Plato †Philosophy Essay

Plato (/? ple? to? /;[1] Greek: , Platon, â€Å"broad†;[2] 428/427 or 424/423 BCE[a] – 348/347 BCE) was a philosopher, as well as mathematician, in Classical Greece, and an influential figure in philosophy, central in Western philosophy. He was Socrates’ student, and founded the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with Socrates and his most famous student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. [3] Alfred North Whitehead once noted: â€Å"the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. â€Å"[4] Plato (/? ple? to? /;[1] Greek: , Platon, â€Å"broad†;[2] 428/427 or 424/423 BCE[a] – 348/347 BCE) was a philosopher, as well as mathematician, in Classical Greece, and an influential figure in philosophy, central in Western philosophy. He was Socrates’ student, and founded the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with Socrates and his most famous student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. [3] Alfred North Whitehead once noted: â€Å"the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. â€Å"[4] Plato’s dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric, religion and mathematics. His theory of Forms began a unique perspective on abstract objects, and led to a school of thought called Platonism. Plato’s writings have been published in several fashions; this has led to several conventions regarding the naming and referencing of Plato’s texts. [5]Plato (/? ple? to? /;[1] Greek: , Platon, â€Å"broad†;[2] 428/427 or 424/423 BCE[a] – 348/347 BCE) was a philosopher, as well as mathematician, in Classical Greece, and an influential figure in philosophy, central in Western philosophy. He was Socrates’ student, and founded the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with Socrates and his most famous student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. [3] Alfred North Whitehead once noted: â€Å"the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. â€Å"[4] Plato’s dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric, religion and mathematics. His theory of Forms began a unique perspective on abstract objects, and led to a school of thought called Platonism. Plato’s writings have been published in several fashions; this has led to several conventions regarding the naming and referencing of Plato’s texts. [5]Plato (/? ple? to? /;[1] Greek: , Platon, â€Å"broad†;[2] 428/427 or 424/423 BCE[a] – 348/347 BCE) was a philosopher, as well as mathematician, in Classical Greece, and an influential figure in philosophy, central in Western philosophy. He was Socrates’ student, and founded the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with Socrates and his most famous student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. [3] Alfred North Whitehead once noted: â€Å"the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. â€Å"[4] Plato’s dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric, religion and mathematics. His theory of Forms began a unique perspective on abstract objects, and led to a school of thought called Platonism. Plato’s writings have been published in several fashions; this has led to several conventions regarding the naming and referencing of Plato’s texts. [5] Plato’s dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric, religion and mathematics. His theory of Forms began a unique perspective on abstract objects, and led to a school of thought called Platonism. Plato’s writings have been published in several fashions; this has led to several conventions regarding the naming and referencing of Plato’s texts. [5]Plato (/? ple? to? /;[1] Greek: , Platon, â€Å"broad†;[2] 428/427 or 424/423 BCE[a] – 348/347 BCE) was a philosopher, as well as mathematician, in Classical Greece, and an influential figure in philosophy, central in Western philosophy. He was Socrates’ student, and founded the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with Socrates and his most famous student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. [3] Alfred North Whitehead once noted: â€Å"the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. â€Å"[4] Plato’s dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric, religion and mathematics. His theory of Forms began a unique perspective on abstract objects, and led to a school of thought called Platonism. Plato’s writings have been published in several fashions; this has led to several conventions regarding the naming and referencing of Plato’s texts. [5]

Legalize Steroids in Sports

Ben Johnson was one of the first superstar athletes to be caught using steroids and was stripped of his 100m gold medal at the 1988 Olympics. He was eventually banned for life in 1993 for testing positive again (Richardson 2010). Performance enhancing drugs have become widely used since the 1970’s and have only increased in the numbers of athletes using the drugs to up their endurance and perform to their greatest potential. Professionals such as Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, and Hulk Hogan have all been humiliated and are now seen as cheaters after being caught using steroids.It is too late to stop these sports fuelled on drugs because of the large number of athletes using, so why not consider drug use as a way to level the playing field? The only way to stop the â€Å"cheating† in sports is to open up the gates and drop all performance-enhancing drug laws throughout the sports. We should stop all the hypocrisy and allow pro athletes to take whatever performance drugs the y please. In 1995 Bob Goldman, a Chicago physician, asked 198 Olympic U. S. athletes whether they would take a banned substance if they were guaranteed to win; 195 of those athletes said yes (Richardson 2011).Professionals know the risks of steroids, but if you offered an athlete a drug that would guarantee him glory and riches, but knock ten years off his life, most would take it (Madden 2011). The health risks caused by steroids have been broadly exaggerated. The athletes using these drugs want to become bigger, leaner, and faster. For example, a male athlete injecting testosterone into their body will gain better adaptations to training and better performance. This is because testosterone enhances muscle power and promotes recovery from tough workouts.The testosterone has a high anabolic effect, strengthening muscle cells, and repairing and toughening bones. Steroids allow the athletes to maximize their performance on field, which is their main objective in the sport. Allowing th e use of steroids would make sports safer as there would be less pressure on athletes to take unsafe enhancers and more pressure to develop new safe steroids for the athletes to use. People who believe the health risks are the reason these drugs should be banned need to look at Major League Baseball’s tolerance of chewing tobacco during games, and to the NFL’s glorification of hard tackles (Nathaniel 2010).For example, chewing tobacco is allowed and it can cause mouth cancer. The tackles in the NFL can cause major concussions and lead to long-term brain injuries. These are all detrimental to the health of the athletes. If steroids were taken under the care of a team physician, then it would allow for the regulation of dosage and the team physician can keep track of the overall health of the athlete, which will maximize their physical performance. Athletes are always trying to improve and be the best they can be. Steroids can take a regular athlete and turn them into an elite athlete.Most research studies that have demonstrated improved performance with steroids used experienced weight lifters who were capable of training with heavier weight, and when exposed to steroids increased their strength incredibly (Fahey 1998). Improved strength is just another factor in being an improved athlete, they still need the skill to hit that home run or throw a football. Almost all athletes that used steroids feel that they would not have been as successful without steroids (Fahey 1998). If professional sports allowed their athletes to use enhancers there would be certain effects that would occur right away.First, there would be more studies on the benefits and risks of these different drugs because the sports associations will want the safest and best steroids for the athletes. Second, the athlete’s physicians would prescribe the drugs and the effects on the athletes would be watched very closely. And third, the drug manufacturing would be taken out whic h means the black market on these steroids would die out (Nathaniel 2010). The legalization of the steroids would start a movement in the sports leagues where new records will be broken just as they were made to be.It is time for the government to legalize steroids. Because so many athletes are using, legalizing is the only way to get a level playing field like the sports associations want. Every athlete would have the option legally to use steroids. Morally and physically, each athlete would have that certain choice to make also. The situation would be out in the open though and drugs can finally be regulated in sports. Performance enhancers in sports have been used illegally throughout the history of sports; it’s time for pro sports to legalize steroids and similar substances.

