Business Ethics Essay Example for Free

Business Ethics Essay In a narrative format, discuss the key facts and critical issues presented in the case. Word count: 158 Countrywide Financial began in 1969 and by 2000 was one of the nations largest lenders (Ferrell, 2010). In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Countrywide Financial offered subprime mortgage loans. Subprime mortgage loans were loans that were offered to people who would not ordinarily be able to qualify for conventional loans because of Income, lack of credit or low credit score. Because of the structure of these mortgage loans, people found It hard to make payments when the economy slowed down. The real estate market and the economy was negatively affected by the large number of people who were unable to make payments on their mortgages. Countrywide Financials earnings were posltlve until 2007, when the economy slowed and real estate prices dropped. In 2008, Bank of America bought Countrywide Financial. Bank of America had more assets that could handle the crisis, and Bank of America would be able to handle the ethical investigations involving Countrywides questionable lending practices. Reference: Ferrell, O. C. (2010). Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases, 8th Ed.. Cengage Learning What were the incentives for Countrywide to write so many subprime loans? Word count: 168 Countrywide Financial benefited financially from offering subprime mortgage loans. Since the interest rate, fees and terms of subprime mortgages are typically higher than conventional loans, the lenders are able to profit from this type of loan (Moulton ; Bozeman, 2011). Between 1982 and 2003, Countrywide reported substantial earnings, and the offered profitable returns on stock investors. By offering mortgages and loans to borrowers who would not ordinarily qualify, the ees and interest were collected from thousands of borrowers with this type of loan. They also extended loan privileges to a large amount of the population who would not ordinarily be able to own homes. I feel that Countrywide Financials Incentive for offering subprime mortgage loans was for financial benefit. I believe that they should have known the effects these types of loans would have If the economy took a downturn. They were too Interested In the profits to be made and continued the practice despite the negative effects It would have on people and the country as a whole. Moulton, S. , Bozeman, B. (2011). The Pulicness of Policy Environments: An Evaluation of Subprime Mortgage Lending. Journal of Public Administration Reseach Theory, 21(1), 87-115. dot:10. 1093/jopart/muq005 Ferrell, O. C. (2010). Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases, 8th Ed. , What was Countrywides logic in thinking that originating loans for people with poor credit ratings would result in positive outcomes? Word count: 182 Before the real estate crisis, the subprime mortgage industry was praised for helping people attain homeownership (Ferrell, 2010). Subprime mortgages helped minorities and lower income people be able to afford to own a home. At the time, it was thought of as a positive financial tool. Since there were more people being able to attain loans to own a home, other industries benefited from the effects of the subprime mortgage practice. Contractors, the building supply industry and real estate agencies were all profiting from these lending practices. It seemed that these types of loans were helping many industries. In a speech given by Govenor Edward Gramlich in May, 2004 (www. federalreserve. v), he spoke of these lending practices and said the increased availability of subprime mortgage credit has created new opportunities for homeownership and has allowed previously credit-constrained homeowners to borrow against the equity in their homes to meet a variety of needs.

Positivist Approach to Sociological Research

Positivist Approach to Sociological Research Scientific methodology in sociology, the study of the social world, is most often associated with what is known as the positivist approach. In this essay, to determine whether or not it is indeed possible to apply scientific methods to the study of the social world, I will analyse the strengths and weaknesses of positivist sociology. â€Å"As developed by Auguste Comte, positivism is a way of thinking based on the assumption that it is possible to observe social life and establish reliable, valid knowledge about how it works.† (Johnson p231) This established knowledge was then to be used to affect the course of social change and it would help improve humanity. Comte’s work was in part a reaction to the ‘anarchy’ that besieged France in the wake of the revolution. Comte sincerely believed that scientific rationality could temper the raw human emotions that had lead to such chaos. Sociology, in his definition (and others), literally the science of society, co uld apply such scientific rationalism, empiricism and positivism to social life, thus improving it and preventing continued anarchy. â€Å"Comte believed that social life is governed by underlying laws and principles that can be discovered through the use of methods most often associated with the physical sciences.† (Johnson p231) One would identify the methods of positivism thus; 1) careful observation measurement; 2) quantification; 3) formalisation of concepts precision in definition; 4) operationalisation of theoretical questions 5) mathematisation (connects with all of the previous features; 6) logic and systemisation of theory 7) symmetry of explanation prediction; 8) objectivity understood as value neutrality. Positivism, â€Å"Is above all a philosophy of science. As such, it stands squarely within the empiricist tradition. Metaphysical speculation is rejected in favour of positive knowledge based upon systematic observation and experiment. The methods of science can give us knowledge of the laws of coexistence.† (Marshall p510) However, as shall hopefully be shown later, these scientific methods can not show us anything about the inner ‘essences’ or ‘nature’ of things. Broadly speaking structuralism is, â€Å"Used loosely in sociology to refer to any approach which regards social structure (apparent or otherwise) as having priority over social action.