Author: Rachel Weisz

Live Tweeting! – BCM325

BCM325

This blog post is a critical self reflection on the live tweeting process that I have been testing in the last couple of weeks. Every Thursday I have sat down to watch a classic science-fiction film while also live tweeting my though processes in relation to how the past perceived the future cultures. I wanted to discover what their perspectives were and how they compare to the present now. Below I will be exploring how my tweeting was during these seminars, and how the critical thinking of the films resonated with the other students.

Week 1: Metropolis:

I found that live tweeting Metropolis was a very fascinating experience because it is a film that I have previously studied before in High School. With that knowledge, I could easily explore why Lang used certain film techniques and biblical connotations to get his message across. However, this live tweeting process got me to understand how the future would be predicted through Langs eyes with the zeitgeist of the 1920’s.

With the tweets above I wanted to discuss how Biblical connotations were largely used to categorise certain elements of the film as ‘holy’, ‘heavenly’ or ‘sinful.’ I found that these tweets created a lot of engagement and opened to a lot of discussions with my peers. I did this by asking questions in my tweets. I tried to add a lot more critical thinking rather than academic sources for this week because I was so aware of the film and wanted to instead ask my peers what their perspectives were. You will see this change within the upcoming weeks.

I also wanted to explore the future of films itself and how despite this movie being an original, it felt to the viewer as something that has been done before. I like to add a question to the end of some of my tweets to create open discussion as you can see in the above three tweets. Some tweets were incredibly successful with this but a lot weren’t. An example of a continuous thread with a peer stemming from one of my tweets can be seen below:

Frank and I were discussing lack of originality in films but it got me thinking: maybe it’s not the films that are unoriginal, it is us. Frank challenged by view that there are only 36 plots in film history by sharing another article which allowed us to engage in more critical thinking upon originality in humanity and therefore in films.

Week 2: 2001: A Space Odyssey

Over the coming weeks my goals was to interact with my peers more though retweeting, reblogging and quote tweeting. I found that I had a lot of success in this. As you can see below my engagement and communication with my peers had increased which led to further discussions:

Week 3: Westworld

After a couple of weeks I can admit that my tweets had become a little bit more lazy than the beginning. I was tweeting less about my own perspectives with my own original thinking and focusing more on secondary sources that supported my ideas. That is not to say that I didn’t learn anything. If anything, the sources I found allowed me to understand the films better and also get a secondary perspective from people that have studied the films in incredible detail. These tweets seemed to have been less engaging so in the later weeks I decided to focus on what works with quote-tweeting, reblogging and developing my own critical discussions with my peers.

I had to constantly remind myself to mention in my tweets the future, whether that to be discuss the films perspective of our present or to determine how the present will radically change the future. I wanted to question why we do things despite the fears that we have about the future:

Engaging in more communication and open discussion:

I think in the future I will try and create my own polls as that would create a really interesting space for discussing each-others perspectives – this is also a really good way to increase my engagement. I did interact with a lot of polls that were created by my peers and contributed into the discussions:

Week 4: Blade Runner and Week 5: Ghost in The Shell

Something that I also will contribute to the future of live tweeting is adding memes and creating some light-hearted material. Although all my tweets were relevant to the topics and I believe I did a really good job in analysing the films, I feel that a lot of it was incredibly heavy. Digital memes are something that the past did not expect for us to utilise so often so I believe it is a really interesting format that I will implement in the next coming weeks.

As you can see below I have really focused on quote-tweeting as it is a really interesting way to trail off from the persons ideas and to create our own questions and critical thinking. It also allows your audience to engage in other peers tweets that they may not have seen.

Looking back, I think that I did a really consistent job in bringing my own perspective on the films to twitter. My aim was for a mix of self-reflection, critical thinking and the use of sources on film analysis which I think I achieved. I could have improved by taking more from the lectures, providing light and happy content (memes) and by creating my own polls to increase engagement and discover new perspectives. Despite this, I found this experience a strange but enjoyable one and I hope to improve on this in the next coming weeks.

Peer Pitches! – BCM325

BCM325

Comment 1

Leo’s Pitch:

I really enjoyed Leo’s pitch on the rise of virtual reality! I was curious to know what type of virtual reality he would be focusing on and for what reasons. Virtual reality is definitely becoming a big part of our society as a whole but I would love to see Leo cut down his research and focus on one aspect, for example medical research or gaming. This will allow him to have a very clean and strong DA. I wish I supplied another article that would help him focus on the future of virtual reality and how that may consume our everyday lives in the future. I should have also touched upon his public utility. However, I do believe I gave him an incredibly interesting article which touched on immersive vs non-immersive virtual reality simulation experiences and I hope that this helps him with him research!

