on and won the title) Alonso's victory came after he had enjoyed the advantage of refuelling just before Piquet's crash, while the other cars had to make a pit-stop to refuel for the remaining laps.

For many of us who are new to this sport, F1 has been plagued with many scandals in recent years. Namely, the 'spy-gate' affair of 2007 and this year's 'liar-gate' row at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

Over the past week, Singapore has been in the international news over this match-fixing incident that happened on our shores. Both parties, Renault and Piquet, feuding over allegations and playing the blame game as to what really happened. Yes, this has got nothing to do with the country or the organizers, but ask yourself, why was F1 brought here? Or rather, why did the government permit this internationally recognized sport?

It is correct to say that the answer would be for Singapore: to gain world recognition, more tourist arrivals and most importantly, generate revenue.

But is it doing any good now? A year on, we find out that the match was fixed.. How genuine is this sport? And how long do you think people will stay interested?

I recalled how excited I was last year, watching the cars whiz pass, almost faster than the speed of sound, and how the burnt tyres smelt.I was so thrilled that I was actually there, witnessing this historic moment for Singapore and the sport itself. Now, I'm totally disappointed. The match was fixed all along, the novelty worn off, only the feeling of disdain left.

A week from now, the inaugural race will again, rev its engines. I'm sure there will still be an interest in this speed demon race, but how "clean" is it? There's still a little doubt in my mind- and it won't be long till you hear about another F1 scandal.

Story Report can be found on :http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_sports/view/1003007/1/.html