† (Johnson p646) Positivism and structuralism are generally highly complementary, positivism effectively being the scientific methodology of structuralism. This can be observed in the works of Comte, Marx, Durkheim and the Vienna circle. Later theorists such as Parsons can also be described as both str ucturalist and positivist although in Parson’s case he does consider certain interpretivist sensibilities. Marx, Durkheim, Comte, the Vienna circle and many others all saw sociology as a science and all believed that social structure was the core component of society. â€Å"Perhaps one of the most important traits in naturalistic or positivistic sociology is the belief that social phenomena are patterned and are subject to deterministic laws much as are the laws governing the natural sciences. Sociological theory then becomes a quest for laws similar to the law of gravity or the law of material density in physics† (Poloma p3) The main difference between the social and natural worlds is that the subject of study in the social world is humanity. People, in basic terms, have a consciousness where as the subjects of the natural sciences, rocks or atoms or chemicals, do not. People are aware of themselves and their surroundings in a way that rocks, for example, are not. This, clearly, is a potential problem for positivist sociology. However, this problem is resolved, in positivist science, by arguing that the self-consciousness of human beings (the ability to think, act and feel) is not a significant factor in our ability to understand social behaviour. This, according to positivists, is because peoples behaviour is, at its genesis, always a reaction to some form of stimulation. This stimulation can be from their socialisation (as we shall see in Parsons work), or it can be something more direct like the need to earn a living or a confrontation with another human. This produces one of the criticisms of positiv ist sociology, as we shall see, action and the meaning placed on that action becomes unimportant for study, only the cause of the action, the stimuli, has any sociological value for positivists. The positivist view of sociology, of its aims, of its methods, is certainly a contentious one. Two of the first sociologists to question these methods, and the first that can be labelled as interpretivist, were Weber and Simmel. â€Å"Weber argues that sociology is not concerned with totalising explanations; only individuals have an ontological reality, society does not exist in that real sense, and so sociological explanations must be in terms of individual events and processes.† (Craib 1997 p51) Rickert’s term of Geisteswissenschaften (literally the sciences of the spirit/mind) greatly influenced Weber’s conception of what sociology should be. The ontological reality which Weber speaks of is that humans are very different from other natural beings. We have free will, an inner life, use symbols, possess language, live in culture and act meaningfully. This ontological reality ensures that humanity cannot be studied using positivist scientific methodology, or any other conventional scientific methodology, sociology must use other methods. While the natural sciences wish to explain natural events, sociology, as understood by Weber, Rickert or Simmel, wishes to understand social action. Social scientists should endeavour to understand social action in very much the same way as one attempts to understand other people, by communicating, through empathy, and through argument. These views are also associated with, and expanded upon, by the philosopher Peter Winch. (Winch 1958) â€Å"Sociology differs from the natural sciences in that it does not deal with a pre given universe of objects. People attribute meaning to their social world and act accordingly.† (Baert p97) Weber, in his Methodology of The Social Sciences, points out that all knowledge of cultural reality is always from a particular point of view. The philosophical idea that there is no truth, only human opinion is prevalent in this argument. Simmel emphasises and expands upon this point, â€Å"In the last resort the content of any science doesn’t rest on simple objective facts, but always involves an interpretation and shaping of them according to categories and rules that are a priori of the science concerned.† (Stones p74) Any scientific conclusion, be it in the field of physics or sociology, has to be interpreted by its author, then represented by that same author and then reinterpreted by those that read it. In these interpretations any ‘truth’ or ‘law ’ is surrendered to human opinion, human meaning, human understanding. This criticism of positivist sociology is probably best illustrated by a discussion of a classic positivist sociological text, Emile Durkheim’s suicide study. In his study, Durkheim analysed the differential distribution of the occurrence of suicide by country and region. Durkheim professed to have found suicidogenic currents (Durkheim 1963) in society; the pressures to commit suicide, the laws of suicide. Through a positivist, scientific methodology, Durkheim identified the pressures to commit suicide were greater in regions where the Protestant faith was dominant, and weaker where Catholicism dominated. Durkheim’s account posits an external force (suicidogenic currents) as the cause of suicide cause and effect. (Durkheim 1963) However why suicide occurs tends not to be the issue. To say that suicide is caused, not entirely obviously but in part, by the following of the Protestant faith is to assume that the term suicide is a simple one, a fixed one, with no room for differing meanings. This view is wrong. What is of importance is how a suicide comes to be defined as such by the coroner’s court. One must remember that a sui cide is not an objective fact, but a interpretation, an interpretation that can be influenced by the coroner’s own personal feelings. If a ruling of suicide is likely to cause the deceased’s family pain and suffering, as is likely if they are Catholics, then the coroner may be inclined, where ever possible, to not record a suicide verdict, but an accidental death instead This alerts us to the problematic nature of Durkheim’s, and positivist sociology in general, reliance on statistics. For Durkheim takes those statistics as giving a ‘true’ picture of the incidence of suicide. But