Comment 2

Jett’s Pitch

Jett’s pitch was incredibly interesting to me because his DA will be shown through the platform TikTok which I am an avid user of. As someone who uses it for her own business and also her digital artefact I wanted to give him insight on how to use the platform efficiently. I was reading the other comments by our peers and decided on focusing on the methodology part of his pitch as I didn’t really understand his goals for his DA and didn’t want to give him a useless academic source that has no relevance to his pitch. In saying that, I could have added by perspective anyway incase it helped, which I know I did not do sufficiently. Instead, I chose to ad an example of a popular Australian TikToker because she is well known for sharing her favourite Australian artists and therefore had a positive effect on her job as a Triple J employee. Jett stated that he wanted to use the platform to highlight his favourite songs of the week and I believe that she could be a really good inspiration for him. I hope that this helped him in understanding how to use the platform efficiently for his DA which none of the other comments did.

Comment 3

Franks Pitch:

I found Franks Pitch really interesting because he will ultimately be using this DA as a map for his 5 year career plan. His pitch made me realise that maybe I should be using my DA more as a plan for myself and the future career possibilities with my own business. I wanted to focus my comment on his 3rd blog post regarding his clothing brand. Although he said that is currently doesn’t not relate to his career plan in music journalism, he wanted to implement it somehow and adjust where necessary. As someone with her own clothing brand I wanted to offer some insight on how I believe he could utilise this. I mentioned that as long as the niche is in line with his work he could definitely use the brand as a way to traffic engaging followers and sales and will definitely be able to fuse them together. I wish I went into more detail about how he could do that and give him an example. I would have said that if he had his own website which included ‘merch’, and then implemented other social media platforms such a TikTok and Instagram he should be able to have success with this in the future. I also included a blog post that I quite enjoyed about how to be successful online if you have a business. I hope this helps him and I can’t wait to see how he actually implements it into his blog posts!

Can conversations be a game?

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The thought of me playing a board game has always initially started with a disgusting feeling of dread. I can recall the feeling of my stomach dropping and my breath suddenly rapidly increasing. Don’t get me wrong with this – I actually love games. When I am actually playing I am so excited and don’t want to stop. I can never tell if my fear stems from my deep-down intense competitive personality, or if it is the fear of the unknown if it is something I have never played before. However, this game that I am analysing was especially interesting to me because I had no fear of playing it. Maybe it was because I was comfortable with the participant involved or maybe because this is a different kind of ‘game’ that I had never consider to be under the game category before.

The game I would like to share my experience on was created by Lillian Ahenkan or ‘Flex Mami’ which is her DJ/Creator name. She is a TV host, author, DJ and podcaster who is also the owner of Flex Factory Store. Their game ReFlex is a conversation card game that was made to show people everywhere the power of intimacy and deep connection through conversation. The game consists of a deck of cards. Each card has a different question on it that you would ask the other player – for example – “would you rather waste your time or money?.” From there, if you choose, you can have a deep conversation surrounding the card where you share your different perspectives with the other player.  

According to Cailloi’s 4 categories to describe a game, I would put ReFlex under the category of Alea (chance). The reason for this is because you don’t know what kind of question you will receive until you pick up the card. It is also a Paidic game according to Caillois as it is not bound by rules. You can answer the questions in the way that you want to play the game. For example, you could be at a birthday party and there is a group of people answering the questions. There may be a host asking the questions and participants are throwing answers at you. In another setting, you could be with a close friend and use the cards to think deep and to have a meaningful conversation with one another. Additionally, this game is a perfect form of Gregory Baterson’s frame of meta-communication, as communication is at the forefront of playing this game by engaging in theoretical ideas and answering your opinions based on these ideas. For example with the question; “How would you feel if you found out life had no purpose.” It is little dark, but is also a reflection of the reality that we could possibly live in, or not.

I chose this game to play as it is not your typical board game. It is considered a game as it requires time, a space to play, materials (the cards itself and speech) and it affects our psychology by instigating conversation on things we may not have understood about the person we are playing with. This whole game is based upon good communication and making us behave in a different way. I say this because you can play this game upon multiple spaces, for example, on a date. If you were playing this game on a date you would be removing the small talk and instead replacing it with critical thought as you answer the questions on the cards.

