Feature Story

            We observed three main things in the library. The conversations, environment and the actions in the library were pretty interesting to us. We heard a few conversations around the library and we manage to get a few quotes from the students. One of it was, “so slow lah this lift, pay so much for this shit!” and when we interviewed the person, the student said that Taylor’s should install another elevator in the library to avoid the queue from building up.

From a distance, it looks like students are really concentrating on their studies or doing group work, but in some occasions, they are just chatting away, talking about where to eat or gossiping. Some are just playing games on their devices or going on social media sites. We have also seen many taking naps and chilling on the sofa because of the cold and quiet environment which makes sleeping comfortable. From what we noticed, many couples spend time in the library together and I can see them living in their own world.

The 5th floor of the library was an extremely peaceful and calm place for students to just sit and study. We personally felt as though we could think clearer than any other place in college. Seeing other people, sitting alone, and busy doing things without even a sound made it so easy for us to concentrate on what we were supposed to be doing, and helped us to absorb and analyze our own surrounding. The vibe in the library was so serene that the level of concentration from others was almost contagious. Students there were so respectful of their surroundings, and there were barely any conversations going on.

The library also seems like it's quite the place to spill secrets and personal stories. People sit around in groups and tell their most personal thoughts and stories. The girl with that shy smile and glasses may leave you thinking again if she's really a saint, but little do you know that she's talking about her closest friend to someone else and has nothing nice to say about her. After our observation in the Taylor's Library, it seems that there are people who love telling stories and gossiping about people to at least a group of people. The library is where you can find so many juicy secrets. People can tell if someone is saying something nasty about someone just by a glance because their facial expression changes. It usually looks like someone's in full distress.

In conclusion, we think that the library isn’t just a place for students to study but so much more. None of us thought that we could learn this much by just observing and keeping our ears open. The world is changing so rapidly that libraries aren’t what they seem to be anymore. Also, gossiping seems to be a Taylor’s students’ past time as it seems to spread like quick fire (and we have only observed the library). Nonetheless, we are glad to have been given the opportunity by Mr. Philip, to experiment and try new things like this.  

Blog post 6 : Traditional TV series vs. online web series

From our group’s point of view, we prefer watching online web series compared to traditional TV series. There are many more advantages watching online web series. For online web series, you can watch it anytime that is suitable for you and don’t have to follow the time for traditional TV series. Sometimes the TV series will be aired on the time of the day where you are busy or you might not be at home, and you could have missed that particular episode, so instead, online web series can be viewed whenever you are free or having a spare time. Online web series is also convenient as you can download it on any of your devices and watch it anywhere you want, you don’t have rush back home and watch the episode on your TV. Besides, when watching online web series, you are able to skip advertisement or commercial breaks. This saves your time and you can fully concentrate on watching your series. Moreover, by watching online web series, you can replay the part of the episode that you want to watch again or you are able to watch the previous episode that you may have missed. Watching online web series also allows you to pause whenever you want, to have a short break, grab some snacks, or a short toilet break. Unlike traditional TV series where you can’t move away from your sit and only able to take a short break when it is showing an advertisement or a commercial break.

No, we don’t think everybody will eventually match TV over the Internet. Maybe only a minority of us will because watching TV is still considered a lifestyle to most of us out there. It is common for families and even friends to watch TV as a way to past their time and at the same time spend time together. So, this is also why I think traditional TV will not become obsolete. This is said because, till today, TV still plays a big part in our everyday lives. Many of the older generation and even the younger generation still turn to TV as a form of entertainment. Also, many of the shows we watch online are actually from television programs. Many of us only turn to watching shows on the Internet when we miss the airing of that television program on TV.

If our team were to produce our own web series, we would produce a series that incorporates genres like mystery, thriller and drama. It would be about a group of teens who have different personalities who are constantly mischievous and getting themselves into trouble. The group of teens will then discover a dark secret of which they were never supposed to find. Due to them being overly curious and always looking for trouble, they ignore all warnings of the dark secret that ends up biting them back as it starts to stir up trouble between them. Things start to happen in their lives and they are trying to stop it to no avail. Each episode of our web series will end with a cliffhanger so that the audience will want to know what happens next in our upcoming episode. Our target audience would be teens. We have targeted this age group to watch our web series, as the characters in our web series are teenagers, thus allowing the web series to be able to relate to the usual teens and their daily lives. The kind of support we would need to be successful would be a good production and financial support. This is because making a production is a big cost and we would have to be financially stable in order to maintain a series with quality that lives up to the expectations of the audience

Videos and pictures : 

Task 5

The Rush Hour Show with Pearl and Edwin On Skye FM

Vlog task 4: Skye teens magazine

The book/magazine publishing industries are facing difficult times and must
continually innovate in order to remain in business and attract new audiences. For
this week’s task, assume your team is a new book/magazine publishing company in
the area of your interest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awkCDOR7XyQ

Are news papers dying a slow death?

