The poem Beowulf, edited by Daniel Donoghue and translated by Seamus Heaney, is a masterful piece of poetry

The poem Beowulf, edited by Daniel Donoghue and translated by Seamus Heaney, is a masterful piece of poetry. By looking at the roles that women played back in Anglo-Saxon times, one can get a better understanding into the function of Grendel's mother in the poem. By examining specific examples of other women in this time frame to Grendel's mother it helps to compare the differences from the expected behavior. In one of her essays, Jane Chance investigates some of the possible meanings behind the importance of Grendel's mother and her societal acceptance. Many people still debate the actual function of Grendel's mother, but in previously written words of Jane Chance some answers may be found. Jane Chance, one of the many people who have examined the poem Beowulf, wrote an essay that provided an explanation of the important role played by the women in Beowulf. She states: â€Å"The role of women in Beowulf primarily depends upon ‘peace making' either biologically through her marital ties with foreign kings as a peace-pledge or mother of sons, or socially and psycho-logically as a cup passing and peace-weaving queen within a hall† (p. 156). Chance also goes on to establish how each of the women in the poem are used to prove her point about their symbolic presence. The women of pagan history, mostly notably the queen, portray a symbolic gesture of peace in the form of bringing the mead cup to the men of the hall. Chance believes that as the mead cup is passed around, the people who drink from the cup are tied together. This is a symbol of weaving men and families together. The Beowulf poet also mentions that the women's role is to create a â€Å"peace-pledge between nations† (2017). The standard practice to perform this was to give away daughters, or sisters in arranged marriages to order to bring strong ties with neighbouring or feuding families. Hildeburh, wife of the Frisian king Finn, sister of the Dane Hnaef (249), was given in marriage to fuse both the Danes and the Frisianes together. Freawaru is betrothed to Ingeld for this same reason; to renew alliances within families and countries. A line from Beowulf proves this point, â€Å"The friend of the Shieldings favors her betrothal: the guardian of the kingdom sees good in it and hopes this woman will heal old wounds and grievous feuds† (2026-2029). The expected role of women in this era was to provide harmony and become the symbol of peace in the hearts of men. Women also had an important responsibility to speak for her people during events; a prominent speech was the one that Wealtheow gives to the hall after the death of Grendel. She gives of blessings to the warriors, and speaks of her own children and their importance to the future as the next of kin: Take delight in this torque, dear Beowulf, wear it for luck and wear also this mail from our people's armory: may you prosper in them! Be acclaimed for strength, for kindly guidance to these two boys, and your bounty will be sure. You have won renown: you are known to all men far and near, now and forever. Your sway is wide as the wind's home, as the sea around cliffs. And so, my prince, I wish you a lifetime's luck and blessings to enjoy this treasure. Treat my sons with tender care, be strong and kind. Here each comrade is true to the other, loyal to Lord, loving in spirit. (1216-1229) Wealtheow ‘s responsibility is that of a mediator to make everyone happy and yet ensure that she and her people survive. In comparing the women and their purpose in society to the events concerning Grendle's mother, one can see a female does not usually take action but Grendel's mother does despite her gender. Feeling â€Å"grief-racked and ravenous, desperate for revenge† (1278) Grendle's mother goes on the attack in order to redeem her son who was killed. In doing this she consequently exhibits more masculine traits than other women of the time. She displays quite a different reaction than the one that Hildeburh gave when she lost not only her brother but her son as well. Hildeburh did exactly what was expected of her at the time. She mourned and â€Å"Then Hidleburh ordered her own / son's body be burnt with Hnaef's, / the flesh of his bones to sputter and blaze / beside his uncle's. The women wailed / and sang keens† (1115-1119). Comparatively Grendel's mother does not have a problem in reacting to the wrongs she felt that were done to her: â€Å"monstrous hell-bride; brooded on her wrongs† (1259). Unlike the women of the time she fights her own battles: â€Å"she has taken up the feud because of last night when you killed Grendel† (1333). This is the main difference between the women of the time and Grendel's mother since dealing with grudges was typically a job left up to that of the males in the family. Chance also believes that women's expected place in society at that time was one of non-aggression and they become the ones to make the peace as opposed to men who fight. Chance goes on to explain, â€Å"the idea is stressed that a kinwoman or mother must passively accept and not actively avenge the loss of her son† (p.157-158). Females do not usually take action other than in a peaceful or symbolic sense in this Anglo-Saxon time period. Though Grendel's mother proceeds like a man by acting out her revenge she is referred to in the poem as a: â€Å"ghastly dam† (2120) reflecting that she is still seen as a lady in that time period: Her onslaught was less only by as much as an amazon warrior's strength is less than an armed man's when the hefted sword, its hammered edge and gleaming blade slathered in blood, razes the sturdy boar-ridge off a helmet. Then in the hall, hard-honed swords were grabbed from the bench, many a broad shield lifted and braced; there was little though of helmets or woven mail when they woke in terror. The hell-dam was in a panic, desperate to get out, in mortal terror the moment she was found. She had pounced and taken one of the retainers in a tight hold, then headed for the fen. (1282-1295) These lines from the poem help to show that even though some of the actions taken by Grendel's mother are masculine by nature, she does have some female traits. These traits include not being as strong as the men and fleeing or not staying to put up a fight once confronted. Women stereotypically were seen as being fearful of danger once it has been provoked. The function of Grendel's mother in the poem seems to be quite different from the function that the monsters of Grendel and the Dragon play. She seems to be a symbol of the blood feuds and displays an unwillingness to act as the peace-pledge, which was the normal female role after an injustice. In her essay Jane Chance states: â€Å"As a monstrous mother and queen she perverts a role more important socially and symbolically than that of Grendel† (p. 167). The devoted mother or the feminine side of Grendel's mother comes out in her anger and her sense of loss at the killing of her son. But Grendel's mother's actions are not accepted by the people of this time, as a result there is a conflict between her actions and her purpose. Chance writes about how the poet wishes to â€Å"stress this specific inversion of the Anglo-Saxon ideal of women as both monstrous and masculine† (p. 155). As Grendel's mother changes roles between mother and vengeance seeker through the story one might think that the poet is against women from acting in the same manor as Grendel's mother. By making Grendel's mother feminine but also powerful and ruthless she is then referred to as a â€Å"swamp thing from hell, the tarn-hag in all her terrible strength† (1518-1519) and â€Å"hell-dam†(1292). Grendel's mother seems to be desiring revenge over peace and her contemporaries viewed this as horrible, since women are the symbols of peace, as explained by Chance. The essay written by Jane Chance looks at the women and the roles that they played in that time period and then comparing their behavior to Grendel's mother's ever changing role as mother to vengeance seeker. It also evaluates the function that Grendel's mother occupies in the poem. Grendel's mother in the poem seems to have the most challenging role in the poem itself. She does not seem to agree with the view of women in the time period that the poem was written. By exploring the differences of behavior in Beowulf one can see that Grendel's mother is an important addition to the poem.

False Memories in Psychology Apa Style Essay

Condition in which a person’s identity and interpersonal relationships are centered around a memory of traumatic experience which is objectively false but in which the person strongly believes. Note that the syndrome is not characterized by false memories as such. We all have memories that are inaccurate. Rather, the syndrome may be diagnosed when the memory is so deeply ingrained that it orients the individual’s entire personality and lifestyle, in turn disrupting all sorts of other adaptive behavior†¦ False Memory Syndrome is especially destructive because the person assiduously avoids confrontation with any evidence that might challenge the memory. Thus it takes on a life of its own, encapsulated and resistant to correction. The person may become so focused on memory that he or she may be effectively distracted from coping with the real problems in his or her life. A false memory is a memory which is a distortion of an actual experience, or a confabulation of an imagined one. Many false memories involve confusing or mixing fragments of memory events, some of which may have happened at different times but which are remembered as occurring together. Many false memories involve an error in source memory. Some involve treating dreams as if they were playbacks of real experiences. Still other false memories are believed to be the result of the prodding, leading, and suggestions of therapists and counselors. Finally, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus has shown not only that it is possible to implant false memories, but that it is relatively easy to do so (Loftus, 1994). A memory of your mother throwing a glass of milk on your father when in fact it was your father who threw the milk is a false memory based upon an actual experience. You may remember the event vividly and be able to â€Å"see† the action clearly, but only corroboration by those present can determine whether your memory of the event is accurate. Distortions such as switching the roles of people in one’s memory are quite common. Some distortions are quite dramatic, such as the following examples of false memories due to confusion about the source of the memory. A woman accused memory expert Dr. Donald Thompson of having raped her. Thompson was doing a live interview for a television program just before the rape occurred. The woman had seen the program and â€Å"apparently confused her memory of him from the television screen with her memory of the rapist† (Schacter, 1996, 114). Jean Piaget, the great child psychologist, claimed that his earliest memory was of nearly being kidnapped at the age of 2. He remembered details such as sitting in his baby carriage, watching the nurse defend herself against the kidnapper, scratches on the nurse’s face, and a police officer with a short cloak and a white baton chasing the kidnapper away. The story was reinforced by the nurse and the family and others who had heard the story. Piaget was convinced that he remembered the event. However, it never happened. Thirteen years after the alleged kidnapping attempt, Piaget’s former nurse wrote to his parents to confess that she had made up the entire story. Piaget later wrote: â€Å"I therefore must have heard, as a child, the account of this story†¦ and projected it into the past in the form of a visual memory, which was a memory of a memory, but false† (Tavris). Remembering being kidnapped when you were an infant (under the age of three) is a false memory, almost by definition. The left inferior prefrontal lobe is undeveloped in infants, but is required for long-term memory. The elaborate encoding required for classifying and remembering such an event cannot occur in the infant’s brain. The brains of infants and very young children are capable of storing fragmented memories, however. Fragmented memories can be disturbing in adults. Schacter notes the case of a rape victim who could not remember the rape, which took place on a brick pathway. The words brick and path kept popping into her mind, but she did not connect them to the rape. She became very upset when taken back to the scene of the rape, though she didn’t remember what had happened there (Schacter 1996, 232). Whether a fragmented memory of infant abuse can cause significant psychological damage in the adult has not been scientifically established, though it seems to be widely believed by many psychotherapists. What is also widely believed by many psychotherapists is that many psychological disorders and problems are due to the repression of memories of childhood sexual abuse. On the other hand, many psychologists maintain that their colleagues doing repressed memory therapy (RMT) are encouraging, prodding, and suggesting false memories of abuse to their patients. Many of the recovered memories are of being sexually abused by parents, grandparents, and ministers. Many of those accused claim the memories are false and have sued therapists for their alleged role in creating false memories. It is as unlikely that all recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse are false as that they are all true. What is known about memory makes it especially difficult to sort out true from distorted or false recollections. However, some consideration should be given to the fact that certain brain processes are necessary for any memories to occur. Thus, memories of infant abuse or of abuse that took place while one was unconscious are unlikely to be accurate. Memories that have been directed by dreams or hypnosis are notoriously unreliable. Dreams are not usually direct playbacks of experience. Furthermore, the data of dreams is generally ambiguous. Hypnosis and other techniques that ply upon a person’s suggestibility must be used with great caution lest one create memories by suggestion rather than pry them loose by careful questioning. Furthermore, memories are often mixed; some parts are accurate and some are not. Separating the two can be a chore under ordinary circumstances. A woman might have consciously repressed childhood sexual abuse by a neighbor or relative. Some experience in adulthood may serve as a retrieval cue and she remembers the abuse. This disturbs her and disturbs her dreams. She has nightmares, but now it is her father or grandfather or priest who is abusing her. She enters RMT and within a few months she recalls vividly how her father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, priest, etc. , not only sexually abused her but engaged in horrific satanic rituals involving human sacrifices and cannibalism. Where does the truth lie? The patient’s memories are real and horrible, even if false. The patient’s suffering is real whether the memories are true or false. And families are destroyed whether the memories are true or false. Should such memories be taken at face value and accepted as true without any attempt to prove otherwise? Obviously it would be unconscionable to ignore accusations of sexual abuse. Likewise, it is unconscionable to be willing to see lives and families destroyed without at least trying to find out if any part of the memories of sexual abuse is false. It also seems inhumane to encourage patients to recall memories of sexual abuse (or of being abducted by aliens) unless one has a very good reason for doing so. Assuming all or most emotional problems are due to repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse is not a good enough reason to risk harming a patient by encouraging delusional beliefs and damaging familial relationships. Assuming that if you can’t disprove that a patient was abducted by aliens, then he probably was, is not a good enough reason. A responsible therapist has a duty to help a patient sort out delusion from reality, dreams and confabulations from truth, and real abuse from imagined abuse. If good therapy means the encouragement of delusion as standard procedure, then good therapy may not always be worth it. Finally, those who find that it is their duty to determine whether a person has been sexually abused or whether a memory of such abuse is a false memory, should be well versed in the current scientific literature regarding memory. They should know that all of us are pliable and suggestible to some degree, but that children are especially vulnerable to suggestive and leading questioning. They should also remember that children are highly imaginative and that just because a child says he or she remembers something does not mean that he or she does. However, when children say they do not remember something, to keep questioning them until they do remember it, is not good interrogation. Investigators, counselors, and therapists should also remind themselves that many charges and memories are heavily influenced by media coverage. People charged with or convicted of crimes have noticed that their chances of gaining sympathy increase if others believe they were abused as children. People with grudges have also noticed that nothing can destroy another person so quickly as being charged with sexual abuse, while at the same time providing the accuser with sympathy and comfort. Emotionally disturbed people are also influenced by what they read, see, or hear in the mass media, including stories of repressed abuse as the cause of emotional problems. An emotionally disturbed adult may accuse another adult of abusing a child, not because there is good evidence of abuse, but because the disturbed person imagines or fears abuse. In short, investigators should not rush to judgment.

