A day in the life of an Winter Town

A Documentary Photographic Profile 

The reason why I have chosen the following images is due the fact I believe the town of Winchester is a good place for a visitor to see and also to live in. The town’s greenery and traditionalism make it an interesting point to look at and work on an creating an image and a reality. I have related to the winter as that is the season we are in at the moment and not everyone seems to be enjoying the coldness while looking forward to Christmas.

Thank You For Viewing Georgi Tsarnev

 

This is radio documentary project edited and put together by me. The documentary is based on Immigrants coming to the UK looking for a better life and opportunities. Svetlana Tsarneva talks about the difficulties she  met om her way to get where she is at moment. The documentary presents her in a way that a lot of immigrants can relate to her and create a reality from a point of view. Here is an youtube link to the Radio Documentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-zC1tzLLHA

The “New Journalism” Movement

The philosophical and cultural themes underlying the New Journalism movements in 1960s America began with the changes in social and political rebellion.  New journalism began emerging within America with the sale of “penny paper”. This change was seen as the fall of classic journalism. Tom Wolfe wrote a book entitled to New Journalism which based on telling to seeing news which was fitting with society at the time.  In Wolfe’s book The New Journalism on pages 46-47 he described four features that were needed in order to blur the line between fiction and non-fiction.   Starting with:

1. Scene by scene construction:  Wolfe believed by the telling a story in scenes as you see it will ensure that every detail is captured not in a sheer historical narrative. Journalists were at the event to witness it.

2. Realistic Dialogue: He alleged that the ready will be involved completely than using any other trick or devices. It will define the character more quickly and effectively.

3. Third Person Point of View: Interviewing about thoughts and emotions along with everything else will allow the reader the feeling of being inside the characters mind. 

4. Everyday Gestures:  habits, Customs, Styles of furniture, models of behaviour towards children, superiors, inferiors and symbolic details that might exist within a scene are a perfect tool that can be used to give the readers a description of the setting and paint a picture of the characters.

These features were brought at a time of change due to the Vietnam War, Cold war, nuclear strikes, drugs, black power, free love and civil rights as they were emerging out of this era and changes were looked-for.  Every article written based on this topics was considered a mini novel where readers became immersed within the story whilst learning about the latest news.

The “New Left” Movement

The new movement began as a result of the Communist Parties of the United States and Great Britian's incapability of responding to the Hungarian rebellions against Soviet Union. Marxist activists started to reject the authoritarian approach of Communism in favour of a more democratic approach which was based on freedom. The new left movement can be remembered as the revolution of youth culture. Students from United States, Western Europe and Japan mostly from middle class and college educated began a revolution with its main purpose to get American out of Vietnam.  But shortly the Cultural Revolution failed to make its mark in the short term. No Western government was slightly threatened of danger to being overthrown.  The students were reabsorbed by a system they hated.  The indirect effects of the movement were far more immense in cultural and political sense.  By affecting the peace movement therefore it helped get the United States out of Vietnam. But overall it did more damage than it did good by glamorising drugs, degrading traditional values by insulting democracy. The New lefts movement legacy was determined to reduce humanities to a political correct agenda to smash the shackles of traditional sexual morality, to liberate youth from their elders and to entrench entitlements and affirmative action into the American way of life.

Often the new left movement was associated with the "flower power" hippie culture of the 1960s. Both cultures opposed capitalism and used non-violent tactics to protest for nuclear disarmament, civil rights and environmentalism. Like the hippie movements, most of the participants in the New left were college-age, Caucasian  middle class students, although minority groups were also associated with it. There were differences,however, such as the fact that hippies routinely disengaged from society while some new leftist went on to become intellectuals and politicians. 

Relation between the "New Left" and "New Journalism"

The relation between the two can be very significant as they both concentrated on delivering a similar goal based on freedom. Their background of Vietnam War, nuclear strikes, drugs, free love and civil rights has made the activist and educators to look at making a change that the would benefit in a long tern run to our society and different aspects. New Journalism movements can be used to deliver the message or the goal of the New Left Movement. As both movements main interest is what goes around the world during a time of conflict as people want to know the safety of their loved ones and other personal matters. 