Comparison of Past and Present Students Essay

I. Introduction People often remark how different the students of today are to those in the past. Each generation claim that those who come after them are getting worse, while those who came before them are much better than they were when they were students. Are students really all that different â€Å"Now† than they were â€Å"Before†? It’s been said that with every batch, with every generation, students are slowly degrading, that you could count with your fingers, those student who truly excel nowadays. It is a very common proclamation that young people now are disrespectful, unmotivated and without problem solving ability. Most people say that â€Å"compared to when we were in high school† the students are very different, incompetent. This is a common perception today, from non teachers and teachers alike, but is this true? II. Context Of course, each generation is different; technology and culture change forces us to think and act differently, use different tools. The increase in population and politics also contribute to the differences between the students of the past and present. Advanced technology, computer and other gadgets like cell phones and scientific calculator enabled the students do their task quicker and easier, tools that help them to be more efficient. In the past students had to handwrite or use a typewriter for their reports, one mistake and you’ll have to repeat it. Now with computer, to matter how many mistake you make with your grammar and spelling the computer will detect your errors so you can make corrections before printing. With computers, you can edit reports or write additional data without doing it over again. Solving mathematical problem became easier too, with the use of calculators. Students in the past have to manually calculate before arriving with the answer, now with just pushing a few buttons, you’ll get the answer. One can find and download anything that is needed in the internet, without sifting through pages and volumes of books in the library. The printed books are almost phase-out as students now prefer ebooks they can read using their cell phones and tablets. There are various mode of transportation, to take students from one place to another faster. Even the method of teaching had change with technology; PowerPoint presentations are often used, and there are even subjects where students learn about information technology and computers. As a result students of the present tend to be lazy and arrogant, and most of the time the equipments technology brings are taken for granted, and are used for fun and games. Then, they have to go without these gadgets, so students then needed to be precise, not make errors. They learned to concentrate, to go slow but sure not to make mistakes. They are more organized and had more focus on whatever task they are doing. Our culture is constantly changing as we continue to grow, being influence by other culture and with the advancement of technology. We are becoming more materialistic, values and social norms changed brought by the influence we see on televisions or by surfing the internet. Because of these changes it is only natural to observe a difference on the behavior and attitudes of today’s students from students of yesteryears. In the past students are more respectful, industrious, punctual and obedient. Girls are demure and boys gallant; public display of affection is not allowed; teachers are more strict and can use corporal punishment on those who misbehave. The presentation of oneself is very important, having a suitable hairstyle and wearing the proper uniform or appropriate attire is rigidly observed. Today’s student think that they are superior to their teachers as they think they can learn everything they need to know from the internet; they are lacking in their attention span and tend to be irresponsible; having a weird hairstyle and adding unnecessary accessories to their uniform is perceived as being cool. Now it is almost a requirement to have the latest gadgets, fashionable clothes and a boyfriend/girlfriend to be accepted in a clique, to belong. The increase in population and politics also play a part in making a difference between the students today from students who came before them. Then, there are a lot less students and the teacher can pay closer attention to each of them. But with the increase of population more schools are being established especially for those places like in the rural area where the school is so far away a student has to travel several miles just to go to school. When the people in the administration of organization like DepEd and Ched, changes are bound to happen. In the past decade the curriculum is changed several times when the people in the administration changed, teachers and students alike adjust had to a new curriculum before they were used to the previous one. Politicians are also known for passing provisions that could affect the education system of our country; K to 12 is an example. III. Summary Students of the present largely differ from students in the past, from the way they think, act and with the tools that they use. Their motivation, organization and efficiency have also changed. Technology, culture change, increase in population and politics all contribute in making these differences. Technology provides the new tools and gadget that students enjoy today. When culture changes the social norms and values also change, in turn there would be an alteration in the behavior and attitudes of the students, our youth. The increase in population and politics create circumstances such as different education system and curriculum, where teachers and students alike have no choice but to make adjustments. IV. Conclusion Change is inevitable with the passage of time, changes that are caused by different things. Students and teacher alike have to adapt to these changes, it can make a task more efficient, it can make learning more exciting or it can become a distraction. The change affects the motivation and attitude of the students. It must be considered before a comparison is made that every batch, every generation have their own way, leave their own marks, it would be unfair to say that students today are becoming worse for they are only responding to the situations created by these changes.

Food Packaging Industry Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Food Packaging Industry - Research Paper Example The three topmost food packaging industries are located at US, Europe and Asia. The demand for packaging is initiated by the consumption demand of food materials and it is predicted that consumption demand for items like nut and chocolates will infuse the demand for packaging industry. The packaging should provide appropriate general information of the food inside. It should also take into consideration that there are certain information that government demands and the packaging industry should try to adhere to every demands of the people. Labels and packaging should be such that marketers can use them for successfully reaching out to the customer’s minds that is positioned. The design and outlook should be such that an image can be formed. Packaging industry should try to provide convenience in handling through packaging. This adds to convenient distribution, use and reuse of food contents (United Nations Industrial Development Organization, n.d.). The environmental factors, especially external environment of an industry plays a major role in its success. The objective of this part of the research paper is to focus on the general environmental trend analysis of food packaging industry along with analysis of this concern of Kraft Food Inc. The demographic environment of a packaged food industry consists of its customers profile mainly. If a company deals with packaged food internationally, then it is essential for it to consider customers variability all over the world. Food packaging manufacturers deals with the customers’ tastes and preferences and to understand their customers well in an attempt to increase their profitability, they need to evaluate customer’s profile from time to time. In Kraft Food Inc., the demographic environmental analysis shows that in the year 2008 and 2009, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. contributed 16% of its net revenue and 15% of net revenue in 2007. Apart from Wal-Mart