Business Model of Amazon

As the economy has moved from agrarian to industrial to information age, the focus of the businessmen or the wealthy and powerful has also shifted in terms of the ways of obtaining wealth or doing business. In the agrarian age there was shortage of land which made ownership of land as the determinant of value. Powerful land barons typically accumulated vast tracts of land and coerced people who were bound to the land and owned by the feudal lord into living on and working it. As economy moved from agrarian to industrial age, physical assets owned by a firm became the determinants of value and shortage of raw-materials led the powerful industrialists to conspire to control the supply of raw materials. In this age, the market could absorb as much product as the industrialists could produce. The current era in which we live has been defined as the information age wherein relationships and intellectual capital are more important than anything else. One is not worried about physical assets anymore. Companies don’t compete with each other over superior products as they are largely commoditized rather compete increasingly on the basis of value added customer services. The economic battles of today are fought over the mind-space of consumers. In the information age power-play customers are not passive participants, in the way that land and raw materials were in the agrarian and industrial ages. In fact, according to Zang Hailing, it is the customers’ time that is in short supply, and therefore for any firm to succeed, emphasis needs to be given to the importance of reducing the customers’ time to adopt a new product. Thus, in a world where technology is changing every day and the transformation of consumers has happened from â€Å"Price Takers† to â€Å"Price Makers† as they are armed with more options and information; the companies that control more and more customer relationships will be the ones that hold the power in an industry and reap the lion’s share of the profits. E-commerce or e-business is an important tool that enables companies to reach out to the global market at low cost and provides abundant information about the consumers’ requirements and preferences easily which was not so easy earlier. Following figure is a glimpse of the promising future that the ecommerce industry holds. The US E-commerce has seen a 40% increase in the sales over the past 5 years as a percentage of the total retail sales in US. Source: http://ycharts. com Now when thinks about e-commerce, the first name that comes to everyone’s mind is that of Amazon. com. Not only most of the people have heard about it but there are many people who have actually used its services. Amazon was not only one of the few of the companies that thrived throughout the period in which many dot-com companies struggled to survive but has been constantly performing exceptionally well in terms of revenue per visitor which is one of the key parameters for any commercial website. Amazon has had one of the fastest growths in the internet’s history with revenues reaching $2, 8 billion in the first five years with Google’s revenue reaching only $15bn in the first five years. Now, just like any other traditional business in order to clearly understand an e-business one needs to have information on the following components: a) Business Strategy which determines the products and service offerings by the firm, the firms targeted customers and the firms value proposition. It also helps firms decide on the choices and the tradeoffs that the firm needs to make. b) Organizational form or structure c) Business processes which refer to the unique ways in which organizations coordinate and organize work activities, information, and knowledge to produce a product or service. ) Value Chain i. e. the sequence of activities that a firm undertakes to create value, including the various steps of the supply chain but also additional activities, such as marketing, sales, and service. e) Core Competencies which are the collective learning’s of the firms and being distinctive create long term competitive advantage for the firm. From the beginning, the focus of Amazon. com has been on offering their customers compelling value. In the current report filing dated 04/13/12, Jeffrey Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon. om writes â€Å"We realized that the Web was, and still is, the World Wide Wait. Therefore, we set out to offer customers something they simply could not get any other way, and began serving them with books. We brought them much more selection than was possible in a physical store (our store would now occupy 6 football fields), and presented it in a useful, easy-to-search, and easy-to-browse format in a store open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. † The Value Proposition offered by Amazon. com is â€Å"earth’s largest selection—24/7, at competitive price. † Amazon. om has continuously focused on improving the shopping experience owing to which they substantially enhanced their stores in 1997. Though they started off with books, they now offer customers gift certificates, 1-ClickSM shopping, and vastly more r eviews, content, browsing options, and recommendation features. The company’s stated goal was to â€Å"be Earth’s most customer centric company for three primary customer sets: consumers, sellers and developers. † It targeted its first set of customers through its initial retail model where it sold only books. It offered the perfect combination of low prices, large selection and convenience or customer experience. The digital media allowed limitless inventory, boosted customer care and allowed higher margins and hence lowest prices. In 15 years Amazon went from 1 category to 16 main categories of books. Amazon began with books and needed to grow big fast. From 1995-1998, Amazon moved from books to music and again through the same combination moved to become the biggest seller of music in just 120 days! Amazon moved on develop its own digital driven supply chain and distribution network by hiring from the expert: Wal-Mart. Amazon accelerated development through its strategy of â€Å"Build, buy, partner† a) Build: Amazon keeps on creating new categories. For example, Amazon kicked off a new service by the name MyHabit. com in May 2011 that made fashion available to consumers directly from designers and boutique brands. b) Buy: When there is a lot of competition in any area and the competitors have a strong hold, Amazon believes in buying out the incumbent. Few of the acquisitions made by Amazon include Internet Movie Database  (IMDb), Zappos (an online shoe and apparel retailer) etc. ) Partner: Amazon has also entered into a lot of merchant partnerships. It offers its technological service and ecommerce expertise to third- parties. For example in October 2011, Amazon. com announced a partnership with DC Comics for the exclusive digital rights to many popular comics, including Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Sandman, and Watchmen. As mentioned before as well, Amazon want to be the â€Å"wo rld’s most customer-centric† company, and so their focus is on the â€Å"Customer Service†. It ensures customer loyalty through three main approaches: a) Recurring usage b) Seamless Integration c) Lock-in The following table tells us how Amazon uses all above mentioned approaches for its both customers: Sellers and consumers. | Sellers| Consumers| Recurring Usage| a. Developed a customer base close to 615mn users that can’t be ignored by sellers b. Ensures profit through optimized and reliable technology c. Developed a trusted Brand name| a. Created an ecosystem through Kindle b. Stores user’s media library c. Offers personalization to customers d. Gives special offers everyday| Seamless Integration| a. Monitors sellers rating ratings posted by consumers and expels sellers with bad ratings b. Offers Fulfillment by Amazon service(FBA) which allows third party sellers to use Amazon’s large warehouse and distribution network| a. For customers, all the sellers are highly commoditized and invisible. They buy it because of the Amazons brand value b. Get benefitted by Amazon Prime and free super saver shipping| Lock-in| a. By controlling or owning the customer accounts b. High level of infrastructure development required to ensure same level of customer service as offered by Amazon| a. By providing digital content that works only on Kindle b. Amazon Prime Program which requires annual subscription| | c. | c. | Amazon developed a value chain of itself for internal appraisal so as to identify its strengths and weaknesses that would help it add value and maintain a competitive advantage. Amazon uses the value chain model from Michael Porter’s book, â€Å"Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. † The first table represents the Primary activities of Amazon which are needed to produce a product or services for the end customers. Inbound logistics| Operations| Outbound logistics| Marketing ; Sales| Service| Avoids the overhead and large amounts of inventory carrying cost because it orders the books from the distributors. Easy and fast payment systems. Online customer systems and feedback. | Operates a number of transportation hubs that they refer to as injection points. Injection point locations are located in heavily customer concentrated areas. | Customer tracking  is an Amazon stronghold through which it provides personalized customers’ exper ience| Free return policy within 30 days. Uses marketplace to increase channel and range of goods through 3rd parties and customers. Highly reduced returns to suppliers (such as unsold books and media) due to available accurate forecasting technology | Customized buyer experience| Ability to aggregate orders bound for specific locations. | Interactive shipping and parceling price calculations. Free delivery based on single transaction spends. | Price comparison of new products with used products in marketplace shops. | Efficiently gathering information about customer experiences to inform service inputs and inventory controls. | 24 hour warehouse operations to meet customer demands. |   Utilizes the capabilities of its supply chain partners to deliver orders directly to ustomers which bypass the Amazon. com internal distribution center network|   Discounts and price reductions made available with suggested product mixes. Similar products recommended to customers interactively. | Offers customers gift certificates, 1-Click SM shopping, and vastly more reviews, content, browsing options, and recommendation features. | The next table gives information about the various support activities performed by Amazon which help to facilitate or assist its primary activities. | Value Creation| Cost Reduction| Firm Infrastructure| Huge central customer data warehouse available to all business units. Amazon’s single technology platform with services being incrementally distributed to other worldwide locations, reduces costs by leveraging investments | Human Resource Management| Amazon. com has a great training for its employees resulting in talented, smart and hard working group. Offers employees unique benefits such as medical, paid time off and stock grants and relocation allowances and hence attract highly skilled workers| Amazon utilizes independent contractors and temporary personnel to supplement their workforce, particularly on a seasonal basis. Although Amazon has works councils and statutory employee representation obligations in certain countries, Amazon’s employees are not represented by a labor union| Technology Development| High investments in technology development (e. g. , Kindle) to best leverage digital products. Innovations such as personalized recommendations, one-click ordering, and search inside the book are all Amazon. com innovations. Highly customized software applications that support their supply chain business model. For example, Amazon. om is linked into Ingram’s systems to see Ingram inventory levels when deciding whether to use Ingram to drop ship an order to a customer | Building an IT strategy, IT infrastructure and Data Centre on Linux open source software thus reducing cost of technology development. Renting computing resources to other companies reduce total cost of ownership Using standard hardware systems from HP to reduce cost of maintenance and compatibility| Procurement| Utilize s a Sales and Operations (SOP) planning process to determine forecasts for each roduct that it stores in its distribution center inventoryUses the strategic business unit – Booksurge to keep a rich inventory of digital copies of books so as to make this readily available for customers through print-on-demand and reduce the time of delivery | Specially built distribution Centers, warehouses and fulfillment Centers to increase the speed of order processing thus avoiding transaction costs of contracting out| In addition to the business strategies the value chain components mentioned above, the success of Amazon. om can be attributed to the entrepreneurial spirit of its founder chief executive officer Jeff Bezos and the strong inclination of the firm towards bringing about innovation in the business model. Let us discuss both factors one by one. Entrepreneurial Spirit of Jeff Bezos: Jeff Bezos can be regarded as the forward-looking CEO responsible for the success of Amazon. com. He has not only efficiently managed the present but through his long term vision always taken steps to create the future. The computer science and electrical engineering graduate from Princeton University moved to Seattle after resigning as a Senior Vice-President at D. E. Shaw, a Wall Street investment bank. At the time Bezos didn’t know much about the Internet but he came across a statistic that the Internet was growing at 2300%, which convinced him that it was a large growth opportunity. Without knowing anything more, he plunged into the world of e-commerce with no prior retailing experience. It was his decision to locate the company in Seattle because it had a large pool of technical talent and since it was close to one of the largest book wholesalers located in Rosenburg, Oregon. Moreover, the sales tax laws for online retailers state that one has to charge sales tax in the state in which one is incorporated. Therefore it was logical to locate in a small state. Under his guidance and logical thinking Amazon. com quickly became the leader in e-commerce. Operating 24 hours a day, the site was user-friendly and encouraged browsers to post their own reviews of books and offering discounts, personalized recommendations, and searches for out-of-print books. In June 1998 it began selling CDs, and later that year it added videos. In 1999 Bezos, looking at the future trends, added auctions to the site and invested in other virtual stores. The success of Amazon. com encouraged other retailers, including major book chains, to establish online stores. As more companies battled for Internet dollars, Bezos saw the need to diversify, and by 2005 Amazon. com offered a vast array of products, including consumer electronics, apparel, and hardware. And with the Jeff Bezos vision to make every book ever in print in any language available to the consumer in 60 seconds, Amazon launched the handheld device called Kindle in 2007. Bezos is the quintessential dot-com icon. He proved to the business world that the Internet was about more than knowledge. He proved that it is possible to overcome fears about purchasing online, to drive down transaction costs, and to build an international e-commerce business over the Internet. He had the courage to attempt something that people doubted could be done. . At the age of 35, Jeff Bezos was picked as the 1999 Time person of the year. Describing why it chose Bezos, Time magazine said, â€Å"Bezos’  vision  of the online retailing universe was so complete, his Amazon. om site so elegant and appealing that it became from Day One the point of reference for anyone who had anything to sell online. † Innovation in the Business Model: Amazon survived the dot-com bust because it had a viable and innovative  business model  built around a market-changing customer value proposition and a radical profit formula and over it has been able to sustain its position as the leader in e-commerce by bringing about continuous innovations in its business model. Let us look at some of the different dimensions wherein Amazon. om has been able to bring about business innovation. a) Offerings: By offering a handheld device dedicated to reading, Kindle, Amazon. com revolutionized the books industry. By creating a product like Kindle, the created a perfect, integrated and streamlined customer experience. b) Platform: With Amazon Web Services, Fulfillment By Amazon, and Kindle Direct Publishing, Amazon is creating powerful self-service platforms that allow thousands of people to boldly experiment and accomplish things that would otherwise be impossible or impractical. ) Customers: In 2002 Amazon launched a web services platform and identified a new area of potential growth by finding another new customer—the IT community. Serving this new customer’s needs required different processes, different resources, and a different profit formulaâ€⠀in short, another  new business model. d) Customer Experience: 1-Click combined with Gift-Click and Wish List made Amazon. com the most convenient, easiest-to-use shopping destination the holiday season. Wish List allows customers to post the gifts they’d most like to receive from family and friends, while Gift-Click allows customers to send gifts easily by entering just the e-mail addresses of their recipients. e) Value Capture: By opening up its storefront to other retailers that were essentially competitors, Amazon transformed its business from direct sales to a sales-and-service model, aggregating many sellers under one virtual roof and receiving commissions from the other companies’ sales. ) Supply Chain: Fulfillment by Amazon service (FBA) by Amazon is a classic example of innovating business model through supply chain. FBA allows third party sellers to use Amazon’s large warehouse and distribution network and in the last quarter of 2011, shipped tens of millions of items on behalf of sellers. When sellers use FBA, their items become eligible for Amazon Prime, for Super Saver Shipping, and for Amazon returns processing and customer service. From the above discussion of Amazon’s business strategy, value chain analysis and the success factors we can conclude that Amazon has a robust Business model. Amazon’s business model fends off all the four threats. It has the costly-to-imitate financial and technological resources, it has developed protection against holdup by seamlessly vertically integrating its both the customers i. e. the sellers and the consumers. Reduced slack by locking-in the customers and the sellers and fights substitution through innovation in business