Language - Media/Communication

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Language Media/Communication - Anthroblogogy

alternative communication

June 11th 2007 18:05

communicating in means other than words seems to be the theme of my thinking patterns this week, so i have been exploring alternative forms of communication. what use does a word have if the person you are communication it to has no idea of its meaning? by saying it slower or louder at them doesn't help the situation any (which annoys me to no end!), and the conversation just, well, stops. or you might end up getting an ashtray when you asked for a glass of cab sav!

the book the trumpet of the swan by e.b. white, is a fine example of this. it basically is about a swan that cannot communicate the same way that other swans do. he ends up going to school and learning how to read and write by writing on a slate around his neck. he returns home and tries to tell one of the lady swans that he loves her, but she cannot read so she just swims away. his father then steals him a trumpet and louis learns how to play it, which becomes his new form of communication. he then returns home, trumpets his way into his beloved female swans heart, has cygnets and lives happily ever after.

this beautiful, well constructed novel metaphorically states the bleeding obvious. there is a way to communicate to everyone, we just need to find out how. just because we understand one form of communication well, that doesn't necessarily mean that others will. and when we start using multiple forms of communication simultaneously, all hell has the potential of breaking loose. maybe someone should have taught george w how to play a trumpet.

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Posted By: Jonathon - Category: Language, Media/Communication

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words don't mean nutin', korean cinema

June 9th 2007 17:58

coming to end of the semester, it also brings with it the finalization of all of the deadlines, late night cram sessions, and frantic time rescheduling to try and fit in all of those group projects that we have embarked upon. it also brings a certain amount of joy and fulfillment knowing that the projects we have created are both successful and completed.

having just completed one of my korean cinema projects, of which was to create a 20 minute short film, the best part of the semester happened last night. as much fun as it was to create these films with groups of truly creative people, it is more fun to spend four hours watching the fruits of our collective labour. it was a truly great night and a really great chance to see who the next big names in the korean cinema world are going to be.

my korean language skills have improved notably since my arrival here, however i still have major problems when it comes to listening to it. what korean i do know is spoken at record speeds by the koreans, and still leaves me spinning for at least five minutes - even when they do simply ask me what i would like to order! so needless to say watching korean films without subtitles is a more than hard chore.

whilst watching all of these films last night, i realised that i could understand what was going on really easily without actually being able to understand the dialogue (apart from one which was heavily dependent on the words). it starting me thinking as to why i was understanding them so well.

as with general conversation, cinema relies on so much more than just dialogue. let's just think about the aural stuff on its own first. we can have a blend of ambience - to set the location, time, and a small amount of emotion; music - to definitely set the mood and maybe heighten location; fx - allow the viewer to be absorbed into another world completely if done well; and lastly the dialogue - even if the words don't make sense to the viewer can still understand what is trying to be communicated by the tone or level at which the actor speaks. and that's just the audio!

then comes the imagery. without talking for days about this, you can imagine that framing, lighting, and movement are only some of the components that make up this component of film making. acting also plays a major part (obviously) but not so much in only the dialogue. looks and movements tend to enhance the script far more than the words do. there are so many more attributes also that make up movie making - far too many to attempt to discuss in this blog entry.

after watching 10 films, non of which were in english, but being able to understand all but one, i have really come to the decision that words hold so little impact in communication. communication is an all encompassing process that stems from the background knowledge that we bring to the table, and only holds the meaning that we give it. how we portray that to the listener is the real trick.

thanks to u.t.a.s. for the image

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Posted By: Jonathon - Category: Language, Art, Media/Communication

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milo goes to 'wikipedia' college. what do you think?

April 2nd 2007 15:05

the never ending debate is always raging as to the quality of the information that is available on wikipedia. the onlline information encyclopedia that is for wikipedians, written by wikipedians. it is hard for me to take an un-biased opinion of this as i am a firm believer that wiki is all good, however i will attempt to be diplomatic in this discussion of the world's coolest information resource.

wiki is good because:
>it allows open input into the content which allows diversity of this content,
>the content is forever evolving - as the more people research and discover, the more that is added to this database,
>the content is allowed to be edited by whoever, ensuring that there is a natural police system to control any misinformation,
>the history of the edits are accessible to all so it can be seen how the information has been contributed,
>it has a never ending hypertextual, rhizomic form to it that encourages the reader to access multiple sources for any information,
>it is working on all media formats,
>

oesn't pretend to be something that it is not.

these are some substantial reasons as to why i believe it is a credible source of information, and why i continue to use it as such. so it makes me wonder why there is such a scared attitude out there to this information? this opinion is one that is expressed by the same person that would pick up the newspaper in the morning and believe that it is a coincidence that david hicks' trial has been shifted to after the next australian election. wouldn't it be fair to say 'exercise caution' when consuming any form of information? i think wikipedians are more likely to adhere to their own set of conduct when moving about the pages and pro/consuming information.

this is why i feel angry when i hear about schools such as middlebury college in the uk having banned the use of citing wikipedia as academic sources. i thought universities were supposed to be a place where intelligent people lurked? somewhere that was designed to expand one's mind into other thinking dimensions and not implode it on itself? why then would they do this?

if you read this article from a research project into the affects of digital media on youths, it places wikipedia into a more suitable context to be used. i can't help but think of that telstra add. the one where the little boy asks his dad about the great wall of china. "to keep the rabbits out" is his worldly and wisely retort. if we only have one source for anything, don''t we become completely one minded?

in this sense, i also believe that it is impossible to rely solely on wikipedia for your information, but it is something that can be used as a starting point or for reference. apart from that it is useful to gain knowledge on things that be more of a 'folksonomy' rather than something that is in the oxford. what does oxford say about 'crackheads'? well, this is what wiki said about it....

what does other people think about wikipedia and using it as a source?

too many rabbits!

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Posted By: Jonathon - Category: Language, Media/Communication, Technology

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does google own the world?

March 30th 2007 19:59

your searching stops here?

is there no end to what google seem to have their fingers into? off the top of my head i can think of the almighty google search engine, google earth, adsense, and youtube. not to mention the multitudes of spin offs like google scholar, froogle, gmail, and blogger. without a doubt they are the world's largest search engine that i would dare say the majority of the world uses, and to be fair, it is a search engine that rarely lets me down in my never ending persuit for information. even as you read this blog entry, it is being endorsed by google adsense which is attempting to pay me with advertising money for my journalism efforts. they certainly are a force to be reckoned with and have established themselves as a super power within the information super highway. however as with all monopolies, it can't be a good thing all together.

one issue that springs to mind is the idea of censorship in one form. for example, when one does a search for a particular item, the search returns with an enormous amount of results and who is to say that is the best selection of information that is available? the potential sources are selected through a process of recent activity on the many webpages that the information is available on, along with the highest amount of links that correspond to this webpage. for a useful explanation of this refer to this blog post. so in a sense, it is popular information that is found and could potentially not be the best source for this information. not to mention that you, depending on your research skills of course, have to traul through possibly 20 000 000 internet pages. i would really like to meet anyone that has done this

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Posted By: Jonathon - Category: Language, Media/Communication

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seoul searching...

February 10th 2007 07:18

welcome to seoul!

after an 18 hour trip from melbourne we finally arived at kim's guest house, seoul, which was to be our residence for the next two days. and what a journey it was to get this far. we were prepared partially for the language barrier, as everything that i read said that koreans could all basically speak english. i had the basics down and was well confident that easing into the culture wouldn't pose that much of a problem. i think that was my biggest mistake!

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