Environment Ptotection Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Environment Ptotection - Assignment Example (Pamela.R.Cummings, 2001) With increasing awareness among the people regarding issues like Global Warming, Water and food conservation, hotels have once again come to spotlight on how well they comply with the international standards. There have been serious allegations that hotels always tend to neglect the environmental issues and have only profit maximization on their priority list and this has clearly added onto the concerns of the consumers towards the Hospitality industry. The attitude of the major players in the hospitality industry has only added on to the apprehensions of the consumers. This dissertation will mainly focus on ways to improve the present environmental scenario in the hotels and the strategies and ways implemented by them in combating the ill effects of environmental contamination caused directly, or indirectly by them. It will also analyze as to how various hotels have been focusing on issues like minimization and management of wastage, energy conservation, and sustainable food, staff training. It will also try and come up with practical environmental initiatives for the hotels. (Conrad Lushly, 2004) As rightly pointed out in the first dissertation, the hotels, barring a few prominent and well known ones, do not configure or install any kind of energy-saving systems which clearly conflicts their statements generally about their concerns towards environment. Of course, they may be expensive to install, but the fact that the energy sources save a lot of energy clearly should send a message across that they help in reducing the overall operating costs of the hotel, if not in the short run, but definitely in the long run. Hence, in this dissertation, I also come up with a few measures for the hotels for the installation of specific devices and then will also list out the advantages of implementing the same. In the wake of globalization followed by rapid growth of various industrial sectors and the mounting concerns towards the ill effects caused by the industrial growth, this is clearly an area worth researching. Though this deals with the research of only the lodging and hospitality in UK, I can say that this will clearly indicate the amount commitment hotels give towards environment.(Tyya.N.Turner, 2001) This dissertation aims at coming up with alternatives to the existing proposals for the installation of devices and discusses the benefits for the same. It also elucidates the fact that installation of energy-saving devices will surely ensure in customer retention and moreover, will reduce the operating costs in the long run. Moreover, installation of such devices will make the hotel maintain eco-friendly and clean atmosphere which will clearly go a long way in enhancing the reputation of the Hotel and will definitely set an example for others to follow. Literature review This section deals with much more concrete measures that have to be taken up by the hospitality industry and the hotels concerning specific aspects of the environment practices being followed and how they can improve on them. Waste Reduction/Management. At a time when the natural ecologies are in the state of crises and when the rapid depletion of natural resources, it is indeed a matter of concern to the healthy nations and economies who boast if exponential growth. It is indeed a massive

The Parthenon in Athens and the Pantheon in Rome Essay

The Parthenon in Athens and the Pantheon in Rome - Essay Example This research will begin with the statement that in comparing the Greek and Roman cultures one must first study a brief history of the cultures surrounding the cities in which these magnificent buildings were first built. Athens began as a great limestone rock, a holy or sacred place rising to the Attica plateau. The Acropolis as it is called means in Greek, â€Å"the highest point of the town.† Many ancient cities were built on principles of height as a fortress for protection; however, the Acropolis has special meaning as a sacred place for an emerging Greek dynasty. The great limestone rock measures from the basin to 70 meters and levels out at the top at 300 meters long and 150 meters wide. The top has become very flat due to many landfills over the course of history which allowed construction of its temples and buildings. The Acropolis was a prime location for habitation and worship due to its shallow caves and underground water springs. Its steep slopes were also a great source of protection during an unstable time in history. A deep well dug at the north end of the rock was very useful to the defenders during a long siege. It provided an almost endless underground water supply. The Acropolis functioned also as a residence for royalty, a place to worship for the Goddess of fertility and nature, and her male companion God Erechtheus. The Acropolis hill is sometimes called the â€Å"sacred rock† of Athens and is seen as holding the most important sites of the city and secrets of the ancient Greek culture. This sacred rock is the beginning of some of the architectural masterpieces of Greek history and culture. Relics of offerings made to the Goddess Athena in marble, korai, bronze and clay date back to the Archaic period around 650-480 B.C.). The Parthenon: The Parthenon was built on the site of other cultures that came before them. It was considered a sacred place. The purpose of the Parthenon was to cement the temples of earlier cultures as well as experience and praise the Greek goddess Athena. The name Parthenon refers to the worship of the goddess who is the patroness of the city of Athens. Mythology has it that she was born fully-grown out of the head of her father Zeus. This reverts back to the Greek belief that she represented the greater order of spiritual development with the gifts of intellect and understanding. She is seen as a symbol to the human aspect of wisdom. Two architects, Ictinus and Callicrates, supervised by the sculptor, Phidias, built the Parthenon. Considered a temple, the Parthenon was built according to the Doric order of architecture, the simplest of classical Greek architectural styles. It represented simplicity along with power; built to precise dimensions using mathematical ratios of sacred geometry. The building is rectangular and measured 101.34 feet wide by 228.14 feet long from the top of its base. When new it was constructed of white marble, 46 columns, and tile roofing. It contained a nearly 40 foot tall statue of the goddess Athena. The statue was constructed of wood, gold and ivory. Athens most significant and prosperous time in history was the 5th century BC under the reign of Pericles. During this time the Greeks developed a constitution that gave all citizens the right to participate in the governing of the state. Democracy was the most significant achievement of the early Greeks. Considered the Golden Age of Athens, the Parthenon was built when arts, philosophy and drama were at their highest point. Unfortunately, the Peloponnesian War with Athenians and Sparta ended development. The building has been damaged over past centuries by looters, modern day automobile exhausts, industrial pollution and acid rain.

Home Health Nursing Initiative assignment 2 Essay

Home Health Nursing Initiative assignment 2 - Essay Example This paper is also being undertaken in order to assess the appropriateness of the application of this kit using the current literature on this kit. This assessment of literature will hopefully shed light to the evidence-based application of this kit and hopefully make a credible evaluation of the actual application of the Symptom Response Kit. The Symptom Response Kit is described by the South West Community Care Access Centre (CCAC, 2009, p. 1) as â€Å"a kit of medications that can be ordered by a physician, to be available in a client’s home to relieve potential symptoms for clients requiring hospice palliative care services or who are at the end of life stage in their disease management†. In the most basic sense, this kit is a reserve kit which can be used in case unanticipated symptoms of a long-term care patient would surface. The kit contains emergency medical supplies previously approved or prescribed by the patient’s doctor in anticipation of probable symptoms of the patient’s illness. It contains limited amounts of a few medications which have been deemed effective in addressing the usual symptoms of distress in clients who are at the end of their lives (Matzon & Sherman, 2006). The kit is â€Å"solely for the purpose of alleviating unanticipated symptoms, to avoid unnecessary hospit al/ER admission or until a regular prescription can be obtained† (CACC, 2009, p. 1). This kit acts as an interim remedy for the patient in order to prevent further deterioration while a more comprehensive consultation with the doctor is being scheduled. Symptom relief kits or emergency kits are set-up in order to address the â€Å"need to have appropriate medications readily available in the home, extended care facility, or hospital† (Matzon & Sherman, 2006, p. 322). Among palliative health care givers, there is no specific timing where the dying process can be predicted,

