We Are Surrounded By Media Sociology Essay

We Are Surrounded By Media Sociology Essay In todays world, we are surrounded by media. Our lives are saturated by newspapers, radio, books, television, movies, Internet, and many other aspects of media. These can be broadly classified into news media and popular media. In India, both these types provide an insight to Indian life, which is filled with romance, tradition, and all the other day-to-day experiences and situations one might come across. But, even though they might seem the same, they both play very different roles in society. Popular media represents and recounts a vast number of real life stories, and portrays them in a manner enjoyable for the audience. News media on the other hand, provides more facts and gives raw information for the audience to understand, with or without a firm opinion of its own on the matter. Popular media reaches out to a much larger audience, as both literate and illiterate people are able to access it, while news media only reaches out to the literate and wealthy people. This difference can become a problem in certain situations. Both these parts of media reflect society constantly, as they are shaped from and around experiences and stories of the people in the society. Usually, both these types concur with each other in the content and representation of society, but there are specific cases in which this ceases to be true. An example of this is the portrayal of the prominence and effects of the dowry system in India today. For a long time, both popular and news media reflected the aspects of the dowry system in Indian society very vividly and comprehensively, shared the same view about the topic, and thus were in concurrence with each other. But overtime, it was noticed that popular media deviated from this pattern and no longer reflected the prominence of the dowry system in society, while the news media continued to do so, thus creating an ideological difference between the two. The problem of the dowry system is still prominent, and the news media continues to reflect this. But since popular media does not reflect society anymore, a majority of the society comes under the impression that there is nothing wrong in what they are doing. This can cause the dowry system to be persistent in the everyday lives of Indian families. The dowry system is a cultural system in India in which the parents of the bride pay a large sum of money, and give expensive jewelry and other gifts such as cars, to the parents of the groom during marriage. Traditionally, there were many reasons for the establishment of this system. It was a form of inheritance for the bride, since all the family property was inherited by men. It was supposed to be the security for the bride in case any misfortune befell her husbands house. It was also a system of honoring the groom for his willingness to accept the bride as his wife in marriage, and the gifts given could range from anything significant to even a small token of good wishes. However, the greed of dowry has affected almost all ordinary families in India. Nowadays, in marriages between or amongst all hierarchal levels of society, dowry is generally an unspoken requirement. And due to the exposure to mass media, the gifts given in dowry have transformed into a large transfer of wealth, making it an important factor in marriage. The social and cultural effects of the dowry system are devastating to the society as a whole. The system reduced women to a commodity and a source of wealth. Even if the dowry is paid, in most cases, the bride is tortured by her in-laws mentally and physically as they demand for more dowry even after marriage. This torture generally leads to suicide or murder of the bride. The reason why dowry is still persistent in India is not only because it is difficult to enforce the law against it or because the grooms family is very demanding, but also because the brides family continues to bear with it. Despite the widespread awareness of the negative consequences of dowry and the problems cause by it, it is still seen as a way of buying happiness for the bride. Many families believe that giving a large dowry would result in better treatment of the daughter by the grooms family. This has only aggravated the problem as the standard for dowry became high and so marriage was dependent on whether the brides family could reach that standard of dowry or not. A study was done in 1980 which examined students expectations of dowry for people with various education backgrounds. Even though majority of the students viewed the dowry system as an evil in society and considered it unimportant for marriage, most of the brothers of the respondents gave or received dowry for their sisters marriages. Also, depending on the social status and affluence of the family, and the education qualifications of the bride and the groom, the amount of dowry needed to be given varies significantly. There is a positive correlation between a mans education and status to the dowry his family demands. As a grooms educational experience increases, the dowry demanded for the marriage also increases. In 1961, the payment of dowry was prohibited under the Indian