What is the continuing influence of these developments?

New Journalism has been used as an influential tool over the years to voice different type of opinions based on showing political problems and other issues that can be tackled that society deals with. Seeing rather than just hearing brings a different prospective to the reader which keeps him more indulged and delivers a reality as it happens. An example that can be used in this case is the live coverage of the 9/11 attack, seeing and feeling everything that has gone on. The New Left movement continuing influence and work is based on more freedom of expression to make a difference. This developments have helped to get more people involved on the different matters that affect society such as the war in Iraq, environment problems such as pollution and so on. By doing so these matters can be looked at and something can be done towards tackling the issues that can affect us as a society and everything around us. New Journalism and New Left can together in a way in order to achieve their goals and deliver a better and developed civilization.

Social Media - Week Reading 5

The Internet U.S. Election Campaign 


The reading explores the reason of popularisation of the internet within politics in the U.S. by the use of blogs, internet websites and YouTube in order to reach out the voters. The article explores the influence on voters and how the Internet has integrated within them. Chadwick (2009 ) states:“The internet had changed the way candidates conduct campaigns. Congressional candidates were using the internet for fundraising, blogging, creating online communities, making video and audio clips available and much more. Pg.13”The article explains that campaign use the internet as a tool which offers voters more choices. This will help the candidate to get their message across in the most effective way. Between 1992 and 1999 over the years the internet developed and was experimented by candidates, parties and groups in order to explore its electoral use. By 2000 the internet campaigns had reached a level where candidates would maintain a website through the campaign. George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton were the first ever candidates to use the internet in their 1992 campaigns. They emailed speeches and position papers in order to distribute them to the commercial bulletin board. By 2004 majority of congressional, gubernatorial and presidential candidate maintained websites. This was called the maturation phase, where websites included features such online chat. During that year Bush allowed visitors to ask question to his campaign staff in real time. The internet allowed the candidates to give a bit more information about their family and their selves. Date of events was also posted on the sites. This was been seen as a form of advertisement designed to achieve a wider goal of the campaigns. Spanish version of the websites was also technologically developed in order to reach out a wider audience of voters. Also columns where introduced where the opponents would say why they should vote for them and not the other candidates. An example of the Bush-Cheney: “Wrong for America Section” by John Kerry.Mobilization was seen as a special form of communication where it encourages voters to participate by using blogs which allowed supporters to voice their opinions and connect with the candidates. The blogs were updated daily with journal, videos, and photos. As Myers (2010) states:“Blogs and Wikis are genres of text define not so much by their form of content as by the kinds of uses to which they are put and the ways these uses construct social identities and communities”This relates to election campaign as it was important how the practice of internet was used by candidates to run a successful campaign in order to win. These are some of the tools used but there are many more and the costs are different

.References:
Chadwick, A. (2009). Internet Politics, New York: Routledge. P13-25

Myers, G. (2010). Discourse of Blogs and Wikis. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. P15Word Count:486

Social Media - Week Reading 4

Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project

The reading demonstrates how social network sites, online games, video-sharing sites, and gadgets such as iPods and mobile phones have become part of youth culture. The reading demonstrates how social network sites give youth a new platform for communication and extension of friendship and interest. Dunkels (2011) States:

"Social network sites are websites that allows users to create personal profiles to represent themselves and connect with other users-most typically, users who are part of their offline social network. Social network sites members can chat, share media, post blogs, and expand their social networks by connecting with new people. (pg.128.)"

The popularity of participation of social network sites allows youth to take part in constant on-line contact with their fiends via on-line chats and instant messaging. This option gives the chance youth to share their interest which creates a bond between suers and makes meeting new people more exciting and easy. The globalisation of the new media can also act as tool ofexpression within youth. The likes of YouTube and MySpace lets youth express their talent, skills, interest and freedom of speech to a wider audience who may share the same features. Ito (2008) comments: "the more ambitious musicians would use a MySpace music template as away to develop profiles that situated them as musicians rather than a stand teen personal profile. (pg.33)". This shows how social networks have integrated within young people in a way that are able to express who they really.