do they? Are they rather a representation of the interpretation of suicide as opposed to cold hard objective fact? Interactions/ interpretive work on suicide states that suicide statistics are a construction involving police, courts and coroners. Thus for a death to be counted as a suicide involves a complex social process concerning meaning and interpretation, two unquantifiable characteristics of humanity. Thus suicide is not just the effect of a societal cause, but an interpretation of events, thus not a positivist, scientific event. Therefore if sociologists wish a knowledge of social life, they cannot explain social actors’ action in terms of cause and effect. Rather, they must seek out what the social actors themselves say they are up to, wha t they mean. â€Å"Comte’s view shifted in later life, under the influence of Cloitilde de Vaux. He came to see that science alone could not be a binding force for social cohesion as he had earlier supposed. He argued that the intellect must become the servant of the heart, and advocated a new ‘religion of humanity.’† (Marshall p509) Comte, the originator of the positivist sociological methodology shifted his emphasis away from positivism in his later work, thus exposing the inherent problems and weaknesses at its methodological core. â€Å"Positivism has had relatively little influence in contemporary sociology for several reasons. Current views argue that positivism encourages a misleading emphasis on superficial facts without any attention to underlying mechanisms that cannot be observed.† (Johnson p231) For example, we cannot observe human motives or the meaning that people give to behaviour and other aspects of social life, but this does not me an that meaning and motive are nonexistent or irrelevant. The best way to illustrate the above points is to set them within the context of a positivist sociological study, in this case Parson’s work on personality. For society to function, it is logical according to Parsons to deduce that the individual members of society have to agree with society’s rule. â€Å"For Parsons, the social system is†¦made up of the interactions of individuals. Of special concern is†¦ that such interactions are not random but mediated by common standards of evaluation. Most important among these are moral standards which may be called norms.† (Hamilton p155) When people in society interact the interactions themselves, the emotions that seemingly control them, the goals that the individual actors (people) are hoping to obtain, they are all in fact controlled by the norms of society. â€Å"The concept of order is located predominantly at the level of the social system itself and the cultural system becomes a mechanism of the functioning of the social system.† (Hamilton p146) These norms are adopted and agreed by each member of the society for Parsons and this is his consensus theory. Imp ortantly Parsons’ theory suggests that the power of societal expectations, the power of norms, is more pervasive than merely being a moral standard that mediates interaction and personal relationships. They are in fact the organisational foci of personality, of people themselves. â€Å"Socialisation is the process by which we learn to become members of society, both by internalising the norms and values of society, and also learning to perform our social roles (as worker, friend, citizen and so forth.)† (Marshall p624) The family, for instance, is controlled by the same norms as society because it is that society, just it is a smaller component of it. The subsystems of society are analogous to body parts in the Parsonian model, they are all essential, each provide their own unique function and all interrelate, interpenetrate and are dependent upon one another. Analogous to the human body where each body part has a specific function to perform, and all of those parts work in unison to keep the structure going, so society is organised. Immersion within these subsystems, such as the family leads to internalisations of norms and objects, and this in turn creates personality. Because personality is internalised from society, â€Å"The foci of organisation of both types of system lies in†¦the value systems.† (Parsons p357) The values of society are the values of people, or personality. People are not just guided by the norms of society, but their very personalities are organised by the very same norms and principles and morals, according to Parsons. Thus peoples actions are quantifiable, reducible to a law since they are mediated by common standards. As gravity is a constant, so are the norms of a society and therefore of personality. The positivist law here is that personality, every action of a human is controlled by the same standards of evaluation as society. The person’s personality is derived directly from society, it is society. Thus a scientific study of society is possible because there is cause and effect, there is a reaction to stimuli. Socialisation is the stimulation that people react to. For Parsons, laws can be discerned from humanity because people will react in predictable ways, mediated by norms, to the stimulation of events and socialisation. Thus sociology can be scientific, empirical and positivist. A major problem with Parson’s work is that it reduces human personality to being produced and organised solely by societal expectations and norms. This societal determinism fails to acknowledge or explain where certain feelings, motives and actions originate. Goffman argues that â€Å"it is . . . against something that the self can emerge. . . Without something to belong to, we have no stable self, and yet total commitment and attachment to any social unit implies a kind of selflessness. Our sense of being a person can come from being drawn into a wider social unit; our sense of selfhood can arise through the little ways in which we resist the pull.