Fieldwork observation report - Math summary Essay

Fieldwork observation report - Math summary - Essay Example The teacher informed the students of the main aim of the lesson before giving explanations of the content. The teacher would explain the learning outcome before introducing the new concept in the lesson. In order to maintain the smooth flow of the content, the teacher reminded the students of what they learnt in their previous lessons (Hewitt, 2013). The student would participate actively by giving answers to the questions as ks and the teacher would accept the correct answer through applauding the. After the interactive session of the previous lesson the teacher then engaged the students to learn the new ideas in the lesson. The central focus of the lesson was on the two digit multiplication. The students were given the examples from the word equations and were expected to solve the two sums each at the individual level before they proceeded to the next session of group discussion. The two digit multiplication required previous skills on solving the place value units together with single multiplication. The place value of numbers for tens and ones were necessary for the students because they formed the foundation of the next lesson which based on the two digits multiplications. The knowledge of the previous lesson guided the teacher into the main objective of the lesson which was to use word equation to do multiplication of two digit multiplication. The teacher explained two examples using the word equations to solve two digit multiplications. The students at individual levels were given two sums to solve after which the teacher marked their exercise books. The students were given their feedback which they later shared amongst themselves. The teacher explained the vocabularies used such the double digit number to mean that a number that has two digits and the meaning of the place values of tens once and multiplication by. The students got familiar with the terms and were able to use them in the group discussions

The case study will be send by file Research Paper

The case study will be send by file - Research Paper Example 121). Family centric segmentation strategy of the company reflects from their outdoor activities, media selection and opinion leader selection (Rogers, 1995, p. 293). Pricing strategy of Colgate suggests that the company is targeting customers belong to middle of socioeconomic ladder (Farley and Haaga, 2005, p. 368). The company has segmented their market as customers belong to mid income family and ethnically diversified area. The company has changed very little of Colgate Regular over the course of time (Berger, 2010, pp. 5-6). This offering is complemented by mint flavour, active fluoride. It has the category benefit of strengthening and protecting teeth. This is the top selling category for Colgate brand. This category is complemented by eight other sub brands. Colgate Total offers product benefits such as 12 hour protection from plaque, cavities, weak enamel, gingivitis, tartar and tender gums. Product portfolio of the brand is complemented by various other mutually different offerings such as Colgate 2in1 Toothpastes, Colgate Sparkling White Toothpaste, Colgate Sparkling Mint Zing, Colgate Sensitive Enamel, Colgate Sensitive Multi Protection and Colgate Pro Clinical. Colgate tries to offer thirty five items for every store. Important part of their retail strategy is that they try to place their product at front isles of store in order to catch the attention of customer. The company follows mixed pricing strategy complemented by both competitive and premium offering. They follow out and out competitive pricing in developing countries while in developed countries they adjust price in accordance with the market situation. Premium pricing is used for their upmarket offerings such as Colgate Pro Clinical, Colgate Sparkling Mint Zing and Colgate Sensitive Multi Protection (Berends, 2004, pp. 42-44). The company follows integrated marketing communication to promote their offering among customers (Belch, 2003, p. 198-200). They select media in

Job Satisfaction Ratings Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Job Satisfaction Ratings - Essay Example His innovative ideas have shaped the music and film-making industries (The trouble, 2008). As an innovative leader, he reportedly co-invented 103 inventions (e.g. Ipod interface) patented by Apple (The trouble, 2008). Steve Jobs has a vision and goals for the company and pursues them until they are realized. He applies a hands-on approach to management (The trouble, 2008). He has such a magnetic influence in the business circle that his presence in Apple affects the market value of the company. As a person, he can be viewed as persistent and determined on his goals that despite his previous unpleasant experience with Apple (removed from the company), he did not allow that experience affect him but instead, upon his return to Apple, he transformed it into a billion dollar venture with new product line-up. His leadership approach of working with more than a hundred employees (out of 25,000) from the cross-section of the organization for key ideas (Steve Jobs speaks, 2008) is a manifestation of a democratic or participative leadership (Leadership styles, 2009). These ideas are passed around for their comments and inputs wherein all angles of the ideas are explored and debated upon (Steve Jobs speaks, 2008). He can also be classified as a transformational leader that inspires his team to share his vision and sought out initiatives that can add a new value or input (Leadership styles, 2009). His infectious vision for innovation is shown with iPhone wherein he told his team to throw away what it was doing the previous year, start all over and work harder that caused his subordinates to rally behind him and sign them up for the new project (Steve Jobs speaks, 2008). Taylor (2009) characterizes him to belong to the Great Man Theory of Leadership because of his â€Å"CEO-centric model of ex ecutive power† which is archaic and inapplicable in the current state of business (para.