Although the game is said to not be played by the rules, there were still some that we could abide by if we chose:

  1. STEP ONE: Pick a card at random. Answer the question quickly, honestly and on reflex (see what we did there).
  2. STEP TWO: Analyse WHY you’ve answered the way you have. Take your time and dig deep.
  3. STEP THREE: Interrogate what has informed this opinion? Did you adopt it from close friends and family? Has social media or pop culture influenced you? Have you ever thought about this at length?
  4. STEP FOUR: Read the question again and pick it apart. What is the phrasing suggesting? Is there a way to answer the question more objectively or with a different perspective?

Onto the game:

For this game, I felt nothing but excitement when looking at the packaging which is bright and colourful and incredibly is inviting to me. I sat down with a friend of mine on the floor with a glass of wine. Because I have been friends with this person for a while, I knew I could feel comfortable asking her questions that allow you to think critically as I already thought I knew her very well. I thought about what this would feel like in a different setting if I did not know the person I was playing the game with. I personally struggle with opening up to strangers and so perhaps this game would be useful for this. I felt at ease when I remembered that the space I was in was safe and inviting. We open the box. As you open it, a message is on the front says “open the box, then your mind.” On the side of the box it reads “I’d rather not talk about the weather.” These messages got me prepared for the questions that were inside, as I knew then what I was getting myself into. On the bottom of the box reads “no wrong answers no right answers.” The thought of absolutely no rules had me feeling hesitant but I was excited to see the kinds of questions I would be asked. There was no need to shuffle the cards as each card would have something different on it. My first question: “in your opinion, what will the apocalypse look like?” My mind immediately thought of a scene from the Walking Dead, or better yet I Am Legend. Would I be alive? Would I be able to survive a world undone? This is such an interesting for of gameplay because your mind just wanders as if you are in another reality. Once a few more questions were asked we both equally felt incredibly comfortable and felt as if this was a safe space.

This game is incredibly effective in its purpose as its game mechanics allows you to sit down relax and enjoy conversation with the person you are participating with. Even if you play by the rules or not, the game takes you on a journey to discover not only yourself but the perspectives of others around you, as if you were in a different reality your mind created. Not only do the cards set a story for us by asking us these questions, they give us the opportunity to turn that question into an existential one where you discover different points of views and therefore different realities.

I enjoyed this game and hope to discover more like it soon.

Check out Reflex conversation cards here: https://flexfactory.store/collections/reflex/products/reflex-conversation-card-game#how-do-i-play

Can Social Media be a safe space?

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Understanding the pros and cons of engaging in social media in relation to mental health

In our first tutorial for our class Emerging Issues in Media and Communication we discussed media refusal and the reason why individuals feel the need to quit social media entirely. I found this incredibly interesting as a person who regularly uses social media. Social media platforms are no longer just a space to share your life. It can also be used to find communities across the globe that you relate with in order to feel a sense of connection and the feeling that you are not alone. I couldn’t help but wonder, what would my life look like if social media did not play a major role in it? If social media disappeared tomorrow, would I be better off?

https://twitter.com/nina94877636

Social media has had an undeniable influence in myself as an individual. A lot of my inspiration for the way I look, dress and convey myself comes from platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest. On these platforms you see individuals living their lives to the fullest and we don’t know if it is real or fake. This can make it a toxic environment that could potentially make you feel bad about yourself and the life that you live. On a more positive note, I also gather a lot of information from social media from individuals and groups who are speaking out on topics such as mental health and wellbeing which I would not see if I wasn’t an active participant on these platforms. So are the benefits of social media outweighing the cost of it? I have been told that social media is toxic but how toxic can it be?

TikTok, a popular social media video-based platform.

Stemming from addiction to social media, my research will focus on relying on social media for information as an emerging issue in today’s modern technological world. To explore this further I want to look at the positive and negative side to using social media within the topic of mental health. We can often use social media for a sense of validation. Modern marketing is definitely known for exploiting our insecurities for profit. We are constantly being shown content that is capitalising off our insecurities. However, we also see content that is helpful and inspiring and brings together a group of people over issues that they are interested in or relate to.