Civil Law, and also under sections 304B and 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Despite this, this system of dowry has been a continuous and never ending menace in our society. These laws were made in order to make it easier for women to seek redress from the harassment she is under by the mans family. But these laws have been of little help to brides, who are harassed even today by their in-laws. Instances of such situations have constantly been shown to the public by the media. The power of media in todays world is surprising. The media has the freedom to form opinions, and through this they can change the opinions of people. But, people forget that in the end, all media is doing is reflecting society. The stories the media covers, and the plots of the movies that are made (except fantasy fiction of course), all are based on situations which may occur in day to day life, or real life situations. Same was the case with the dowry system. The media clearly depicted the agonies and pain of Indian women as they were suffering from the cruelties of the dowry system. This can be seen from very far back in popular as well as news media. Dowry-inspired murder cases received immense coverage by news media in the late 1970s and 1980s due to the active role played by womens organizations. The womens organizations played a very important role in increasing awareness and coverage of dowry related cases. A study done on the coverage of dowry related cases from 1979-1984 concludes that there was a noticeable improvement in the coverage of dowry in the national papers due to the womens organizations, although the coverage in regional papers remained the same. By 1979, one dowry related death received serious press coverage. A 24 year old bride from New Delhi, Tarvinder Kaur, was set on fire by her mother-in-law and sister-in-law due to the less dowry paid by her. Another significant dowry-related murder case was that of Tripti Sharma, who worked at the Ministry of Defense. She was burned to death by her husband and his family in 1986. A more optimistic and recent case is that of Nisha Sharma. In May 2003, she handed over her future husband to the police on the day of the wedding itself as he was demanding more dowry from her. This example shows what women need to do in cases of dowry abuse. Nisha refused to come under the pressures of the grooms family, and decided that she is not going to sustain it. These examples from news media are clearly reflective of the state of affairs in India at that time, and case with popular media was similar. In 1992, the movie City of Joy depicted a family which had really high dowry demands. In the movie, the grooms father clearly states, I am firm in requiring for my exceptional son the bicycle, 1000 rupees, and one ounce of gold. The brides father responds by saying, The child of a king might be worth that, and Im not even sure of that! Another 2001 movie, Lajja, clearly displayed the consequences of the dowry system, its working, and how it may be a big burden on the brides family. In the movie, Maithili (Mahima Chaudhary) is about to be married to a wealthy man of a family with a high social status. Maithilis parents give away everything they have in the dowry, including their land and saved money. Upon still falling short, they take loans from their friends, but they are still not able to gather the full amount. Maithili requests her future husband to convince his dad to let the rest of the money be, but he is too scared to do so. Seeing this, and seeing her dad beg in front of the grooms father to accept the money he has, she rebels, and calls of the wedding. She was not able to bear to see her father being humiliated in such a manner by the grooms father. Both these movies showed depicted that the brides family has to struggle a lot in order to gather the dowry for the grooms family, and thus is a big burden on them. This depiction of the dowry system by popular media was in concurrence with its reflection in the news media, but as we move ahead on the timeline, this concurrence slowly fades away. The movie Lajja was the last movie to clearly depict the pain inflicted due to the dowry system. The 2006 movie Lage Raho Munna Bhai also had the concept of dowry, but it did not demonstrate the consequences of the dowry system, and only showed that the concept of dowry existed. Since then, popular media has not depicted anything related to cases of dowry related abuse or murder. And this would have been perfectly fine if the society had transformed to this effect and there were no more dowry related crimes taking place. But this was not true, as news media still continued to report about such crimes taking place. Number of dowry cases goes up (The Hindu, January 2008); Dowry death after love marriage (The Times of India, April 2008); Harassed for dowry, teacher ends life (The Indian Express, November 2007). These are just three headlines from three of Indias popular newspapers that show the persistence of the dowry system and its consequences in modern India. Dowry is still prevalent in modern India, in not only the illiterate section of the population, but also the educated elites in Indias major metropolitan