The reading also looks at how New Media can act as a form of educator. As Ito (2008) States: “the growing availability of information in online spaces has started to transform young people’s attitudes toward the availability and accessibility of information” pg.3. An example the University Of Winchester encourages student to write blogs of each week readings as part of the assessment criteria for the given modules. This is just one of the ways how the internet is introduced to society and submitted as a tool or form of educator. Also by accessing the internet you are able to find a wider set of information from online resources at all time. The internet in a way exploits new opportunities of learning.

The article also states that the New Media is becoming part of youth's culture because of itsintegration and globalisation within them. The fast and growing participation of youth using digital media show how it has become part of youth's everyday living.

References

Dunkels. E & Franber, G.M. & Hallgren C. (2011) Youth Culture and Net Culture: Online Social Practices. Hershey: IGI Global. p.128

Ito, M. & Horst, H. (2008) Living and Learning with New Media; Summary of Finding From DIgital Youth Project. Available: http://learn.winchester.ac.uk/file.php/3205/digitalyouth-WhitePaper.pdf Last Accessed: 27th February 2012

Word Count 470

Week 7 & 8

Week 5 & 6 & Lecture & Seminar 3

Seminar Paper

Russell's Work In Logic

Russell could be seen as one of the giants of modern logic. His work attempts to clarify the underpinning of mathematics was unprecedented and comprehensive. Rusell was interested in mathematics and systems of logic. According to him math was the one thing that had the answers in life. At the time he believed he was only person drive to recreate math, but soon found like minded contemporaries and even few mentors. The Three most important to understand were Georg Cantor, David Hilber and Gottlob Frege. Cantor created Set Theory, and Russell Hoped these were unrelated. Grege created the Begriffsschrift, a language for logical operation as daunting as its crazy German name that was designed to examine and underpin the mathematics and build them on a solid foundation. That work was based on Canto's Set Theory. Hilbert challenges mathematicians at the International Congress of Mathematics that Arithmetic, is a underpins of all other maths. Hilbert, like Russell, shared the dream of mathematics where any problem stated rigorously could be absolutely and with complete clarity solved.

Russell set to achieve his dream by the use of Set Theory and a logical logical language not unlike that developed by Frege. Russell accidentally undid Frege and Cantor work and gave Hilbert a shock. It was to do with Set Theory where a set is a collection of objects define by a common property. For instance, "the set of all green things" would inlcude a blade of grass, a leaf and the Incredible Hulk. Similarly, the number 3 could be defined as " set of all sets with three elements". Three hats, three cars, three dogs all of these can be grouped together to be defined by the number 3. Set theory was the the heart of logic and it was a method that was used by Russell and Frege and many others that were hoping to create a unassailable underpinning for mathematics. But Russell killed that dream with his thought. He stated what about a " Set of all Sets that do not contain themselves"? In which case it doesn't. Its like saying " I am now lying". If you are, you aren't and if your aren't you are. Its a simple paradox that ate away the very heard of modern logic. The set of Set Theory was itself no longer completely consistent. Russells work had destroyed what little work was already complete. Russell proved beyond that Arithmetic was inherently and inextricable incomplete. Any system based on it was also necessarily incomplete. The work of decades by Frege, Hilbert, Cantor, and Russell was in on stroke proven to an impossible quest.

This didn't despair Russell, however it merely clarified things for him, He had found, at last, irrefutable evidence that there was no perfect path to absolute truth, and in fact such a path could never exist. With grace, he acknowledged that perhaps some problems exist that cannot be solved with a simple logical calculus. And in fact, there was no reason to despair. His work in logic built the foundation for Godel’s work, who built the foundation for Turing, who invented computing, which paved the way for much of the modern world. Russell spent much of his life in a quest for truth that ultimately failed, but his passions enriched the world along the way.