When compiling my research for this project I expected to find numerous articles exclaiming that social media had a negative affect on our mental health. However, this was not really the case. In fact, I struggled to find a legitimate study that would confirm this. An eight year longitudinal study on Computers and Human Behaviour conducted research on time spent using social media in relation their depressive symptoms across ages 13-20. They found that across the eight year study, there was nothing to suggest that spending time on social media affected mental health. They found that their depression or anxiety did not increase when the adolescent used social media more, nor did it decrease when using social media less. This study also solidified the clinical standpoint of depression as a multi-process condition with multiple factors that come into play (Coyne, S. et al. 2020). Upon reflection after reading this study, I found myself thinking about how social media has affected my own mental health. I do catch myself needing a break from time to time as reading negative comments against other people does take a toll. I agree with the study that social media is not the sole purpose for mental health issues, but it is a big factor when it comes to what we think of ourselves in comparison to what we see online.  

We also need to consider that even if there is a significant impact on mental health due to social media usage, there has been a huge reach of individuals coming together to talk about their issues in a open and public platform such as TikTok. There are positive and negative factors with this. In journal by Cambridge University called Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, results of a conceptual model found that “People with serious mental illness report benefits from interacting with peers online from greater social connectedness, feelings of group belonging and by sharing personal stories and strategies for coping with day-to-day challenges of living with a mental illness” (Naslund, J. et al. 2016). The paper also stated that individuals through social media had the opportunity to access communities that supported their wellbeing by providing information, support and to promote treatment while also reaching a wider demographic. The negative impact of this might result in finding misleading information or being exposed to harmful comments leading to more feelings of uncertainty surrounding their health conditions.

Another study of the uses, benefits and limitations of social media for health communication found that there were six benefits for using social media:

(1) increased interactions with others,

(2) more available, shared, and tailored information,

(3) increased accessibility and widening access to health information,

(4) peer/social/emotional support,

(5) public health surveillance, and

(6) potential to influence health policy. (Moorhead, SA. et al. 2013).

They also recognised 12 limitations to using social media for wellness which included fears of confidentiality and privacy and risk of sharing unreliable and misleading information to its audience.

This project will be an interesting tool in understanding the pros and cons of using social media for resources regarding mental health. I want to understand why researches are now looking at social media as something that benefits us and what are the possible risks behind it. Because social media is such an addicting platform, how much can rely on the information that is being presented to us?

References:

Coyne, S., Rogers, A., Zurcher, J. and Stockdale, L. (2020). Does time spent using social media impact mental health?: An eight year longitudinal study. Computers in Human Behavior, [Online]. 104, 106160. Available at: https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/science/article/pii/S0747563219303723 [Accessed 25 March 2021].

Moorhead, SA. Hazlett, DE. Harrison, L. Carroll, JK. Irwin A, Hoving C. (2013).
A New Dimension of Health Care: Systematic Review of the Uses, Benefits, and Limitations of Social Media for Health Communication
J Med Internet Res 2013;15(4):e85. Available at: https://www.jmir.org/2013/4/e85 [Accessed 25 March 2021].


Naslund, J. Aschbrenner, K. Marsch, L. Bartels, S. (2016). The future of mental health care: Peer-to-peer support and social media. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, 25(2), 113-122. Available at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-psychiatric-sciences/article/future-of-mental-health-care-peertopeer-support-and-social-media/DC0FB362B67DF2A48D42D487ED07C783 [Accessed 25 March 2021].

The Future of Social Media Marketing: The Pitch

BCM325

Summary:

My digital artefact going to be a essay/article on the future of social media marketing. I want to understand the importance of social media marketing and how it is redefining the whole shopping experience for consumers.

I am hoping to educate myself and other business owners who want to maintain their brands in the future of social media.

Social Media managing includes a lot of planning which can contribute to the way we think about and organise for the future. I like to utilise articles online about understanding engagement and to search for keywords for social media. This is why I chose the format of a contextual essay as I think a written format would suit me and my audience better and almost be used as a guide.

I intend on using Instagram, Tiktok and Reddit as the platforms that I will be posting content towards. I chose these three as each one differs in the kind of content they allow (video, photo, written format). Every 2 weeks I intend on putting my focus onto one of these platforms by posting content, engaging with my audience and finding the relevant and niche tags necessary. I will collect my data at the end of the two weeks to see how my audience responds on each platform.

I will collect secondary research by scholars and journalists who study social media trends to understand how consumers respond to certain content and what their predictions are for the future.

Putting all my data into one article (I called it a contextual essay in my pitch) will make the project fast, simple, tiny and inexpensive. From there I believe I will be able to understand what the future is in social media marketing and why it is so crucial to maintain.