† (Goffman 196 p305) A favourite example of this for Goffman was that of mental patients in asylums. The total institution of an asylum probably forces more strict adherence to societal expectation than most other social situations by using methods such as drug induced control and disciplinary measures such as EST. Yet in the se institutions, despite being forced to play the role of the mental patient, to conform to societal expectation), patients still resisted those expectations. The hoarding of banned materials being an example of this. The motivation to do this does not come from internalisation of norms, as the correct way to behave is to not horde banned items. It comes from a need to keep ones own identity, to satisfy needs and drives and wants. These needs drives and wants are absent from the Parsonian model and a full understanding or explanation of society and social actions needs to take them into account. â€Å"The maintenance of this surface of agreement, this veneer of consensus, is facilitated by each participant concealing his own wants behind statements which assert values to which everyone present feels obliged to give lip service.† (Goffman 1990 p20-21) The norms and laws that Parsons believes to control personality and society, are revealed by Goffman as only being a veneer. Furthermore Goffman states that other feelings and motives in fact influence social action, not just norms. If, as Goffman claims, the so called common standards of evaluation that Parsons identifies are in fact a veneer that hides other motives and feelings, then the actions of humanity are not as easily quantifiable, reducible to a scientific, positivist law, as Parsons first shows. Freud’s metapsychology deals with the general structure of mental life. For Freud there were three psychic structures. The first, the id, contains, â€Å"those basic drives we have by virtue of being human, of which sexuality is the most important.† (Craib 1989 p3) The Id is often equated to by Freud as being like an infant, demanding immediate satisfaction irrespective of societal expectations. The Id makes up the greatest part of the unconscious and it is in this unconscious realm of basic biologically influenced drives that the motivational forces that Parson’s can not identity come from. The Id influences personality. It is important to remember that, as opposed to biological instincts driving us to act like a shark would, a mindless automaton, â€Å"the unconscious is composed not of biological instincts but of the mental representations we attach to these instincts.† (Craib 1989 p4) Thus each individual creates their own mental representation for the ir drives thus meaning that every persons internal world has a different geography. This clearly poses problems for the positivist approach to personality and society and social action, as represented by Parsons here, for if reaction to stimulation is not predictable because each person acts differently, then universal scientific laws can not be established. The second structure of personality according to Freud, the ego or the ‘I’ is the central organiser of mental life. The third, the superego is thought of as the conscience. â€Å"The superego is the internalisation of external control which demands the renuncification of instinctual satisfaction in order that society might be formed and maintained.† (Craib 1989 p21) The superego is the part of personality that Parson’s identifies the part that internalises norms. The basic drives of the id demand immediate satisfaction, immediate gratification of those drives, these demands are contrary to the superego norms and morality, and the conflict has to be resolved by the ego. Our consciousness, predominantly consisting of the ego and superego, protects us from our own id impulses that, if they were followed, would leave it impossible for us to exist within society. Freud stated that â€Å"Civilisation depends upon repression†¦If we tried to gratify all our d esires, sexual or otherwise, as and when they arose, society, civilisation and culture would vanish over night.† (Craib 1984 p195) For Freud the ‘I’, is the resolution of the conflict between the id biologically directed drives, and the superego’s societal restraints. Therefore personality is the site of the, hopefully, resolved conflict between the normative mind evaluated by common standards as Parsons identifies, and the basic id drives. These Id drives, as I shall show, influence personality thus influence social action and society. This being the case then Parsons’ explanation for personality is insufficient and so is the positivist claim for the scientific study of society. The positivist tenants of careful observation and measurement; quantification; formalisation of concepts precision in definition; operationalisation of theoretical questions; mathematisation; logic and systemisation of theory; symmetry of explanation prediction and objecti vity cannot be applied to individualistic Id drives and impulses. â€Å"The desire to kill anyone who frustrates us thus becomes unconscious, but none the less remains.† (Craib 1989 p24) Evidence for these desires for Freud appears in slips, where the unconscious desire can ‘slip’ into conscious conversation. â€Å"Freud quotes the husband who supposedly said, ‘If one of us two die, I shall move to Paris.† (Craib 1989 p24) One can not scientifically measure how these unconscious desires influence and effect social action, especially since it can be so hard to identify them as existing in the first place. â€Å"A feature of human life is that an instinct such as the sexual instinct is not directed at any one object, but has to be socially channelled, in our society usually towards members of the opposite sex.† (Craib 1989 p4) â€Å"Human beings are restrained by social organisation from a free and good expression of their drives. Through its oppression, society forces people into neuroses and psychoses.† (Craib 1989 p19) For Freud the very problems that he and other psychoanalysts dealt with were in fact often as the result of the repression of id drives by the superego and societal repression. As such the very existence of neuroses and psychoses can be seen as evidence to the fact that this conflict does indeed exist, that the resolution of this conflict does indeed produce the ‘I’ with all its faults and problems. To fully understand society, sociology needs to be aware of societal pressures, the Parson’s personality through positivism, but also nee ds to recognise the other meanings and emotions that cannot be quantified, cannot be analysed scientifically. Sociology needs to use interpretivism and positivism together. In terms of this example, Parsons positivist models needs to be considered at great length and detail as he does indeed identify a huge force in shaping society, that of norms and how they do penetrate into the psyche and personality. However, a study that only concentrates on the positivist methodology misses the crucial aspects of personality that Goffman and Freud identify, and that is not in the interest of any sociologist. â€Å"Positivism may be dead in that there is no longer an identifiable community of philosophers who give its simpler characteristics unqualified support, but it lives on philosophically, developed until it transmutes into conventionalism or realism. And even if in its simpler philosophical forms it is dead, the spirit of those earlier formulations continues to haunt sociology.