Gender race.

Watching advertisements have always been my favourite since I was young as it is where I get my mind at work in exploring and concluding the underlying meaning behind them.

Every advertisement makes use of different ways to get the message across to their targeted audience. In order to catch the attention of the audience, the advertisement has to be creative and impactful so as to make the audience want to go on watching.
Non-verbal communication is one of the most effective methods commonly engaged in advertisements.

One of the advertisements that keeps me constantly thinking is the Nike Commercial, Men vs. Women.



Non-verbal communication makes use of non-verbal behaviours intentionally sent and perceived where the audience recognise as having a consensual meaning. This Nike commercial promotes the Nike products by the use of a race between the two genders. It is illustrated by how women can actually challenge themselves to win the men in the race even though they are not as physically fit as men.There are many different types of non-verbal communications of which I feel, this commercial has made use of most of them especially the body language and facial expressions.

The start of the advertisement shows a scene whereby the woman chanced upon the challenge and decided to join it. Application of body movement (kinesics) is first used when the guy acted nonchalant about the race, perhaps to show he knows he is physically tougher than girls?

Since the advertisement focuses on a race, time and distance play a part, hence, chronemics and proxemics are used and action scenes where the women and men are running and all clothed in Nike apparels. This makes use of objectics of where objects are used to portray the message, in this case the Nike apparels. A particular scene in the lift shows a distinct facial expressions of the way the women stared at the man, a way to prove they can perform as good as men. To further emphasize on their products, the Nike shoes is intentionally zoomed in. I thought that it is a good way to bring the focus back to promoting Nike.

We can consider haptics being used by how they delayed one another by pulling the ear-piece off from guy of which since physical touch is involved. More kinesics are applied when the guys gave high-fives as they ran past each other, and how a guy made use of hand gestures to provoke the girl (at 0:44 of the video). A blend of kinesics, eye contact (oculesics) as well as physical appearance are used at the gym scene where the woman attempted to provoke the guy by splasing the water at him and the guy reacted back with a facial expression by rolling his eyes. In addition, the scene of which the woman smiling to herself after overtaking the man, made use of this combination of non-verbal communication as well.

As the advertisement proceeds, it shows the different treatments in both genders. For example, how the lady threw the guy's shoes and the part where the guy who ran past just took the glass of water that was supposedly meant for the female customer. A tinge of humour was also employed when the lady changed "Go Men" to "Go Women". Furthermore, the advertisement featured famous sport celebrities like Roger Federer and Fernando Torres so as to create impact to it.

I personally like the parts where they show the increase in distance each time each gender catches up with one another as well as how the advertisement ended in a simple way with "nikeplus.com". In just a short advertisement like this, it is able to keep us thinking and relating to what it is all about. This is how amazing non-verbal communication can be, isn't it?

The real Miss Singapore.

With just a few words uttered by the newly crowned Miss Singapore, Ris Low on RazorTV video, it has sparked off an uproar among Singaporeans.

This resulted in two different views observed.
The video shown on RazorTV had received many comments filled with criticism while the newspaper article last Sunday spoke in defence of Ris Low.

Just by watching the video, we made our own perceptions where we select, organise, make our own interpretation and give our personal meaning to it. Some mocked at her way of speaking and condemmed her while others branded her as a poor example of a young educated person and deemed her unfit to represent Singapore at the Miss World finals. But for the majority of us, it could be a misinterpretation that we do not realise is actually reflecting us as Singaporeans.

With the initial thought like most others, I have to admit that I too felt that she would be a disgrace if she were to represent Singapore with that standard of English. She mispronounced words like "preens" for prints, "rad" for red, "hospitaterlity" for hospitality and many others which i thought was a bad reflection on our country.
However, upon reading the article where the heads of the Speak Good English Movement came to her defence, I began to change my views about this whole issue.
* Source: The Sunday Times, Lifestyle, 13th September 2009 (pg.4)
In the article, the heads of the Speak Good English Movement defended Ris Low by bringing up a point, that Singaporeans are not speaking good english so who are we to condemn her? To support this stand, Ms Jennifer Yin, head secretariat of the movement said this, "Lots of Singaporeans speak this way. She is not unusual." Doesn't this statement makes us ponder and reflect on ourselves or the people around us. There are indeed many people out there who are using Singlish much more than English. It makes me wonder if the Speak Good English campaign is actually effective and we should as Singaporeans start working on our own way of speaking.