cities. Surprisingly in the past decade, the number of dowry related crime cases has actually gone up, despite dowry being banned since 1961 by Indian law. According to the statistics released by the National Crime Records Bereau, a total of 8391 dowry deaths were reported in 2010 itself, which means that a bride was killed every 90 minutes due to dowry related reasons. In 1988, this number was 2209; in 1990 it rose to 4835; in 2000 (a decade earlier), this number was 6995, and in 2007 it climbed up to an astounding 8093. According to other government records, Delhi itself records a few hundred dowry deaths every year, while womens rights groups estimate this number to be at 900 per year. This is a phenomenal increase compared to the number for the 1990s, which is about 300 per year. It is important to note that these are just official records, and are thus immensely under-reported. 90% of the cases in which women are burnt are recorded as accident, 5% as suicides, and only the remaining 5% of the cases are shown as murder. These shockingly high numbers clearly reflect the continuous increase in dowry related crimes and deaths in India. This is due to the continued commercialization of marriages in the modern Indian society. Indias economic liberalization has seen a proportionate rise in the levels of greed as compared to 1990, and a bride is now perceived by her future in-laws as a source of potential cash flow. A famous quote from former Justice Markandey Katju reads, On one hand, people regard women as goddesses, and on the other hand they burn them alive. This is against the norms of civilized society. Its barbaric. This is in response to an appeal filed by a husband who had just been sentenced to imprisonment for life by a Sessions court for burning his wife due to dowry related reasons. The effects of the dowry system are so far and wide ranging, that they can even be traced back to the womb. This system is the primary cause for female feticide and infanticide as poorer parents get to avoid the lifelong burden of saving up for the dowry for their daughters marriage. The commercialization of marriage and female infanticide is clearly reflected in the movie Matrubhoomi, in which a reverse dowry system is depicted. The movie shows a society in which there are no women left due to excessive female infanticide, and the men have grown to be so sexually frustrated, that they are ready to pay large amounts of money to get a wife for themselves or their sons. So as soon as the head of the family finds Kalki, they literally buy her from her father, by giving him five lakh rupees and five cows, and marry her to all five of his sons. Kalki simply becomes a source of money for her father, and a sex object for her husbands. Nowadays, there are famous advertisements which have been put up in many of the rural villages, which read, Spend 500 rupees today, save 5000 rupees later. This is a reference to the cost of abortion compared to the cost of the dowry which they might have to give. It basically encourages the families to come and get an abortion if their child is a girl, so that they dont have the burden of paying the dowry while getting her married in the future. This is the primary reason why India has a distorted sex ratio of 933 girls for every 1,000 boys. As is evident, the problems due to the dowry system have only been rising over the past decade. Despite this, popular media has failed to reflect these problems. News media has continued to keep up with these updates, and report about them, but popular media has deviated into its own path. Since popular media has a much larger audience compared to news media, this results in the society getting a totally different viewpoint of what is happening in their world: a wrong viewpoint in which what they are doing is not wrong. Also, since popular media has a much larger international audience as compared to news media, people from other countries get a totally different view of India: a world in which the dowry system does not exist and is not causing any problems at all. Thus, an untrue version of the society is shown to the world outside, which is not good, as when these people actually come to India and read about the truth, it is a shocking revelation for them. A shift is Indias attitude towards the dowry systems is urgently due. In simple words, dowry is equal to a family paying a man to accept their daughter as his wife, while the man along with his family, tries to get the maximum price out of the womans family. This association of economic gain with women in marriage is something which has long been persistent in India, and needs to stop. Simply making anti-dowry laws has proved to be inefficient. We need to make the society see their mistakes and realize what they are doing wrong, and this can only be done if popular media continues to reflect society as it did before. India must come together to end this practice. This could see couples channel their funds to provide education to their daughters, instead of saving money for years and years for dowry. The days of the persistence of the dowry system in India must be numbered, or Indian societys claim to be progressive is disingenuous.

