The Straight-Edge and the Scene

Straight-Edge and the Scene For some youth it’s all about the scene. What is the scene? The scene is a general reference to the music venues in which these youth participate. The straight-edge subculture is one that many may not be familiar with. Why is this? Probably because the straight-edge lifestyle is one of the few countercultures in which the youth that is involved tries to steer clear of drugs and overindulgence. It is closely related to the hardcore/punk music scene. The straight-edge lifestyle refers to people who are involved with the hardcore/punk lifestyle but they refrain from drinking alcohol, using drugs, smoking cigarettes, and promiscuous sex. This subculture was created as a social movement against authority, drug abuse, and any type of overindulgence associated with punk rock (Kirchner, 2009). Background: the 1970’s to the Present Individuals who are straight edge take a pledge to live a drug, promiscuous, alcohol, and cruelty free lifestyle. Sometimes, this even extends into vegetarianism and veganism and Hare Krishna, a belief based on Hindu scripture (Kirchner, 2009). The basic philosophy of the straight-edge lifestyle centers around self control and regaining as much of one’s personal control over their lives as possible, by getting rid of the negative influences (Kirchner, 2009). Straight-edger’s, a common nickname, usually are involved with the environment, animal rights and pride their counterculture on keeping their focus on higher learning and a positive outlook (Wood, 2006). The straight-edge subculture emerged in the late 1970’s (Wood, 2006). The term straight-edge was coined by musician Ian MacKaye in a song called â€Å"Straight Edge† which he wrote for his band, Minor Threat. Their music was fast and powerful with angry and thoughtful lyrics, which is how straight-edge seemed to be viewed as at first. With further understanding, it was found that the straight-edge lifestyle was the opposite. In the 1970’s only a slew of prominent artists rejected drugs and alcohol and influenced the straight-edge ideology (Wood, 2006). After the term straight-edge was thrown out into the music community, many people picked up on it and many other bands for decades to come centered their music and lifestyle on the straight-edge, drug free lifestyle. Minor Threat was the first band to use the term straight edge and adopt the letter X as a representation of being straight-edge and living the lifestyle. The X symbol was believed to originate from the use of the letter on people who were underage (under 21) to symbolize that they were too young to drink at the shows and became the symbol for straight-edge by being used on album covers, as body art, and other paraphernalia (Kirchner, 2009). In the 1980’s the influence of music on the straight-edge seemed to be at an all-time high. Many bands seemed to be using the straight-edge lifestyle as a stepping stone and inspiration for their songs. During the mid-1980’s many of the vegetarianism and veganism ideas stemmed out and gripped straight-edge community members (Cogan, 2008). This propelled a trend towards animal rights and vegetarianism that would reach its peak in the 1990’s. Straight-edger’s want to be directly involved with both the music community in which they support, by either playing in a band or writing a webzine or article for the music and their regular community by helping with any aspect of it. Straight-edger’s use this subculture to move away from the stigma of destruction that hardcore and punk music seems to have veiled over the industry. Militant straight-edger’s were first identified in the early 1990’s. These individuals were characterized by less tolerance for those who were not straight-edge, more outspokenness, and more willingness to resort to violence in order to promote clean living and fight against homosexuality and abortion (Woods, 2006). This willingness to resort to violence led to some parts of the United States paying close attention to the straight-edge subculture and the subculture being treated as a gang by law officials. However, â€Å"a study done in 2006 suggests that a small minority of individuals who identify with the straight-edge subculture are violent. † (Woods, 2006: 38). In the 2000’s the straight-edge movement has become less violent and more about promoting a positive lifestyle. Straight-edge has moved out into different genres of music instead of staying specific to the punk/metal scene. The decline of aggressive behavior has been linked to the lack of a well known band leading the straight-edge movement (Irwin, 1999). The amount of tolerance from people who are straight-edge to non-straight edge participants has grown as well (Irwin, 1999). Deviant Theories Applied: Straight-Edge and Theories First, we have to ask why the straight-edge subculture is deviant. The straight-edge culture embraces moral inclination in a positive way. This subculture does not fit the â€Å"norms† of society. By abstaining from substances, sex, and other negative things, it makes this subculture stick out. If, in society, something about a group or person sticks out, they become deviant, which is departing from anything that is socially accepted or â€Å"usual† (Clinard, Meier, 2011). In the early 1990’s violence that was related to the straight-edge movement was high. Some militant actors used violence against random people and other straight-edge members who were drinking, smoking, or doing drugs in order to try and spread their substance free message. This violence was brought on because of their direct relation with the straight-edge culture. Functionalism can be used to describe this time period for the straight-edge activists. Functionalism describes how different social occurrences uphold and disturb social stability. It also claims that society needs crime to be functional and for various other reasons such as attaining group unity, innovation, and setting and preserving moral limitations. The straight-edge subculture has many moral limitations. They have a strict set of requirements that they have to follow in order to be considered straight-edge. The violence that took place by the straight-edge subculture was due to the fact that many who committed the violence, to random people or other straight-edge members, was for the preservation of their morals. Any type of substance abuse, promiscuity, and meat eating is an implicit sin for members of the straight-edge community. The disregard of these rules by both participants and non-participants in the straight-edge subculture alike were reason for some members in this group to become violent (Woods, 2006). Militant straight-edger’s used violence to try and force a straight-edge lifestyle onto others because they viewed, and for those who still use violence today, still view their lifestyle as the most morally right. The straight-edge lifestyle also indirectly calls for unity by forcing its members to follow the straight-edge lifestyle’s specific guidelines, such as not drinking. When members conflict with this or associate themselves with people who drink, smoke, or indulge in anything morally incorrect violence usually followed. In this subculture the deviance mainly applies to the push against abusing drugs, alcohol, and overindulging in any way. Why do individuals in the straight-edge community take this approach? The social learning theory may be able to explain this. The social learning theory asks how people become deviant and whether it is learned (Clinard, Meier, 2011). With this particular subculture it can be said that the majority of the straight-edge lifestyle is learned from music and peers. Many individuals who are involved in the straight-edge lifestyle found out about this lifestyle from the music scene or their friends. Others, driven to take part in the music scene, joined and others who wanted to be a part of a positive influence on their society because of music joined the straight-edge subculture (Woods, 2006). Many members of the straight-edge community became a part of it because it represented a break away from the increasing sexuality of rock music and the sexual revolution. The sexual revolution offered youth freedom and an alternative to the dating script and the straight-edge counterculture did the same (Kirchner, 2009). The straight-edge understanding embodied freedom as well. The freedoms between the two are quite different as one gave the freedom to indulge in one’s inclinations while the latter gives the freedom to make an intentional habit out of their choices to refrain from overindulgence. In society, sexual behavior is socially learned. What is acceptable and unacceptable sexually is made clear through social informative (Clinard, Meier, 2011). The straight-edge subculture tries to take sexuality back into a time where hooking-up was not the social norm. Being sexually promiscuous is frowned upon in society as well as in the straight-edge subculture. In society heterosexual deviance is an ongoing topic. The straight-edge society wants to be known for exactly the opposite of this. In society, sexual deviance is generally negative. Sometimes, women are objectified and men are a number of different things, which is why the straight-edge community rejects these ideas in order to show society that they have exerted control over their life by abstaining and â€Å"saving† their bodies (Woods, 2006). In the straight-edge society, the double tandard holds true as well because a lot of the time men who proclaim to be straight-edge may be being promiscuous at the time but can still claim the straight-edge lifestyle. A woman doing the same would no longer be looked at as straight-edge (Woods, 2006). Conclusion The straight-edge counterculture is one most interesting, yet unheard of subcultures. The reason why this subculture is so fascina ting is because of the values it represents. Although this group is vague and there are fewer members than before, the preservation of values is one of the many reasons to continue and study this fascinating unconventional group. Overindulgence is something that is common in this day and age. Drug addictions, sexual promiscuity, alcohol abuse, and other substance abuse are not shocking to hear about. These are daily occurrences that the straight-edge culture is trying to remove from their lives. From the 1970’s until now this culture has been constantly changing and rearranging itself to match the attitudes and music of the time. The straight-edge counterculture has been excellent in integrating modern ideas in with more traditional values, all while supporting the music scene. References Clinard, Marshall B. and Robert F. Meier. 2011. Sociology of Deviant Behavior. Belmont, California: Wadsworth. Cogan, Brain. 2008. The Encyclopedia of Punk. New York: Sterling. Kirchner, Michael. 2009. Edge: Perspectives on Drug Free Culture. DVD. California: Halo 8. Irwin, Darrell D. 1999. â€Å"The Straight-Edge Subculture: Examining the Youths’ the Drug Free Way. † Journal of Drug Issues. 20(2): 365 – 380. Wood, Robert T. 2006. Straightedge Youth: Complexity and Contradictions of Subculture. New York: Syracuse University Press.