Employer rights and responsibilities workbook Essay Example for Free

Employer rights and responsibilities workbook Essay 1.1 Equal opportunity: Equal and fair treatment, ensuring that people have equal access to opportunities and that the diversity of the work forces in value. * Equal Pay Act 1970 and its implementation Act 1975: to insure that men and woman would receive the same pay and conditions. * Sex Discrimination Act 1995 and Regulation 2003: to insure that men and woman are treated equally and fairly at workplace. * Disability Discrimination Act 1975: to deal with discrimination against an employee or potential employee because of their disability. 1.2 Employment protection: Outlines the duties, rights and responsibilities of employers and employees. * Employment Act 2002: to give additional rights to the employment. * Employment Rights Act 1996: Where employees are entitled to maternity and paternity leave and termination of employees. * Employment Relations Act 2004: to deal with employee relations and the operation of the statutory recognition for trade unions. 1.3 Health and Safety: Laws that keeps everyone safe and reduce hazard and manage skills, at work. * Health and Safety at work Act 1974: to raise the standard of health and safety for all individuals at work and to ensure the environment is safe and non hazardous to the health of employees. The employer and employee have common responsibility for health and safety. Read more:Â  Statutory Responsibilities and Rights of Employees and Employers Essay Task 2. * Job contract. * HR Department. * Policy and Procedures. * Team leader, NW manager, etc. * Job description (terms and conditions). * Citizen Advisory Bureau. * Unison. * Solicitor. * Employment Tribunal. * Advice agencies. Task 3. * Grievance procedure: Any grievance to the terms and conditions of employment should be discussed with manager. If the matter is not solved then it should be pursued with the grievance policy. * Disciplinary matters: The Trust has a Disciplinary procedure policy in the HR Department and also at the work place. Any breach of the Disciplinary rules will lead to disciplinary action, including dismissal. If the employee is dissatisfied with the formal disciplinary action then the employee has the right to appeal within 21 days of written confirmation of the disciplinary action taken. The aim of the Disciplinary Procedure for all staff of the trust is to ensure uniformity of treatment between one individual and another and between one group of staff and another. To ensure justice for individual employees, to provide protection to the efficiency and smooth running of the trust, work place, etc. This procedure applies to all the staff employed by the trust. * Rehabilitation of offenders Act: The employee is required to disclose to the trust of any caution, conviction, bind-over’s, motoring convictions or police proceedin gs. The employee is also required to apply for CRB. * Confidentiality: An employee has a duty of confidence to patients and a duty to maintain professional ethical standards of confidentiality. Under the Data Protection Act 1998 anyone working with personal information in any form must ensure it remains confidential and that only people who need the information have access to it and that only minimum information necessary is processed. Task 4. Employee number- It is a number assigned to an employee by the employer. Employee name Name of the person who is an employee. Tax code – This is number followed by a letter. It tells the amount of tax to the employer to be deducted from employee. This is based on information given by HMRC. National Insurance Number – It is a personal and unique number of an employee, who keeps it throughout his/her life during/ when applying for employment. Net pay year to date This section shows how much have been paid in the financial year. It shows how much National Insurance and tax have been made. Pay before deductions (gross pay) – The amount of employees wages before deduction of tax, pension and national insurance. The deductions made for income tax – This is a tax on each individuals income paid to the national government to spend on other services such as NHS, Defense, social security and public services. The deductions for a pension – A deduction from the employee wages for his/her retirement and to increase the income for pensioner. The amount you actually receive (after deductions) – It is the totally amount (net) of money the employee will take home after all the deductions have been made. Task 5. Grievance policy: Grievance is a dispute between employer and employee. It is basically any disagreement between them. Regarding to the grievance policy at work: * Employers should have their grievance procedure in writing and make sure that all staff are aware of any policy or procedure. * At early stage, the grievance has to be given a chance to be dealt informally with the immediate line manager. Pursuing the formal routine should be a last resort rather than the first option. * Employees should let the employer know the nature of the grievance and issue on time. * Employers are responsible to arrange any formal meeting without unreasonable delay to investigate and to establish the facts of the case. * Employers should allow the employee to be accompanied at any formal meeting and should permit the employee the right to appeal against any formal decision made. Task 6. Personal information kept by my employer about myself is: Name, Date of birth, bank details, NIC umber, address, telephone number, next of kin, tax code, education and qualification, training and courses attended, CRB check, personal health or any health conditions. Employers need to keep some personal information about their employees, as required by law and some for employer’s purpose, as well as in line with Data Protection Act 2003. Under the Data Act 1998, employees are entitled to have access to their own personal information, in order to verify or correct any inaccuracy. Stored – ESR, Electronic records. Access Network Manager, Manager, HR Department. Task 7. My Role, Responsibilities and job description: I carry out my role and duties with full responsibility that are agreed in my job description in line with the Policy Procedure of the organization, as well as Health and safety. My role, responsibilities and job description include: * Being a Key worker, I need to support Service users to convene, set dates and invite identified individuals to their PCP at least once every 4months. * Support service users to access activities of their choice within and around the local community. * Support service users who wish to go on holiday, to plan and access holidays of their choice. * Ensure all the assessments/paperwork for service users are completed. * Ensure any items purchased by service users or on their behalf are recorded on inventories. * Ensure that service user’s health records are up dated and reflect their current health and outcome of appointment attended. * Attend training courses/meetings to update/maintain knowledge and skills to carry out Support Worker/ key worker role effectively. * Where required work with professionals, in order to dev elop and set up appropriate guidelines for service users. * Support service users to attend health appointments and if possible a Key worker should attend the appoint ment to make sure there is continuity. * Ensure to bring to attention of the Team leader/Network manager of issues related to Service users which affect their health or prevent them from achieving goal/action. General Responsibilities: * To support all service users at home with their daily routine eg personal care, dressing, meals, etc. * To support service users to be as independent as possible by promoting independence in all aspects of their lives. * To offer choice in all aspects of daily living. * To provide a clean and pleasant home environment, in both private area and communal areas. * To provide support to service users to attend their activities and appointments e.g. shopping, family visits, disco, etc. * To administer medication and maintain accurate record of Marr Sheet, financial transactions and record any accidents or incidents which may occur. My role affects the running of the setting by carrying out my duties responsibilities as team member and by working in the best interests of the service users, as I am providing emotional, moral and practical support according to their needs. Task 8. Other health professionals are: * GP/Doctor. * Nurse/ District nurse. * Physiotherapist. * Dentist. * Reflexologist. * Psychologist. * Psychiatrist * Speech and Language therapist. * Care manager. * Social services. * Chiropodist/ podiatrist. * Epilepsy Dr/Nurse. * Opticians. My role is to assist these Health Professionals to carry out their duty/job according to their profession in order to improve the health of service users. These health professionals may provide: * Offer advice, information, diagnosis or treatment related to the service user. * May prescribe medicine/ drugs or may refer to another professional for further tests/opinions. * Advice support worker/key worker to carry out the treatment at home or use the equipment out home eg Flowtron boots. * Advice support worker to carry out the guidelines and report of any changes which may be harmful for service user or treatment not improving the health of the service user. It is my responsibility to work alongside the health professionals to ensure the well being of the service users and to provide them the services they need to be in good health. Task 9. * Team leader. * Network manager. * Operational manager. * Social worker. * Physiotherapist. * Podiatrist. * Nursing e.g. children, adults, mental health. * Reflexologist. * Occupational therapist. * Health care jobs: Ambulance Care assistant. * Speech and language therapist. Task 10. My own professional development plans: Short term: I would like to complete NVQ3. Medium term: To update my mandatory and other trainings according to my employer. Look for any other new things going on in my work sector. Long term: look and find a Diploma/degree which is interesting to me. Then according my knowledge and skills, I would like to apply for that Diploma/degree course in a college or university, where available. Task 11. Issue: Cost cutting. Key points in favor: To save money for the future. Key points against: Lack of resources. Providing poor health care. Low morale among staff. Issue: Privatization of NHS. Key points in favor: To build a better health care sector. To provide better quality of care. Key points against: Good quality of care will be provided to a person who can afford it but not everyone. Employers may not like the strict terms and conditions of the job. Old and vulnerable people may not receive good quality of care as they may not afford it as they are on benefits/pension, etc.

