Week Eight: Celebrity Culture

This week we have Professor Marshall as guest speaker and discuss about ‘Celebrity and the Specular Economy’. Professor Marshall (2010), in his article, discuss about how people and celebrity care about how they look to others and how others think of them. It describe that we are like celebrities, we also ‘mask’ ourselves when we present ourselves in life, especially on media like social network websites.

I love the Korean culture but it is heartbreaking to hear that most Korean celebrities do plastic surgery, and this encourage the young girls and boys and the general public to also get plastic surgery because they want to look pretty and handsome like the celebrities but they are actually ‘masking’ themselves. The statistics below from International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery show that South Korea is the country with the most people to get plastic surgery and Australia is ranked 15^th.

This week we also talk about how celebrities sometimes really don’t have privacy. Paparazzi like to capture the ugly and humiliating moments of celebrities because this is what people actually want to see. People want to see the ‘unmasked’ celebrities. Recently, Prince Harry got caught with naked photos and this is the side that people never see of Prince Harry.

Professor Marshall discuss that because of new media like social media. It is easier to spread news and gossips about celebrities and their culture influence is higher. Traditional and main channel media now also rely on social media to get their sources.

Reference

Marshall, D. (2010). ‘The Specular Economy’. Society. Vol.47. Issue6. pp. 498-502. EbscoHost.

Image

http://www.koreabang.com/2012/stories/south-korea-tops-plastic-surgery-tables-again-netizens-react.html

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/22/prince-harry-naked-photos-surface-online/

Week Four: The 'Ridiculous' Patent War

"Why on earth are these proceedings (Apple v.s Samsung) going ahead? It's just ridiculous"

This is said by the Australian judge on the continue patent war between Apple and Samsung. This week in class we learned about patents protection for innovators. Patents is give to the inventors for their work to prevent other people to copy their work. But is it abusive when two parties kept suing each other using the patent law in public to prevent the other party from selling their products? The Australian judge think it is because Apple and Samsung keep suing each other in public court when they can settle on their own.

Apple and Samsung have the biggest market share in the tablet market. They do this because they want to take each other’s market share. Samsung’s Galaxy 10.1 tablet is already banned in America but it fail in United Kingdom. Samsung is already losing hundreds millions dollars because of the ban in America and so they want to try and ban Apple’s products in other countries as well. The fight keeps will not stop because technology advance so fast and there will be more new inventions created by both companies and they will still sue each other copying each other’s work. The irony is Samsung is the largest supplier to Apple but they still fight each other for patent rights.

Soon, the war will be joined by Microsoft. Microsoft is also going to be releasing their new tablet as well this year. Patent law is good to protect inventions but what happens when people abuse it? What can they do different?

Reference
BrisbaneTimes (2012). "Samsung, Apple dispute 'ridiculous', judge says". Retrieved on August 3rd 2012 from, <http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/world-business/samsung-apple-dispute-ridiculous-judge-says-20120723-22jnq.html>

Image
http://www.androidguys.com/2012/06/13/apples-request-for-early-injunction-against-samsung-denied-galaxy-s-ii-will-launch-on-time/apple-vs-samsung/