Here is a visual plan of my production timeline:

Week 3Pitch Due
Week 4Set Up social media platforms (Instagram and TikTok done.)
Organise content to be posted
Create a content schedule
Week 5This week’s focus – Instagram
Week 6This week’s focus – Instagram
Collect the data that you have found for a progress report
Week 7Gather Feedback/Iterate
This week’s focus – TikTok
Week 8This week’s focus – TikTok
Collect the data that you have found for a progress report
Beta Due
Week 9Gather Feedback/Iterate
This week’s focus – Reddit
Week 10This week’s focus – Reddit
Collect the data that you have found for a progress report
Week 11Gather Feedback/Iterate
Secondary Research – analyse what other brands have been doing
Week 12Edit and revise
Week 13DA Due

References:

Meeker, M., 2018. INTERNET TRENDS 2018. Kleiner Perkins, [Online]. 3-8. Available at: https://www.kleinerperkins.com/perspectives/internet-trends-report-2018/ [Accessed 18 March 2021].

Shane Barker. 2020. The Future of Social Media Marketing – 11 Trends That Will Impact Your Business (Updated January 2021). [Online] Available at: https://shanebarker.com/blog/future-of-social-media-marketing/. [Accessed 18 March 2021].

MEDIBRATION

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Access my digital artefact here:

“E-mental health is not just about technology, but represents a cultural change in mental healthcare by empowering patients to exercise greater choice and control” – Hollis, C., Morriss, R., Martin, J., Amani, S., Cotton, R., Denis, M. (2015)

For our group project this semester, we really wanted to focus on creating an innovation that would assist those suffering from anxiety disorders. We wanted something that would be inexpensive, easy to use and created a space for those who wanted information and to be surrounded by a community. We especially wanted to create a product that was subtle so that the individual did not feel that they were the centre of attention where having an anxiety or panic attack. I put a lot of my personal experience of anxiety into our product to make sure that we created something that would actually be of use to someone experience physical anxiety symptoms.

The National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing of adults conducted multiple surveys, where they found that in the “Australian population aged 16 – 85 almost half (45%) will experience a mental disorder at sometime in their life”, with anxiety disorders being the most common followed by depression. (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. 2015). Additionally, one in five (20%) Australians aged 16-85 experience a mental illness every year. One of the most common is an anxiety disorder. Access to treatment is essential as approximately 75% of people admitted to public sector mental health inpatient services improve notably (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009).

I wanted to turn my digital artefact into an advertisement as our creation is an innovation that has never been done before. An advertisement gives you the ability to highlight the benefits of your product while also seeking your niche audience. I wanted to highlight the beneficial factors of our creation and entice those that feel that they would value from the assistance of our product. Access to mental health treatment can be expensive and even unattainable to some, so I wanted to show how accessible and easy to use our product can be. I also wanted to highlight the multiple ways you can use the app.

I used procreate to make some of the Medibration designs, and pieced it all together through iMovie. The beginning of my video is a slowly increasing heartbeat to duplicate the uneasy feeling of anxiety. I wanted to highlight some physical symptoms of anxiety so that if my audience had experienced these types of symptoms previously, they would be enticed to continue watching. The multiple designs make the product more fun and appealing so that individuals of different ages would be interested in purchasing our product. We also wanted to make sure that the product was not an obvious mental health assistant, as we can understand how individuals don’t want others to know what they’re experiencing.

The program that I used to publish my advertisement was through YouTube. Over 2 Billion logged-in users visit YouTube each month and every day people watch over a billion hours of video and generate billions of views (Youtube, 2020). This means that is it possible to obtain a large amount of viewers which leads to an increase of interested buyers for Medibration.

References:

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2009). National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing: Summary of Results, 4326.0, 2007. ABS: Canberra.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. 2015. Mental Health Services In Australia, Prevalence, Impact And Burden – Australian Institute Of Health And Welfare. Available at: < https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/mental-health-services/mental-health-services-in-australia/report-contents/summary-of-mental-health-services-in-australia/prevalence-impact-and-burden>.

Hollis, C., Morriss, R., Martin, J., Amani, S., Cotton, R., Denis, M. and Lewis, S., 2015. Technological innovations in mental healthcare: harnessing the digital revolution. British Journal of Psychiatry, 206(4), pp.263-265.

“Stay Calm,” Dysfunction_AL, 2020 – Licensed under Creative Commons, viewed 20/06/2020, < http://ccmixter.org/files/destinazione_altrove/61698>.

Youtube. 2020. Press. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/about/press/. [Accessed 20 June 2020].