The school website Essay Example for Free

The school website Essay Cncs: The school website is very basic, although it explains the variety amounts of information for parents and students, for example year 11 students can access there exam timetable on the side of the home page. While parents can browse through the calendar accessible on the website to identify important dates for their children. Varndean: The difference in how the icons are used, for Varndean they used more efficiently as in comparison to Cardinal Newman, the icons are not located down the side of the page but rather just as the top and are put into one icon called â€Å"School†. When there is an organised system to state what type of information hovered over shows can be accessed. On the front page they also show visual aid of the school and how students are taught, assessed and the opinions from students themselves. Logo Cncs: The logo for cardinal Newman links towards the school being catholic, this is shown as the logo is a cross representing a Christian symbol. The cross is very basic as it’s a black cross, which represents the religion that the school follows. Varndean: The design of the logo is 4 dolphins in cooperated into 1 which represents the 4 houses that, the design is very beautiful due to the colours used for each dolphin working well together as a logo. Don’t understand why the logo is a dolphin, I don’t see the link between the logo and the school – no link towards the sea, only connection is the 4 houses Letter Cncs: Letter from cardinal Newman states that’s students enrolled into he school will have to participate must perform in classes in order to gain marks to receive the best results at the end of the academic year, Further down the page, it states if students needed any support through courses, they will have to have a meeting with their teachers stating their problems and ask for extra lessons when needed in order for students to either catch up or cope with lessons. Letter presented formally towards parents of teachers who are concerned for their children coping with their students learning. Shows appropriate language for both student and teachers – understand what needs to be improved and what parents can do to help. Vardean: Language mainly formal in presentation of the letter as its  associated towards parents, however some parts are informal as they are targeted for the students to understand the different activities students can take part in as the who message is about enrichment day for students. It also states in the letter how much the activities will cost while stating the variety of activities students can enjoy. The letter is very easy to read – main points re listed to parents and students. Information’s not piled up onto letter – doesn’t bore reader. School prospectus Cncs: Cardinal Newman’s prospectus is more mature for students and parents, illustrating pictures of the daily lives the school students take part in, creating an idea of who the school is run and what new students will discover. Information laid out and organised – clearing sub =headings for text. The background is white in order for text to be easier to read as writing is size 11. The prospectus has 24 pages, gives more detail about the school. Varndean: prospectus is too childish, the colour scheme for each page is different and there is no consistency in presentation. Different blends of colours makes texts harder to read. Only a few amount of pictures – not enough visual images about the school. Audience students and parents. Parts of the prospectus states what the children who want to eb part of the school will discover when being in the school. Imformation presented in an imfromal way so its understandable for students. They don’t have huge junks of infmation as they get straight to the point.