model. Business Model of Amazon As the economy has moved from agrarian to industrial to information age, the focus of the businessmen or the wealthy and powerful has also shifted in terms of the ways of obtaining wealth or doing business. In the agrarian age there was shortage of land which made ownership of land as the determinant of value. Powerful land barons typically accumulated vast tracts of land and coerced people who were bound to the land and owned by the feudal lord into living on and working it. As economy moved from agrarian to industrial age, physical assets owned by a firm became the determinants of value and shortage of raw-materials led the powerful industrialists to conspire to control the supply of raw materials. In this age, the market could absorb as much product as the industrialists could produce. The current era in which we live has been defined as the information age wherein relationships and intellectual capital are more important than anything else. One is not worried about physical assets anymore. Companies don’t compete with each other over superior products as they are largely commoditized rather compete increasingly on the basis of value added customer services. The economic battles of today are fought over the mind-space of consumers. In the information age power-play customers are not passive participants, in the way that land and raw materials were in the agrarian and industrial ages. In fact, according to Zang Hailing, it is the customers’ time that is in short supply, and therefore for any firm to succeed, emphasis needs to be given to the importance of reducing the customers’ time to adopt a new product. Thus, in a world where technology is changing every day and the transformation of consumers has happened from â€Å"Price Takers† to â€Å"Price Makers† as they are armed with more options and information; the companies that control more and more customer relationships will be the ones that hold the power in an industry and reap the lion’s share of the profits. E-commerce or e-business is an important tool that enables companies to reach out to the global market at low cost and provides abundant information about the consumers’ requirements and preferences easily which was not so easy earlier. Following figure is a glimpse of the promising future that the ecommerce industry holds. The US E-commerce has seen a 40% increase in the sales over the past 5 years as a percentage of the total retail sales in US. Source: http://ycharts. com Now when thinks about e-commerce, the first name that comes to everyone’s mind is that of Amazon. com. Not only most of the people have heard about it but there are many people who have actually used its services. Amazon was not only one of the few of the companies that thrived throughout the period in which many dot-com companies struggled to survive but has been constantly performing exceptionally well in terms of revenue per visitor which is one of the key parameters for any commercial website. Amazon has had one of the fastest growths in the internet’s history with revenues reaching $2, 8 billion in the first five years with Google’s revenue reaching only $15bn in the first five years. Now, just like any other traditional business in order to clearly understand an e-business one needs to have information on the following components: a) Business Strategy which determines the products and service offerings by the firm, the firms targeted customers and the firms value proposition. It also helps firms decide on the choices and the tradeoffs that the firm needs to make. b) Organizational form or structure c) Business processes which refer to the unique ways in which organizations coordinate and organize work activities, information, and knowledge to produce a product or service. ) Value Chain i. e. the sequence of activities that a firm undertakes to create value, including the various steps of the supply chain but also additional activities, such as marketing, sales, and service. e) Core Competencies which are the collective learning’s of the firms and being distinctive create long term competitive advantage for the firm. From the beginning, the focus of Amazon. com has been on offering their customers compelling value. In the current report filing dated 04/13/12, Jeffrey Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon. om writes â€Å"We realized that the Web was, and still is, the World Wide Wait. Therefore, we set out to offer customers something they simply could not get any other way, and began serving them with books. We brought them much more selection than was possible in a physical store (our store would now occupy 6 football fields), and presented it in a useful, easy-to-search, and easy-to-browse format in a store open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. † The Value Proposition offered by Amazon. com is â€Å"earth’s largest selection—24/7, at competitive price. † Amazon. om has continuously focused on improving the shopping experience owing to which they substantially enhanced their stores in 1997. Though they started off with books, they now offer customers gift certificates, 1-ClickSM shopping, and vastly more r eviews, content, browsing options, and recommendation features. The company’s stated goal was to â€Å"be Earth’s most customer centric company for three primary customer sets: consumers, sellers and developers. † It targeted its first set of customers through its initial retail model where it sold only books. It offered the perfect combination of low prices, large selection and convenience or customer experience. The digital media allowed limitless inventory, boosted customer care and allowed higher margins and hence lowest prices. In 15 years Amazon went from 1 category to 16 main categories of books. Amazon began with books and needed to grow big fast. From 1995-1998, Amazon moved from books to music and again through the same combination moved to become the biggest seller of music in just 120 days! Amazon moved on develop its own digital driven supply chain and distribution network by hiring from the expert: Wal-Mart. Amazon accelerated development through its strategy of â€Å"Build, buy, partner† a) Build: Amazon keeps on creating new categories. For example, Amazon kicked off a new service by the name MyHabit. com in May 2011 that made fashion available to consumers directly from designers and boutique brands. b) Buy: When there is a lot of competition in any area and the competitors have a strong hold, Amazon believes in buying out the incumbent. Few of the acquisitions made by Amazon include Internet Movie Database  (IMDb), Zappos (an online shoe and apparel retailer) etc. ) Partner: Amazon has also entered into a lot of merchant partnerships. It offers its technological service and ecommerce expertise to third- parties. For example in October 2011, Amazon. com announced a partnership with DC Comics for the exclusive digital rights to many popular comics, including Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Sandman, and Watchmen. As mentioned before as well, Amazon want to be the â€Å"wo rld’s most customer-centric† company, and so their focus is on the â€Å"Customer Service†. It ensures customer loyalty through three main approaches: a) Recurring usage b) Seamless Integration c) Lock-in The following table tells us how Amazon uses all above mentioned approaches for its both customers: Sellers and consumers. | Sellers| Consumers| Recurring Usage| a. Developed a customer base close to 615mn users that can’t be ignored by sellers b. Ensures profit through optimized and reliable technology c. Developed a trusted Brand name| a. Created an ecosystem through Kindle b. Stores user’s media library c. Offers personalization to customers d. Gives special offers everyday| Seamless Integration| a. Monitors sellers rating ratings posted by consumers and expels sellers with bad ratings b. Offers Fulfillment by Amazon service(FBA) which allows third party sellers to use Amazon’s large warehouse and distribution network| a. For customers, all the sellers are highly commoditized and invisible. They buy it because of the Amazons brand value b. Get benefitted by Amazon Prime and free super saver shipping| Lock-in| a. By controlling or owning the customer accounts b. High level of infrastructure development required to ensure same level of customer service as offered by Amazon| a. By providing digital content that works only on Kindle b. Amazon Prime Program which requires annual subscription| | c. | c. | Amazon developed a value chain of itself for internal appraisal so as to identify its strengths and weaknesses that would help it add value and maintain a competitive advantage. Amazon uses the value chain model from Michael Porter’s book, â€Å"Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. † The first table represents the Primary activities of Amazon which are needed to produce a product or services for the end customers. Inbound logistics| Operations| Outbound logistics| Marketing ; Sales| Service| Avoids the overhead and large amounts of inventory carrying cost because it orders the books from the distributors. Easy and fast payment systems. Online customer systems and feedback. | Operates a number of transportation hubs that they refer to as injection points. Injection point locations are located in heavily customer concentrated areas. | Customer tracking  is an Amazon stronghold through which it provides personalized customers’ exper ience| Free return policy within 30 days. Uses marketplace to increase channel and range of goods through 3rd parties and customers. Highly reduced returns to suppliers (such as unsold books and media) due to available accurate forecasting technology | Customized buyer experience| Ability to aggregate orders bound for specific locations. | Interactive shipping and parceling price calculations. Free delivery based on single transaction spends. | Price comparison of new products with used products in marketplace shops. | Efficiently gathering information about customer experiences to inform service inputs and inventory controls. | 24 hour warehouse operations to meet customer demands. |   Utilizes the capabilities of its supply chain partners to deliver orders directly to ustomers which bypass the Amazon. com internal distribution center network|   Discounts and price reductions made available with suggested product mixes. Similar products recommended to customers interactively. | Offers customers gift certificates, 1-Click SM shopping, and vastly more reviews, content, browsing options, and recommendation features. | The next table gives information about the various support activities performed by Amazon which help to facilitate or assist its primary activities. | Value Creation| Cost Reduction| Firm Infrastructure| Huge central customer data warehouse available to all business units. Amazon’s single technology platform with services being incrementally distributed to other worldwide locations, reduces costs by leveraging investments | Human Resource Management| Amazon. com has a great training for its employees resulting in talented, smart and hard working group. Offers employees unique benefits such as medical, paid time off and stock grants and relocation allowances and hence attract highly skilled workers| Amazon utilizes independent contractors and temporary personnel to supplement their workforce, particularly on a seasonal basis. Although Amazon has works councils and statutory employee representation obligations in certain countries, Amazon’s employees are not represented by a labor union| Technology Development| High investments in technology development (e. g. , Kindle) to best leverage digital products. Innovations such as personalized recommendations, one-click ordering, and search inside the book are all Amazon. com innovations. Highly customized software applications that support their supply chain business model. For example, Amazon. om is linked into Ingram’s systems to see Ingram inventory levels when deciding whether to use Ingram to drop ship an order to a customer | Building an IT strategy, IT infrastructure and Data Centre on Linux open source software thus reducing cost of technology development. Renting computing resources to other companies reduce total cost of ownership Using standard hardware systems from HP to reduce cost of maintenance and compatibility| Procurement| Utilize s a Sales and Operations (SOP) planning process to determine forecasts for each roduct that it stores in its distribution center inventoryUses the strategic business unit – Booksurge to keep a rich inventory of digital copies of books so as to make this readily available for customers through print-on-demand and reduce the time of delivery | Specially built distribution Centers, warehouses and fulfillment Centers to increase the speed of order processing thus avoiding transaction costs of contracting out| In addition to the business strategies the value chain components mentioned above, the success of Amazon. om can be attributed to the entrepreneurial spirit of its founder chief executive officer Jeff Bezos and the strong inclination of the firm towards bringing about innovation in the business model. Let us discuss both factors one by one. Entrepreneurial Spirit of Jeff Bezos: Jeff Bezos can be regarded as the forward-looking CEO responsible for the success of Amazon. com. He has not only efficiently managed the present but through his long term vision always taken steps to create the future. The computer science and electrical engineering graduate from Princeton University moved to Seattle after resigning as a Senior Vice-President at D. E. Shaw, a Wall Street investment bank. At the time Bezos didn’t know much about the Internet but he came across a statistic that the Internet was growing at 2300%, which convinced him that it was a large growth opportunity. Without knowing anything more, he plunged into the world of e-commerce with no prior retailing experience. It was his decision to locate the company in Seattle because it had a large pool of technical talent and since it was close to one of the largest book wholesalers located in Rosenburg, Oregon. Moreover, the sales tax laws for online retailers state that one has to charge sales tax in the state in which one is incorporated. Therefore it was logical to locate in a small state. Under his guidance and logical thinking Amazon. com quickly became the leader in e-commerce. Operating 24 hours a day, the site was user-friendly and encouraged browsers to post their own reviews of books and offering discounts, personalized recommendations, and searches for out-of-print books. In June 1998 it began selling CDs, and later that year it added videos. In 1999 Bezos, looking at the future trends, added auctions to the site and invested in other virtual stores. The success of Amazon. com encouraged other retailers, including major book chains, to establish online stores. As more companies battled for Internet dollars, Bezos saw the need to diversify, and by 2005 Amazon. com offered a vast array of products, including consumer electronics, apparel, and hardware. And with the Jeff Bezos vision to make every book ever in print in any language available to the consumer in 60 seconds, Amazon launched the handheld device called Kindle in 2007. Bezos is the quintessential dot-com icon. He proved to the business world that the Internet was about more than knowledge. He proved that it is possible to overcome fears about purchasing online, to drive down transaction costs, and to build an international e-commerce business over the Internet. He had the courage to attempt something that people doubted could be done. . At the age of 35, Jeff Bezos was picked as the 1999 Time person of the year. Describing why it chose Bezos, Time magazine said, â€Å"Bezos’  vision  of the online retailing universe was so complete, his Amazon. om site so elegant and appealing that it became from Day One the point of reference for anyone who had anything to sell online. † Innovation in the Business Model: Amazon survived the dot-com bust because it had a viable and innovative  business model  built around a market-changing customer value proposition and a radical profit formula and over it has been able to sustain its position as the leader in e-commerce by bringing about continuous innovations in its business model. Let us look at some of the different dimensions wherein Amazon. om has been able to bring about business innovation. a) Offerings: By offering a handheld device dedicated to reading, Kindle, Amazon. com revolutionized the books industry. By creating a product like Kindle, the created a perfect, integrated and streamlined customer experience. b) Platform: With Amazon Web Services, Fulfillment By Amazon, and Kindle Direct Publishing, Amazon is creating powerful self-service platforms that allow thousands of people to boldly experiment and accomplish things that would otherwise be impossible or impractical. ) Customers: In 2002 Amazon launched a web services platform and identified a new area of potential growth by finding another new customer—the IT community. Serving this new customer’s needs required different processes, different resources, and a different profit formulaâ€⠀in short, another  new business model. d) Customer Experience: 1-Click combined with Gift-Click and Wish List made Amazon. com the most convenient, easiest-to-use shopping destination the holiday season. Wish List allows customers to post the gifts they’d most like to receive from family and friends, while Gift-Click allows customers to send gifts easily by entering just the e-mail addresses of their recipients. e) Value Capture: By opening up its storefront to other retailers that were essentially competitors, Amazon transformed its business from direct sales to a sales-and-service model, aggregating many sellers under one virtual roof and receiving commissions from the other companies’ sales. ) Supply Chain: Fulfillment by Amazon service (FBA) by Amazon is a classic example of innovating business model through supply chain. FBA allows third party sellers to use Amazon’s large warehouse and distribution network and in the last quarter of 2011, shipped tens of millions of items on behalf of sellers. When sellers use FBA, their items become eligible for Amazon Prime, for Super Saver Shipping, and for Amazon returns processing and customer service. From the above discussion of Amazon’s business strategy, value chain analysis and the success factors we can conclude that Amazon has a robust Business model. Amazon’s business model fends off all the four threats. It has the costly-to-imitate financial and technological resources, it has developed protection against holdup by seamlessly vertically integrating its both the customers i. e. the sellers and the consumers. Reduced slack by locking-in the customers and the sellers and fights substitution through innovation in business model.