Singapore, being a multi-racial country, we used to have a communication barrier among races where each has their own language. In order for us to communicate between races, different languages have been mixed up for us to get the message across, so much so that it became the language we created - Singlish. Unknowingly, Singlish has become a culture in our sunny island.

Although Singlish is easily understood in our country, it would be a barrier when we communicate beyond Singapore because of the cultural differences among countries. Miss World is a beauty paegent which involves participants from all over the world. Hence, Singlish would not be understood it might even back-fire with the thought of it as bad English. A difference in culture affects the way we interpret.

Language, being a tool for direct communication is used to convey different meanings and it reflects us users. We evaluate a person by the way they speak just like how most evaluated Ris Low as a bad representative of Singapore. In addition, there are many language-based barriers to communication such as bypassing which leads us to misunderstanding due to misinterpretation. To further complicate communication, Ris Low uses slangs and jargons which make this barrier a harder one to overcome. With all these reasons stated, we should all look forward to constantly improve ourselves and forbid from using slangs and jargons. Once we are able to feel comfortable with language, we would then not have to feel afraid to be judged as a bad example.

The reason why I decided to name this post this way is because of what an English teacher mentioned. She said, " It's good that she has become Miss Singapore World. Her language abilities are representative of the population." Yes, we might all feel offended but if we were to look at the bigger picture of Singapore, this is indeed where our language actually lies. Thus, we should admit to this and try to do something about it.

Personally, I see myself sitting on the fence of this issue. Although I still feel that Ris Low is not good enough to represent Singapore in the Miss World finals, I feel that we should not condemn her as well. Different individuals have different way of speaking and language capacity. Perhaps that is just the way she talks? However, if she really has to represent our country, I feel that there is a need for her to attend English workshops so as to improve and brush up on her language skills. In this way, she would not be seen as a bad reflection of Singapore.

What about you?
Do you stand in the side of criticism or the side of defence?
It is something we should all think about.

Blinded by games, shadowed from reality.

As I thought through on what I should write about for the first post of this e-port folio, the news that came to light only recently of a case that happened a year ago seems to be the one that I felt most disturbed about.
* Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_426680.html
It talks about how a group of eight teenage boys made a suicide pact in the belief that they would be resurrected as slayers to save the world. This started off with one of the boys who was claimed to be a medium convincing his friends that the world was coming to an end and that they needed to offer themselves as a sacrifice in order to save the world. As I went on reading the article, I read about how these boys were engaged in weekly rituals where they looked up to the medium as an influential and their respected leader. Perhaps this was the reason why they agreed to the pact even at the expense of their lives. However, six of them came to their senses just in time upon the gruesome sight of the first pair of the group who jumped groaning in pain.

It made me ponder on this shocking case, on how scary it can actually be when one gets over-influenced by their surroundings, totally unaware of the consequences it can bring about.
I continued following on this case, wanting to understand more about what was concluded about the case and what actually led them into believing it.

Just this morning, I read another article in relation to this case and it brought me into another level of analysis. This particular article brings the attention to how these teenage boys could have been over-addicted to online games that caused them to be shadowed from the reality of life. I realised that this is pragmatic perspective, something that I had just learnt during my lecture this week.
*Source: The New Paper, Saturday 12th September 2009 (Page 14)
Pragmatic perspective is a communication that consists of a system of interlocking, interdependent behaviours that become patterned over time, which in this case, how online games became an addiction for these teenagers. Due to this prolonged gaming lifestyle, they have developed the inability to differentiate the virtual world from reality. In this virtual world, they forged strong friendships where they team up to slay demons and become really bonded.

Social constructionist perspective could also be brought into this context where the online games become a culture for these teenagers. In their groups, they start to create their collective representations of reality using what is provided by their culture.

Teenagers being interviewed in the article mentioned how communication plays the vital role in the online games and that most of them communicated daily to keep in touch, ask for advice and so on.
As a result of this, they seemed to be easily influenced by their virtual peers. One of them even mentioned how his online friends influenced his decision to apply to a polytechnic instead of junior college. This could be further evident by what a teenager who was interviewed said, "But if my group of friends who are like brothers to me all believe that and tell me that every day, I may eventually agree with them even though it sounds ridiculous." This could be the reason why the boys were convinced by their leader of the group.

Very often, our judgement comes from what we hear from others and it influences us. We exist within our society and perceive ourselves through the communication practices of our cultures. However, these preceptions can sometimes be deceptive. Therefore, i personally feel that we should be individuals who create communication and not allow communication to create us especially in scenarios like this.