BCM222 VISUAL ESSAY

Uncategorized

https://prezi.com/view/vL0uVZNOuh6fHMaOJM4W/

Techno-Orientalism in Western Films

BCM222

Part 1

Orientalism is a term coined by Edward Said and is described as the Westerns interpretation of Eastern Culture, specifically Asian countries and those in the Arab/Islamic world. Said’s book is known to be used for open discussion of the imagery of eastern culture through westerners eyes. Techno-orientalism has become a growing term in recent years due to the representations of “futuristic worlds” in films, literature and new media. These worlds are seen as hyper-technological and are “critically examining the stereotype of Asians as both technologically advanced and intellectually primitive (Ueno, T. 1999).”

Western-made films such as Blade Runner and its sequel Blade Runner 2049 pose as popular examples of techno-orientalism. Typically in western films, a country and culture that is most commonly represented through a techno-orientalist approach is Japan. Japans hugely successful economic developments in the 1980s could be a factor in the western depiction of Japan as a technologically advanced group. With Japan purchasing a large number of American companies during this time, we can easily see how Hollywood may view Japan as a progressively advanced community. There is a conception that the USA fears Japan and its ability for fast technological developments that may ‘take over the world.’ This is easily represented in a lot of science-fiction films, some which contribute to techno-orientalism. 

The first film that I want to explore as a case study is Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner which profited USD 5.8 million. This ‘cyberpunk’ aesthetic has a techno-dystopian feel to it. “Blade Runner creates a futuristic noir atmosphere by heavily borrowing from Asian motifs” (Yuen, W. 2000). Scott imitates Asian capitalism with bright flashing billboards in Chinese ideographs and katakana logos on the upper city. Other Asian-representations include pixelated women in kimonos and cheongsam, as well as images of instant ramen and bibimbap bowls. It is presented as a techno-Asian capital that infuses both Asians technological advances and its traditional stereotypes of dress, food and other aesthetic features.  

Although set in Los Angeles, the city that Scott creates is lacking any sign of American culture. Poverty and waste dominate the streets despite the highly technological map that aims to alienate the audience. The commercial Japanese presence in the film is almost overwhelming, alluding to the rise of its economic and technological superpower status.

There may be misperception by the audience on whether the futuristic aesthetic science fictions films depict basic futuristic appeal or if they underline “fears of Asian economic hegemony and reverse colonization” (Young, A). This is a form of techno-orientalism where the western picture of the future of Asian culture is based on the perspective of fear, resentment and envy – representing the “alienated and dystopian image of capitalist progress” (Young, A).

So does blade runner express western fear of Asian future dominance? Not undeniably, however, it does give the Western audience a feeling of unease and undesirability towards the future of Asia. This is a clear demonstration of techno-orientalism being used to enforce a stereotype of racial prejudice. On top of the aesthetics that play a part in the display of techno-orientalism, there is also clear racial disparity represented in the film’s world. In the film, Chew – the eye-maker, picks up an eyeball with chopsticks. This is a clear example that highlights the cultural stereotypes of a ‘primitive’ nature. In this scene, the film almost uses Chew as a reflection of eastern culture as an unprogressively ‘third-world’ society as if it was genetically ingrained. 

I want to compare Scott’s Blade Runner to the newly released Blade Runner 2049 (2017) directed by Denis Villeneuve because of the controversial lack of Asian characters in the futurist LA city. This is a form of techno-orientalism as despite taking aesthetics from Japanese and Chinese culture, it is completely devoid of Asian people. Like the original, this film is featuring characters in Asian-influenced fashions as they walk between skyscraper-high advertising showcasing Asian iconography. 2049 may be described as “racially homogenized,” (A. D. Janowski et.al. 2018) which could be a tactic that shows the western fear of the eastern world taking over the futuristic world.  

A study by Andrew Kim explores this choice of evacuating Asian character from the film as “a deliberate casting decision.” He believes that the stereotypes of the future of Asian culture are represented as “overlords and drones”, rather than “human subjects”. He states that “Villeneuve envisions a dystopia with Asian infrastructure but without Asians because it is not their tools that have become obsolete, but the Asians themselves — their bodies and their voices” (Kim, A. 2017).

“Fredric Jameson once argued that science fiction does not offer us the future, but rather the present: it transforms our present — which is usually too overwhelming and caught up in personal obsessions to access directly — into another future’s past, so we can finally experience it” (Chun, W. 2017). The concept that the USA fears Japan and its ability to take over the world with its fast technological developments is something that science fiction manipulates to craft its future worlds. This contributes to techno-orientalism in Western Films and it is something that we need to address to understand how the collecting Western perspective is affecting individuals with eastern backgrounds. It is not to say that the Western perception of eastern influence is incorrect. These perspectives are drawn from their interactions and understandings of the East. However, it is important in this study to understand and break misconceptions of the east that come across in movies and negatively impact those of eastern cultures.