AirAsia Consumer Behaviour Essay

1.0. Introduction AIRASIA: AirAsia is a Malaysian company, that introduced the Low Cost Carrier service to the domestic market and eventually the asian region. Currently AirAsia is  the leader in this market segment. Before it becomes the AirAsia that we all know today, AirAsia was a poorly performed company owned by a government-link company (GLC) in Malaysia, DRB-HICOM. In 2001, it was sold to the current owner, Tony Fernandes and its TuneAir company, for a sum of only RM1.00 or approximately US$0.30, together with its accumulated debt of RM40 million (AirAsia, 2008). Within two years, Tony Fernandes exceeds everyone’s expectations, and turned AirAsia to a profit making company. By the third year it was listed in the Kuala Lumpur bourse with outstanding IPO (initial Public Offer) of RM717.4 million (AirAsia, 2008). In 2006, the AirAsia was given the use of LCCT terminal in Malaysia, because its passenger load have expanded to such a capacity. This assignment will describe how AirAsia, managed to become the company it is today, started with a fleet of only 1 aircraft in 2001, to a fleet of 72 aircrafts, flies over 61 domestic and 108 international destinations, and operates over 400 flights daily from hubs located not only in Malaysia, but also Thailand and Indonesia, and launched AirAsia X for longer haul flights with its wide-body aircrafts, through the eyes of Consumer Behaviour, from psychological drivers, sociological drivers and consumer decision making process. 2.0. Psychological Drivers of consumer behaviour There are psychological drivers that influence the consumer’s behaviour. They are; motivation, perception, learning, values, beliefs and attitudes, and lifestyle, are useful for intrepeting the consumer’s buying process and directing the company’s marketing efforts. 2.1. Motivation. Motivation is the energizing force that causes behavior that satisfies a need. The needs are hierarchical, from the basic of it and higher. 2.1.1. Hierarchy of Needs From this Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, before AirAsia, air travel is generally considered in the higher hierarcy of needs, esteem, where some people intend to show others their ability to travel by air, and visit destinatations that others can’t. This is what AirAsia realized, they created the tagline â€Å"now everyone can fly†, hence creating the awarenes to the people, and also created the motivation that now air travel is no longer  considered in the ‘esteem’ hierarchy of needs, people can travel just to fulfil their Love/Belonging needs, whether people travel to seek the ones they love, friends or family, or they travel to please those loved ones, such as holiday destinations, by air. 2.1.2. Means-end chain. Means-end chain follow a time-honered approach for thinking about motivational issues. The central premise — that objects have value only because they produce desirable consequences or enable one to avoid negative consequences — is at the heart of most modern conceptualizations of motivation (Atkinson, 1964, Lewin, 1951, Tolman 1959). The above chain shows that at the end of the day, a consumer who purchase AirAsia as way of their air travel, will have excess money to save or to spend on something else in their travel or holiday. The ad above, shows that because of the AirAsia’s cheap price of airticket to London, consumers get to spend their money on something else, like shopping and visiting heritages places in London. AirAsia marketing people created the motivation of a desirable consequences if consumer purchase their service 2.2. Perception. Perception is â€Å"the process of assembling sensations into a useable mental representation of the world,..perception creates faces, melodies, works of art, illusions out of the raw material of sensation† (Coon, 1983) or to summarize, is the process by which physical sensations are selected, organised and interpreted. Individuals with the same need might not purchase or choose similar products or service due to the difference in perception. From the perceptual process model above (Solomon, 2006), AirAsia succeded in creating stimulations and attentions, and try to generalized the perception of people that now everyone can fly. Obviously they stimulate the sights first, by using the same tagline in every ads, media and online and billboards. Thus, consumers remember this information, which results when they want to purchase an airline ticket, AirAsia is the first choice comes to mind. 2.3. Learning Learning is â€Å"the process by which relatively permanent changes occur in behavioural potential as a result of experience† (Anderson, 1995). AirAsia’s marketing people understand consumer’s learning process affecting their decision making. 2.3.1. Behavioural Learning. Repeated exposure to an experience will result in the process of developing an automatic response to that particular situation. In the AirAsia case, the company is trying to develop that automatic response is choosing AirAsia as their airline, everytime a customer wants to buy an airline ticket. e.g: As AirAsia owns by Tune group who also owns the Hotel chain of Tune Hotel, the company able to sell air tickets together with hotel fares, resulted in cheaper and convenient way to travel. Customers learned that through the website, they can purchased the air ticket together with hotel. This resulted in repeated behaviour of purchasing AirAsia ticket, as the customer find it more convenient. 2.3.2. Cognitive Learning. AirAsia is trying to make connections between the two ideas of purchasing airline ticket together with the hotel. But now, as the customers uses the AirAsia website to purchase the air ticket, they can also choose a wider range of hotel choices, not just the AirAsia’s own Tune Hotel Chain. AirAsia through their website now also act as an agent, where customer, as they’re saving money by buying airasia’s ticket, have the options to spend more whether to indulge in more luxurious way of staying, by choosing more luxurious hotels that now available in the company’s website. The above screenshot of airasia’s website shows that cosumers can purchase airticket and hotel vouchers at the same time. 2.3.3. Brand Loyalty. One of the way of doing applicating learning principles by AirAsia is introducing their reward programs to AirAsia’s customers, there are the frequent flyer miles, or free ticket, or holiday vouchers to give away to its customers. These things reinforce their behaviour and build brand loyalty toward AirAsia itself. AirAsia is trying to educate the people, they themselves become the catalyst of the learning process. The outcome of learning is memory. By putting inputs and information out there, â€Å"now everyone can fly†, even the people who are not in needs of air travel, learned that there is now a cheap way to fly. Hence, this information is recovered from memory when these consumers are in need of air travel, and choose AirAsia. 2.4. Beliefs and Attitudes. Beliefs and attitudes play an essential role in influencing the buying decisions of consumers. No matter how good the service is, but if the consumer feels it is useless, he/she would never purchase it. From the attitude-towards-the-ad models, AirAsia, creates such an exposure to ads for consumers, with the same theme of red and white, in their billboards ads, website’s look, magazine and newspaper’s ads, thus affecting the beliefs towards the AirAsia brand. Constant exposure to these ads and commercials, with red and white coloured themed, create the attitude of choosing AirAsia, when the time is come for consumer to make a choice. 2.5. Lifestyle. A person’s activities, interests and opinions, often resulted in that particular person’s lifestyle. The technology nowadays created a new lifestyle in people’s life. Internet and smartphones is becoming more and more important to people. AirAsia recognized this, beside website as their purchasing portal, now people also can purchase air ticket and hotel voucher as well through their smartphones, by creating application for smartphone’s plattforms such as iOS and android. 3.0. Sociological Drivers of consumer behaviour 3.1. Personal Influence. Personal influences resulted from the interaction between one individual and others. These influences can also come from opinion leaders, where one individual can exert certain infulence over other people. e.g., in a working environment, when a manager decided to use AirAsia, even for his/her personal travel, his/her subordinances will be influenced to do the same  thing. 3.2. Reference Groups. When a certain individual looks to a group of people, as a basis of self-appraisal or as a source for personal standards, these group of people can be considered as Reference groups. Marketers must understand: how groups influence individual behaviour, how group influences vary accross products and brands, how to use group influences to develop effective strategies. Recognizing these groups can help the marketing people of AirAsia for their marketing strategies. There are three types of reference groups to create a difference in marketing implications: 3.2.1. Membership group. A membership group is where an individual is actually belong to. 3.2.2. Aspiration group. An aspiration group is a group where an individual want to be indentified to. 3.2.3. Dissociative group. A dissociative group is a group where one individual wants to maintain a distance to, because of differences in values or behaviour. 3.3. The Family. Differential influence of family members can affect the pruchasing decisions. AirAsia recognized this by introducing one credit card for all transactions in their home website. In asian region, in a family, decision usually carried out by the head of the family (the father), or the one who is providing for the whole family. Thus, even where a situation like a joint decision making is arised, the father who has the biggest income usually make the decision. In their website, a father, can create a username, which already included with all the credit card’s data. In this case, any family member who wants to purchase air ticket can easily use their husband’s/father’s username. 