Art history term paper - Comparing two portrait modes Essay

Art history term paper - Comparing two portrait modes - Essay Example During the era of the roman republic, they considered it a character sign not to cover or manipulate any physical imperfections and the depiction of men particularly as unconcerned and rugged, especially unconcerned with any form of vanity. Statues with more idealism of Emperors of the Roman Empire got ubiquitous over the imperial era, especially with connection to Rome’s state religion. Tombstones, even those of the modestly well off middle class, exhibited the portraits of unknown dead relatives which were carved in relief. This paper aims to compare the bust of a man and the bust of Emperor Commodus while paying attention to the bust’s formal features, and it further, considers how and why each portrait works to idealize the sitter. The bust of Emperor Commodus and that of man are practically two contradictory artefacts. The two artefacts have distinctly varied characteristics with both possessing different styles. The bust of a man is of a veristic style while the bust of Emperor Commodus is of the Augustus style from prima porta. With each of these styles come different characteristics and representations. The bust of a man has a relation to old fashioned morality, which is a virtuous Roman concept (Fejfer, 2009 p243). Generally, the veristic style consists entirely of later life portraits of men, who more often than not are toothless and balding and consists of faces with poor aging qualities and wrinkles. The bust of a man is a perfect example of this style. The bust seems to be representative of men who are or are aging. In the Veristic style, age is taken quite seriously as it signifies and shows endurance and courage, which man has had to endure through out his life. The portraits physical qualities, whi ch follow veristic styles, are reflective of society and class, which they belong to. The pained and twisted expression on the bust of man are testimony of the similar fashion with which the civil war tore apart the society

Solving case study problems on operation management

Solving problems on operation management - Case Study Example To do this, Chatsworth Company applied some theories of interaction design (Dawes 2007). A theory that was used in this case study is the information foraging theory. This theory is based on assessment of cost and benefits with an aim of achieving the set goals. According to this theory, whatever is being sought during information search has to be clearly defined. Simon and his team visited various similar companies to see how they run their adventure playground. During browsing, which is basically information foraging, there is interaction with the source and the end goal is to see how the information acquired can help the current state of the company. Chatsworth even sought assistance from the managers of different companies with regard to the situation of the company. Information gathered from different sources was analyzed and used to evaluate which of the four options was the best to go with (Pirolli et al, 1999). Another theory evident in this case study is the activity theory. The theory suggests that minds are the product of how much people interact with others people and the experiences they gain in their everyday lives. This theory will help understand how the process of decision making can be done correctly. Chatsworth took the first initiate in identifying that there was really a problem. The adventure playground was consuming a lot of money compared to the profit; therefore, definitely something had to be done. The promotion and education manager had been involved in other decision making scenarios, but this one was different. As the theory suggests, it is through interaction with different people in our surrounding that we learn (Cooper 2007). Simon and his team first came up with four options: to remove the adventure playground, do nothing about it, substitute it with a similar one or replace it with a better one. After weighing these possibilities, the best one remained to replace it with an