† (Halfpenny p120) In conclusion positivism’s attempt at scientific sociological methodology, though fallacious is admirable and certainly many of the aspects of positivism should be considered desirable. As quoted elsewhere, â€Å"positivism is a way of thinking based on the assumption that it is possible to observe social life and establish reliable, valid knowledge about how it works.† (Johnson p231) The desire for reliable, valid knowledge is of course a relevant and important sociological aim and some of the tools that positivism uses to try to reach such knowledge are useful and wort hwhile. Careful observation, measurement; quantification; formalisation of concepts precision in definition; operationalisation of theoretical questions; logic and systemisation of theory; symmetry of explanation and prediction and objectivity, if all of these tenants of positivism can at least be attempted in a sociological study then that sociological study will indeed be the better for it. However, sociological study needs to recognise, as Comte himself did, that these aims, in their fullest, are unobtainable and that those aims are not ends in themselves, rather a very rough guide to sociological methodology. As I have hopefully shown above, sociological analysis needs positivism, needs scientific methodology, but a carefully tempered and monitored positivism. The aim of sociology is understanding and that understanding should not be limited by methodology, especially a methodology that is inherently flawed. Positivism shows us how to analyse data, data that is essential to soc iological understand, but that data must not be treated uncritically thus a synthesis of positivism and interpretivism is recommended. To study the social world using a strict scientific methodology is impossible, that does not, of course, mean that scientific methodology is not a useful and critical tool in sociological study. Bibliography Baert, P, 1998. Social theory in the twentieth century. Polity press Craib, I, 1984. Modern social theory. Wheatsheaf books Ltd Craib, I, 1989. Psychoanalysis and social theory the limits of sociology Wheatsheaf Craib, I, 1997. Classical social theory pub by Oxford university press Durkheim, E, 1963. Suicide, a study in sociology. Routledge Goffman, E, 1961 Asylums. Doubleday Anchor Goffman, E, 1990. The presentation of the self in everyday life. Penguin Halfpenny, P, 1986. Positivism and sociology. Routledge Johnson, G 2000 The dictionary of sociology Blackwell Hamilton, P, 1992. Talcott Parsons critical assessments. Routledge Marshall, G 1998. Oxford dictionary of sociology. Oxford university press Parsons, T, The structure of social action Free Press 1949 Poloma, M, 1979. Contemporary sociological theory. MacMillan Stones, R, 1998. Key sociological thinkers. Palgrave Winch, P, 1958. The Idea Of a Social Science. Routledge

Comparing James Joyces Araby and Ernest Hemingways A Clean, Well-Ligh

Comparing James Joyce's Araby and Ernest Hemingway's A Clean, Well-Lighted Place As divergent as James Joyce's "Araby" and Ernest Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" are in style, they handle many of the same themes. Both stories explore hope, anguish, faith, and despair. While "Araby" depicts a youth being set up for his first great disappointment, and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" shows two older men who have long ago settled for despair, both stories use a number of analogous symbols, and lap over each other thematically. At the beginning of "Araby", the narrator describes the street's lamps as lifting their "feeble lanterns" towards an "ever-changing violet" sky (227). The colour violet is both dark and rich. The sky, this deep, mysterious colour, and always mutating, suggests the expanse of unknown beyond mortal experience. The feeble lights which fail to lick the lowest tufts of cloud resemble the people who look out into the fog of unanswerable questions; who can never hope to find anything but the shapes one reads in, like hillside skywatchers. The narrator's character goes around looking up. First at Mangan's sister: from the shadow, from the floor, and from the subordinate position of an admirer. Then, more metaphorically, he looks up to an image he's built for himself; an expectation of beauty and treasures; an enthusiastic hope or hopeful enthusiasm that his pilgrimage to Araby will yield him if not the answer (to the question which manifests as a nameless longing), then the key to the answer. This answer is represented by Mangan's sister (whose name is not mentioned, as with the Hebrew G-d), whom the boy hopes to access through the gesture of his quest.1 At the end, the boy looks up again, like the l... ...othing in it. Hemingway's old man walks away from the bar with dignity, but with hope long vanished. The older waiter, another faithless man, is resigned to nothingness. His mockery of Christian prayer is not angry, but spoken with a smile and a sigh. However, as indicated by his insomnia, Nada is a cold bedfellow. Works Cited Hemingway, Ernest. "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place". Kirszner and Mandell 233. Joyce, James. "Araby". Kirszner and Mandell 226. Kirszner, Laurie, and Stephen Mandell, eds. Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Compact Fourth Edition. New York: Harcourt College Publishers, 2000. 1This character may also stand as a sexual symbol. The bracelet she handles when she speaks of the convent may suggest that she is shackled to Catholic prudery. In any case, she still stands as "the desired", physically or metaphysically.