3.4. Social Class. Social class is a relatively permanent, homogeneous divisions in a society into which people sharing similar values, interests, and behaviour are grouped. The determinant of social class usually include occupation, source of income and education. AirAsia’s marketing strategies and advertisement spotted these social classes in society, especially the middle-class. The  rise of middle-class economy in asia pacific region created more value-oriented consumer, where value for money is important. Co-workers, students even housewives group can now easily travel and spend holiday together. 3.5. Culture Culture refers to the set of values, ideas and attitudes that are accepted by a homogeneous group of people and transmitted to the next generation. The South East Asian region, where AirAsia is based, is translated to a growing market. By studying the buying patterns of these people, AirAsia can focused their marketing strategies. These growing market in South East Asia, which also recognized by the growing economies, means more and more people have an extra disposable income. The South East Asian people are easily affected by others. A trend is easily formed, if a group of workers, families or students are using AirAsia to travel and explore new places and shared their experiences through social media, it can easily influence other similar groups in the society to do the same thing. 4.0. Consumer Decision Making process. 4.1. Problem recognition. First stage of the consumer decision making process is the problem recognition. At this stage, a consumer is perceiving a need. In AirAsia’s case, is the need to travel. In some AirAsia’s advertisement, the marketing people shows a numerous travel destination, with each separate own picture, and shows how cheap it is now to get to those places by using AirAsia as their airline. Hence, it is underlining the need of the people. This relates to marketing mix, of PRODUCT, PRICE and PLACE. For PRODUCT and PRICE, no airlines before airasia can provide this low fare of airtickets. As for PLACE, airasia provides more destination regionally than any other airlines and also have new sales office in major cities not just in Malaysia, but also Indonesia and the Phillippines. Another thing, the internet booking, how airasia manage to save consumer’s time in purchasing of airticket, people can now buy their airtickets online, or even from their smartphones. The ad shows how cheap it is to travel to Paris. The need to travel,  especially overseas, maybe as honeymoon, is already there, but now AirAsia, with these commercials all over the place, is enhancing that need. 4.2. Information search The information search by the consumers, clarify what options are there available to them. Which airline is the cheapest, which one is the most comfortable, hassle free and so on. There are two steps of information search; 4.2.1. Internal Search. Internal search is where one search one’s memory, recall any previous experience or information, in this case, related to air travel. An individual may remember how hard it is to purchase a ticket using a physical store, where the need to be at the travel agent physically and purchased the ticket. In marketing mix, PROMOTION, airasia is going all-out with their â€Å"now everyone can fly† tagline. Consumer can see this tagline everywhere; billboards on roadsides, magazines, newspaper, even on news website as pop-up advertisement. Airasia is trying to plant this tagline inside everyone’s mind, hence, by the time they want to purchase airticket, they straight away remember of airasia’s â€Å"now everyone can fly†. 4.2.2. External Search. Sources for external information are usually friends and family, public sources, and marketer-dominated source. Marketer-dominated sources are where AirAsia’s marketing team excelled at. Their advertising aggressive all over the place and media, their websites are constantly updating with new time-limited promotions, causing people to access it more often. Now, consumer’s can even subscribe for their newsletter by emails. In relation to marketing mix, airasia provide new PRODUCT/SERVICE. The screenshot above shows AirAsia comes up with hassle free website, with its flash page technology, that shows multiple destinations pictures that always changing in the home page. 4.3. Evaluation of alternatives At this stage, a consumer is evaluating what are the alternatives of choices  he/she has. The company will always enhancing what are their superiorities over competitors. PRICE is one obvious thing why consumer choose AirAsia, theirs will often cheaper than others. Other way doing this is always one step ahead in the technology side of marketing. AirAsia is the first airline that providing online purchasing through the internet. Now, where other low-cost airline also have the same feature on their website, AirAsia have come up with smartphone application. This application can be downloaded to a consumer’s smartphone, and he/she can easily make flight queries or purchasing ticket(s) or even buying hotel voucher, just by using his/her smartphone. 4.4. Purchase decision At this stage, consumer are making their decision in which airline service to choose. AirAsia’s marketing people understand at the previous stages of CDP, they have excelled. Hence, at this stage, their marketing mix, PRODUCT, PRICE, PROMOTION and PLACE of AirAsia have succesfully target the consumer and guiding them into purchasing their service. 4.5. Postpurchase behaviour At this stage, the consumer compares the service they purchased with expectations and is either satisfied of dissastified. Expentancy disconfirmation with performance approach (Oliver, 1997) and the balancing paradigm (Fournier and Mick, 1999) are two current theories of consumer satisfaction. Satisfaction more likely to lead to repeat purchase/loyalty and positive Word of Mouth (WOM). Dissatisfaction more likely to lead to brand switching, complaints and negative word of mouth (WOM). In AirAsia’s case, they try to minimize the consumer’s expectations as low as possible. The two pictures above are the screenshot of airasia website when consumer purchasing airticket. It clearly shows that passengers will not get in-flight refreshment, no complimentary luggage, no choice of seats, unless they purchase all of these things in the website. By doing this, AirAsia managed to get their customer’s expectations as low as possible, beacuse they don’t promise other than the service that you, as a customer, already purchased online. 5.0. Conclusion Airasia has established themselves as a profit making company and a succesful low cost carrier that prompted other airlines in the south east asian region to do the same thing. This company build their brand name with their tag line â€Å"now everyone can fly†, telling people that flying is now more affordable and easy. This tagline is also shaping their marketing mix. For their Product, Price, and Place, airasia clearly introduced a new way of flying by airlines, a cheap and easy one. At Consumer Decision Making process, the Product and Price influenced consumer at the Problem recognizition and Information search step process. With Promotion, they influence the steps of Information search and Purchase decision in the CDP process. Airasia is so aggressive in their promotional activities, by putting their tagline â€Å"now everyone can fly† in every advertisement and commercials. By understanding the psychological drivers and sociological drivers of consumer, airasia have executed its marketing plan briliantly, putting the type of advertisement that suitable. By understanding the Consumer Decision making process, AirAsia provide what kind of values that consumer seeks and asses in the information search, and evaluation of alternatives stages. By the time consumer making their purchase decision and postpurchase behaviour, these values are good enough to make them purchase airasia’s service and by not giving the consumer high expectations from the first time, the satisfaction rate from consumer is high. The succes story of AirAsia marketing strategies shows how important it is for a brand to understand the psychological drivers, sociological drivers and the decision making process of consumer behaviour. 6.0. Bibliography AirAsia.com, 2013. Corporate profile. [online] Available at: [Accessed 22 December 2013]. Cohen, J, B, and Warlop, L. A Motivational Perspective on Means-End Chains. [online] Available at: [Accessed 30 December 2013]. Hawkins, D. I., Best, R. J. and Coney, K. A., 2001. Consumer Behaviour: Building Marketing Strategy. 8th ed. New York: Irwin/McGraw-Hill. Lim, Y, K., Mohamed, R., Ariffin, A. and Guan, G, G., 2009. Branding an Airline: A Case Study of AirAsia. [online] Available at: [Accessed 22 December 2013]. Management of Technology, 2009. The AirAsia company strategic management:†How AirAsia can be a leader in the lowest cost carrier in the airplane industry†. [online] Available at: [Accessed 22 December 2013]. MANAGEMENT STUDY GUIDE, 2013. Social factors affecting Consumer Behaviour. [online] Available at: [Accessed 25 December 2013]. MANAGEMENT STUDY GUIDE, 2013. Psychological factors affecting Consumer Behaviour. [online] Available at: [Accessed 25 December 2013]. Onwutalobi and Claret, A., 2008. Understanding Marketing Mix in AirAsia Airline Bhd. [online] codewit. Available at: [Accessed 30 December 2013]. Sdsu, 2013. how to print notes. [online] Available at: [Accessed 25 December 2013]. Schiffman, L. G. and Kanuk, L. L., 2000. Consumer Behaviour. 7th ed. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. The Market, Media, Life., 2013. MARKETING 101: PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS OF CONSUMER BUYER BEHAVIOUR. [online] Available at: [Accessed 25 December 2013]. The Market, Media, Life., 2013. MARKETING 101: SOCIAL FACTORS AFFECTING CONSUMER BUYER BEHAVIOUR. [online] Available at: [Accessed 25 December 2013]. THE TIMES 100, 2013. Marketing mix (Price, Place, Promotion, Product). [online] Available at: [Accessed 30 December 2013]. USC Marshall, 2008. Consumer Behaviour. [online] Available at: [Accessed 25 December 2013]. Yaashoda, Y., 2012. AirAsia Berhad: Strategic analysis of a leading low cost carrier in the Asian region. [online] Available at: [Accessed 22 December 2013]. Yeoh, E. and Chan, J, K, L., 2011. Malaysian Low Cost Airlines: Key Influencing Factors on Customers’ Repeat Purchase Intention. [online] IDOSI Publications. Available at: [Accessed 22 December 2013]. Yuswohady., 2012. Consumer 3000: Revolusi Konsumen Kelas Menengah Indonesia.