Discuss the environmental imapact of Mt. St. Helens tectonic eruption

Mount St Helens is an active volcano, south-western Washington in the Cascade Range. The volcano which had been dormant since 1857, began to show signs of renewed activity in early 1980. On May 18 1980, it erupted with such violence that the top of the mountain was blown off and a cloud of ash and gases was sent to an altitude of 19 km (12 mi). The blast killed 57 people and destroyed all life in an area of some 180 sq km (70 sq mi); an even wider area was covered with ash and debris. It continues to emit ash and steam intermittently. As a result of the eruption, the mountain's elevation was decreased from 2,950 m (9,677 ft) to 2,550 m (8,365 ft). A National Volcano Monument was established here in 1982. May 18th 1980 a kryptodome appeared on the north side of the volcano, before this the volcano hadn't erupted for over 120 yrs. March 20th an earth quake happened right underneath the volcano signalling an eruption. Unfortunately Lavafrom the last eruption had acted as a plug, and blocked the volcano. Magma was rising at a rate of six feet a day,  casing a bulge on the side of the mountain (Kryptodome). Scientists were using GPS (global Positioning satellites) to monitor the Volcano. March 31st state of emergency announced,  20m exclusion zone was placed around the volcano. May 18th the Kryptodome receded 300 feet, at 8:32 a last surge of magma caused a 5.1 Richter scale earthquake. The earthquake caused an avalanche which took the side of the mountain out; this was followed by a horizontal blast which moved at 700 mph. The blast cloud ripped through the forest, and reached Spirit Lake filling it with debris. Two minutes from the start of the blast no signs of stopping. Landslide was biggest ever recorded. The satellite picture shows the damage of the volcano's blast to the forest. Thousands of trees up to 13km around the volcano were destroyed they were incinerated from the Pyroclastic flow. From there 30km around the volcano were blown down trees, that had to be salvaged for timber. Following that was the seared/scorched trees, which would take years to recover. The blast has caused severe damage to the vegetation around Mount St. Helens which will last for years to come. When Mount St. Helens erupted it caused massive damage to the climax community vegetation of the region mainly coniferous woodlands. With whole areas now covered in bare rock vegetation succession has now got to take place again. Starting with the pioneer communities having to reconalize the area. Vegetation succession takes years to finish with the Climax vegetation. The environmental impact of this is tremendous. However with this area it has patchy areas of growth because only the north side was affected by the blast. Half the are has a climax community and the other side has just started pioneer community. The hydrological effect of the eruption was localised to  Spirit Lake and the North and South Toutle River. Spirit Lake layer directly in the blast zone the brown earth surrounding the lake is the scorched earth. From the graph he immediate impact of the Pyroclastic flow, when it filled the Lake with debris form the Volcano it dramatically changed the temperature of the lake. Which in turn effected the vegetation and wild life in the Lake. The vegetation and wildlife was boiled alive. For the river to recover form this is would take years, to help along the process the ecologists of the area suggested that the fisheries department of the United States should replace the fish and plant new vegetation to help succession. The advice was acted upon and vegetation and wild life were added, causing a  Plagioclimax community. The main reason a lot of the devastation was caused was by the Lahars and Pyroclastic flows, the ground around the volcano is low lying land. If you look at the diagram on the right you can see the red represents highest ground and the purple is low lying ground. Because of this at the bottom of the Volcano is low lying ground and Lahars and Pyroclastic flows hug the ground. Causing the Pyroclastic flow to be directed down the slope on the north side because it is all low lying ground. The volcano only caused one global impact, the atmospheric dust cloud. Mount St. Helens before the eruption was 9,677 feet. After the eruption it dropped to 8,365 feet. The ash cloud reached over 15km into the sky, by two weeks it had encircled the entire planet. All around the world day had turned to night, this was a global impact that lasted for weeks. The lasting impact of the eruption will always been seen at Mt. St. Helens. As pic. 5 shows there has been a massive scare left on the Vlocano forever.