Essay --

The WW1 Conscription is one of the significant PR events that occurred in Australia in the 20th century. The Government in essence intended to adopt a conscription policy so as to enhance its fighting capacity. Nevertheless it could not impose this policy unless it received the support of the Nation and therefore it had to persuade its citizen to support it by voting in the referendum. It however faced a very strong opposition with both parties adopting various public relation strategies to influence the public perception towards conscription. The Government lost in both referendums implying that its PR campaigns were not as effective as those of the opposition. The opposition therefore can still rely on the PR strategy it had applied during WW1 conscription to block any attempts by the Government to reintroduce conscription. However, the new campaign should utilize modern media and PR strategies so as to persuade effectively the current sophisticated audience (Sheehan 2007). Conscription can simply be defined as mandatory military recruitment of people of a certain age group. A brief analysis of the public relation campaign adopted prior and during the WWW 1 will help clarify why conscription is considered to be a public relation event. Grunig and Hunt (1984) cited in Sheehan (2007) argues that the One-Way Communication model that adopted publicity and public information strategy, and the Two-Way Communication model, special emphasis being on Two-Way Asymmetric strategy, were the main model. Each one of these model had a main aim; the main aim of publicity was to spread propaganda; the aim of public information was information dissemination; and lastly the aim of two-way asymmetric strategy was to scientifically persuade the pub... ...owards ensuring the public supported this policy. This it did considering it faced a very strong opposition with the anti-conscription equally engaging in rigorous PR campaign aimed at blocking the government efforts toward introducing mandatory military recruitment. Some of the PR strategies and tactics engaged in by both parties included spreading propagandistic message, scientifically persuading the target audience by applying two-way asymmetric model, and occasionally engaging in information dissemination. The fact that the Government failed in both the referendum implies that the opposition strategy was effective. It should therefore adapt almost a similar approach to block any new effort by the Government to reintroduce conscription. However it should incorporate modern strategies and/or tactics so as to fully reach the now very sophisticated audience.

Essays --

You all probably celebrate this December time with caroling kids to decorating your Christmas tree. We all love Christmas and its holiday cheer. But today I want to talk about a place that holds many great traditions, the country we all know and love...France. You may have heard of France because of ts very famous city called Paris. French citizens also celebrate Christmas but they also celebrate traditions and celebrations that are very different from how we usually preform occasions here. France is located above Spain, below the United Kingdom, and to the right of the Atlantic Ocean. In France, I would say that the biggest celebrated tradition is known as "le reveillon" the holiday with a feast fit for ten kings. Aside from the holidays and stuff, lets talk about France's goverment. France's type of goverment is a semi-presidental system. Do you have a religion? Well here is some of the religions practiced in France. Some of Frances major religions are Catholicism, Islam, and Ju dasim. French people also have a different language than we do. French is an italic language descended from the spoken Latin language of the Roman Empire. We will get into all this later. So sit back and relax and listen to a more about France's points of goverment, language, religion and stuff like that. France has a very different overall perspective than the United States. So now lets go into detail about France's goverment. Like I said France's goverment is a semi-presidential system. Semi-presidential system is defined as a powerful president when there is a unified majority. The Prime Minister becomes secondary to the President in all legislative and diplomatic areas. If a President is weakened by having two opposing parties, presidental an... ...is also shares similar attributes. They elect a President by popular vote just like we do. But it seems to me that the Prime Minister has more control. We also have more religions than France does. The United States as I see it is more diverse, the freedom in our country is unmatched by any other. We have Catholicism, Judasim, Baptist, Muslim, Protestant, Methodist, Pentacostal, Non-Denominational, Buddahism, Scientology, Hinduism, etc. Proving that we accept all religious freedoms throughout our country. We may not all agree but atleast the freedom is there. Also I have learned alot on the other traditions and pratices in France. Like the french Ballet, it is the dance always associated with France when it did not begin with french origins. I would have to conclude in saying that I would love to visit France and see for myself what I have only read about.