Actions means more than words

Actions means more than words Facial expressions and body language communicate one’s intentions and emotions far better than words. Leo Tolstoy, in Anna Karenina, describes a plethora of physical descriptions, enabling the reader to more completely understand the characters’ emotional state of mind. Other characters and the narrator frequently describe Anna’s shoulders. When Vrosnky and Levin look at them, they have a surge of excitement. Dolly and Kitty notice them and are impressed. The narrator depicts her shoulders in times of discontentment or pain. In all three cases, Anna’s shoulders signify the mood at the time of the interaction. Anna’s shoulders are a tangible manifestation of her mental and emotional state, and what kind of energy she expresses. When Anna’s shoulders are described for the first time, Anna also acts promiscuously for the first time, by dancing with Vronsky, whom is expected to propose to Kitty. Kitty admires Anna’s dress, which exposed her shoulders and chest. She emphasized that â€Å"the black dress with luxurious lace was not seen on her; it was just a frame, and only she was seen – simple, natural, graceful, and at the same time gay and animated† (p.79). Anna’s dress choice is evidence of her mood; she wanted to fit within the â€Å"frame† of society’s expectations for her, yet still expose her exuberant nature. While still conforming to society’s expectations, she sympathizes with social outcasts, foreshadows her future affair. At the ball when Anna is exposing her shoulders, Kitty walks over to Anna, and interrupts a conversation, where Anna is saying, â€Å"No, I don’t throw stones (p.79). This is a reference in the bible when a woman is caught in the act of adultery. The woman is dragged into public, completely naked. The crime for adultery at the time was stoning. Jesus says, â€Å"He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her† (John 8:7). When Anna says, I don’t cast stones, she is saying that she is not without sin, but also that she may sympathize with a woman who commits adultery. The circumstances – her flirtatious mood, exposed shoulders, and the conversation foreshadow her leaving her husband in favor of Vronsky, her future lover. Once Anna becomes more comfortable with her expressive mannerism, Vronsky follows the opportunity until they consummate their relationship. The narrator compares this interaction; â€Å"as the murderer falls upon this body with animosity, as if with passion, drags it off and cuts it up, so [Vronsky] covered [Anna’s] face and shoulders with kisses† (pp.149-150). In this graphic description, the reader becomes aware of the toxic physical relationship the characters have created. Anna’s shoulders the tangible revealing of her previous mental restraint inform the reader of the characters’ actions. By comparing their physical relationship to a murder, Anna and the reader is forced to recognize that Vronsky killed her previously admired social standing because of â€Å"these kisses† on her shoulder, (p.150). Yet, she holds Vronsky’s love closely. He killed her mental resistance, and in doing so, encouraged her promiscuous behavior to grow. After an extensive stretch of time, Anna is dying from puerperal fever, and she reconsiders the growth of her scandal. She no longer holds her defiance as a dear characteristic, which is apparent in how she now carries her shoulders. As she lay in bed, â€Å"The doctor took her arms away, carefully laid her back on the pillow and covered her shoulders† (p.413). She is no longer in a position of physical power, which is represented by the doctor covering her shoulders, as if to say, you need to stop exposing yourself and return to your previous way of life. The physical recovering instigates verbal control, which she used to easily possess. She demands that Alexi Alexandrovich uncover Vronsky’s face and forgive him, which he does. Once this is complete, she prepares to die. Contrary to her plan, Anna miraculously lives, and resorts back to her previous risquà © relationship with Vronsky, much to society’s gossiping pleasure. Suppressed by the lies and exclusion, Anna decides to go to the opera to prove she does not care about society’s expectations for her. Vronsky describes Anna as she sits in a box at the show; â€Å"The setting of her head on her handsome, broad shoulders, and the restrained excitement and brilliance of her eyes and her whole face reminded him of her just as he had seen her at the ball in Moscow† (p. 546). Her shoulders are described as broad, which could mean they were drawing more attention than usual. It is interesting that the singer’s shoulders are the only other shoulders described in this scene. Obviously, being the main performer, the singer is seeking attention. By also wearing a revealing dress, Anna is competing for attention with the performer. She succeeds. Vronsky, not looking for Anna knows where she is sitting â€Å"from the direction of all eyes† (p.545). Anna is the center of attention. She ends up in a cyclical process: Anna is excited to prove she can act however she wants, so she dresses in a revealing manor exposing her shoulders, then when people stare and gossip she becomes even more excited. By showing her shoulders, she is physically displaying her emotional state of excited defiance toward social expectations. In Anna’s final moments of life, she looses her mental vigor. When she is at the train station looking for Vrosnky in a completely agitated state, she suddenly thinks of the train as a way to end her misery. â€Å"Exactly at the moment when the space between the wheels came opposite her, she dropped the red bag, and drawing her head back into her shoulders, fell on her hands under the carriage, and lightly, as though she would rise again at once, dropped on to her knees† (p. 768). Tolstoy describes Anna as â€Å"drawing her head back into her shoulders,† which could be a metaphor for her physical and emotional trial. During her entire relationship with Vronsky, there has been a struggle between what she verbally says and what her body reveals. When she meets Vronsky for the first time, â€Å"she deliberately extinguished the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will,† (p.61). At a party she encourages him to leave her alone, and when he refuses says , That only shows you have no heart, But her eyes said that she knew he had a heart, and that was why she was afraid of him.† (p.139). This is a reoccurring struggle, so when Anna finally has no more mental strength to fight the oppression of her situation, she acts purely how her body has wanted to the entire time. In her dying moments, her head, which represents her mental strength, falls onto her shoulders, which represents her physical desire. Her final moments are her mental ending her externally expressed internal struggle. This struggle can be related to Vronsky’s attention and Anna’s resistance. It is not accidental that both Anna’s shoulders and promiscuousness appear at the same time; when her shoulders are described, and when they are not, are based on her intentions. At the train station, when she first arrives in Petersburg and meets Vronsky, â€Å"she deliberately extinguished the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will†(p. 61). Upon their meeting, her shoulders are not depicted. Every other feature is described: her figure, expression, head, eyes, eyelashes, and lips. She tries to distinguish the light, which shows she is committed to maintaining her social expectations, despite her attraction to Vronsky. Similarly, at a party she encourages him to leave her alone, and again, her shoulders are not described. By dressing to expose her shoulders, she no longer attempts to restrain the defiant energy within her. Tolstoy is aware of the relationship between mental thought and physical action; he expresses his understanding of body language as a form of communication through his descriptions of Anna’s shoulders. While Anna’s mental strength is what was extinguished by her inner struggle, other characters are aware of her trials because of her expression of her body, particularly her shoulders. When she allowed Vronsky to kill her social standing, she introduced the beginning to her tragic end. Had she never exposed her shoulders, she would have maintained her moderate existence and extensive prestige.

Finite Element Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

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Paraphrasing my Business administration Capstone assignment Essay - 2

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Hardware Replacement Project - Essay Example Management also needs to consider the various factors that are at play when choosing projects that deliver the best business value. It also includes the factors that influence project risk and strategies for minimizing risks. How the five key variables of project management relate to this scenario The five key variables of project management namely scope, time, cost, quality, and risk apply to this scenario in that their proper analysis can guide the management of this project on organizing and accomplishing the work. They also guide on how to direct activities, report project progress, control project execution and analyzing project results. Scope as a variable of project management defines what and what is not to be included in a new project. In this scenario, the organization should define all the work that needs to be undertaken for successful completion of the new CRM solution project. This will ensure that the scope of the project/work/activities undertaken do not expand beyond what was originally intended. In project management, time refers to the quantity of time required to complete a project. Before the new project can begin, the organization requires to establish the time needed to complete major components of the new CRM solution project. ... Since this is an information systems project, the management should also add the cost of software, hardware and workspace. In project management, quality acts as an indicator of the extent to which the result of a project meets the project objectives specified the management. In this scenario, the quality of the new CRM solution is evidenced by the level of improvements in decision-making and organizational performance in regard to customer relations. In project management, risks refer to the possible problems that would threaten a project’s success. As for this scenario, risks include those possible problems that might prevent the new CRM solution from achieving its objectives. They can achieve this by lowering the quality of its output, increasing its cost and time, and preventing the completion of the project. Considerations that must be applied when selecting projects that deliver the best business value When choosing from a range of projects, organizations should select p rojects that deliver the best business value. In essence, these are projects that promise the greatest benefits to the organization. The two major considerations that must be applied when selecting this type of projects include costs and benefits, and how they relate to the organization’s information systems plan. The costs should be lower than the benefits presented by the project but if the costs are more than the benefits, the project should be rejected. In addition, the investment should represent an attractive return on the capital invested by the firm. In order to know this, the organization is required to conduct additional financial analysis after ascertaining that