Secrets About College Homework Writers for Hire Exposed

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Essay from Tyra White †Second ThePensters Writing Contest Medalist #1

The Future of Education: The Virtual Classroom For as long as formal education has existed, traditionally, students participate in an on-site session, in which a teacher provides lectures. Traditional education once required library visits, utilizing the Dewey Decimal System, and neatly printing ten page research papers by hand. Fortunately, what is considered traditional education has shifted. While traditional education is still heavily based on teacher-centered instruction, we’ve been privileged with digital library systems, word processors, and various sources for research and self-study. With these changes, a more modern, non-traditional method of formal education has become prominent. Virtual classrooms have become common and they are very different from traditional teaching methods. Virtual classrooms rely on collaboration, heavy use of technology, and oftentimes require some level of student-centered instruction delivery. Although this method of teaching is becoming more common, it does not change that there are various learning styles, and many students still oftentimes require in-class instruction. Rapid changes in technology may also change the manner in which students of future generations learn, therefore replacing traditional education in the future. Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) Framework has required educators to â€Å"have an increased understanding of the complexities of teaching and learning spaces, especially regarding the inclusion of technology† (Robinson and Reinhart, 2014). Although the primary purpose of this framework is to help educators better identify ways in which technology can be included in lectures, the TPACK framework has more recently pushed for more technologically enhanced curricula. This is significant because it provides an opportunity to highlight a more modern solution to a new conundrum: people, whether student or teacher, now have an expectation that they should be able to learn or work from any location (Robinson and Reinhart, 2014). With this, it is necessary to incorporate technological mobility into daily interactions, including teaching. Creating alternative, collaborative, virtual classroom spaces is a start. Society is also moving towards a more globalized society. Mobile devices in conjunction with the internet have enabled us to meet, connect, and do business with anyone across the globe with very little effort. â€Å"Globalization is a progressive transformation of social structures† (Sethy, 2008), implying that we need to continue to transform in order to keep up with globalization. Schools, particularly universities, are currently developing strategies to adjust to rapid globalization. E-learning and distance education are two concepts that have prevailed as a result. These concepts help students, educators, and institutions participate in borderless learning environments, which is necessary to keep up with the current global society (Sethy, 2008). Whether working strategies to recruit international students, developing more online-only curricula, or enhancing the quality and accessibility of educational materials, we have to recognize that these components are necessary for the globalized, digital future. With globalization, another concept that has arisen is the need for digital communication. While traditional learning in a classroom does provide some opportunity for teamwork and collaboration, virtual learning spaces allow for a more efficient platform for collaboration and digital communication. As society has moved more towards a digital age, digital communication has become extremely important. Digital communication has introduced new communication technologies that have allowed for the empowerment of teachers and students to access unknown concepts, new theories, and enhanced levels of collaboration (Muntean, 2014). Top-down communication such as teacher-centered, lecture-based learning, which was once considered the norm, is now expected to be more interactive. There is some expectation from students that education should be meaningful, powerful, and engaging (Muntean, 2014). Virtual classrooms provide an environment for engaging in meaningful and powerful digital communication, while incorporating the thoughts and opinions of everyone in an organized manner. The inclusion of technology, globalization, and the need for digital communication are not the only reasons for the shift from traditional education to virtual classrooms, however, they do represent the change in the methods that we use to learn. From a young age, this generation of children are expected to have a level of intelligence that goes beyond expectations of the past. Information is readily available at the touch of a finger, companies incorporate â€Å"ease of use† into product designs, and everything is documented. In addition to cost-benefit analysis of virtual classrooms versus traditional, there are natural progressions in society that are pushing us towards a more virtualized world. References Muntean, C. (2014). Strategic Communications in the Digital Age. eBooks and textbooks from bookbook.com. Reinhart, J., Robinson, R. (2014). Digital Thinking and Mobile Teaching: Communicating, Collaborating Constructing in an Access Age. eBooks and textbooks from bookboon.com. Sethy, S. S. (2008). Distance Education in the Age of Globalization: An Overwhelming Desire towards Blended Learning. Online Submission, 9(3), 29-44