The Impact Of Television And Video On Student Achievement

The Impact of Television Video Entertainment on Student Achievement in Reading and Writing. By Ron Kaufman Educational television should be absolutely forbidden. It can only lead to unreasonable disappointment when your child discovers that the letters of the alphabet do not leap up and dance around with royal-blue chickens. -- Fran Lebowitz, Metropolitan Life, 1978 The term cyberspace was coined by writer William Gibson in his book Neuromancer. Published in 1984, Neuromancer was one of the first cyberpunk novels that involved a virtual world alongside the real one. The novels of Gibson, Neal Stephenson and other cyberpunk authors tell stories of a not-so-distant future where video screens, computers and other media channels†¦show more content†¦The children of this new millennium will be barraged with more electronic media than ever in history. The nature of a child s curiosity will naturally drawn him or her to a video game or interactive television. The other influence is that cable operators, television networks and video game publishers target children (and their parents) as part of the consumer base. Children will not be able to escape electronic media and in the future may be drawn more and more toward it. Though the new media-saturated world may be wonderful in many ways, what suffers may be traditional educational practices. If children spend their time watching TV and playing video games they are not spending a great deal of time reading and writing. Statistics collected by the U.S. Department of Education s National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) show that student achievement in both reading and writing has been declining in recent years. The NCES 1998 Writing Report Card states that 16 percent of 4th and 8th graders and 22 percent of 12th graders have not mastered basic writing skills (March, 1999). The NCES 1998 Reading Report Card shows that across grades 4, 8, and 12, no more than 40 percent achieved the proficient level of reading and only 7 percent of 4th graders, 3 percent of 8th graders, and 6 percent of 12th graders could read at the advanced level. The average, or typical, American student is not a proficient writer. Instead,

Franone Should Consider - Beliefs Play a Major Role in the Consumptio Research Paper

Essays on Franone Should Consider - Beliefs Play a Major Role in the Consumption of Water Research Paper The paper â€Å"Franone   Should Consider - Beliefs Play a Major Role in the Consumption of Water† is a  delightful example of a research paper on marketing. The population around the world is increasingly increasing their awareness of the importance of taking water as a dietary measure. With the knowledge that water is essential and the zeal of keeping fit, water has become quite an important commodity. On the other hand, the population has hit many water sources including rivers, seas, oceans and wells with cases of oil spills, industrial waste among many other pollutants drawing people away from consuming the water. This is, therefore, leaving no doubt that what remains is bottled water as the option for the major population. However, in recent times, there has been a hitch in the bottled water industry; there has been a growing backlash against bottled water. This is due in part to the growing environmental awareness of the impact of bottling and transporting water whe n many homes in Europe already have drinkable tap water. The value of this sector has been declining currently. Leading brands of bottled water include Volvic, Evian and Highland Spring. About 30% of bottled water is drunk once a day or more, with a further 30% of consumers drinking bottled water 1-3 times a week. An area of concern for companies that promote bottled water is the perception of poor value for money. A third of people believe that bottled water does not seem to be much different from tap water and so is not worth buying whilst another third of people see it as a healthier alternative to sugary drinks (Toluna, 2009).Task 1:Franone, a water-distributing company, has several leading brands of bottled water around the world and specifically in its UK portfolio. It has, however, experienced a fall in sales of almost  £30m or 23% between 2007 and 2009. This, therefore, warrants thorough conduct of an in-depth programme of marketing research to find out what may be needed to prevent further decline of bottled water sales. More specifically, the research is to help understand how to maintain the company leading position in the market and want to identify the attitudes, preferences and needs of adults who currently consume branded bottled water.Owing to this fall of sales, Franone hired a consultant to conduct research on what would have been the problem and why the sales went down. The research was to be among people above the age of 16 who could purchase and afford water for themselves and who are featured as water consumers. The research was to undertake a research project for Franone, a water-distributing company on attitudes towards the bottled water market. The project entails both qualitative and quantitative research, in the form of depth interviews and a survey questionnaire. The research objectives of this study mainly relate to the bottled water market. It looks into detail trying to find out what may be needed to prevent further decline of bottled water sales (IBIS World 2008). More specifically, they are keen to understand how water-bottling companies can maintain their leadership position in the market and want to identify the attitudes, preferences, and needs of adults who currently consume branded bottled water. The objectives include:

Process of Communication in Business Free-Samples for Students

Question: Discuss about the Contemporary Issues in Business Communication. Answer: Contemporary issues in business communication: Business communication can be defined as the process of communication that helps in the businesses to make contact with each other. Communication is an integral part of the businesses these days because it is not the internal communication that is mandatory for the businesses these days but the communication with the customers is also an essential practice to be conducted. There are different levels of communication (Bovee and Courtland, 2012). The communication is internal as well as external and formal as well as informal. Internal communication is between the employees of the organization that should be conducted to share the data and information between the employees and the management. External communication is conducted by other stakeholders of the businesses such as customers, shareholders, other businesses and companies. The formal communication between the companies and between the employees required a professionalism to be followed. This is because communication is the key to success for the business. If the businesses fail to communicate properly, they usually fail to have successful business. Why communications so important? The answer to this question is that humans are social animals and it is not possible for them to live without interacting with each other. The existence of large number of companies in the same industries is saturating the market and thus increasing the competition (Ober, 2009). The companies are competing on the ground of communication these days because it is the only way they can attract the shareholders and the customers to retain with them. To bring professionalism in communication, it is necessary to understand its process. The communication process can be completed by 3 elements that are sender, receiver and message. Senders are the one who send the message to the receiver. Receivers are the one who receives the messages and message are the information that needs to be transferred from one person to another (Moran, Abrams on and Moran, 2014). Communicating with each other is not an easy task. The businesses need to face many changes that occur in this dynamic environment. These changes can act as challenges for the communication of the businesses as well as opportunities to enhance the communication. It depends on the businesses that how they take it. As globalization is very common in the businesses these days, so the workforces of the organizations are becoming diverse. This diversity is a challenge for the businesses because it makes it difficult for the businesses in their internal communication. People from different cultural background speak different languages and thus it becomes difficult for them to communicate with each other (Ferraro and Brody, 2015). It has been analyzed that the country of Australia is the place of diverse culture and background and also globalization allow other countrys people to come and work here. This creates a dilemma for the management that how to deals with such diverse workforce. This is because management has to communicate in the native language and it is difficult for the people with different background to understand that. This also creates difficulty for the employees to work with each other as they fail to communicate (Jameson, 2007). As in case of Woolworths, the company has recruited many indigenous works in the company and thus people from non-indigenous community of Australia could not communicate with them properly. Supermarket industry is facing such issues widely because then sales staff of the company has to directly deal with variety of customers daily. If the other side of the subject is considered, it has been identified that diversity in workforce act as an opportunity for the organizations as well. This is because if there are employees in the company which can speak different languages then it becomes easy for the company to deal with foreign partners or dealers. It helps the companies to conduct business activities to the countries whose natives are working with them. So, diversity in workforce is not just a challenge but also the opportunity for the business communication. Another issue that needs to be considered in this discussion is technology and social media. It is a well-known fact that technology is the factor that affects the business communication these days (Zikmund, Babin, Carr and Griffin, 2013). It is allowing the companies to communicate with the customers and other stakeholders very easily because it facilitates the organizations with the tool of social media that helps in making contact to the users and the customers directly without many efforts. Thus, it cat as an opportunity for the organizations to use social media tool and other technological tool to communicate with the customers, it also helps in marketing of the company that results in development of brand image and increase in customer base of the company. On the other hand, it also acts as the challenge at the same time. This is because it is difficult for the companies in terms of governance to handle social media tools (ditomaso, Post and Parks-Yancy, 2007). First of all, th e company needs to develop a specialized team that will take care of the social media tool for the company in order to check the content every time. If the company is showing its presence on the social networking sites than public can post anything about the company whether it be bad or good thus company needs to be updated with this every time and has to justify everything what is written about them to retain their customers and shareholders with them. The following compliant was made by a lady on Facebook against Woolworths. This has created a problem for the company but company manages to resolve the issue. The messages like this by the customers creates a problem for the companies and thus it is essential for the companies to deal with such issues and make use of social media as the opportunity rather than taking it as a challenge or the problem. Communication of the businesses needs to be ethical in nature. Ethics is considered as the key issue in business communication because it differs from place to place and person to person. It is not mandatory that what is ethical for one business is ethical for another. This is the reason it is very much essential for the businesses to communicate the ethical considerations of the business communication to every employee clearly (Mujtaba, 2007). The ethical consideration in business communication acts as the challenge for the companies because it is difficult for the companies to train every employee to behave and communicate in ethical way. The company needs to have the written ethical policy that needs to be understood by every employee. It can also be taken as the opportunity for the companies as ethics in communication is very important. Communication is the factor that helps in influence others and businesses need to be ethical in their communication to attract the customers and the other stakeholders (Griffin, Crossman, Bordia, Mills, Maras, Pearse, Kelly and Shanahan, 2010). The supermarket industry is using the social media sites to communicate in ethical manner. No issue has been generated on any of the company regarding any unethical practice. This is because the social media team of the companies like Woolworth has been well equipped with the skills of ethical communication. There are many other issues that can be considered on business communication such as team communication, communication between employees and managers etc. This is because this list can change according to the nature of the environment, as the environment changes and the needs of the market changes, the communication pattern of the business also changes and this also change the key issues developed in business communication. The above essay concludes that dynamic nature of the environment brings different factors for business communication that act as the challenge as well as the opportunity for the company. It is the call of the company that how to deal with those factors (Shockley-Zalabak, 2011). The companies need to face some of the issues in communication such as technology, ethics, workforce diversity etc. But these factors can also be seen as the opportunities for the business to enhance their communication. The above essay discusses about the supermarket industry in Australia and their communication. It has been identified by the decision that the industry is using al the key issues of business communication as the opportunities for them especially the issue of technology., this is because all the companies like Woolworth, Coles etc. are using social media channels to communicate with the customers and other stakeholders with ethical manner (Louhiala-Salminen and Kankaanranta, 2011). This suggests that all the companies these days need to change the challenges into opportunities especially in communication sector so that they can make optimum use of these opportunities and get success in their business. References: Bovee and Courtland, 2012.Business Communication Today, 10/e. Pearson Education India. DiTomaso, N., Post, C. and Parks-Yancy, R., 2007. Workforce diversity and inequality: Power, status, and numbers.Annu. Rev. Sociol.,33, pp.473-501. Ferraro, G. and Brody, E.K., 2015.Cultural Dimension of Global Business. Routledge. Griffin, E.A., Crossman, J., Bordia, S., Mills, C., Maras, S., Pearse, G., Kelly, P. and Shanahan, D., 2010. A First Look at Communication Theory, Em Griffin.Details: Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2009., pp.230-265. Jameson, D.A., 2007. Reconceptualizing cultural identity and its role in intercultural business communication.Journal of Business Communication,44(3), pp.199-235. Johnson, C.E., 2007.Ethics in the workplace: Tools and tactics for organizational transformation. Sage Publications. Louhiala-Salminen, L. and Kankaanranta, A., 2011. Professional communication in a global business context: The notion of global communicative competence.IEEE Transactions on professional communication,54(3), pp.244-262. Moran, R.T., Abramson, N.R. and Moran, S.V., 2014.Managing cultural differences. Routledge. Mujtaba, B., 2007.Workforce diversity management: Challenges, competencies and strategies(pp. 207-229). Llumina Press. Ober, S., 2009.Business communication. South-Western. Shockley-Zalabak, P., 2011.Fundamentals of organizational communication Management. Allyn Bacon. Zikmund, W.G., Babin, B.J., Carr, J.C. and Griffin, M., 2013.Business research methods. Cengage Learning