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PP3003 Research Question Paper - Essay Example Milward suggests that the founding fathers of the EU actually intended their states to maintain sovereignty in the system and that only by binding the economies of the states to some extent together could their independence in a rapidly changing world be maintained. As Milward wrote in his The European Rescue of the Nation-State, "The reinvigorated nation-state had to choose the surrender of a degree of national sovereignty to sustain its reassertion . . .† (Milward 1992) The post-war system was such that European states would have had a harder time existing if they did not rely on one another. Without the EU they would not have as much independence as they have today. This is an interesting argument but is not a convincing one. It is one that makes more sense in the 1990s than it does in the aftermath of the recent expansion and economic crisis. The truth is that by overreaching, the EU has come to damage the independence of the nation state. Countries such as Greece and Irela nd have given up a great deal of sovereignty in recent months (Brown 2011). The EU bureaucracy and power have grown dramatically and eclipsed weaker countries. The EU has become, in some senses, a monster that has a life of its own. Nation states are vanishing within its bailout mechanism and refusal to allow individual devaluation. Milward's argument may have made more sense when he first made it but time has not been kind to it. Bomberg, E. (2003): The European Union: How Does It Work? (The New European Union Series). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brown, JM (Jan. 2011): "How the Celtic Tiger Lost its Roar", Prospect. Milward, A (1992): The European Rescue of the Nation-State. New York: Routeledge. 2) What impact did the ECJ’s rulings in the Van Gend en Loos and Costa cases have on the development of the EU legal order? The rulings led to the establishment of the fact that the treaty creating the EC also created a new legal order, effectively creating a supra-national bod y of law. The Van Gend en Loos case related to tariffs between companies (Barnard 2007). One country wanted to raise a tariff on a chemical but this was found to breach EC law, as the purpose of the treaty was to reduce tariffs between countries. For the first time, it was determined that countries were required to obey rules higher than those created in their own legislatures. The countries of the EC were binding themselves together with new laws that in many senses encroached upon their independence and sovereignty. This case created the doctrine of direct effect, which was perhaps not foreseeable some of the new signatories to the EC treaty, whereby provisions in the treaty could have direct legal effect and overpower their own domestic law. Costa is a case that confirmed this idea. EC/EU law is paramount where a conflict occurs between the two laws. This has since been somewhat weakened by many national courts which suggest that this type of paramountcy only really occurs when t he EU law is in sync with the national constitution of the affected country. Not every EU law will therefore be paramount over every national law. There is some room to manoeuvre (Kent 2001). We can see from this important rulings by the ECJ the beginning of the legal order of the EU superstate. There were many unforeseen consequences to the signing of the first treaty and the beginning of ever closer union. Many legal

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Mesopotamia Case Essay Example for Free

Mesopotamia Case Essay HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIAN RELIGION The name Mesopotamia, is a Greek name which means ‘the land between the rivers’, refers to the geographic region which lies near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and not to any particular civilization. The land of Mesopotamia is made fertile by the irregular and often violent flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. While these floods aided agricultural endeavors by adding rich silt to the soil every year, it took a tremendous amount of human labor to successfully irrigate the land and to protect the young plants from the surging flood waters. Given the combination of fertile soil and the need for organized human labor, perhaps it is not surprising that the first civilization developed in Mesopotamia. Sumerians were the first settlers in Sumeria. By c.3500 BCE, the Sumerians had developed many of the features that characterized subsequent civilizations. Cuneiform was a system of writing established by the Sumerians which became the dominant system of writing in Mesopotamia for over 2000 years. Mesopotamia is widely recognized as one of the regions in the Near East first experiencing the developmental transition to hydraulic and urban civilization, duly celebrated as a â€Å"cradle of civilization† and the eastern segment of the Fertile Crescent. Mesopotamian religion is the religious beliefs and practices of the Sumerians and Akkadians, which were noted the first developed civilizations and religions; and later of their successors, the Babylonians and Assyrians. (Lindemans, 2007). In general terms, it constitutes the greater part of what is now Iraq, eastern Syria, and south-eastern Turkey. The deities of Sumer were usually associated with aspects of nature, such as fertility of the fields and livestock. Among the most important of the many Mesopatamian gods were Anu, the god of heaven; Enki the god of water; and Enlil, the earth god. Deities were often associated with particular cities. Astral deities such as Shamash and Sin were also worshipped. The Mesopatamians are skilled astrologers who studied the movements of heavenly bodies. Priests also determined the will of the gods through the observation of omens, especially by reading the entrails of sacrificed animals. The king functioned as the chief priest, presiding at the new-year festival held in spring, when the kingship is renewed and the triumph of the deity over the powers of chaos was celebrated. In Mesopotamia, each city state had its own god who owned it, and although other gods were admitted, they were always subordinate to the city god. Everyone had to belong to a temple, whatever rank they had in society. If they belonged to the temple of Marduk, they considered themselves ‘the people of the God Marduk’. The god was the lord and the people served him as slaves or at least as servants. Part of everyone’s produce belonged to the god and had to be brought as a sacrifice. The land itself belonged to the god and had to be leased from him. God have never been any good at signing agreements so the contracts were signed on his behalf by the priests. The main festival in Mesopotamia was the New Year Festival held in spring or in autumn. Its significance was the renewal of the land through the sprouting of new buds or the end of the summer scorching. The Sumerian drama focused on Dumuzi or Tammuz, the creative power of Spring while the Goddess was Inanna, the fertility of nature. The drama went this way: the earth goddess conceived a handsome son who later became her lover and begat the next son – a ritual performed by the king and his consort or the head priest and priestess in a ritual coupling. The son died and everyone wailed but the new son was born and everyone rejoiced. In the tropics the vegetation died in the summer heat but in northern climates it died with the onset of frost, so the times were not necessarily the same. (Amytas, 2002) In an article of Sumerian Religion it was said that reincarnation is a concept suitable for Mesopotamians because it was so real and explicit that it was not worth reporting the striking obvious. The Mesopotamians, took painstaking notes of the coming of the sunrise and sunset every day, the return of the seasons, the planets and the stars, always revolving and returning to chartered points in the skies. Thus, they did believe that everything was cyclic, and probably considered life and death as such as well (cited in Adapa). MESOPOTAMIAN MYTHOLOGY The two following stories are one of the descent and ascent stories of Mesopotamian Religion (Amytas, 2002) Descents to the underworld are a constant theme in Mesopotamia and tell about the triumph of the spirit over desire, wrong doings or guilt. Descent stories always contain the warning that one should not venture to ‘the Land of No Return’, that the laws of ‘Great Below’ cannot be changed and it designs the foremost. Nevertheless, Inanna descended to meet Her other Self, the Great Judge and Queen of the Underworld, Ereshkigal, and She who is the Lover and Beloved resurfaced as the vision of triumphant humanity that transcends all deaths. Enlil descended after having raped Ninlil, who immediately took matters in her hands and went down after Him to conquer Her beloved back, achieving major growth along the process herself from maiden to Consort of Lord Air. Even Enlil, the most important of the young Anunnaki gods, had to undergo punishment for a terrible act in the most romantic and intense of all descent stories. However, Ninlil, as the Beloved and Hardest Judge Enlil could have ever had, flew after him for the rescue to bring him back to the Heights Above, to become Enlil’s partner in all levels. All of them faced awesome trials and returned back to the Heights after achieving much healing and growth. It is therefore clear that returns from the Underworld, despite all warnings against venturing over there, can be achieved, but only by the triumph of the spirit, by conquering one’s own weaknesses, by a necessary loss to achieve a major growth. In the myth of Adapa, Adap ascends to the Heavens to meet Anu so that he could justify himself in front of the Skyfather for having been disrespectful to the South Wind. Adapa is the proto-Solomon, the sage and the priest-king of Eridu. He refuses immortality to come back to the Middleworld instead of remaining with the Great Gods in the Great Above, as Anu had given him the opportunity to stay there by eating and drinking from the table of the gods. Adapa refuses the offering, because Enki, Adapa’s personal god, had warned him not to, if Adapa did not want to die. A possible experience for this passage is the following: in the end Adapa understood that he would have eventually eternal life after living a full life in the physical world, and not in the moment he had been offered the gift by Anu. He did not need eternal life when he was offered it by Anu, because he was needed on earth, he was the priest-king the foundation of the state which was being built in Eridu, the place where kingship descended from the heavens. Again, it is a Mesopatamian ascent story with a return, whose mystery show the cycle and the link between heaven and earth, the Great Above and the Great Below not as opposite worlds, but matching complements, in a never-ending cycle. PHOENICIAN LETTERS (Amytas, 2007) The Phoenician Letters is a piece of mystery teachings in a written form from a master to a devoted acolyte in the Mesopotamian tradition, a sort of retro-Caballa. It involves 10 letters, each involving a god/goddess (Rimon-Adad, Nabu, Ishtar, Nergal, Shamash, Marduk, Anu, Enlil, Ea-Enki, Sin-Nana) by the master to the acolyte exchanged during the period of two years. The letters cover the training of a future-priest king by a master kept unknown up to the last letter. The quotations on the chapter of Nergal on the next paragraph are about reincarnation, the Eternal Return. Notice that the piece of metal that is left from the burning of what should be burnt may refer to that part of matter in us that is primeval and without blemish, the seed of the Great Mother that they all carry within, represented by the metal attributions of Mesopotamians deities, or the imperishable in them, their Personal Gods. On Ishtar, â€Å"But Ishtar is all this and more. She is the reborn†¦Know, o Prince, that death is the source of life, life is the cause of death. Dumuzi her lover must die in order to live. She is the rhythm, and all rhythms have an end, this is death, all have a beginning (pages 34-35).   On Nergal: â€Å"There are many forms of heroism. There is that form that represents a magnificent stupidity, where the hero achieves nothing, saving neither his people nor his own life, but taking with him down into death as many of the enemy as possible. He will fight in the underworld that battle which he did not win, for it is sad that as a man dies, all that he has done is presented to him, to see if he regrets his actions or not. If he regrets and pines for the things that he failed to do or the errors he has made, then this is a weight he must carry into his next time of living (Lishtar’s emphasis). Herein is the tale of justice: the assessors of hell visit upon each man his crimes, and according as he loves them or hates them, he will be attracted to the same events, time without end, till the actions of his life be without blemish† (page 41). CREATION OF MAN (and WOMAN) SUMERIAN VERSION Enki, the Magician, and Ninhursag, the Earth Mother, create humankind from the fertile waters of the Abzu and a pinch of clay, breathing into the mix the spirit of a slain god. It is in the myth that the spirit of the slain god resonates in each and every being as a drumbeat, life force, to remind them of its sacrifice. According to Amytas, the myth was a wondrous metaphor that shows incarnation as a gift from Divine Consciousness bestowed upon all humankind, all that lives and breathes. The bond that was thus established between heaven and earth from the beginning of Sumerian religion, whereby from this moment on humankind is called upon to continue for the gods the workings of existence and faithful servants. This metaphor shows the truth all initiates have experiences from times immemorial. Spirit can only incarnate through love, the same way we can only ascend to the heights of religious and visionary experience by giving spiritual body to our soul’s design. Slain in this context may very well mean the necessary loss to achieve higher consciousness, the disrobing and vulnerability needed to enter both Great Above and the Depths Below enforced. Furthermore, the myth of the ‘Creation of Man and Woman’ can be interpreted according to the Sumerians as the never-ending miracle of spirit entering matter and for those of them who live their lives in the light of the Mesopotamian tradition. From the beginning of Sumerian Religion, from the creation of man and woman it is therefore present the everlasting bond between matter and spirit. As concluded by Amytas,† the part of us who belongs to the everlasting spirit will be then confronted by our life achievements and judged by the Annunaki of the Underworld. These deities will be the judges of our souls and decide when we are ready to return from the ‘Land of No Return’. It is for all these reasons that we suggest that the Eternal Return might have been a core understated principle of Mesopotamian religion.