Part 2

Communicating through imagery has been an interesting way to communicate effectively to an audience. It gives us a different perspective. As someone who is a visual learner, I believe that having images in projects is important as we can take them subjectively to form our personal opinions on the issues we are discussing. Us, the viewer, and the artist need to project from our own experiences and be open to the perspectives that are shown to us.

I believe that incorporating movie stills into my project gives the audience a different idea on what they seeing as it is no longer something they watch in a second. It is sometimes hard to recognise prejudice or underlying social issues through films as we are not always looking at the same image, but rather a collective of frames throughout different scenes. I believe that we give images more attention and therefore can give that subjective response. For example, even the simplest image of Ryan Gosling, a white male, with the women surrounding him show the lack of representation despite Villeneuve’s use of Japanese aesthetics to create his films. The film still of the eye-ball and the chop-sticks allow the audience to pick up on the use of ‘Asian imagery’ with a primitive take to it and how that gives a negative perspective to the traditional use of chopsticks. These images point out the use of techno-orientalism in western films. I hope that my project shows this through the visual imagery that I had chosen and that the audience understands the impact that Hollywood and the Western World have on the perspective of the Eastern World. That is Orientalism.

References

Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong. 2020. All Snowflakes Must Melt: “Blade Runner 2049”. Los Angeles Review of Books. [ONLINE] Available at: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/all-snowflakes-must-melt-blade-runner-2049/. [Accessed 16 June 2020].

Jankowski, Andrew D. Sachiye, Leigh. 2018. PSU Vanguard. Redefining Reality in ‘Blade Runner 2049’. [ONLINE] Available at: https://psuvanguard.com/redefining-reality-in-blade-runner-2049/. [Accessed 16 June 2020].

Kim, Andrew. Medium. 2017. Evacuasians from the Blade Runner Universe, and Why Vienna Teng is Great. [ONLINE] Available at: https://medium.com/@andrewkim_95002/evacuasians-from-the-blade-runner-universe-and-why-vienna-teng-is-great-c6cc6f35123d. [Accessed 16 June 2020].

Ueno, T 1999. ‘Techno-Orientalism and Media-Tribalism: On Japanese animation and rave culture’. Third Test, Vol 13, no. 47, pp. 95-105

Young, Alexandra. 2020. Skemman.[ONLINE] Available at: https://skemman.is/bitstream/1946/17175/1/pdfflexa.pdf. [Accessed 8 June 2020].

Yuen, W. 2000. On the Edge of Spaces: Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell , and Hong Kong’s Cityscape. Science Fiction Studies, [Online]. 21, 1. Available at: https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/80/wong80art.htm [Accessed 16 June 2020].

BCM212 – REFLECTIVE BLOG POST

Uncategorized

My Topic: What do students prioritise when it comes to a study-work-life balance?

This semester has been a very strange, tough and stressful journey. I have had this project with me throughout the whole semester so I considered it a constant in my life while covid-19 was affecting all other aspects. I could not say that I had an expected result for my project as I knew my question was incredibly subjective and everyone would have a very individualised experience and therefore a very individualised answer.

In saying that, comparing it to my own personal experience on creating a solid WLB, I knew that work would be a huge factor in the students ability to focus on their study. With this knowledge I feel like I can understand why students prioritise certain part of their lives whether it be for their future career or their financial constraints. I wish I delved more into students abilities to prioritise their social lives and if they ever let it jeopardise their work or study life.

With this knowledge I intend (with future research) to see what the government is doing to help with the financial strains that students feel as my research really pointed out how many hours students work in order to merely survive. As a full time undergraduate student, I work 35 hours a week and still do not earn enough money to be independent. Because of my long work hours I tend to push my studies aside. I thought this topic would be interesting to really delve into that but I also believe I only scratched the surface. I hope I can continue this study in the future. ‘

I found this project a learning curb as I was not only studying other students perspectives but also my own. I learnt that I do very well when I have structure in my life. With this project I realised I need to prioritise certain aspects of my life better in order to be the best that I can be.

It is hard to give feedback to a subject that had to change dramatically because of what was happening around the world due to Covid-19. I must admit I would have been more excited about this project if I was physically in class listening in on the lectures. In saying that, I found the online tutorials very helpful when we were discussing the project. This was the most “put-together” class out of all of mine this semester and I think they did very well at adapting to the online environment. Thank you!!