An internal locus of control Essay

An internal locus of control is â€Å"the belief that one’s fate is determined by one’s own behavior. † While the external locus of control is â€Å"the belief that what happens is determined not by one’s own actions but by powerful others, luck, and external forces† (Kassin and Wrightsman 1988, 32). What this is saying is that the psychological process of defining the reasoning behind why someone is doing something is that there is either an internal or external locus of control that is determining the factors around the individual. According to the book on page 313 there are times when a judge can decide that a person who has a particular background, occupation or situation would not be a good juror for a trial. This is because their internal locus of control could sway their decision making ability based on what they know and what they have utilized in their profession. In one instance that was described in the book there were two jurors that were kept out of a trial based on their own internal locus of control. One of these jurors was a scientist while the other worked in credit management. Based on the case it was considered that these two potential jurors might not be able to look at the situation completely unbiased and therefore these two jurors were let go from the jury. This is one example on how an internal locus of control can affect someone who is a potential juror (Greene, Heilbrun, Fortune, and Nietzel 2006). A way that the external locus of control can affect someone who is a juror is a bit different. What this means is that someone is being influenced by outside influences which would make them biased in some way to the decision making process. According to the book on page 303 there is a discussion about the interviewing that occurred in the O. J. Simpson trial when looking for jurors. The overwhelming conclusion was that there was a prevalence for African American women to think that some forms of abuse were okay in relationships and this is an external influence to their overall opinions of things. Therefore this influence could influence how the jurors felt about the abuse that O. J. ’s wife had suffered from and therefore they might have a bias (Greene, Heilbrun, Fortune, and Nietzel 2006). Provide an opinion on whether jurors are able to disregard inadmissible evidence using theories discussed in the text, why or why not? According to the book on pages 338-340 there are a number of ways that a juror can look into disregarding evidence that has been determined to be inadmissible. Whether or not this is really possible is a different story. The text describes some different ways that the evidence can be disregarded. These include the reactance theory which is if instructed to disregard certain information the overall decision making ability of the juror could be compromised. Through this theory it is common that someone would use some type of thought suppression to block the material from their thoughts. It is thought that even though this material has been marked as inadmissible that it could possibly still influence the jury’s overall decision (Greene, Heilbrun, Fortune, and Nietzel 2006). In my opinion it could be possible for a juror to disregard inadmissible information however it would be very difficult and it might cause problems for the individual as well. It would be difficult to forget something that was mentioned if it was something that would strongly influence one’s decision however if it was material that was not a big deal then it would not be likely that this would have much influence. In one study that was conducted jurors who were given proacquittal inadmissible information were less likely to convict than those who were given proconviction inadmissible information (Thompson, Fong, and Rosenhan 1981).

Analysis of Genre, Stardom, Authorship and Gender Theory Essay

â€Å"Apparently no strictly logical distinctions can capture the variety of factors which create the genres we have† (Nicholas and Price, 1998) This quote demonstrates the complexity of allocating a particular genre to a film, as various aspects need to be considered. Although concrete groupings such as horror, science-fiction, crime and drama exist, the majority of movies contain more than one aspect which renders them difficult to categorise. For example, the difference between an ‘action’ and a ‘thriller’ film can be very fine. Should the length of footage of fight scenes determine them? Should the scale and intensity of adrenaline felt by the audience throughout the story line be considered? Apart from the concrete distinctions between fiction and non-fiction, many subcategories are used. Some genres are based on literature, such as ‘melodrama’ and ‘comedy’; others on the plot, for example the ‘war film’; and still others on media such as ‘the musical’. Furthermore, some genres are categorised by their budgets, censorship rating, racial identities, location, status amongst many others (Stam, 2000). Genres are a way of characterising a film in the simplest way, interpreting and judging without evaluating them. This allows viewers an easier choice when choosing which film to watch since the field has been narrowed down for them. Patterns such as in the plot, theme, and cinematographic technique and which branded star is used in the film are some of the ways the genres are often grouped. These are very commonly broadened because of the other forms of genre groups sometimes jumping in and out of a film are known as sub-genres. In the second edition (Nathan Abrams, 2010) of ‘Studying Film’ it is pointed out that not only are repetitions a requirement in identifying particular film genres, but so are their differences. Viewers take into account not only similarities but also variances between previous films they have