† THE BABYLON AND ITS PEOPLE Many scholars believe the first great historian, Herodotus, a Greek who traveled widely over the ancient world several centuries before the birth of Chris, visited the city of Babylon in its decline. He has left a description of the city but, because he could not speak Babylonian, his remarkable statements must come largely from the lips of the guides. The harvest was, Herodotus says, twice or thrice as bountiful as in other lands, the ears of wheat and barley growing to a phenomenal size. Rich groves of palm trees waved in the breeze all over the plain and so expert were the food growers that from the fruit of the palm they got bread, wine and honey. From their scattered villages they looked with pride toward Babel – the Greeks called it Babylon – or the gate of the God. They had no physician. Marriage, he says, was by purchase or auction sale. His most famous statement about the morals of ancient Babylon is to the effect that every woman had once in her life to prostitute herself in what Herodotus calls ‘the court of Venus’, meaning the court of the temple of the goddess Ishtar. There she was compelled to stand until some man threw her a coin, saying, â€Å"the goddess Mylitta prosper thee,† and taking her away to his couch. (Shirlie) On the contrary, in regard to its morals and its women he totally misunderstood his informants. There was no auction of wives in Babylon, and there was no such law as the prostitution of every woman at the temple of Ishtar. By that time, Ishtar was a patroness of virtue and the chief refuge of sinners. Women had in ancient Babylon a position of respect and prestige scarcely lower than they have won in modern times and the law of sexual purity was most drastically enforced upon both sexes. The Babylonian code of laws was compiled by King Hammurabi. This code was found carved on a black diorite column seven feet high in the ruins of Susa in 1901. A conqueror of Babylon about 1100 BC had stolen it and carried it off to the hills. On the upper part of it is a figure of Hammurabi in an attitude of worship before the sun-god, Shamash. The king says he made the code himself. Babylon, supposed to have been a sink of iniquity, in which chastity was unknown, an example followed the clauses of the next paragraph in the Hammurabi Code of four thousand years ago. MESOPOTAMIAN CONCEPTS OF DISEASE AND HEALING Mesopotamian diseases are often blamed on pre-existing spirits: gods, ghosts, etc. Each spirit corresponds or is responsible for a specific disease. For example, ‘Hand of God X’, of the stomach corresponds to what is called a disease of stomach. A number of diseases simply were identified by names, ‘bennu’ for example. Also it was recognized that various organs could simply malfunction causing illnesses. Mesopotamian uses plants as treatment for diseases although this cannot be relative for magical purposes. In addition, specific offerings are made to a particular god or ghost when it was considered to be a causative factor, but these offerings are not indicated in the medical texts, and must have been found in other texts. There two distinct types of professional medical practitioners in Mesopotamia, the ashipu known as the ‘sorcerer’ and the asu which may be referred to as the ‘physician’. The ashipu diagnoses the ailment. In the case of internal diseases, this most often meant that the ashipu determined which god or demon was causing the illness. The ashipu also attempted to determine if the disease was the result of some error or sin on the part of the patient. The phrase, â€Å"the Hand of†¦Ã¢â‚¬  was used to indicate the divine entity responsible for the ailment in question, who could then be propitiated by the patient. The ashipu could also attempt to cure the patient by means of charms and spells that were designed to entice away or drive out the spirit causing the disease. On the other hand, asu is the specialist in herbal remedies and deals with were often classifiable as empirical applications of medication. For example, when treating wounds the asu relied on three fundamental techniques: washing, bandaging and making plasters on which appear in the world’s oldest known medical document (c. 2100 BCE). CONCLUSION Mesopotamian religion in accordance with my research clearly implies that it is the foundation of many religions since, Sargon, who founded the Babylon and created the first Mesopotamian empire, lived over two thousand years before Christ and even a thousand years before the presumed time of Moses of the Christian bible. One example would be the comparison in the story of Moses: one of the clay tablets covered with the cuneiform writing of the Babylonians and Assyrians refers to Sargon, the great king. His mother bore him in secret. After the birth she made a little ark or boat of reeds or rushes, coated it with pitch, which is natural there. She placed the baby in it and she set it afloat on the river, doubtless expecting it to die but hoping it might be saved. The child was destined to be a mighty leader and the gods took care of him. A water-carrier found the ark and reared the child, until the goddess Ishtar saw and fell in love with the youth, and made him king over the land. To sum it all up, learning man’s history always is a very interesting subject, it’s like being transported to a different world where oneself could be alienated. For me it would not matter because the most important thing is that you have respect to all men regardless of their religion. Bibliography Williams, Tyler. Ideas of Origins and Creation in Ancient Mesopatamia. 2007 Lindemans, M.F. Mesopotamian Mythology. 2007 Amytas, Voluptua. Sumerian Religion and the Eternal Return. 2002 Shirlie. God or Goddess? The Son Gods. 1999 http://www.oriental.cam.ac.uk/jmc http://www.archaeowiki.org/Mesopotamia

The Visual Feedback From Video Games Media Essay

The Visual Feedback From Video Games Media Essay Video games are electronic games that engage the user through an interactive interface. The interaction involves the use of visual feedback mechanism which is generated on a specially designed video device. Just like any other medium, the use of video games can be used as an effective communication channel. The content of the specific game is however the determinant of the specific ideology that it expresses. It has been proven through elaborate research that video games have a profound influence in the manner which an individual thinks and behave. Certain experimental and analytical data shows that the playing of video games has a direct influence on ones thoughts. The playing of violent video games has been proven to increase the level of aggressive and hostile thoughts (Anderson, Buckley, Gentile, 2007; Anderson, Carnagey, Flanagan, Benjamin, Eubanks Valentine, 2004).The engagement of a player in games that have positive content has also been proven to elicit positive outcomes. A perfect example is the playing of video games by children which has been proven to help in weight management. In this paper we explicitly investigate whether video games side with certain British political ideologies. In the recent past, researchers have questioned the validity of passing on political ideologies in videogames. This has always drawn the conclusion that the reputation of the video game industry despite being a disposable form of entertainment which serves a very wide audience does in fact have a degree of political discourse. This notion of political ideologies being encoded in the some games is true but has a degree of flaw. Thus notion for example overlooks the effort of certain independent game designers and developers. Games such as Super Columbine massacre RPG and Cutthroat Capitalism go to a large extent to dispute the notion of apolitical landscape in the industry of videogames. The level of success in the process of communicating the various political statements which incorporate military, social and economic issues just illustrate the political nature of these videogames. Video games by design and existence are a true example of cultural artifacts which bear a certain degree of political messages. It is a proven fact that even the simplest of the video games despite their low level of mindlessness can never fail to portray the politics of the underlying culture in which they are designed. The mainstream video which games do seem to lack political ideologies in actual sense have an implicit political undertone. The basic design of these games is not supposed to handle or tackle any form of political issue directly. The design also does not allow for the carrying of political messages covertly. The reality however is that the games do reflect the underlying social values and most of the popular ideologies of the resident culture in which the game was intended to be deployed in. Even in the conservative and economically centered eighties or even the liberal society, politics are in fact intertwined in the very underlying codes of the video games that we do enjoy Video Games and the Brain Researchers have in past conducted experiments to investigate the influence the mechanism and relationship that occurs in the brain when an individual is playing a computer game. The work of researchers published in Nature (1998) ,a British journal indicated that the brain secrets a special hormone called dopamine when one is laying a computer game. Dopamine is a pleasure inducing chemical that is secreted whenever an individual engages his/her mind in the playing f video games. The New brain research that was conducted years back (Bartholow, Bushman Sestir, 2006) was the first to show that the playing of violent video games results in bad health of the players. The emphatic responses of the brain to the simulation of certain real-life violence such as shooting with a gun and bombing are also elicited. It was also explained by Walsh (2004, 2006). That the exposure of a teenaged brain to video games results in certain violent long-lasting effects. A group of British researchers embarked on a research to understand the neurochemical outcomes of playing video games (Koepp et al. 1998).They measured the amount of dopamine hormone which gets released whenever subjects were engaged in playing a video game. The video games were of action genre. The action game involved the maneuvering through a battlefield full of landmines and tanks. Dopamine is a special neurotransmitter that necessitates the modulation of certain information that is passed from one brain area to another. The particular interest in dopamine was because of its role in the control and influence of a wide range of human behavior. Some of the behaviors that it influences are pleasure, learning and even addiction. An example is the fact that in most cases of drug addiction, pleasure is achieved by increasing the level of dopamine in the brain. By employing a special form of brain imaging technique called (Positron Emission Tomograph) the researchers were in a position to determine the effects of playing a video game on the level of dopamine that is released. The result showed a rapid surge in the amount of dopamine that was released in the brain. The areas that were most noted to have these dopamine surges/release are the areas that are attributed to learning and reward. The injection of amphetamines intravenously gave out comparable results. The observed surge in dopamine and its resulting implications are never well known but is a success in rats. This implies that dopamine may indeed be very crucial in the process of modifying the brain following a certain period of perpetual engagement in training activities. Bao Etal conducted a study using groups of rats. One group of rats was paired with the presentation of a certain tone of about 9-kHz.The observation made was that there was a particular expansion in the brain area that is devoted to the used tone. This was just in the rats that had concurrent of dopamine simulation. (Bao, CHan, and Merze nich,2001).Their conclusion