Tragic Dramas of Oedipus Rex and Antigone Essay

Tragic Dramas of Oedipus Rex and Antigone - Essay Example It was up to the playwrights to teach the people how to behave and the rules of society within the metropolis. While many of the plays were comedies, demonstrating the more ridiculous consequences that could be experienced if individuals did not abide by the established codes of conduct, others were dramas, revealing much more serious potentialities that could affect more than just the average citizen. As they were presented, these dramas demonstrated the degree to which the entire culture could be disrupted if someone in power chose to break the rules. Some of these dramas have survived into the modern day because they had such a profound effect on their audiences and told stories about mythological or legendary characters and events. Dramas such as Oedipus Rex and Antigone are good examples of this kind of tragic drama. To qualify as a tragic drama, Aristotle identified three main factors that were present in every tragic drama and which were essential to the plot development. Thes e factors were referred to as hamartia, anagnorisis and peripeteia. The term hamartia commonly refers the idea of a tragic flaw (Aristotle, 1282). It is the concept that a noble person will fail due to some inherent flawed portion of his character which causes him to engage in a specific behavior pattern or make an error in judgment rather than due to the manipulations of a vengeful god or as a result of violating the gods' laws. Although the audience might see it, even they are not necessarily supposed to recognize the hero's mistake or misbehavior at the time he commits it, but it will eventually become clear through the action of the play that without this mistake, the tragedy would not have happened. This eventual realization of the initial mistake on the part of the character is what is referred to as anagnorisis (Aristotle, 1283). In Aristotelian terms, this word essentially means recognition. In most cases, this realization occurs suddenly for the character in a kind of epiph any moment when the hero finally understands that they brought this fate on themselves. This epiphany can also shed light on the true nature of all the characters within the play, sometimes something much different than what was expected or assumed. The anagnorisis leads naturally into the third element, that of peripeteia. This term refers to a sudden reversal in action or position based upon logic and intellect (Aristotle, 1283). In tragic drama, it refers to the reversal of the character's fortunes - everything they had is lost. This reversal of fortunes flows naturally as a part of the story, but it usually takes the audience, and the character, by surprise. Although this idea can be traced as a part of the hero’s character, it was more typically used to refer to the external circumstances surrounding the event and the character. Understanding these key elements of a tragic drama helps modern day students characterize these plays simply by looking to see if they adhere to the concepts. In Oedipus the King, for example, the action opens as Oedipus addresses his people, who have come to him hoping he will cure their city of a plague. Rather than encourage them to pray to the gods, Oedipus ridicules them for their prayers and tells them they should have come to him first: â€Å"What means this reek of incense everywhere, / From others, and am hither come, myself, / I

Explain The Term Structure Of Interest Rates Essay

Explain The Term Structure Of Interest Rates - Essay Example Interest date data for bonds with different maturities date is published frequently and investors can use it to determine the term structure of interest rates. Some of the most popular interest rate data sources are the Wall Street Journal, Federal Reserve Bulletin and websites like Bloomberg and CNN. The term structure can be verified at any point in time by using published data from renowned sources. Yield curves are drawn using this published data on interest rates. There are short term and long term interest rates. Since long term interest rates have an element of maturity risk premium (MRP), they are usually higher than short term rates. When researching on the term structure of interest rates, it is important to have knowledge of commonly used terms like the Yield to Maturity (YTM), which is defined as the expected rate of return on a bond held till maturity (Brigham and Ehrhardt, 2010). Another concept which is discussed with YTM is that of the zero coupon bonds (or discount b onds). A zero coupon bond is a financial asset which at the date of maturity T, pays its holder a lump sum amount, with no coupon payments before the date of maturity (hence the name zero-coupon). The YTM at time t of a discount bond with maturity T is the constant and continuously compounded rate of rate of return at which the price of the bond accrues from time t to time T and pays one currency unit to the holder at time T. The YTM is also referred to as the spot rate and the notation R (t, T) is used for it. Spot rates are short term interest rates and the term structure of interest rates depicts the relationship between spot rates and their dates of maturity (Gibson, Lhabitant and Talay, 2010). Interest rates are not only used in discounting and pricing for zero-coupon bonds but also other financial derivatives because their prices are sensitive to interest rates. If we go beyond the scope of an individual investor, we can see that interest rates are also important to corporatio ns. This is because when corporations are doing project appraisals, they use interest rate for computing the net present value and the discounted payback period for a project. The cost of capital which is of prime importance to corporations also depends upon interest rates (Benninga and Wiener, 1998). It will be useful to specify the type of interest rate before discussing investment decisions and discounting. There are two main types of interest rates: simple interest rate and compound interest rate. Simple rate of interest is interest on a lump sum principal amount and it does not itself earn interest. Quite contrary to this, is the compound rate of interest which itself earns interest. Investment decisions and discounting are all predominantly based on compound interest rates (Kelly and Tracy, 2010) Long term interest rates are an average of short term interest rates. The relationship between short and long term interest rates involves expectations. For example, if it is expected that short term interest rates will fall then the long term interest rates will fall below the current short term rate. The contrary situation is also valid: if it is expected that short term interest rates will increase then the long term interest rates will rise above the current short term rate. These two situations are possible only because long term rates are derived from short term rates. It is a general perception that long rates are greater than short rates and this is termed as the ‘

Adult Aging & Development Media Log Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Adult Aging & Development Media Log - Article Example The article has covered pretty much all the points on nutrition and gives a good information oh healthy eating. The authors have PhD qualification and have done justice to the article in providing needed information about different nutritional requirements.Although it would have made the writing more better if it explained how these foods helped different parts of body in their maintenance. The introductory paragraph of the article could have been more attractive and detailing in order to catch the attention of the readers. The writer has given a wide view on stress but it would have been better if the effect of stress on mental health was mentioned more. stress but if vitamin supplements were suggested it would have been more beneficial. Care givers can be also advised in the article to know the elderly people more intimately which would allow them to take better care of them. One thing which was attractive about the article was that the author has given some reference where the caregivers can resort for assistance. The article could have been more elaborative as it seems to be a bit short with information. The writing should also suggest how counseling will benefit them in overall performance of their profession. The article could have suggested to the readers how elderly people can avoid dementia .The age group of people if provided would have given information about the people who are more prone to this disease. The writer should have mentioned whether diet and lifestyle has any affect on developing dementia. The information on the disease could have been more detailed as people have less knowledge about such illnesses. The article can explain the experience of people suffering from this illness and how they are coping up with life. The various treatments available for the same could have been mentioned in the article. An

Why do women only make up 6.5% of consultant surgeons in the UK Essay

Why do women only make up 6.5% of consultant surgeons in the UK - Essay Example The idea of such a work is to find out the reasons for this, so some solutions may be suggested in order to change the present scenario. Feminine has always been regarded to have less status and power and has always been subordinate.. Perhaps due to this reason, although these sex differences in earnings, occupations, and work in the United Kingdom have decreased over the past few decades, sharp differences still persist. Like in any other profession, the women now constitute a large force in terms of number and quality in the medical profession. However, there is a certain pattern of their choices of discipline, especially when the numbers of female professionals in different specialities are considered. The greatest convergence between women and men has occurred in labor force participation (Buyske, 2005). Yet despite this increased participation-and this may help to explain the slower progress with respect to wages and occupational segregation-women, on average, devote far more time than men to housework. One medical profession is surgery, or more specifically general surgery, where particularly male predominance has been observed. As of now, as statistic indicate only 6.5% of the consultant surgeons in the United Kingdom are women. ... In this work, the answers to these questions will be attempted to be found out through evidence from literature. Broadly speaking, this research covers two areas of inquiry. The first attempts to understand the sources of sex differences in labor markets in the context of surgery as a profession without resorting to explanations based on labor market discrimination. The dominant focus would be on how family economic decision making regarding the allocation of time and human capital investment may generate the observed differences between women and men in occupations, participation, and nonmarket work. The second area of concern could be existing discrimination and male predominance that might have led to a situation where female doctors are comparatively less interested in pursuing a career in, otherwise, exciting surgery. History of Women in Medicine Historically, women doctors are simultaneously a part of medicine and have been placed outside it, and their presence in large numbers is actually a destabilizing one. Surgery as a medical profession had always been seen as a symbol of masculinity, and that rests on an opposition between women and medicine. The century long history of medicine suggests that for long western culture was patriarchal in that it did marginalise women in the profession, reluctant to accept them on the same platform, and women as doctors have faced major hostility from the so called social dominance of masculinity. In fact, for quite some time, women were banned from joining surgery. Male Oriented Power and Privilege It had been previously conventional that medical power and privilege were male oriented; the operations and status

Bugatti (Veyron) Marketing Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Bugatti (Veyron) Marketing - Case Study Example The company has some exclusive strategies which add to the brand value and creates strong brand equity in the customer mind. If a potential buyer is deemed serious enough to buy the car then the company brings in Pierre-Henri Raphanel , grand prix driver, to give the potential customer a test drive. Also the company keeps on bringing out ‘Special edition’ models like the EB 16.4 Veyron pur Sang, Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermes or the EB 16.4 Veyron Sang Noir. The company depends on various environmental forces, which affect its business. Competitor might produce technologically superior products or the prevailing economic rescission might have some effects on sales, though its buyers are comparatively less affected by it. Though the company has strong and powerful competitors in the shape of marquee names like Mercedes, Porsche, Lamborghini and others, yet the fact that Bugatti produces the fastest and the most expensive car in the world creates huge brand pull for the com pany and helps in adding an exclusivity factor to its positioning. The Bugatti brand and therefore the Bugatti Veyron brand follows core values of elegance, exclusivity, power and excellence in design. One of the foremost and prominent strategies of the brand has been to focus on exclusivity of the brand. The fact that it is the fastest and the most expensive car on the planet is itself a strong marketing pitch for the brand. Moreover form time to time the company has focused on coming out with exclusive special version Veyrons like the Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermes, EB 16.4 Veyron pur Sang or the Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermes. Another strategic move has been to expand its brand value by introducing the Bugattio Collection which consists of car accessories and fashion items, which are designed by equally exclusive and world famous artistes or designers (Displaying timeless style and elegant details , while