#MyCuriosity BCM212 – The Student Experience

BCM212, Uncategorized

BCM212 TOPIC: The student experience: how does full-time study affect the social aspects of your life.

Do you think that it is important to have an equal study/social life balance? My BCM212 topic will focus on how full-time study can have an impact on your life outside of university regarding friendships and relationships. I want to know if students believe having a social life is as important to maintaining a healthy life while studying full-time, or is it best to focus more on study.

I strongly believe that maintaining your friendships during your periods of study is incredibly important but I have also understood that some people don’t feel the same way. Many of my personal relationships have suffered during the university semester period as we have become focused on our own worlds. From my understanding and my own personal student experience I have learnt that most students have different perspectives on their issues and I want to understand more about them.

Let me give you an example of different opinions regarding this topic;

As a full-time Uni student I tend to spent 2-3 days at the University. I also work 3-4 days a week. I like to spend one of my free days to catch up on some study. However, I also like to save my nights and one day a week to go out and forget about Uni life for a bit. Social relationships are incredibly important to me as they give me a reason to enjoy myself and my time as someone who is in their early 20’s. Studying is important to me but so is my mental health and maintaining a social life has allowed me to feel more balanced in life. However, I know a friend who is the complete opposite to me. I only see her one a month because she will put all her energy into her study and is constantly stressed about it. She wishes that she had more time to see us yet doesn’t do anything to balance her social life with study. What I want to learn is how students cope with their social relationships during the semester and of how much importance they believe it is compared to study alone.

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Does digital communication affect relationships?

BCM241, Uncategorized

Can texting habits be seen as a compatibility trait? Especially in newly progressive relationships, can ignoring messages be seen as a ‘red flag’. Or, is it just the “pandemic of over-communication that’s led to an absence of intimacy” (The Politician, 2019).

Check out my video to find out more:

Sources:

Brian A. Hoey, PHD. 2019. What is Ethnography?. Available at: https://brianhoey.com/research/ethnography/. [Accessed 30 September 2019].

BusinessDictionary. 2019. Demographic Factors. Available at: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/demographic-factors.html. [Accessed 8 October 2019].

Buzzfeed. 2016. Are Your Texting Habits Actually Weird?. Available at: https://www.buzzfeed.com/alicemongkongllite/how-basic-are-your-texting-habits. [Accessed 10 November 2019].

Chapman, G. 2019. The 5 Love Languages; The Five Love Languages Defined. Available at: https://www.5lovelanguages.com/2018/06/the-five-love-languages-defined/. [Accessed 2 October 2019].

Coyne et.al, 2018. I just text to say I love you: Partner similarity in texting and relationship satisfaction. Computers in Human Behaviour, [Online]. 78, 126-132. Available at: https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/science/article/pii/S0747563217305125 [Accessed 10 November 2019].

HigherEdJobs. 2017. Why More Colleges Are Using Social Media to Recruit Students. Available at: https://www.higheredjobs.com/articles/articleDisplay.cfm?ID=1393. [Accessed 10 November 2019].

J. Pettigrew. 2009. Text messaging and connectedness within close interpersonal relationships. Marriage and Family Review, 45 (6–8), pp. 697-716. [Accessed 10 November 2019].

Medium. 2018. Communication at Pernix. Available at: https://medium.com/@dvelasquez/communication-at-pernix-81fcb7f074cc. [Accessed 10 November 2019].

N. Brody, J. Peña. 2015. Equity, relational maintenance, and linguistic features of text messaging. Computers in Human Behavior, 49, pp. 499-506. [Accessed 10 November 2019].

Our World in Data. 2019. The rise of social media. Available at: https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-social-media. [Accessed 9 October 2019].

The Politician, 2019. Ian Brennan, Brad Falchuk, Ryan Murphy, United States

SoundCloud. (2016). Pingu63. Nintendo Wii – Mii Channel Theme. 2016. Available from: https://soundcloud.com/user-861152409/nintendo-wii-mii-channel-theme [Accessed: 10 November 2019].

SlideShare. 2015. Technologically/Computer Mediated Communication. Available at: https://www.slideshare.net/aabidzafar/technologically-mediated-communication. [Accessed 10 November 2019].

Vinney, C. 2019. ThoughtCo.: What Is Uses and Gratifications Theory? Definition and Examples. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/uses-and-gratifications-theory-4628333. [Accessed 2 October 2019].