therefore was that dopamine plays a very integral role in the process of learning. This was what caused the neural realignment in the rats. The conclusion from this experiment is that the large increase in the amount of dopamine that is observed when a person plays a video games has a role that is similar to the one in the rats. The dopamine released leads to a faster rate of learning and pleasure. The Dominant British political Ideology The term ideology was first made use of by French philosopher Destutt de Tracy in the nineteenth century. He used it to refer to the science of human ideas. However several definitions have been coined for the word. The term ideology is however used to refer to a certain particular set of ideas and assumptions that are necessary in the shaping of ones understanding of the world. It was however argued by Leys (1983:14) that ideology refers to any set of social ideas that become part of the operative assumptions of the general political practice of a certain particular social group. The very nature of an ideology is usually interpreted to be very coherent in that the main ideas within the specific ideology will usually tend to show a high degree of coherent with one another. The main ideologies that dominate the British way of life are conservatism, socialism and liberalism. Methodology Participants The participants were gathered from a certain popular social online video gaming platform. To explore the questions as to how often the participants engage themselves in playing video games and How this video games affect politics, the research was undertaken by interviewing six hundred participants of which the majority were male compared to females. There were 65% of males compared to 45% females. The participants were aged between eighteen years and forty years with the mean age being 25year and a standard deviation of 0.64. Procedure Data collection was done between the months of January and February the year 2010. The affair was random and after informing the officials of the underlying research it was on. The participants were recruited randomly through random sampling technique which was geared towards a generalized finding that gives a wider scope of views from the respondents, and avoidance of biasness. This was done to eradicate biasness and to get various views from different people who comes from all forms of employment. The main concern of the research was to analyze how people especially teenagers look up for political information online. Secondly there was a concern was how they had persuaded people into voting in elections; thirdly they sort to know how the people had been living informed on politics and other current affairs in the past six months, forth is whether they have stayed committed to their civic participation. And lastly the research sort to see how interested the participants are in polit ical issues around them. The research engage in analyzing both the activities and interests of the participant from that earlier ages because though teenagers do not always involve themselves in political issues as compared to their adult counterparts, they are at a critical age where experimentation are eminent that can help in the development of new political ideologies that give them certain political identities. Each person participating filled an anonymous survey questionnaire that was to give details of their attitudes towards videogames, what they know about them, how often they play and lastly, their perception of politics and how video games affects it. The participants were told that video games included any games played on a computer, video arcades, and handheld devices among others. The data collectors were also taught and trained the manner in which the survey was to be conducted. (Walsh, 2000) The research uses logistic regression and multivariate linear methods in their analysis between the participants background information variables and their civic quality in playing video games together with the above five concerns of the research on what the participants engage in. the games can then be categorized under various groupings such as those that tries to coin the thoughts of participants on moral issues, how they help people learn about problems in the society, how they help in influencing communities decision making procedures, and the nation at large. And lastly some are categorized on how they help in teaching about social issues. The above statistical methods are used because they assist in controlling factors such as how parent may influence the civil participation of the youths and also how participants incomes can affect their civil and political participation. The analysis due to past researches on the topic goes ahead to categorize influencing measures in four different categories that includes; the political characteristics of the games played which talks about how the participants and whether they have any civic experiences that influence political issues or supports them. Another is the social context of the games played which assesses the way the games are played. This could be in solitude or in groups. It also assesses the political behaviors and attitudes, this deal with the magnitude of involvement of the participants to gamming and their political involvement. Also there are demographic variables. They include analysis on age, gender, race and also household incomes. It also analyses the frequency of the games played. Therefore on this research our main concern will be on the variables listed below. Variables Amount of time spent on video games: the participants were asked how much time they spend playing their favorite video games. This time was categorized into week days and weekends which helped in calculating the amount of time people use in playing the video games weekly. Video games exposure: the participants were again asked to name at least three of their favorite video games. On each video game named the participants were expected to rate how often they play this game on a seven point Likert scale. Also the participants were asked to rate how the video game related to politics on the same Likert scale. On the scale it is interpreted that 1 represent a no relation to politics while 7 mean a higher relationship to politics. The video game political relation score was calculated. The participants were also asked to rate their video games relation on a 1 to 10 scale to show how much trends of politics in video games has changed in the past two to three years. Video game limit: the participants were again asked how often they limit themselves from playing video and the period of time they use in playing the video games. Underlying video game political inclination: The participants were asked to state the general mood that laying the game elicited as concerns the major British political ideologies. The model There exists broad based and multidisciplinary body of research work that deal with the effects of video games on various social phenomena, some borrow their relevance applications, game theory. DeGroot (1974) came up with a perfect self updating model , whereby persons adjust their personal belief regarding a certain event (also called the state of the world) by way of observing all persons with whom they have a common social tie and in effect taking an average of their friends averages. Political ideologies and beliefs do necessarily involve a certain level of personal stubbornness but is not explicitly explored by the model, however the DeGroot updating model is still relevant towards the process of forming a political ideology, especially when the aspect of social video gaming which is so connected and impressionable is concerned. In this research however, we do a slight modification of the DeGroots model in order to include an element of political judgment as well as a decreasing level of an individuals sensitivity to others views in a bid to capture the overall maturation state and solidification of the various political views and ideologies. For this purpose we begin by employing DeGroot model which has a simple stochastic configuration having the following parameters. The model is employed in gauging a persons view regarding the elements of British political ideologies that they derive or perceive to be entailed in the video games. The model is a follows. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.(1) Where n is denotes the number of direct links that an individual i has with certain other people j in the online gaming network. I reconfigured the model to incorporate some of the most observed realities of British political ideology acquisition. In the model we assume that a person maintains an autoregressive component in his or her ideology. The model then becomes as follows. . à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦(2) Allowing the general political ideology to start out at time 1 as i b~ + e , in which ÃŽÂ µi is a random error term which is drawn from N(0,s 2 ) . The expectation of ÃŽÂ ²i, and 2 is b~ is arrived at by inspection, as the expectation ( ) i E b~ + e is b~ , Which leads us back to equation (2). Variance of ÃŽÂ ²i,2 is evaluated the equation Nis clearly decreasing. Therefore, one can boldly infer that more connections of n can lead to correponding ÃŽÂ ²s which quickly converges to the equilibrium of mb~ and to each other.2 This model however comes with a certain number of assumptions, some of which are more concrete than others. The initial assumption is that it does not take into account the weightings or a measure of the strength of the various different ties. Conclusion Video games have been proven to have profound effects on the players thoughts. Certain ideologies can also be passed or rather contained in the video games. The exact nature of the ideology that a particular game may pass varies significantly with the nature of the game. Certain games have specific political ideologies that dominate their main theme. The study reveals that a great degree of political ideology is encapsulated in the British games. The designers of various games area at times motivated by certain political ambitions in the process of designing the games. The main political ideology that is eminent in most games is conservationism and it is mainly expressed in terms of strategy of the games. Most British gamers enjoy playing games that replicate the old battlefields campaigns. Literature Review Many theorists have come up with similar and different arguments concerning the relations of video games, politics and culture of different regions of the earth. When participating in these social practices, players of the game have the opportunity to involve themselves in new identities. For example, while playing the game Sims Online a presidential political contest of Alphaville erupted between, Baynes who is 21 years old, and Laura who is a 14 year old girl. Political jockeying and voter fraud accusations emerged just like it would in a real political activity. These occurrences created learning opportunities to Laura and Baynes about the realities of real politics and what they entail. This very election attracted national attention as pundits engaged in debates on the significance of games where players could not only run political systems in their virtual lives, but could also engage in political debates and arguments. Lauras political campaign, platform and alliances were substantial enough to initiate a stronger police force and run an overhaul of the system of judiciary. This creates an understanding of how deep it can be to gain ex perience in online virtual worlds. These games contain very rich contexts for learning since players are able to have new and powerful identities and actually experiment on them.