Watch this video

The issue being discussed in the video would be the status of print newspaper. Are newspapers doomed? Are these effects the impact of digital age? Many people in this day generation prefer to read news online. There are so many reasons behind this stereotypical act. The most prominent reason that we all know is because the newspaper online is always updated unlike the printed version because the prints are only 1 copy a day. As one of the panelists mentioned earlier, printed newspapers suffers as consumer’s gets news online. Only 5-10% of people actually bother if the print newspaper lives or dies. People are more likely to be engaged in reading online news compared to the old way of reading. News consumers are also producers. By comparing online news to newspaper, take for example The Huffington Post which is a online news aggregator, it is more interactive, news get posted faster and readers get to know other readers point of view. Newspaper is profitable until 2006, and now its collapsing. Newspaper fail to understand what consumer demands. Anybody can be a journalist these days, like a citizen journalism. News in newspaper is has certain higher level creditability compare to news from a citizen journalism. Internet news is revolving. Newspaper haven’t create ‘eyeball catching’ news lie what internet producers. How long for internet to transform to online outlet? Newspaper can’t really replicate online news. Newspaper are subsidizing.

Newspapers business is half the size of it five years before. Andrea Stone from the huffington post says that there are more people who read e-newspapers than the print newspapers.using the e-news (eg- huffington post) readers can get to comment on the news which gives a two-way communication for the readers and also the people in charge of the e-news.

From the news coverage by Al-Jazeera, the panelist shared their thoughts on the slow death of newspapers. It has been said that newspaper business is half the size of what it was 5 years before. According to Andrea Stone from The Huffington Post, in this modern generation, there are more people who read e-newspapers than printed newspapers. Readers who read e-newspapers, for example:- The Huffington Post, are allowed to give their opinions on the post and this provides a two way communication for the readers as well as the publishers of the news online.

We definitely agree that newspapers are facing a slow death. People are all choosing to go online, partially to safe the environment. We believe that reading news online is so much updated than the printed newspaper. People of this day generation, are mostly on the go, getting their news online would be the most convenient way.

However, there are still people from the previous generation who still buy newspaper daily, we believe this is because they have been doing this for a long time so they're not used to reading the news online. In addition, we believe that the newspaer is more trustworthy compared to news online, this reason being that online anyone is able to write for the news so people believe them easily even when it's not accurate.

News on newspaper should be more extraordinary instead of printing the news in the same old pattern and style. Newspaper have to create values that reader s will appreciate. Newspapers can create there advertisement to become more interesting and lively which can attract readers attention. Another way is to print or make the newspaper pages look more colorful.

Some youngsters still have the habit to read newspapers. One of the suggestions to attract young people like us would be, printing out colorful newspapers. People of this day generation prefer colors. It can be proven even in their sense of style and fashion. Colorful newspapers could definitely attract the reader’s eye easier then the black and white newspaper.

Blog Post 2: Role Modeling & Media Effects

QUESTION A

We picked Angelina Jolie as an idol we all look up to and we believe that she is loved by most of the young people. Angelina Jolie Voight was born on the 4th of June in Los Angeles, California. Both her parents were actors in Hollywood and she has a brother who is also an actor. Her mother quit acting to raise Angelina and her brother because of the divorce. Angelina Jolie started acting as a child artist in a movie with her dad in the year of 1982. The title of her first film was

“Lookin’ to Get Out”. Her first major role in a film was in the year of 1996 and there was where she met her first husband, Johnny Lee Miller whom she divorced in year of 1999. She got married the second time to Billy Bob Thornton in Las Vegas in 2000. She became one of the highest-paid actresses after acting in

“Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” as the lead role. She gained more prominence after adopting her kids. Her first son, Maddox, was adopted in Cambodia at the age of 3. She then continued to act in the film “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” where she met Brad Pitt, her current fiancé. The couple has 6 children now.  She is not only admired by the young crowd but also the senior citizens. She is not just a celebrity but she is definitely an icon. Many young people admire her because of all the charity and humanitarian work that she does.

Aly Weisman . (2013). How Angelina Jolie Became The Most Famous Actress In The World Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/angelina-jolie-career-most-famous-actress-. Available: http://www.businessinsider.com/angelina-jolie-career-most-famous-actress-2013-5?IR=T. Last accessed 27th February 2014.