The report of Lenovos marketing strategy Essay Example for Free

The report of Lenovos marketing strategy Essay Lenovo, one of the successful firms of China , has been a global company. To identity the reasons and factors of success, we handled the report. Through scanning the books and references about Lenovo, we have some conclusions and opinions. With its leading-edge technology, easy to use, personalized design and wide range of solutions, the products are widely welcomed by users in China. Lenovo also has extensive product line for the Chinese market, including mobile handsets, servers,and digital products. Lenovo Groups development is broadly divided into three stages: the first stage is the start-ups and survival stages; The second stage is to solve the problem of  existence. ; the third is spending huge sums on the acquisition of IBMs PC division, and begin the development of international strategy. BRIEF INTRODUCTION Lenovo Group was established in 1984, invested 200,000 yuan by the CAS Institute of Computing, which 11 scientific and technical personnel founded. Today the company has become one of the worlds leading PC companies, combining with the former IBM Personal Computing Division. Lenovos fiscal year 2007/08 turnover of $ 16.4 billion. Since 1997 the sales of Lenovo in Chinas domestic market topped the first, and in the Asia-pacific market in successive years (except Japan) is among the best.Lenovo group was launched in 2004. In China, the market share of Lenovo PC products is nearly one-third. With its leading-edge technology, easy to use, personalized design and wide range of solutions, the products are widely welcomed by users in China. Lenovo also has extensive product line for the Chinese market, including mobile handsets, servers,and digital products. Lenovo Groups development is broadly divided into three stages: the first stage is the start-ups and survival stages; The second stage is to solve the problem of existence.; the third is spending huge sums on the acquisition of IBMs PC division, and begin the development of international strategy. FINDINGS The analysis of the marketing environment 1.The macro-marketing environment: The macro external environment for the development of the Lenovo Group has an important influence. The integration and adaptation of macroeconomic policy and social-economic environment ensures that the Lenovo Group can go better in the long-term strategic development of the road. 1.1 Political environment Lenovos political background is strong like the national support. Lenovo is founded by the Chinese academy of sciences institute of computer, with all kinds of computer professionals with technical strength, known as the birthplace of Chinese computer technology. 1.2 Economic environment: The economic environment is good. The economic crisis lead to the overall economic environment tightening, but the development of computer industry  chain to maintain good growth momentum. 1.3 Social environment: China even the whole world still has a great purchasing power. Once the enterprise enter the market, the value of the firm will show up. 1.4 Technical environment: Lenovo Group, founded by the Institute of Computer Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. And it stands for the countrys highest level in the field of computer technology. 2. The micro-marketing environment: Marketing micro environment essentially refers to the the companys own environment and the business which is directly linked to units or individuals formed environment. 2.1 The threat of new distributors to potential industry: New competitors entering a certain segments of the market, can add new production capacity and a lot of resources, and fight for market share. The key lies in wether the new competitors can easily enter the fine market. This is the mainly due to the economies of scale, channel construction, the expected revenge factors. 2.1.1Possible entrants: the first one is the digital giants abroad which have not yet entered the Chinese market, and the others is downstream products, suppliers and retailers. 2.1.2The way of entrants : the appearance of new products, and the establish of a new brand. 2.1.3Potential entry barriers to entrant: economy of scale, product different barriers, capital demand barriers, the customer conversion cost, patent and proprietary technology. 2.2 The competition in the industry The product has a specific location, the users change to the existing brand are usually based on the disappointment. Because of the industry production capability, the computer industry is highly profitable high risk. 2.3. Substitute As Chinas entry into the WTO, the competition will post the professional business enterprise the threat. 2.4 The bargaining power of suppliers  Most of the PC software is provided by the supplier, and not by the manufacturer production. PC manufacturer bargaining ability, but in foreign  suppliers, local brands has obvious advantages. The buyers bargaining power:Through the analysis, Chinas PC industry has high barriers to entry so that there is no alternative goods and the purchaser bargain ability is low. For new entrants the competitive threat is various and widely effected, but due to a variety of reasons no matter at present or in future there will be still a number of entrants. 3. Lenovos SWOT analysis: Combined with the present situation of the development of the industry Lenovo laptop exactly exist problems and should establish rational marketing decision-making plan. 3.1. Advantage: Market share: Lenovo laptop channels throughout the whole of Asia market, market share to competitors than the other, with 30.6% of the market share comes to the first in line. Local brand experience and regional advantages: Lenovo has decades of experience in the Chinese mainland which can accurately grasp the local consumer demand, which is the strength of other brands do not have the advantage. Brand advantage: In the PC market, Lenovo brand of leadership in the Chinese market has more than many rivals, is the industry leader, and promoted step by step and accumulation. 3.2 Disadvantage: In addition to the Chinese market and overseas market, especially the north American market the ability of growth is weak. International operation experience compared to the Dell and HP has a gap, form although international, but did not reach the system. A lack of international experience, especially to the international complex economic form ability, to the risk control ability is not strong, it is the financial crisis led to Lenovo losses. Although the acquisition of the IBM PC business, full integration is not yet complete. 3.3 opportunity: The development of the consumer PC market, along with the rise of the notebook market as well as the popularity of the PC provides a good opportunity to Lenovo notebook in the consumer market. And there is a sales boom as Win7 listed the individual market. so Lenovo should seize the opportunity to capture the market. The Chinese government launch home appliance countryside sports, farmers for the PC has a strong demand. Lenovo  an seize the chance to go to Chinas vast countryside market.The domestic market having the rapid development , more and more consumers to buy the computer. 3.4 threat: The consumer market, facing the threat of the Hewlett-Packard, Dell is a strong competitor. A large number of new brand computer manufacturers produce cause confusion of market.The financial crisis is still not completely eliminate and global individual market is falling which affect the Lenovo shipments greatly since commercial personal market. 4. Lenovos market segments, the choice of target customers, market positioning (STP analysis) 4.1 Market segment: despite Lenovo is an old computer, it seems that there is no market selection problem, but when profits to maximize the enterprise management of long-term highest goal appeared. Lenovo will also can not bear the temptation of diversification, attack from the Internet, a series of new business, but soon found many new business water depth in waves, therefore decided to make strategic shrinkage and adjust. Later, Lenovo will and divided into two parts, one kind is small and medium-sized enterprise and the average consumer, small and medium-sized enterprise and further divided into medium customers and scattered type customers. One kind is often tender for purchasing clients, and further divided into global big customers combined with local customers, and whether the commercial market or consumption market, desktop computer or the laptop. Lenovos market segmentation levels are quite clear, and in each segment the market established deputy brand. Through the in-depth market research, a series of specialized value recreation, make the brand to look brand-new.Thus, market segmentation for a brand the growing importance of the, Lenovo because timely see this, suit the remedy to the case. According to the growing small and medium-sized enterprise commercial computer demand, Lenovo won the unshakable market share. In the future a period of time, Lenovo brand value management and considerable ascension space, also can become more sales though driving force is strong. 4.2. The market localization: Association with the main trend products and low-priced products to the aftermarket price of brand quality one-sided pressure to the other brands. Lenovo in the past ten years, has constant innovation and introduction of  more advanced technology and electronic products, which are inextricably linked with Lenovos strong backing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Computer Science. Lenovo has a high-quality technical team. They have a number of senior researchers and engineers with years of experience in technical strength with a large number of Hong Kong and Taiwan manufacturers. Lenovo can not be surmounted, which proves the Chinese computer market leading brand strength is immeasurable.Lenovo chooses the low level of technology, and focus on market demand with the wide range of applications.The market is large, easy-to-commercialization of microcomputer products in the product form, from the development version upgrade start, rather than to start on the development machine. This is the Lenovo Groups goal, so that companies can integrate into the community with the fastest speed, and lay a solid foundation for further development in the future. CINCLUSIONS Lenovo, a global company, has gone through many challenges and difficulties. There are much experience in the growth of Lenovo. Although there are many reasons of the success, the main and crucial one is persistence. We are, of crouse, proud of the admirable achievement of Lenovo.

Toyota Strategy Essay Example for Free

Toyota Strategy Essay Seventy four years since its founding, Toyota Motor is almost at the pinnacle of the global auto industry, having overtaken Ford Motor and General Motors in vehicle sales. Toyota was established in 1937 in Japan. Toyota has grown from being a small Japanese carmaker in the 1960s to the biggest carmaker in 2007, outranking General Motors. The founding principles for this success were embodies by the â€Å"Toyota Way† – a respect for learning, truth, trust, team-work, challenge and continuous improvement. First time it introduced its product Corona in the US in 1965. By the 70’s, Toyota was the best-selling import brand in the US. During the 80’s, it started manufacturing vehicles in the US. In 2006, it had globally become the second largest car seller and third largest car sellers in the US having more than fifteen percent market share. It is estimated that by 2008 it is going to be the number one car producer and seller both in the US and across the world. This profound success of Toyota is associated with its most proficient market strategy. The case of Toyota notably proves that how important is market strategy in the life of a company to be a market leader. Toyota Company has so many successes in its production history. Toyota even in Japan and in worldwide is one of most important and successful multinational companies. One of the most important reasons for success of a company is its marketing strategy. In continue I will try to peruse Toyotas success reasons and good planning for achievement in international market around the world. The reasons for achievement of a company in international markets is belong to variety elements such as good production and assembly system, good strategy both in local and international markets, good planning and managing and so on. In practice this innovation means that line workers not only have the right, but are obliged to take the time which is necessary in order to carry out the tasks necessary to ensure the maintenance of the highest quality standards at each stage of production, even while production is taking place. Just-In-Time This system is a method of production programming involves a series of innovation in the production and the preparation of the work more generally in the logistics of production and in the management of the flows and stocks of intermediate and semi-finished goods. These innovations take together constitute a system of production with much reduced stocks, made possible a system of information processing unique and unprecedented in the history of work organization. Supply Chain Management Supply chain or value chain management is composed of the operational or tactical activities and can be defined as ‘managing the entire chain of raw material supply, manufacture, assembly and distribution to the end consumer (Jones 1989 cited in Lowson 2002). Christopher (1998) defines supply chain management as the management of upstream and downstream relationships with the suppliers and customers to deliver superior consumers value at less cost to the supply chain as a whole. Toyota has a great supply chain management. This system helps Toyota to deliver its needed parts to all around the world without any problem in least time, so we can say that this system has great role in success of Toyota corporation. Lean Manufacturing The goal of lean manufacturing is to create a manufacturing environment that is driven by demand and that holds only a small amount of inventory and product at any given time (Bacheldor 2004 cited in Ndahi 2006). Lean Manufacturing is a unified, comprehensive set of philosophies, rules, guidelines, tools, and techniques for improving and optimizing discrete processes. â€Å"Toyota Motor Corporations vehicle production system is a way of making things that is sometimes referred to as a lean manufacturing system or a Just-in-Time (JIT) system, and has come to be well known and studied worldwide. †3 The above reasons are just a summary of simple rules that helps Toyota to build its brand and market share in the world. But the most important reason that Toyota uses it for building its brand as a international brand is marketing strategy. Toyota as a Japanese company could operate good strategy for acting around the world. In continue I will try to write about Toyota’s international marketing strategy that helps Toyota to become today’s Toyota. Toyota International Marketing Strategies As it has from its humble beginnings in 1937, Toyota continues to win success by blending smart business with social, cultural and environmental awareness. Toyota’s marketing material and news releases consistently stress social awareness and responsibility as strongly as profitability to measure corporation’s success. For example, Toyota’s mission statement calls for â€Å"stable long-term growth, while striving for harmony with people, society and the environment,† while their website repeatedly describe their social contributions and efforts to be a â€Å"good corporate citizen† (Toyota website, 2005). This approach is key to Toyota’s global success from a marketing standpoint. Toyota has a special way for promoting its products. In fact Toyota with using its smart business tried to build its brand in so many countries. Unlike many other auto manufacturers, Toyota has gone beyond promoting the product itself in the creation of their brand. By extending manufacturing operations into their target markets, Toyota makes their brand socially and politically more acceptable. Americans can buy Toyotas and still â€Å"buy American. † Europeans can spend their Euros at home. 4 In fact Toyota makes its brand as a local brand in every country and by this work Toyota can find loyal customers. Toyota use one of principles of international marketing to build its brand and increase its market share. This strategy helps Toyota to have a good growth strategy in U. S. and Europe market. But beyond this strategy Toyota uses so many other factors to have successful international markets. Among others, three distinctive competencies of Toyota are remarkable. These distinctive competencies appeal the consumers, build trust with them, and make them satisfied. These competencies are as follows: Popular Economy Car Toyota is best known for ‘popular economy car’. It has successfully branded the concept of ‘popular economy car’, by producing cars matching to the concept. It has garnered its success by selling the concept to the consumer. It has also become profoundly successful in segmenting, targeting, and positioning. As a result, based on the pricing reports generated by over ten million visitors, out of top ten cars, three are Toyotas – Toyota Camry (No. 2), Toyota Corolla (No. 4), and Toyota Avalon (No. 8). (Kelly Blue Book, 2007) It produces eight varieties of cars. Among them, the prices for the four varieties cars range 10,000. 0 US $, three varieties range 15,000. 00 US $, and one variety ranges slightly over 20,000. 00 US $. Cutting-edge Technology Toyota simply did not stop to the concept of ‘popular economy car’. This concept could have easily turned into product maturity and decline. But Toyota continuously engaged in improving technology – design, looks, comfort, fuel efficiency, environmen tal friendliness, and other technical improvements. For example, Toyota Corolla was first introduced in Japan in 1966 and in the US in 1968 as a first generation Toyota Corolla. Since then roughly in every three years it is being developed and marketed in a new model. By 2006, tenth generation of Toyota Corolla was already launched with significant technological improvements. Toyota’s hybrid cars can be taken as another example. It started producing hybrid cars in 1995 however till 1999 Japan was 2 the only market for its hybrid cars. Coming to 2005, it became successful to capture a large chunk of US market. Today, it is selling almost seventy five percent of its hybrid cars alone in the US market. Low Operating Cost Why consumers purchase Toyota? The simple answer is that Toyota’s cars are distinctive with the properties of low operating cost. For example, a survey carried out by Toplin Strategy Group in 2007 has revealed that 73% of Prius owners had bought Toyota Prius because of financial incentive to purchase the vehicle such as lower sticker price or lower operating cost than other choices. (Marketing Green, 2007) Similarly, based on 45% highway driving and 55% city driving with annual 15,000 miles Toyota Prius has been proved to be the most fuel efficient car than any of its competitors such as Honda Civic Hybrid, Ford Escape Hybrid, and Lexus GS 450. Fuel Economy, 2008). Toyota enjoys much lower labor costs in the United States and benefits from an undervalued yen for cars made in Japan. In the United States, this comes to about $2500 per vehicle. The entry level and middle level market segments are very sensitive to price and vehicle durability. Toyota has been able to translate its cost advantage into vehicles with higher, more attractive content and longer life than General Motors. Toyota is constantly looking for ways to lower costs and improve products. It translates most of the additional profits it earns, over GM, into better product design and additional capacity. At GM, the Executives vote themselves bonuses and the union demands more benefits and featherbedding at the first sign of profits. From the perspective of marketing strategy, Toyota can be taken as a company that has successfully achieved its mission statement, successfully branded its distinctive competencies, and profoundly achieved its organizational objectives.

