Week 4 : Meme & Me

In today's society, it's pretty obvious that majority of the youngster (15-20s years old) are Internet users. Resulting from this phenomena, the internet have been "control" by something called the Meme.

A meme is "an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."[2] A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to selective pressures.[3]
- source: Wikipedia

Result from influence of Meme, today's society used these Meme to express themselves to any meme icon they seems fit. This includes The Troll


History Channel Guy (which usually used to express certain ethnic)


and so many more...

My point in this way of self-expression are linked with media anthropology which media (in this case the meme via Internet) effects the society (especially the youngsters)to not only recognized meme expression, but also used it to express their inner feeling or simply for entertainment.

To conclude, simple media such as comic strips (which are known where Meme's to be origin of) can influence socials group to behave and express themselves.

Week 3 : Get Connected

Since there aren't any specific title scope for this week's entry, i will put on my own personal entry for this week's post.

The basic understanding of media like most of us well known is that it is used as a medium from the author (creator, inventor, director, person who made the media form,etc) to transfer information, knowledges, ideas, to communicate to the audience(s). To make things simple, it is used to connect the author to the rest of the audience.

Back in the prehistoric age, cave walls are used by the people during that time to "communicate". In this context, the cave paintings are used to tell their (prehistoric men) lifestyle.

images source : http://vm.kemsu.ru

It's a really amazing connection between the prehistoric and our today's society to actually get "connected" regardless the boundaries of thousands of years in time. Through this "connection", came rise the influence to today's society. These influences effected our daily lifestyle such as entertainment, fashions, and so much more.

Time travelling forward to today's media : the Internet, movies, music. There is no doubt the boundaries of country border, cultural and different religious belief made "no" effect on today's Internet. With the rises of social networking such as Facebook and Twitter, an influence can be easily be effected to the user. Most of these influences are mostly looked negatively; especially in Eastern par tof the globe where youngster are easily influence to the "negative" lifestyle of the Western world.

Malaysian (A Malay; Muslim) influenced to Black Metal

source : http://pmr.penerangan.gov.my

Much is to say in the bad and good effects of media in Today's world. Though there is a big amount of positive outcomes from the usage of media, our society will pay more attention on looking at the negative part rather than the negative part of these effects.

To conclude:

A society can and will effect another society through a certain contact (in this case; entry: media form).

Week02 : Personal Observation

This week, i am assigned to do my own personal observation on a place of my own choice. This probably to get me ready (individually; personally) to complete the next following weeks' task in the group assignment of the same procedure/method. Being the group leader (group name : ATOM), it is vital for me to understand the basic process. This observation is mainly focusing on the groups of people in the location and their way behaviour.

Lucky for me, i had an opportunity to make my presences in a bird singing competition that was held in my hometown, Pulau Pinang. I took this advantage to research on the people and their behaviour as mentioned above.

Location : Giant Bayan Charu, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

Special Event/occasion : Bird Singing Competition

Below is some of the photos that i was able to take to describe the event that took place.

Since this is my first time to do this kind of observative research, excuse me if i may miss some details in my report.

Majority group attends : Malay ; middle-age (30s) ; veterans (40-70s)

Minor group attends : Chinese

Social behaviour:
- Most of them did not know each other

- they came from different kind of states in Malaysia (some even came from Singapore & Thailand)

- but a common interest (birds) binds them together to positively interact with one another

- some of them will eventually getting know each other at the end of the event

- common conversation topic : anything about the birds (price; rare breed; stories), goods price , politics

- all of them being very casual (usage of "bahasa kampung" of their own hometown instead of blending in)

- they will wait & observe as the competition goes on;

- either look how their competing bird performing or look at other people interesting bird performing

- some small salesmen take advantage to sell their products (accessories for bird cage; foods, drinks, etc)

Week01

First class in the first week and we are assigned to find out the meaning, information, definition or anything that indicate the following:

cross-disciplinary
describes any method, project and research activity that examines a subject outside the scope of its own discipline without cooperation or integration from other relevant disciplines. In crossdisciplinarity, topics are studied using foreign methodologies of unrelated disciplines, for example Ethics in clinical research and occupational health.

source : wikipedia

date taken : 19th Oct 2011

inter-disciplinary

is a method, or set of methods, used to teach a unit across different curricular disciplines. For example, the seventh grade Language Arts, Science and Social Studies teachers might work together to form an interdisciplinary unit on rivers.

source : wikipedia

date taken : 19th Oct 2011

trans-disciplinary

connotes a research strategy that crosses many disciplinary boundaries to create a holistic approach. It applies to research efforts focused on problems that cross the boundaries of two or more disciplines, such as research on effective information systems for biomedical research (see bioinformatics), and can refer to concepts or methods that were originally developed by one discipline, but are now used by several others, such as ethnography, a field research method originally developed in anthropology but now widely used by other disciplines.

source : wikipedia

date taken : 19th Oct 2011

qualitative research

is a method of inquiry employed in many different academic disciplines, traditionally in the social sciences, but also in market research and further contexts.^[1] Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior. The qualitative method investigates the why and how of decision making, not just what,where, when. Hence, smaller but focused samples are more often needed than large samples.

source : wikipedia

date taken : 19th Oct 2011

ethnographic research

involves a detailed description of the whole of a culture outside of the country of origin of the researcher. Traditionally those engaging in ethnographic research spend years in the place of study, also known as the “field.” As a result of the time spent living among communities, ethnographers have been able to produce thick written cultural descriptions known as ethnographies that communicate the information found in the field.

source : nps.gov

date taken : 2oth Oct 2011