Monday, April 23, 2007

"Prejudice is a disease we can never get rid of" Discuss.

Since the dawn of time, the world has been moulded and shaped to our present 21st century ,evidently through the human beings' thoughts and opinions . The power of our views and our mindsets determine a huge aspect of our lifes and greatly impacts our immediate society. Our individuality is the factor that not only created diversity but also the element of prejudism in our society. It is the different perspectives in our thinkings which leads to our varied reactions to adversity that causes the poison of prejudism to spread through. To change our individuality is impossible ,or rather impractical, but to change our approach towards the incidents that lead to prejudise thinking is certainly not. Thus the claim that prejudism is a stain that can never be erased from the face of the human population is truly of debate. Prejudice thinking can be eroded if people are willing to embrace each others' differences and celebrate one anothers' uniqueness which success is then truly dependent on the people. Thus prejudism is a concept that can be gotten rid of but only to a limited extent.

Prejudism is essentially an effect to a much bigger adversity at hand. So to have any chances of eradicating prejudism it is fundamental to change one's way of thinking so as to prevent escalating the effect, which is then best achieved through education.Singapore, being a multi racial and multi religious society, understood the importance of cooperation and the possibility of prejudism between the spectrum of races all too well. Thus it intergrated the National Education Programme which commenced in 1990 into its education system which help educate the students about the different races and their unique traditions. By explaining the presence and the significanceof these varied customs and cultures , Singaporeans are then better able to appreciate and understand one another which then helps to decrease the risk of prejudism. So the aspect of prejudism can be gotten rid of ,but the reality is, it is not eroded completely. However the success is solely dependant on the people and to support the fact that prejudism has not been rampant, Singapore has not faced any major racial riots since 1965.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

“YouTube has no ethics, it's been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money.” My Views.

The word ethics is defined as the moral rules or principles of behaviour which goes into deciding what is right,what is wrong and which lies in the grey area. Thus, is it right to proclaim that the newly founded yet sensational YouTube has all its morals and values in place? After all it is too a form of business, where the key element of focus lies in the profit that is generated. Moreover, YouTube is also a form of mass media, which is nitially created to inform people of the happenings in the world but essentially more so, to entertain them so as to add the colours of joy and amusement to ones mundane lifes' in whichever ways possible hence increasing its marketability. Thus the issue surrounding YouTube's ethics is clear; it simply has none .
Since its launch in February 2005, YouTube has grown to be a highly popular and sought out form of entertainment, where an estimated 100 million videos are watched by people worldwide each day. There is clearly no restriction which specifies what types of videos are permitted to be uploaded and watched by those accessing the global web. Thus how can one say that YouTube has ethics as if it did, they would be security programmes implemented within Youtube itself to screen and eliminate videos inappropriate for displaying within YouTube. Due to the given freedom, a huge spectrum of videos are present for the publics' view
, stretching from health videos to porn videos and many more where only some are suitable for viewing and most of them are not often displaying violence and disrespect. One such example is that of a 44-second film which violated the respect for the Thai King when it aired displaying graffiti over the King Bhumibol Adulyadej's face. A ban on YouTube then followed which was issued by the Thailand government. One can argue, claiming that it is unfair to accuse YouTube when it is the selective few who display the videos that are not suited for public viewing. But isn't the main cause YouTube, which readily provides the space for the clip to be aired without any constrains. The condition of the car has to be full proof before placing the blame on the driver for the accident as the car is the medium while the driver is simply just manipulating it.If the medium denies access , there is nothing the manipulator can do isn't it?