seen. Thus when comparing a few films of the same genre, it is important to note that in spite of the recurring themes, each film will have its own individual plot. The use of genres and ‘putting films in boxes’, as it were, can lead to problems for the movie industry as story lines become repetitive, predictive and formulaic, perhaps causing some viewers to no longer hold the genre in such high regard. For this reason it is imperative that difference be a vital ingredient within categories as well as between them to provide more variation, innovation and flexibility within their general parameters. Films are automatically divided up using the genre categorisation, for example when you walk into a DVD store and looking for a film, they’ll be physically divided up through their classifications; Horror, Sci-fi, Crime, Drama, Action, Thriller, Social Realism and more. They might also classify the films by their rating, which in a sense is also a measurement of genre. Whether the film is a U classification for children, a rated 15 film or even a rated 18 film, these sub genres always crop up in promotional campaigns are also known for being genre specific; trailers in the cinema are also grouped together, like when watching a comedy, the trailers being shown in the previews will also be comedy. There are just a few examples as to how genre is divided without making overly noticeable to the audience. Martin Loop (cited in Barry, 2007) argues that genre in Hollywood does not really exist since so many films that are apparently made by an ‘auteur’ were simply influenced by society, and that Directors use different elements from different genres and the trends at the time to make their films. Taxi Driver narrates the story of Travis Bickle, an ex-marine unable to sleep at nights, so he decides to get a job as a night-time taxi driver. Played by Robert de Niro, Travis begins to date a woman working in the presidential campaign office of Charles Pallantine, but after taking her to watch a porn film they split up. Travis becomes increasingly paranoid and results in him buying an arsenal of weapons. After meeting a young prostitute ‘Iris’ played by Jodie Foster, he soon decides to make it his mission to save her from the life she leads. Thwarted in his attempt to assassinate Charles Pallantine, Taxi Driver’s climax occurs when Travis shoots and kills Iris’s pimp Matthew, played by Harvey Keitel and his henchmen. After the massacre Travis finds himself wounded and attempts to shot himself but comes short of bullets. The film ends with Travis being portrayed as a hero in the media for saving Iris’s life and taking her back to her parents. Travis’s search for to find meaning in his life is what motivates and drives the narrative forward. Taxi Driver is almost based exclusively on restricted narrative through the subjective consciousness of the narration of Travis filtering the narrative information through a single character. The camera emphasizes this by keeping a closed door to what is happening around him to a certain extent and seems to follow him almost obsessively as the film progresses. Has its genre made it more of a success? Maybe Taxi Driver being in the ‘Drama/thriller’ genre has enabled it to cross over two genres thus attracting a greater audience. Films are different from books or poems in that they are not simply constructed by a single person but require input from various people including a director, a producer, a screenwriter, actors and studio representatives to name a few. The notion of auteur theory, (translated from the French meaning ‘author’) in the filmmaking industry has therefore been heavily contended (Simpson, 2012). Andrew Sarris, the leading American proponent of the theory claimed in the 1950s and 60s that great filmmaking inspires the type of artistic expression and creativeness one would expect from a major literary author. For this reason we should be able to herald directors as ‘auteurs’, crediting them with ownership of the whole works. Critics maintain, however, that this notion completely ignores the rest of the film crew. A single ‘author’ does not appear to ascribe to movies due to the multiple actors involved. If each role plays an integral part in the process from beginning to end, how can one role claim the title of sole ‘author’? Furthermore, on what basis could ‘authorship’ be claimed? The tendency has been towards extending the title to the director; however perhaps not every director can be considered an ‘author’ if their work is not worthy. Sarris’ arguments have since been used to defend film as equivalent to the other arts; an important development considering earlier perceptions of the industry to be ‘less worthy’ of an artistic status. In this way perhaps in order to qualify as an ‘art’, a film needs an author. This label is particularly important for intellectual property rights and for status and identification. Nevertheless, the notion of ‘authorship’ also causes problems in other art forms; a composer is considered the true owner of the music he writes, but what about the music when it is used in performance at a concert or in a theatre piece? Having briefly outlined genre and authorship and their surrounding issues, this paper will seek to compare the theories to the film of Taxi Driver (1976)by Martin Scorcese to see how well they hold up and whether Martin Scorcese can shed further light on how genre and authorship should be  defined in the movie-making business. http://www. cs. grinnell. edu/~simpsone/Connections/Film/Author/index. html http://www. filmreference. com/encyclopedia/Academy-Awards-Crime-Films/Auteur-Theory-and-Authorship. html Studying film 2nd Edition, Nathan Abrams, Ian Bell, Jan Udris, Bloomsbury, 2010 Film History and Introduction, Kirsten Thomson, David Bordwell, McGraw-Hill, 1994