Assisting The Health And Needs Of The Community Social Work Essay

Assisting The Health And Needs Of The Community Social Work Essay ACCV exists to promote, encourage and assist the health and care needs of the aged and community care clients and support its members in a professional and ethical manner, to provide accurate relevant information, services and advice and to provide leadership in the aged and community care sector. North Yarra Community Health aims to provide high quality and responsive programs and services to all members of our community. We work with people to overcome their experiences of disadvantage, discrimination and disempowerment. We respect peoples choices and support them to make informed decisions to prevent illness and promote their health and well being. We encourage active participation in our services and in the life of our community. Find out if your organization has a mission statement and write it here. If not, search in your community for a community development project and discover what other projects are using as their mission statement. Our mission is to provide individualised community services to Victorians who need short-term or long-term assistance with daily living activities. (Vista Community Support, Victoria) Assessment activity 2 Contact your local community centre or Neighbourhood House and find out whether they are currently working on a community development project. If so, what is it and how did they go about identifying this? The project is called Splinters and it is aimed at males from the sixteen to twenty-five year old age group. It is to provide disengaged males who are not participating in any form of ongoing education or employment the opportunity to learn woodwork skills. The aim is that the group will be able to develop two products, timber chicken coops and rabbit hutches, and if the products are developed to a high enough standard, then the participants will be encouraged to develop a plan, to market and sell the products. The project will run for sixteen weeks and the hopeful outcome is that the participants will have a sustainable opportunity for further development. The need for this project was identified by the high level of young males in the community estate with no direction in daily life. The community house staff witnessed a lack of positive activities for the group specified and the difficulties faced in attempting to engage with them. Local residents have reported that this targeted group is responsible for antisocial behaviour within the housing estate. Providing an opportunity for participation in the project will give the males the opportunity to disengage from antisocial behaviour. Assessment activity 3 Values and assumptions are inherent in all of us. Identify at least 2 values that you hold and discuss how these might affect the way you work. The first personal value that I will identify is honesty. I find that honesty is one of the most basic personal core values. One quote that I have always followed is Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity. (W. Clement Stone) If we are honest in all facets of our life we will gain many more benefits for it. I consider honesty to mean the quality of being fair, truthful, and morally upright. If this is used in a work environment I find that I can gain the trust and respect of people that I work with and for. I endeavour to try and not doubt others, and I try to deal with them with good feelings. This often gives positive vibes to the other person. It enables them to modify their behavior and attitudes so we can be on a similar wavelength. It may be necessary to waiver depending on the circumstances as the level of honesty may have to be adapted depending on the p erson. Blunt and straightforward honesty can get in the way of a caring response or cooperative effort when you are working with people. Honesty is not about hurting feelings but trying to connect with a person or a situation. The second value that I can identify is justice. This means to me a level of fairness, especially in the way people are treated and decisions are made. Every person I work with deserves to be treated fairly and I expect the same for myself in the work environment. I know this is not a core value for some people and it can have a significant impact on me. I have to control my own values and work with what I have. I find that when my values clash in the work environment, I may still do a good job, but I probably will not feel good about it. On the other side of this dilemma, I find that if my work environment incorporates my core values, I am happier and more engaged, even if the work itself is difficult. My whole being is connected with what I am doing daily. If my job does not allow me to honour my core values, and there is no possible way to change this, then it would be time for me to consider alternatives that would meet my needs. At times, our values can get in the way of productive outcome by leading us to express ourselves aggressively or to dominate a discussion. These behaviours can lead to serious and potentially damaging conflicts between people. Finally I think that it would be naÃÆ' ¯ve to expect everyones values to be the same, as we all have had different backgrounds and experiences that make up our beliefs, so compromises need to be negotiated in the work place. Assessment activity 4 The local neighbourhood centre is planning on a community development project that plans to hold a number of multicultural lunches in an effort to bring together a number of isolated individuals from various ethnic backgrounds. Make a list of the issues you might need to consider before setting out on this project. Participants age groups eg. children / elders Racial backgrounds Awareness of cultural differences including fasting periods / celebrations Respect Dignity Religions Duty of Care Communication Personal core values and beliefs Racism Group conflict Transportation Supervision Cultural sensitivity Food considerations Staffing mix of females and males Understanding the different perspectives of time priorities participants may turn up late Assessment activity 5 Case study Stan has identified a need in his community to set up a work area where other folk in the community can gather with the aim to repair broken toys and to make new ones for the children in the district. Stan has a background in carpentry and believes he has the necessary knowledge and skills to take control over the project. He contacts the local Neighbourhood House and advertises in the local shops expressing his ideas. Stan is able to set up his group, mainly men, and after 6 months feels that the group is running quite successfully. However, a year later, Stan finds out that the initial funding is due to run out at the end of the 2 years, something he had forgotten about. What are some of the social and economic concerns that might affect the group long term? Money to continue funding the project The project needs to look at becoming self-sustaining. A project management team Employment Lowered self-esteem and empowerment Lack of knowledge/skills Empowerment Loss of project interest Social acceptance of project Participation Insurance Support from a larger organisation OHS Mental health Qualifications necessary eg. Red card Assessment activity 6 You have gone through the initial stages of consulting the community about the proposed project and you hear along the grape vine that there are some individuals who have impaired vision (ie. they are blind) and would like dearly to participate in the project. What mechanisms could you use to ensure that they receive all the necessary information about future meetings and events? Telephone Email used with assisted technology Compact disc / audio tape A newsletter sent out in Braille Voice mail Assessment activity 7 Often issues come up during the course of conversation. Sometimes the information shared is easily understood whilst at other times it is not. In the following statement, identify what you see the problem being, and how you would go about solving it. Mrs H wants to be involved with the local community development project working with young people who abuse drugs. She becomes friends with a young lad James, aged 18 years who is currently living on the streets. Mrs H invites James to come and stay at her house, which James would like to do, as he has been homeless for the last 5 years. However, James feels a little unsure about this and does not know what to do. What is the problem here? How would you deal with it? The first issue that struck me is that Mrs H has crossed the boundary of being a worker, whether it is in a voluntary or paid position. Mrs H would need to consider her own safety and the support networks necessary to have a person come and reside with her that has a history of drug abuse. Mrs H would need to under go some sort of training in this area to have the skills to deal with any arising issues and she would also need to arrange for a mentor for herself. As for James the issue of whether he is continuing his drug use would need to be looked at. James would also need individual support to overcome the issues he will face living with someone after being homeless for a significant amount of time. Giving James a home to live in is not the only issue that needs to be addressed, a holistically based approach to the situation needs to be implemented to avoid setting James up to fail. Assessment activity 8 An issue was identified, during the initial consultation process, indicating that a number of individuals from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds want to find out more about the Australian culture and language which they were having difficulties in understanding, What referrals or resources would be needed to meet these needs? Internet Language classes and programs Culturally Linguistically Specific Community Visitors Centres Community Service Organisations Books Community Centres Local Council Multi-cultural centres Community groups Church groups Informal workshops with other people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds Assessment activity 9 Give another example of duty of care, and how you would deal with it. Pam is a 24-year-old woman with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Pam lives in a group home where a picnic outing to the local park is being planned. Pams behaviour can be unpredictable, with her becoming verbally abusive and extremely loud in public places. As a staff member going on the outing I do owe a duty of care to the public. Pams behaviour may be embarrassing for the public but she does not present a danger to them. To exclude Pam from public outings would be far more damaging to her than any embarrassment caused to the public. Pam is reliant on our care service, where as the public can function independently. Therefore my duty of care is owed to Pam to meet her community access needs. Assessment activity 10 Through discussion with peers, family and friends, identify 2 issues that could become a community development project. What would be the next step in the process of putting one of these projects into action? In modern society some members of the community are living in accommodation that does not have surrounding gardens. This is particularly true for the elderly when they are living in aged care homes or units. The elderly that do not live in this sort of accommodation quite often live with family and feel that they cannot alter or participate in garden design or maintenance. A community garden offers the opportunity to belong and it is enjoyable to many of the aging population. The garden can bring together a diverse range of people who are committed to one goal, planning, building and maintaining a garden. Gardening brings the community together, rather than accelerate their segregation. The focus in todays world is all about global warming and sustainability. If communities do not come together and try and change modern practices that will affect the climate, the world will have long-term damage. Sustainability is the word that everyone needs to learn and adopt. The idea of educating in environmental sustainability needs to be addressed on the home front. This approach will bring together communities to learn about sustainable living at home and to equip them to teach others about these issues. Before any project can commence the community will have to be consulted on what they consider their needs to be. This can be achieved through a needs based analysis and the prioritising of community needs, but this has to be carefully monitored as wants, needs and rights can become confused while trying to address and identify issues. The community needs analysis will aim to clarify what the residents want, assess which needs and rights should be recognised and indicate which community facilities, services or programs can best meet these. Assessment activity 11 The capacity building approach focuses on the notion that community development works with the individual and not for the individual. What does this mean for you? In a community setting if a capacity building approach is not used, where appropriate, it can create a dependency on services to meet needs. If a person, a group or a community were able to achieve their goals, using their own strategies, it would deliver an overwhelming