Korean Beauty Soaps

Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) is the korean government's public broadcaster. In the past, if one would want to catch a program on kbs outside korea that would be extremely difficult unless one has a major satellite dish sitting behind his or her backyard. So how did a television network such as kbs made it to tiny singapore?

It's called globalisation of mass media. It is a global phenonmenon that refers to the competitive process by which media companies attempt to acquire a larger share of the profits available in the international markets. the television launch was in 1961, and it only had KBS World, korea's international network, launched 1st july 2003. so why was there a 42 years lag?

Media groups begin their globalisation of media by enforcing a 2 part strategy. First, they have to establish strong domestic roots, KBS have done so that they have become the biggest of the 3 television networks in korea. after securing homebase, they are then able to spend surplus resources in implementing an international development strategy, the result being kbs world.
Of course there is more to globalisation than just a 2 prong strategy, there are other factors and methods involved, but that is the very foundation of globalisation of mass media.

At least when the day comes, I would know what I would have to do first in order to be a global television network. time to broadcast on youtube!

Rebirth Of Mother Earth

Nowadays, the media is constantly talking about saving natural resources and they have indeed come up with interesting advertisements. For example, in korea they have a KIA Forte Hybrid car commercial encouraging people to change to a much more eco-friendly car.



Narration: If you sit down and think about it, "green" nurtured us,
now its time to nurture "green" up. Decrease CO2, increase fuel-efficiency.

Its really comforting to see a multi-national corporation company such as KIA doing their bid to save "mother earth". To look deeper into it though, its rather peculiar as korea is known to be a high context culture, meaning that they place little or no importance on the message transmitted, the advert on the other hand seems to be a low context culture where more emphasis is placed on the message transmitted in hopes that it will reach out to millions of viewers.

On another note, there was a subway advertisment done for Samsung tesco, supermarkets and it was a really innovative and creative one! they wallpapered the wall with "groceries"! below is the picture.

Posse

Ever wondered why sometimes one would do something out of their comfort zone just to get along with a certain group of people? well i do. its called "group pressure" or more commonly known as "peer pressure".

Moreland & Levine came up with the evaluation process or group socialisation process which consists of 5 stages.

Stage 1 - Prospective member
from stage 1 you then become,
Stage 2 - New member
after which,
Stage 3 - Full member
now of course if you dont pull your own weight or if you have conflicts within the group then,
Stage 4 - Marginal member
then before you know it,
Stage 5 - Ex-member
bye bye.

So why do individuals do the weirdest things sometimes to gain acceptance in a group, because full membership requires time to obtain, thus one would then acquire idiosyncrasy credit by conforming to fulfill the need to be accepted.

Now during stages 1 and 2, the individual will conform, and learn how to balance between individual and group needs and also recognise the written and unwritten norms that comes with each level of the membership within the group. after which the individual would arrived at stage 3. Now here comes the fun part.

If the individual did not take note of the written and unwritten norms, he/she might step on the other group members' toes, thus creating friction resulting in stage 4, where increased avoidance and annoyance will occur.

If the situation is exacerbated, then sayonara posse, stage 5.

Euphoric Communication

I'm currently in a interracial relationship and in order my relationship to go strong, communication is a critical part or so I learnt from Knapp's model of relational development. It is a basically a description of the progression and development in relationships.

There are 2 parts, part 1 consists of stages 1-5 which is positive end meaning the coming together in a relationship, part 2 consists of stages 6-10 which is the negative end meaning the coming apart.

Coming Together

Stage 1 - Initiating
screening and filtering
Stage 2 - Experimenting
small talk, basically getting to know each other's cultures and backgrounds
Stage 3 - Intensifying
more intimacy invovled
Stage 4 - Integrating
becoming relational and slowly integrating into each other's lives
Stage 5 - Bonding
marriage

Coming Apart

Stage 6 - Differentiating
starting to reaffirm oneself in the relationship, having no regard for integration
Stage 7 - Circumscribing
communication is under restriction, one have to watch one says
Stage 8 - Stagnation
lack of joy and excitement within the relationship, no more "spark"
Stage 9 - Avoiding
withdrawing physically and emotionally
Stage 10 - Terminating

After learning all the 5 stages, I re-evaluate my relationship, and I say we are at stage 4. Though there are the occasionally jumps to stage 6 or 7 but never to the point where we withdraw ourselves physically and emotionally from one another. It has been said that couples in an interracial relationship have to go through the a fair number of conflicts due to cultural and background differences, but all can be solved with communication, without it, neither party would be able to express their feelings for one another and there would be a obvious lack of intimacy at that point.

I LOVE EUPHORIA.