Women Position In Chinese Film Since 1950S Essays - Chinese Films

Women Position In Chinese Film Since 1950S Since 1950s, after the Chairman Mao Zedong's Yan?n conference, art and literature had strictly become tools of promoting the ideology of Communist Party, that is, the product of art and literature in China can be classified as highly popanganda. Chairman Mao Zedong and his Communist Party strongly suggested the equality of both genders - male and female. To promote Mao's theory, certain kind of strong female character's image had been created in films since 1950s, and furthermore, the images of these female characters were changing during the time period. The common features of the female characters in Chinese film are usually being victimize, they always suffered under certain convention feudal rules, the effect of capitalism, the landlord, or fall victim to certain politics. And the films always targeted on how these female characters fight against those reasons of suffering, and creating tensions to the narrative because these confrontations. During the Cultural Revolution, a very popular female image had created, it is the White Hair Girl (Baimao N?) (1972) This female character image is a tough, strong and full of hatred to the feudal landlord who insulted her and her family. Her desire is very obvious -- to revenge. And finally, she ended up with a heroic image in the film with the help from Chairman Mao Zedong and his Communist Party. However, this film rarely announced the realistic of a female character, that is, despite the obsession hatred of White Hair Girl toward the landlord, and the joy of starting a new life with the Communist Party, audience can rarely feel the other kind of emotion from this female character, for example, the desire of to be loved, is absent in this film. Therefore, in the other hand, another question had been raisen: Do the White Hair Girl necessary to be a female character when she hasn't shown any of the desire of female? In this film, White Hair Girl is not necessary to be a female, only the reason for it is , a victimized female is more easy to grip audience's sympathy. And this also suggested the position of women as women itself is not important during that period. But obviously, this film is just purely a popanganda from the Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution - a model performance (geming yangbanxi) Comparing the narrative of The White Hair Girl and the other two film after Cultural Revolution - The Yellow Earth (Huangtodi) (1984) directed by Chen Kaige and The Red Sorghum (Honggaoliang) (1987) directed by Zhang Yimou, the image of women is very different. In The Yellow Earth and The Red Sorghum, both of the female character are being suffered under the convention feudalism and the politics. But their attitude towards those great forces are different from the White Hair Girl. And more description of the female features in these two films. In The Yellow Earth, the female character Cuiqiao only wants to escape from the arranged marriage, escape from her father and escape from the rule of convention feudalism. She begged Brother Gu from the 8th Army in the Communist Party to take her with him, but Brother Gu just refused, he said ?There are also rules for officers.? Therefore Cuiqiao just realized there are rules everywhere in her world. After marriage, Cuiqiao was suffered much, she decided to go across the river to Yan?n to look for the 8th Army, but eventually disappear in the Yellow River. The attitude towards the women whom willing to free from the traditional lock of feudalism is different between The Yellow Earth and the White Hair Girl. The White Hair Girl is a passive attitude, she rather hide inside the cave to avoid being suffer again from the landlord, her saviour is Communist Party. But in The Yellow Earth, the represent of Communist Party - Brother Gu haven't saved Cuiqiao (although he willing to) He only gave her the dream of the equality of gender is existed in China. And the one who actually taking the action to find her dream is Cuiqiao herself. Therefore, Cuiqiao is more a ?pathfinder of her own happiness? then the White Hair Girl. We can say that Cuiqiao has more controlling power of