( Shaffer 2004) According to Terry Flew (2005) digital games are on the increase in society, a thing which has created social isolation especially teenage boys, who hide in bedrooms; thus fail to actively engage in the society. David Marshal (2002) agrees with Flew though he is against the effects of the out come of his research He found out that games are dynamically social and extensive social conversations emerge from online gaming in huge multi-player formats. For example, the Sims Online has created entire social and political structures in some communities that have adopted a social gaming prospect in their daily lives. These online gamers actively participate in various forms of communication which includes one-on-one correspondence. These kinds of games are massive, social and intimate. On the other hand, McArthur (2008) argues that the amount of time young people play, or the frequency of the plays are significantly related to most outcomes of both civic and political occurrences in pour daily lives. McArthur continues to emphasize that the gaming influence to games has increasingly persuaded others on the voting process, charity contribution, volunteer work, and also in growing interest as far as political views and events are concerned. MacArthur finds very little evidence supporting the aspect of videogames in the promotion of attitudes and behavior that undermine behavior as well as civic commitments. On the same note, there is also little evidence supporting an association of video game playing and that of a vibrant civic and political life. McArthur concluded that the frequency of playing games was associated with only two political and civics outcomes i.e. an increase in political interest and protesting with variations that only emerge according to the leve l of frequency a gamer has to play. Henry Jenkins, a prominent scholar in digital media highlighted potential participation of cultures that come up as a result of engagement with the digital media. Such participatory cultures are in support of communities that share the same interest and involve themselves in sharing and creating what they create with others. Those with experience join in to mentor those who are coming up. With the kind of report put forth by Jenkins, the newly created participatory culture presents more opportunities for gamers to, participate in community life as opposed to isolation, engage in civic debates, or to be leaders in politics. Extensive opportunities through participation may gradually change self perception and encourage social ties with other inhabitants. In order to be empowered, one is supposed to make meaningful decisions within a civic point of view. For example, citizenship skills are learnt through engaging into political acting in order to understand choices to be made in politi cal terms; all these require steps from watching political news and acting politically. This is more like having interest in politics acting in a game world and then acting politically in the real world. Henry Jenkins (2007) Developmental Psychologists concerned with adolescent behavior have suggested that nurturing is very important during the early years in life i.e. child and teenage years. This is the time that teenagers try to anticipate the lives of adulthood and work hard to understand who they are, who they want to be and how they relate to the society. Gibson (2003) notes that the development of sociopolitical orientations is very critical; therefore assessment of the importance to which young members of the society experiment with civic and political activities available to them is crucial in development of future participation. Brown and Thomas in their arguments in virtual worlds write that players learn to create new innovations within networked environments that are well suited to social interactions, problem solving and effective communication. For example, in world of warcraft, players generally come together to form guilds in which they associate together and coordinate in how to attack and destroy the enemy as well as plan to raid the enemy. When new members are recruited, they undergo training as well as ways of resolving conflict among the guild members. This calls for the establishment of an implicit or explicit code of conduct. This kind of interaction and social influence prepares young people on the future stance of their lives. Douglas Thomas (2008) Sasha Barab and Kurt Squire have qualitatively studied the content of the game Civilization IV. This is a game where players begin to join a group settlers living in an underdeveloped land. After joining the piece of land, they try to think deeply on how they will develop the land to the standards of a big city; they therefore send a number of scouts to go and explore the territories that surround them. In order to do this, they are expected to set up a group of warriors who are supposed to fight and protect their city. These players start their ways from the Stone Age period and keep moving until the modern twenty first century. This is a process where they have to develop ideas and make wise decision on how to introduce religion, reading e.t.c at the same time; trade negotiations take place as well as talks on governing their territories especially financially and politically. This kind of simulation enables players to have opportunities of learning about the dynamics of political, economical, as well as the legal system that are stipulated in a real government. This simulation also provides opportunity for players to acknowledge their civic identities due to their experience as civic leaders in the virtual world. Such cognitions and attitude coincide with the players behavior, thus help them develop and practice civic skills. With this study, Squire and Borab concluded that young people gain both civic and political knowledge through playing commercial video games such as Civilization IV. Borab and Squire (2004). There also have been games purely designed to be used within a basic education context. Games such as Quest Atlantis include a narration based on a storyline of young male and female protagonists. This is meant to initiate a proper understanding in pupils about the purpose of some of the activities they carry out in their daily prospects. This game has also helped students perform batter in their studies, especially in subjects like, language arts, social studies and science. For example, in social studies; students have developed and appreciated history and its relationship to their present lives and the adoption of various perspectives of making decisions. As far as gaming in an educational setting is concerned, studies show that players under the guidance and intervention of adults yield more productivity and worthiness as opposed to the players under the reflection of peer groups. Other arguments though state that games with more distinct design features can facilitate greater ci vic learning conditions without the intervention of an adult. Borab and Squire (2004). More literacy scholars have introduced the new versus the old literacy in this new technology era of global understanding. Meyer and rose (1999) interprets the old literacy concept based on the assumption that the basic carrier of information in our culture is the print and the most important knowledge is the ability of students to express and understand themselves through text. Right now technology is catching up, thus the new definition of literacy has changed to mean the ability of a student tot be able to express self through digital technology which is rapidly becoming the sole carrier of information. This is critical in todays education context. This education context requires the knowledge of print literacy; this call for both the old (print) and this new (digital) concept to enhance more skilled literacy. It simply shows that there is a perverse challenge of literacy in both the digital and the non-digital innovations of our daily lives. (Meyer Rose, 1999) Electronic games have actually been used in the classroom by teachers to associate the traditional ways of teaching. Young people have always been inspired by some character in the games. This invokes some sense of attention and concentration which are part of the teachers goals in the teaching process. After the digital game use, pupils begin to reveal some real enthusiasm for writing diaries, text, coloring and making drawings; this also motivate them to keep proper records for what they have learned and drafted in the classroom. They also go on to discuss their projects in broader perspectives, thanks to the games their teachers introduce to them in classroom. The game world in schools is particularly stronger in the United Kingdom for the sole contribution of contributing and advancing personal skills in innovation and creativity. These games develop intellectual and social skills that includes self confidence, ability to explore and cooperate, enterprise and initiative, responsi bility, independence e.t.c. (Meyer Rose, 1999) According to Zimmerman and Salen, games are forms of organized play with a set of rules and guide to players. If a game is well designed with a meaningful purpose, then the game will definitely yield positive results meaningful play which is a very good learning condition. This definition of meaningful play simply means the results of the relationship between the outcome and the action in a game which are integrated and discernable into the wider view of the game. When the real design focuses on meaningful learning results, then it is able to preserve playfulness which is deserved by children and at the same time serious learning. Games really motivate players to concentrate on mastering their tasks according to how the game is supposed to be played. The innovation of very distinct elements of game design such as rewards, goals, rules, multisensory cues, interactivity, and narrative context, have proven necessary to kindle the expected outcomes of learning. For example, EVE Online is an online game that one has to subscribe to in order to play. Its nature as a casual game doesnt in any way undermine the gain of knowledge while playing it. EVE Online is all about dominating a market by setting up a number of corporations. This game has attracted so many prominent personnel including, MBAs, city traders, economists, chief executives e.t.c. to gain knowledge of complex financial lessons that they can practice in the real world. One of the gamers was interviewed and explained that once one has managed to conquer a virtual corporation spanning the universe, you can then easily be able to manage a real corporation spanning the earth. (Zimmerman and Salen 2004) Games are interactive mediums with to fully understand becomes a core challenge. Within game worlds, players have the agency. These games are therefore inhabited by the gamers, within the theories of digital games, a reliable game should be able to constrain players through the narratives and the rules that they are bound to. It is also important that the players be given the actual control for entering the virtual world. Kreimeier, 2000 continues to explain that the game developers desire is always be able to design games that enable the players to fully engage themselves in the game world. In this way, games are constructions by both the players as well as the authors. For example, the Grand Theft is a game representing the inner L.A in a way that leads players to understand some of the limited choices urban youth have, this game also has a way of inviting them to try the personae of the black man in the inner city; and the experience the sensations of the urban culture and the lif e of an urban gang member. The Grand Theft game allows gamers to inhabit this for a particular view point and also help in the development of the identities within them. (Squire, 2004). Deux Ex is a very popular game design as a science fiction game. It contains characters of duplicitous leaders of the government, very powerful corporations and also full of terrorists who are sponsored by the government. Warren Spector who designed the game offers moral choices to the gamers on whether to trust organizations or to trust individual people. In a world where no moral decision is right, the player is left tot rethink of who he wants to joint the competing organizations such, as family royalties, government or corporations. This kind of game helps us know the must important things and choices to make; as well as what to ignore when making very important decisions. All these game are differently understood and interpreted by different player.(Black 2004) According to Tom Malone (1981), there is an intrinsic motivation of games to players through challenge, control, fantasy, curiosity and opportunities for competition, collaborative play and social interaction. He goes on arguing that games have a way of creating presence, or emotional immediacy which is one of their most appealing features; the core to this is that we are entering the word to this and not merely manipulating the screen pixels. Clinton (2004) says on the other hand that immersion is fundamentally built through the game world interaction. These verbs given to players- jumping, punching, running, diving and kicking through and over enemies and few other obstacles are the building blocks through which gamers become war lords, action heroes, or civilization leaders. Clinton maintains that the digital worlds cognition is mediated thoroughly by players action capacity. Thus the players actions become the players interface with the world. Clintons observations go on proving that the first thing a player does before playing a particular game is to familiarize him with the game controls. This action gives him total control of the characters body and what he can do in the virtual world. In the real world this helps a player to conform and find out his abilities that he can use to venture through his day-to-day