Month: December 2019

Why is objectivity hard to achieve in the media?

srira11440@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg Language and Literature 0 Comment

Many people think that the ideal job of a journalist is to present a situation objectively. I quite frankly disagree. I believe that that is the job of camera, to record everything exactly as it is, or numbers, to present everything as the data it is. Many people criticise the subjectivity found in journalism but I think that is the essence of it, finding a new angle or perspective on a story and telling people something they don’t already know. I believe that it is literally impossible for a human being to objective. We have our own filters and experiences that make us interpret things the way we do. When you hear about an issue, where you hear about an issue and who tells you also influences the way you respond to it meaning that a journalist doing research is already getting evidence that is tainted in subjectivity.

Another idea we discussed today that I found very interesting is that journalism holds a lot of power against those actually in power. I believe the act of detaining, threatening and harming journalists is actually one of cowardice, because people in power are scared to imagine in what light they will be portrayed. And that itself speaks a lot to the background happenings that many people try to hide. Journalism explores the ideas and information that people have not seen before, and many a times that, for politicians, is information they’ve actively tried to keep in the dark.

I also loved exploring how language can change the meaning of a headline or even the perspective it takes. We looked at how 5 different articles all about the same event and they each made it seem like something different had happened. What I also noticed was that only a few words changed from each headline to the next, and that transformed the connotation entirely. Personally, I think that some headlines can be completely objective, but only a few words will ever satisfy that criteria. Based on the intent of an article/company, they may choose to use a more objective headline or something sensational. It has been found that sensationalist content draws a lot more attention from the media than an article that merely displays the facts, and I don’t find that surprising cause it is in out human nature to read something interesting.

Reality Boy by A.S King & Starfish by Akemi dawn Bowman

srira11440@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg Self Reads 0 Comment

As of lately, I have been missing realistic fiction books so I read the two written above. Although about different topics, they both follow a standard train if realistic fiction books. Someone has in issue, meets someone, falls in love, has more issues, overcomes them… quite standard. But each book made me think about something deeper.

Reality boy made me think about grudges. The main character finds himself being haunted by the happenings of the past and the fact that no one can see him for anything other than the person they saw on TV. That made me think about when one incident tarnishes a relationship you have with someone or something you hold against them even if things have changed. Personally, I don’t try to hold grudges and although I cannot fight for long, I find myself reverting back to my own thinking on people. I don’t know whether that is because as human beings we tend to hold onto the important memories, even if they are bad or whether it is a part of me that react emotionally when I see them, leading me to think about an incident that stands out to me. Reality boy also features another trying to compensate for the one thing she never had which makes me think about why, for a species that is so progressive, do we hold onto the one thing we can never change.

Starfish on the other hand looked at secrets in relationships. I’ve always been a direct person and I believe that if you are not willing to fight with someone to resolve something then the relationship is not that important. Sometimes holding things in causes them to come back out later, again begging the question as to why we carry our past with us everywhere. Sometimes we let past relationships ruin future ones. When something is buried, like a secret, it comes back later in a way that is unfixable, it makes a lot more sense to deliver the bad news in a situation where you have the control as to how it comes out. Starfish also made me think about the fact that people will always surprise you. Whatever preconceived notion you have is always going to be disproved, it is just unpredictable sometimes. The main character discovers an artist who helped guide her work, to me that artist really symbolised a figure in life that comes out of the blue but for a short period of time really helps to carry your burden, and I believe we find many such figures in our life.

Although being quite cliche realistic fiction books, they helped me draw out bigger themes from within them.

Mrs. Sisyphus

srira11440@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg Language and Literature 0 Comment

The images above are from a brainstorm and analysing activity we did in class. We were looking at the formal and stylistic elements used by Carol Ann Duffy in her poem Mrs. Sisyphus. At the start we struggled a lot to gain the context of the poem which I think was due to our fault of not reading it several times over. The context to this poem is about a Biblical figure that was was punished to push a rock up a hill for eternity.

The first technique that was quite obvious to us was that of half rhyme running mainly throughout the second stanza. Words such as “irk”, “shirk”. Some connected back to the first stanza such as the word “kirk” which helped the poem flow. Along with the concept of repeated sounds, there were moments of assonance and consonance which were done with harsh sounds to emphasise the fact that she is annoyed.

In terms of the stanzas and lineation, the poem felt to me much like a free verse as there was no consistent pattern that was carried throughout. Each stanza varied in line number and line length. Furthermore, it felt like free verse due to its conversational manner such as when the voice asks the reader rhetorical questions as though speaking to us, for example: “what does he say?”. The stanzas are also broken up into different ideas. The first one introduces her anger, while the second one depicts the arguments they have and the third portrays the loneliness that she feels.

Carol Ann Duffy also brought in the cyclical nature of the problem explored by alluding to tales from the bible and elsewhere, while also incorporating repetition of certain words in close proximity of each other. “Think of the perks, he says What use is a perl, I shriek”. There is also very specific connotation that helps to enhance the way Mrs. Sisyphus is feeling, such as when it says “hammered away” or “twisted smirk”, helping to enhance the emotion felt during that moment.

What is Project Week?

srira11440@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg Project Week 0 Comment

LO3-Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

Project week is a week in which we, as grade 11 students, travel in a group to achieve the three aspects of CAS. We have to plan the entire experience by ourselves but also with the aid of a school. My group (you can see in the photo in the post before) is going to Rawa, Malaysia.

Our activity aspect of the trip will be diving in which me and two others will qualify for our advanced licence, while the other 3 members qualify for their open water licence. We are hoping to use the activity aspect to incorporate some service such as beach clean ups and even directly cleaning the coral reefs themselves. Our creativity is something we have not looked into in great depth as of yet, but we are hoping to find opportunities to immerse ourselves in the local culture.

I think project week is a great chance for us to learn to be responsible for ourselves and for one another. We constantly need to be looking out for the efficiency of our planning and whether or not we are keeping to the budget that the school has set. It also teaches us about compromise and priority as we cannot do all the activities that we all want, but rather we must pick and choose.

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