QUESTION B

There are plenty of controversies that this famous person had to overcome. The controversies that this famous person has been involved is opting to have a preventive double mastectomy to prevent getting breast cancer. Breast cancer survivor Melissa Etheridge does not agree with the decision Angelina Jolie made. This led into a big controversy. After that, Angelina Jolie recently announced that she wants another baby but her fiancé, Brad Pitt doesn’t want her to risk her life and just wants her to undergo the lifesaving surgery. Other than that, another controversy that Angelina Jolie had to undergo was her battle with anorexia. She had starved herself and started eating only ‘ancient’ bird grains which helps with weight loss. Angelina Jolie has lost a lot of weight from that but has slowly recovered from it with the help of her fiancé , Brad Pitt. A few of the aspects that the young people will follow from her is that everyone will have their downfalls, and no one is near perfect. Everyone has their own imperfections. Even if people are at their lowest point of their life, there’s always a way to finding a solution to be happy again.

QUESTION C

Human's behaviour, especially young adults, tend to imitate their favorite celebrity in terms of lifestyle and the way they behave.  The negative effects would be that young people would basically be living someone else's life and not living their own life to the fullest as they're concentrating on being exactly like their favorite celebrity. Another negative effect would be for the celebrity themselves, it creates a lot of pressure for them as they need to be the perfect role model, or else the media will blame them for every mistake they make. However, the positive effects would be if the celebrity did good things such as charity work, then their fans would follow them and try help society. That's why we chose Angelina Jolie because she is a great role model and has  done a lot of good things to society, helping people in need and doing a lot of charity work.

QUESTION D

Yes we think that a famous person can really promote their positive value and behavior to young people. People always look up to what a famous person do and it really influences young people around the world. Young people think that what a celebrity does is right and could benefit to them. Angelina Jolie has visited almost 30 countries and even risked her life. She focused her attention on refugees and people who have been displaced due to conflict. Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Cambodia, Pakistan, Thailand, Ecuador, Kosovo, Kenya, Namibia, Sri Lanka, North Caucasus, Jordan, Egypt, New Delhi, Costa Rica, Chad, Syria, and Iraq includes the places that she has visited.

QUESTION E

As an agent of socialization, the media portrays Angelina Jolie in a very favorable manner. This is said because she is a good role model. Not only is she very family orientated, but she also promotes humanitarian causes. She is noted for her work with refugees as a Special Envoy and former Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Over the years, she has contributed to many charitable organizations such as By doing so, she has inspired many of the younger generation as well as the older generation and that is why the media portrays her in such a favorable manner.

Post by:

1. Writer: Tiviya, Edwin, Pearl-Lyn, Esther & Carmen.
2. Editors: Tiviya, Edwin, Pearl-Lyn, Esther & Carmen.
3. Researchers: Tiviya, Edwin, Pearl-Lyn, Esther & Carmen.

Blog post 1: Our Favourite Television Programme.

The media is the best way to showcase the beautiful side of one’s culture. People expect the media to incorporate fun learning culture. The audience use what they see or hear not only to be entertained but also to learn about culture. We chose the series called Gossip Girl as an example.

This show has influenced the way in which teenagers and young adults think in every aspect. One of the characters that have impacted the audience would be Chuck Bass. He always feels that he should aim higher to achieve more in life.  He doesn’t give up easily and makes sure he gets what he wants. Teenagers these days, especially guys, started mimicking the way he thinks and his perception on life based on the series.

Another character that impacted the today’s female generation would be the way in which Blair Waldorf acts. Girls who are fans of Blair Waldorf have taken it to the next level where now they even have step-by-step tutorials to act like her. One of her many famous quotes are “don’t just stare at me, do something! ” which have lead many girls to adopt her dominant figure after seeing her character being portrayed that way.

Serena Van der Woodsen would be one of the characters, which has impacted the way girls feel about themselves. This applies to fashion because Serena is the prominent face from the show and girls always feel more confident after seeing her style as well as the way her character is. She portrays a very confident character and this makes girls who have lower self-esteem become more confident about themselves. Also, learning to be more self-assured in their own skin.

The media as a cultural storyteller has given good and bad impacts on today’s generation. It is definitely the best medium to convey cultural messages.

Post by:

1. Writer: Tiviya.
2. Editors: Pearl-Lyn & Edwin Thiang.
3. Researchers: Carmen Lau & Esther Oksenholt.


Sources of the pictures and gifs are from Tumblr.