International Comm & Culture 2009

I know this might have nothing to do with the class, but I know that you wanna know about this. :D

heheh salah baca ya akuu... ini lah akibatnya of being sick! mmm i see. cause i thought it was based on last week music festival.. hehehe

love it!

Even though South and North Koreans are 'Koreans', we cannot communicate each other because of many reasons.

I knew that South Koreans and North Koreans can't cross the border to visit each other, but i really don't know that they can't even send e-mails. It's such a pity that they don't know when they will see their relatives next time.

It is reminiscent of families being split in East and West Germany. People would plan trips to Lake Balaton in Hungary to catch up. But that said they could send (censored) letters and make phone calls. If the North Korean Government are so kean to keep these families split up why are they allowing these meetings to take place? The cruelty of it all is hard to comprehend, seeing a loved one never to know if you will see them again.

Inter racial harmony in Malaysia

Interesting move, I guess the "localization" process overlooked a few issues. Personally I think "the family guy" does quite often cross lines that should not be crossed, (eg: when making fun of pedophilia) The show highlights a trend in western society to ridicule any value and/or anything "sacred".

I've watched it once and I didn't like it.Everything about it is so wrong but I guess it's now a trend to use cartoons as medium for silly jokes.

Some people might capture the meaning wrongly. Perhaps Venezuelans view Family Guy as those who criticize the western value. Since Venezuelan TV is know to re-runs of old US series and Latin American soap operas, they tend to manage the conventional value instead of looking at the west in a modern society who gets ridicule by the writers.

A very good Australian film 'Mao's Last Dancer'. The main character(real one) is now living in Melbourne as a stockbroker. I think the film successfully highlights the contradiction between Communist China and America. Should go and see it.

have you seen it Blaze? Anna said it was brilliant.

Personally, i appreciate this movie so much. Mao's Last Dancer was opened on the same day in Melbourne as another movie called The Founding of A Republic. That was an obvious ideological confrontation. Though the two movies are telling story in the same country. Compared with the Singapore Girl TV Commercial, which was made by Asian for showing oriental spirit to the western in a western way, Mao's Last Dancer was made by Australia for showing their understanding of the age of ideological confrontation. I think for many western audience, there are a lot of languages and ideology during that special years could not be understood forever. But i appreciate the director and adaptor so much. Because sometimes we need others to help us grow.

I did my critical case study on Facebook and the significance of the groups created on Facebook. I found this piece of news interesting because it is amazing how a social networking website can carry so much meaning and significance to some users/ individuals.

Is it a propaganda or PR tool?

I think it can be said as a propaganda film because it draws a lot of Chinese to revisit the historical moment, then of cause, the stars in the film are doing a good job in drawing the audience in the first place lol~

Nowadays, Chinese people are enjoying greater freedom of speech and access to Internet. Both external environment and domestic development contribute to this. As in the new nationalism that forbidden by authorized government, the changing web of Chinese nationalism is such a powerful tool that inspires people to observe and thought independently. It also creates online nationalism, which could be considered as a growing potential turbulence.

I agree what you talked about the online nationalism of Chinese as a growing potential turbulence. In fact, there are a lot of cases showing the trend of the ' growing potentail turbulence'. The debate between Chinese governement and the Melbourne Film Festival on the documentary of Rebiya Kadeer (The 10 Conditions of Love) has led to breakdown of Film Festival's offical site. People believed that the site has hacked by Chinese hacker. I believe that the Chinese nationalism is obviously leading to an online nationalism which may impact on both positive and negative sides.

It is interesting how the producers did not find it racist before it aired but now because of public backlash they will have to address this issue.

Now I had my first Vegemite just last week at a friends.. Mmmm Yummy. I probably am glad I didnt try the new Vegemite though.. Cos a lot of my friends didnt like it.

Could it be a subtle marketing gimmick? Just a thought.

it's a marketing strategy no doubt about it. perhaps they would like to reconfigure their brand?

I know we've already been graded but just thought this was really interesting.

I just thought of sharing this piece of news since half of the journals in our course readers involves food and how it does (or doesn't?) represent a culture or country. Singapore just like Malaysia is interesting and different because of its multiracial and multicultural citizens.

A televised debate for UK's elections look more promising as the main news channels have agreed on how the debate will take place.

A study in the US. Death of conventional journalist methods?

The elites and their control again...

. In the disaster of earthquake (Sichuan Province, China ), Ai Weiwei, one of Bulogger.cn authors, charged that the high number of school fatalities was due to local officials siphoning money from school building costs. Grieving families said the structures were badly built and collapsed easily during the quake. But officials refused to list the names of the dead students, which could be used to unveil a possible cover-up, so Ai formed the "Sichuan Earthquake Names Project" with researchers and volunteers who discovered the names of 5,190 students.