The Role And Functions Of Media Media Essay

The Role And Functions Of Media Media Essay The media is analysed in two ways here as an informative aspect as well as a form of entertainment. Freedom of expression is usually questioned in the media, how free is the media allowed to be? Isnt the media always controlled? What is the role of media in society? Is everyone in society treated equally in the media, when being reported on? Introduction: It is often a belief that the media is a rather powerful tool, one that gets blamed for all the wrong that occurs in society. What we read in the papers and view on television is usually what we believe. This study unit focuses on the functions of the media and what its role in society should be. In other words the function and the role of the media in society within the context of functionalism as a theoretical paradigm. 1. What is functionalism?: Definition: Functionalism refers to a system, a belief in function over form. Functionalism with regard to the media refers to how the media operates as a whole system in society to help create a balance in society. Society as an integrated, harmonious and cohesive whole. Different social systems function to maintain equilibrium, consensus and social order. Media as a powerful socialisation instrument should contribute towards integration, harmony and cohesion through information, entertainment and education. Functions of the media: Wrights model of functions: Main functions of the media are to inform and entertain  ® this allows the media to contribute manifestly or latently to cultural growth for individuals and society. Though its rather a simplistic model especially when it comes to the political functions of the media An example, think of a documentary Special Assignment this genre aims to educate and inform society on issues of reality.  ® Latent: existing but not yet active or developed.  ® Manifest: clear and obvious to see or understand. MODEL OF FUNCTIONS: Inventory of questions What are à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ 1. The manifest 2. Latent 3. Functions and 4. Dysfunctions of mass communicated 5. Surveillance (news) 6. Correlation (selection) 7. Cultural transmission 8. Entertainment for the 9. Society 10. Individual 11. Subgroups 12. Cultural systems? Objections (Short comings) to Functionalism: Functionalism takes for granted that agreement prevails over, and disregards conflict in society. The media will not have the same functions for all the people in society. Interpreted differently by individuals. Cultural barriers could arise when interpreting different media Functionalism does not account for social change  ® well established democratic societies Vs societies in the process of transformation. Neglects to provide for feedback (seeing that feedback modifies both the message and the context) MCQUAILS TYPOLOGY OF FUNCTIONS: (Functions / tasks of the media) Information: the media (can) : with examples Provide information about events and conditions in society and the world Indicate relations of power Facilitate innovation, adaptation and progress Correlation: the media (can) Explain, interpret and comment on the meaning of events and information Provide support for established authority and norms Socialise Co-ordinate separate activities Contribute to consensus building Set orders of priority and by so doing signal the status of a topic Continuity: the media (can) Express the dominant culture and recognise subcultures and new cultural developments Forge and maintain commonness of values Entertainment: the media (can) Provide amusement, diversion and the means of relaxation Reduce social tension Mobilisation: the media (can) Provide social objectivity in issues such as war and politics and economic development Nevertheless Denis McQuail argues Functionalist models provide us with basic ideas about the role of the media in society. As such, they provide a structured framework for reviewing the significant tasks of media as key socialization and ideological instruments Plurality in the media: Media plurality refers to the diversity in media content available to society. Media should exist in various forms such as radio, television, and print among other forms catering for all of society. Think of DSTV as an example  ® does a wide range of channels mean a wider range of program content? Are more groups of people catered for with the diversity of channels? Plurality aims to produce democracy and freedom in the media. The Political functions of media the case of Pluralism: To inform about political developments. To guide public opinion about political decisions. To express different views about political development and decisions. To criticise political developments and decisions. The media can only be empowered to perform these functions ifà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Media policy ensures media pluralism (the existence of different media: various newspapers, radio stations, television stations, magazines, films and so on. Media content reflect social plurality. Types: Internal plurality: differences within the information and entertainment content of newspapers, radio and television stations  ® should be balanced, offer different opinions etc. External plurality: differences between different newspapers, radio and television stations. Levels: Micro-plurality: Concerns each medium on its own; internal; the variety of perspectives and voices within a single outlet. Like a specific radio station Meso-plurality: Concerns media categories; the variety of choices available within the same category. Macro-plurality: Concerns all the media, regardless of category, available in a society; the variety of choices. All media in society You must understand and be able to explain each theory and to integrate it practically in a case study. In the assignment, you had to integrate a specific theory into the article provided. In the examination you will be given a similar case study and asked to explain the specific theory referred to. Please ensure, therefore, that you familiarise yourself with the various theories. Media Theories Normative theory: (theories are concerned with): Views about the ideal role of the media in society, both to the power structure the recipient. Theories are concerned with issues like Control Regulation And objectives of the media Concerned with restrictions on the media in various situations. Authoritarian theory: MAIN press theory the media according to this theory is controlled and presented according to societies best interests. (Press is a mouthpiece of government) Dictatorial societies. Justifies government suppression of the media in extraordinary circumstances Assumptions: Media should not undermine government, vested powers and interests Media should be subordinate. Should not contravene prevailing moral and political values. Censorship is justified. Editorial attacks on government = criminal offences. The media under these governments should propagandise the governments ideology. E.g like Hitler and in Zimbabwe Analyse article and then integrate the normative media theory, namely the Libertarian theory into article below. Explain the Libertarian theory; practically integrate the belief in the theory into article (describe how journalists reporting on this case tie into the belief of the Libertarian theory. Libertarian theory: Provides a philosophical basis for the on-going, three-way relationship between the news media, government and society. This duty and right seeks to maximize the freedom of the press, and in effect be a watchdog towards the state. MAIN press theory Media should be able to publish what they see fit, the media is also allowed to publish information against the ruling power and society should interpret the messages accordingly. (Example of article) People are rational beings capable of distinguishing between truth and falsehood, and between good and evil. Give them all factual information and let them decide. (Example of article) Its the responsibility of the media to keep the citizens of a country duly informed of the actions of its government. By having written this article, Boyle is performing this duty set out by the libertarian theory. Assumptions: The media is a source of information. The media is a platform for expression of divergent opinions. Free from government control. Media should be free from external censorship. Should be accessible to any individual or group. Editorial attacks should not be punishable. No coercion to publish anything. No restrictions on the acquisition of information. No restrictions on import and export of information across borders The media should be free from censorship that is external from it, so that certain officials from a political party cant restrict or delete certain remarks that were made to the public because they would want to dictate what the public reads and what not. Publication should be free without a licence for the people reading the material. There are no restrictions like this in South Africa currently. If there are any editorial attacks on government it should not be punishable; this paves the way for free speech like the article of Boyle, giving his opinion and informing the public. There should be no compulsion to publish anything as this will give an unjust and skew view of what is happening in South Africa. With parties exerting their power to help their own cause. The acquisition of information should not be restricted if they are obtained through legal channels. For instance the number of South African Police Service members that were suspended because of corruption those are available thus it can be published if the journalist wishes and to inform the public. There should be no restriction so that information about the country may or may not be imported or exported. Social responsibility theory: Variation of first 2 theories media should be equal and fair in its reporting of incidents and issues. It must be diverse and responsible towards society. Based on the following premises: Reconcile the ideas of freedom and independence with responsibility towards society. Media should support democratic political principles. Create a form for different viewpoints. Should meet certain standards. How? Through regulatory bodies, independent of government. (E.g. ICASA for broadcast and telecommunication and the Press Ombudsman for newspapers.) Professional bodies such as the South African National Editors Forum (SANEF) Basic principles: Media should accept responsibility towards society. Set professional standards (truth, accuracy, objectivity, balance) Self-regulate Avoid information that could lead to crime, violence or social disruption. Not offend ethnic or religious minorities. Be representative of all social groups. Reflect the diversity of society. Intervention if the media fail to meet these standards. Soviet communist theory: Variation of first two theories Media must work and be owned by the working class. Main assumptions: Act in the interest of, and be controlled by the working class. Media should not be privately owned. Socialisation, education, information, motivation, mobilisation. Media should respond to needs of recipients. Society can use censorship. Marxist-Leninist view of society must be reflected in programming. Supporting progressive (communist) movements Development theory: Independent of these theories because of the unique conditions in third world countries Individuals as well as minority groups must be catered for by the media. Basic assumptions: Media should make a positive contribution to the national development process. Economic development and society should be more important than press freedom. National, cultural and language issues should be high on the medias agenda. Media should give preference to information about other developing countries that are geographically, culturally and politically akin to each other Journalists have both responsibilities and liberties in obtaining and distributing information State has the right to intervene by restricting and censoring the media. State subsidiaries and direct control is justifiable The Media Development and Diversity Agency in South Africa Democratic participant theory: This is the outcome of the shortcomings in these theories Reaction against commercialisation and monopolies Against centralisation and bureaucracies in public broadcasting Developed societies EMPHASIS Media multiplicity Small-scale use of media; medias local nature De-institutionalising the media The reciprocal role of communicator and recipients Horizontal communication Interaction and involvement PRINCIPLES: Right of access and right to have needs served by the media Content should not be politically influenced Justified in terms of needs and interests of recipients Groups, orgs and communities should have their own media Small-scale, interactive and participatory forms of media are more beneficial. Local content Social needs are neglected by established media Communication is too important to be left to the professionals Rethinking normative theory: Theories of the functions and roles of the media fall into 2 types of theory: those prescribing normative tasks for the media in society (the theories mentioned above) those describing the real role of the media in society (there are 5 possible paradigms) Liberal-individualist paradigm: emphasis is on individual liberty and upholding democracy. Social responsibility paradigm: the media should contribute to the upliftment of society and its citizens. Critical paradigm: the media should question prevailing and oppressive ideologies. Administrative paradigm: emphasis on professionalism. Cultural negotiation paradigm: emphasis on the rights of subcultures. The media can play one or more of the following roles:  ® Collaborative young and insecure nation, collaborate towards development ideals, nation building and national interest, usually the role the governments want the media to play  ® Surveillance adversarial role, watch-dog and agenda-setter, the media exposes violations of moral and social violations  ® Facilitate create and sustain public debate  ® Critical / dialectical Journalists examine assumptions and premises of a community. Constitute public debate about prevailing political order New thinking about normative theory: Normative theories are changing. It is being questioned by post-modern and post-colonial perspectives: The post-modern perspective: A new media environment In post modern societies the distinction between public and private is blurred, in other words it is difficult to recognise a coherent population with shared values and a single ideal. New channels of public communication have introduced a Multi-media approach, (new technology) interactivity Commercialisation market driven what is interesting, not what is important. Popular culture. New genres infotainment, talk shows, reality tv. Like Idols and Survivor A shift in social responsibility from public organisations (broadcasters) to commercial enterprises. Pluralised society. Acknowledgment of difference and diversity EXAMPLE: Even democracy is seen to be in crisis. Ideal democracy is being questioned Ideal democracy is being questioned as it has become much more fluid and evolving. Democracy in South Africa is also seen as complex and diverse why? For the post modernists, both society and the media have become so complex, diverse and abundant with choices, so overloaded with media genres, outlets, products, meanings and messages, that normative media theory had lost its grip. (Fourie 2007:206) The post-colonial perspective: de-westernising Colonial: Relating to the colonies of the former British Empire Post colonial: Existing or occurring after the end of colonial rule and the gaining of political independence. This is seen as a product of the Western way of thinking about the role of the media in society the idea of de-Westernising media theory and specifically normative media theory is not new Post-colonialism and comparative theory provide the groundwork for investigating ubuntuism in South Africa (Africa) as a framework for changing normative theory from an Afro-centric viewpoint. Some norms set for the media can be regarded as very Eurocentric and bias. It emphasises the need to develop comparative theories that consciously avoid ethnocentric bias, to focus on elements that appear to be universal in most societies. Revisiting normative media theory in South Africa: Although the post-modern argument is eagerly adopted by the South African market, post-colonial theory provides a foundation for investigating the philosophy of Ubuntu in SA as a framework for the revision of normative theory, using an Afro-centric perspective. Ubuntuism as an African moral philosophy. (why or why not can it work as a normative theory) What is Ubuntu as a normative theory: Ubuntuism places the emphasis on sharing and participation in collective life, which is in contrast to Western individualistic freedom of the self. A person is defined with reference to the community or A person is born for the other. Emphasis on community and collectively. We need to be careful not to see collectivism in the sense of communism or socialism, but rather to see the individual as a unique centre of shared life. Community is the context in which personhood is defined. Negotiation, inclusiveness, transparency and tolerance. Ubuntu as a normative theory: when it comes to mass communication the emphasis is on community and collectivity when it comes to public interest the emphasis is on the community A media that provides freedom of expression, space for the concerns, ideas and opinions of the community. Freedom of expression is measured in terms of the wellbeing of the community. When it comes to public interest, the same emphasis would be placed on the community. Thus Stimulating citizen and community participation. It is therefore important that the journalist should act (ethically) in harmony with the morality or principles of the community. This is therefore a journalism that does not place a high value on objectivity. The journalist needs to get involved in dialogue with the community. Whatever goes to print should be assessed in terms of the impact of the story on the community. Fourie (2007) argues that South Africa should adopt the post-modern acknowledgement of difference and diversity. In this way South African media would reflect the realities of South African society. In practice this requires reporting that: Stimulates interaction among citizens and reporters and between citizens and politicians Enables people to come to terms with their everyday experiences Acknowledges the complexity of a matter or an issue Is not the hurried conclusion of an observer Penetrates the moral dynamics underlying the issue Is interpreted against the background of the communitys contexts, beliefs, values and needs. Ubuntus role: Bonding a community Dialogue towards reaching consensus based on the social values and morals in and of a community SA suited for postmodern thought, thus including UBUNTU How does ubuntuism differ from the functions and social responsibility of the media in western normative theory? Western media thought and focus: Information, surveillance, entertainment and educational roles Media freedom and right to protection in order to be able to fulfil its social responsibility The individual right to information, surveillance, entertainment and education The emphasis thus moves: From the media as informant, gatekeeper, entertainer and educator TO media as mediator From the media as observer TO the media as participant and negotiator. May have negative consequences for freedom of expression: Fourie mentions May have severe media restrictions, (as in the history of apartheid where the country excluded the majority from rights) with regard to patriotic media Distinctiveness of ubuntu as an African moral philosophy compared to Western communitarianism and its associated civic journalism Changed nature of contemporary African culture and values, values often far removed from traditional African culture and values Political misuse of moral philosophy Nature of media in a globalised world and the changed nature of the media landscape needs to be considered. Entertainment: Much of the media produced today serves for the purpose of entertainment Inform and educates on a latent and manifest level the five motifs prerequisite for experiencing pleasure and gratification identity, = entertainment focuses on human relations ability, = gives problem-solving possibilities survival, =awareness of eternal values (freeing from anxiety about destruction and death) understanding = of reality and knowledge. shedding new light on reality (youre not alone) From a rhetorical perspective the individual determines their interpretation of entertainment  ® according to identity, social relation You can consider family series, police and action dramas or situation comedies, soap operas, game shows, From a behavioural perspective entertainment is associated with the human ability to identify with others project and introject feelings but also with distancing from others Entertainment also makes a visual impact on the viewer Viewers become outsiders (not participants) Entertainment content (like any form of play) is always voluntary. Introjection = viewer adopts feelings of other party Projection = viewer projects feelings on other party (actors, characters) People are entertained when they produce their own opinions on these situations. Study Unit 5 (Chap 5) The Effects of mass communication (Effect Studies) Importance of understanding media effects: Strategic importance: to understand that messages specific response certain circumstance = strategically important in political, social awareness, marketing and advertising campaigns. Scientific importance: contributes to the beneficial use of the media for the improvement of peoples circumstance and society in general Ethical importance: Responsibility of communication workers to know about the possible consequences of their work on the lives of people and society Effects studies seek to discover describe and explain the medias specific effects on our behaviour and thinking in a specific way. E.G. The impact of pornography, violence and / or crime portrayed in and by the media on peoples behaviour. Makes use of mainly quantitative research techniques such as content analysis, survey research. CATEGORISING MEDIA AFFECTS: Write a paragraph in which you discuss the media effects that can be identified in these articles. Behavioral effects: Cognitive effects Media messages can affect our knowledge and thinking about something (e.g. thinking about racism) Affective effects Media messages can affect our feelings about something (e.g. child abuse, terrorism, violence.) Cognitive effects Media messages can affect our behaviour towards something or someone (e.g. contribute to political rising against a government, org or group Manifest and latent effects Manifest when we know that we have been influenced by media messages Latent when we are not aware of its influence Intended and unintended effects May have been planned to achieve a specific effect (e.g. HIV awareness campaign may be intended to warn people against disease Or not planned or intended (e.g. May teach certain people how to spread the disease Time-scale effects Short term message exposure Exposure to single message like one programme after that person forgets about it Intermediate message exposure Exposure to a series of related messages like a series on TV (e.g product campaign, stopping smoking) Long term exposure Many exposures to related messages over time (e.g. media violence, pornography or awareness of environmental issues) may change our response or behaviour over a long time McQuail main kinds of media-induced effects: Intended change Unintended change Minor change (intended or not) Reinforcing what already exists (no change) The media can prevent change Planned and unplanned effects: Planned effects: Propaganda An ongoing campaign to influence peoples minds by focusing on negative aspects of an opponent / topic. Withholding positive or objective information E.g. in the political arena Agenda-setting Framing Media campaigns An advertising campaign to promote a specific product or educational development. E.g. Topic people knew initially little or nothing about like global warming and its effects Knowledge distribution Unplanned effects: The medias contribution to cultural change The medias contribution to Socialisation Reality defining the medias interpretations of the realities of daily life and how we should understand them Media violence if the film or tv programme causes violent behaviour in an individual or amongst group The medias contribution to Institutional change The medias contribution to Collective reaction Effect theories: Short-term theories: The hypodermic needle theory Two-step-flow theory The uses and gratification theory Long-term theories: Accumulation theory Diffusion of innovation theory Modelling theory Social expectation theory Meaning theory Stereotype theory Agenda-setting theory Framing Spiral of silence theory List the theories and briefly discuss Also list some of own examples to illustrate the theories discussed 1. Short-term theories: The hypodermic needles theory: What do the media do to people? Certain values, ideas and attitudes are injected into the individual media user, resulting in particular behaviour. The recipient is seen as a passive and helpless victim of media impact. Anomie state to which a group or individual is prone when they feel that their accepted values, norms and culture is threatened Usually in countries in the throes of change. New legislations and media reports on them extensively, reflecting on thinking of society, infusing moral debates often to the point of mass hysteria. (e.g. Malema AWB.) Two-step-flow theory: What do people do to the media? Mediating factors. Media users are not at the mercy of the media, but selectively expose themselves on the basis of culture, education, expectations etc. Thus exposing themselves selectively to what they agree to or understand Family, colleagues and friend filter media users interpretation and experience, acting as buffer for one-sided interpretations Opinion leaders represent a further buffer In a commercial media system, media represents a divergent of interpretations on a certain topic The uses and gratifications theory: What do people to with the media? Diversion As a distraction to escape from their routines and problems The gratification is an emotional release of a temporary nature Personal relations Interaction with others, discussing what they have read, seen or listened to The gratification is one that provide content of companionship and sociability Personal identity Media content is used to explore, challenge, adjust or confirm personal identity Use content to compare themselves and their values and situations with those of others Surveillance Media users need and get information about issues that can affect them directly or indirectly The gratification is one that satisfies the need for information about immediate and distant world circumstances 2. Long-term theories: Accumulation theory: Media focus (a newspaper or different newspapers by example) repeatedly + consistent + over a long period, focus on a specific topic= changes in beliefs, attitudes and behaviour. Focus attention and produce messages on specific problems or issues (E.g. race, discrimination, the environment, social habits, crime, divorce, style, sex, politics) Over extended period of time focus stays and presentation corroborate each other Individuals become aware of these messages, and a growi