sense of empowerment for these people. It is a wonderful feeling to assist people with achieving desired outcomes and it gives me a feeling of self-worth. If the capacity building approach were not used, there would not be the employment opportunities in community work to assist people with the tools for success in their lives. Teamwork can deliver better results in my opinion, as it is using a combined knowledge base striving towards a common goal. Assessment activity 12 A community development project being undertaken by the local Aboriginal Health Service in outback South Australia is wanting to deliver a program called Getting the message across. The aim is to undertake a range of initiatives including an early intervention project that will target children as young as 8 years of age on anti-drug and harm minimisation messages. What other resources could be used to get the message across? Parents Schools Teachers Aboriginal Elders Peer groups Sporting idols Drug educators Role models People with real life experience Posters Books Comparison information with other Aboriginal groups DVDs Pamphlets Postcards Communication Cards Assessment activity 13 You have decided on the project you want to undertake. Write up a checklist of what you need to take into account in the initial stages of the planning process, for example who are you going to contact, how will you do this, what do you need to take into account before doing this, when will you undertake the start of the project. Clear objective Clear target group Brainstorm Who are the interested parties? Which clients will benefit from the project? How will the project be accomplished? Community meeting Public Notice announcements Community radio Written communication Participation Budget requirements Advertising Partnership opportunities Consultation after delivery of initial planning Undertake start of project after the bases, planning and participation is successfully completed Assessment activity 14 You are involved in a project called the Multicultural Drug Prevention Project. The principle behind it is the education, training and support of young people from culturally diverse backgrounds to undertake training in drug education as peer educators in the local community centre. What organizations could the project approach? Odyssey House Victoria The Odyssey Institute of Studies Training Unit are able to supply a diverse and comprehensive range of training options to organizations working with people who may present with drug and alcohol issues. Tranquilliser Recovery and New Existence (TRANX) Education and training sessions are provided in Victoria on request to doctors, nurses, alcohol and drug practitioners, community health practitioners, psychologists, youth workers and other health and welfare practitioners. Sessions are tailored to meet the specific needs of the organization. Topics include: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Treatment for benzodiazepine dependency à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Recognition of benzodiazepine dependency and information regarding safe use of benzodiazepines à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Providing a safe tranquilliser use message to people from culturally diverse backgrounds Uniting Care Moreland Hall Services are offered on a fee-for-service basis but special rates apply to charitable organizations and services, which are unfunded or have special needs. The Education and Training unit provides Alcohol and Other Drug training to a wide range of professional and community groups. This training may be tailored to meet particular needs through consultation with the group or it can be Competency Training designed to provide the target group with one of the National Alcohol and Other Drug Competencies as part of the Community Services training package. Youth Substance Abuse Service (YSAS) YSAS offers a wide range of training packages that can be customised to meet the needs of individual workers as well as the needs of services and organizations. YSAS trainers have extensive knowledge and experience in all areas related to young people and substance use. Depending on what is required, YSAS can offer more comprehensive professional development programs that range from single session seminars through a number of seminars that cover a range of subject areas. What issues would need to be considered? There are a number of issues to consider when forming this project. The first would be the selection of people who undergo the training. A commitment contract would need to be drawn up so that the young people follow through on the training and education supplied to them. The cultural groups selected will have to be interviewed to find their position on what isnt and what is acceptable as drug use. Different cultures can find some drugs acceptable for recreational use. The youth group will have to be made up of mixed genders to get their message across. Finally their personal life experiences will have an influence on their values so this needs to be addressed. Assessment activity 15 Case Study Men, especially Aboriginal men and those from other countries, rarely seek the help they need particularly when it comes to health issues. The local community centre along with community members decided to run an education session on mens health in general. Often the men wait and wait until the problem becomes unbearable. The aim of the project is to identify who would come along to the group. What sort of issues may arise, what issues are important to them and how would you get them there? Aboriginal men are less likely to address their health issues and this results in an increased presentation of secondary health issues. The reason for this neglect of health issues is because they are more likely to not feel empowerment within their communities because of limited education and employment opportunities, because of reduced authority and status, a loss of their traditional role in both society and family, as well as the loss of a sense of self worth. The result of these changes in their society can lead to despair, shame, and a sense of inadequacy. Aboriginal men do not allow themselves to be seen as weak, they feel a need to protect their privacy and for this; they deny any health problems to save face in their community. There needs to be considerations of gender, that is mens business, it will need to be a part of the program development. Aboriginal men are unlikely to seek advice or help from women when it concerns their health issues. To get the men to participate would be a process that would take time by informally mingling with them to build a rapport within the terms set down by local men. For the partnership to work with them an environment based on respect, trust, and equality needs to be established. This could involve meeting outside of the community center, for example at a Mens Shed or a fishing excursion, and during this time, use the opportunity to become familiar with them and learn about their issues. Assessment activity 16 Contact your local community house or Neighbourhood House and check whether they have any programs or projects incorporating the positive contribution of diversity in the community. If so, what are they? If not, what would you suggest in the way of an appropriate project? At the current time Ballarat is celebrating the Eureka Rebellion Uprising. This event gives the community a chance to celebrate freedom and diversity. The uprising at Eureka was the only armed civil uprising in Australia, to battle for democracy, fairness and freedom for people. The gold rush in Ballarat brought a flood of immigrants from around the world seeking liberty and freedom. The Ballarat African Association has identified the project as a way of making a positive contribution of diversity to the community. The association identified that the local diverse cultures in the area are undervalued and their contribution to society is often not given any recognition. To address this issue and promote the benefits of diversity, the association in conjuction with community organisations are aiming to make this project an annual event. The contibution to the music feastival will be delivered in the lead up to the event by establishing a community music, singing and dancing workshop. Professional artists will be used to train existing cultural performance groups and to create new ones. This iniative is aimed to gain the direct involvement of local young people and performers of different cultural backgrounds. The successful outcome will not only be an entertaining performance by a diverse group of people, but the development of relationships that will develop through the workshops and shared performances. This outcome will enhance peoples connection with their community and create a greater awareness and acceptance of Ballarats diversity. Assessment activity 17 As a community development worker, you will come across certain individuals who feel strongly about certain issues and biases and make judgemental comments towards others. How would you deal with this? My view is, that to end judgemental comments and bias it will take awareness, openness and practice on the behalf of the person who has limited vision. When dealing with people in the community it is really important not to take what they say, or how they say it, personally. It is not about me; it can be that the person has had a limited exposure to diversity. I would keep my communication neutral when conversing with the person. I am not there to judge the person, as I would be no different from them. The key to effective bias free communication is treating all people with respect and consideration regardless of other issues. Assessment tool 2 (AT2): Written / oral questions List 5 ways you can distribute information in your community about upcoming projects and relevant issues. Community notice board Flyers and pamphlets (individual drops to houses) Local newspaper Local radio Local television If you are in charge of a community initiative, how should you address people if they come to you wanting to talk about particular issues? The person in charge of a community initiative needs to be aware of the fact that you are in their community. The people in the community need to have input and ownership of initiatives or they will not fully support the programs implemented. There needs to be an evident benefit for them to overcome particular issues. The first thing to do is to treat people with the respect they deserve, listen intently and talk clearly to the person. The ability to treat people with honesty and integrity will be the foundation to a successful outcome. Just because you are in charge of an initiative this does not put you in a different class to people, you still have to be approachable to the people around you. All of this relates to have sound communication skills. Communication is the process of transferring a message between people using various methods. One skill is to make eye contact whether I am speaking or listening, to convey interest in the other person and what they are trying to say. Another strategy is to manifest a constructive attitude, as the attitude you have will have an impact on your interaction with other people. This attitude should involve being honest, patient, optimistic, sincere, respectful and accepting of others and their beliefs. Talking to the person is not effective if your body language does not match what you are trying to say. A conversation can stop before it starts, if your body language is saying you do not want to talk. Appropriate and clear language should be used, matched to the person you are communicating with. Using superior language would intimidate and confuse the person. An appropriate tone and volume can let the other person know that you mean what you say, have thought about what you are saying, and what you are saying is worth hearing. Using a propre tone helps ensure that the other person hears exactly what you are saying, and reduces possibilities for misunderstanding. Finally if you do not have effective listening skills the conversation will go no where. The other person may have some very important thoughts that you can learn from and use to develop the iniative further. Any input by interested parties can create a more successful outcome for all involved. What is the role of a mission statement? Think of some statements youve seen/heard. What did they mean to you and others in the community? The role of a mission statement is to identify the purpose and direction of an organization or company. The statement should guide the actions of the company or organization to provide a sense of direction, to make clear its overall goal and guide future decisions made. To the interested stakeholders outside of the company it will explain the intentions, priorities and values of the people inside of the group. If a mission statement does not address my core values and beliefs I would need to assess whether this is the right organisation to meet my needs. In the eyes of the community, mission statements will have no meaning if they are just ambiguous words that are not acted upon by the organization. What are some social, political and economic issues that might affect your community? Election of a new Prime Minister or Premier Inflation Unemployment Health Care Crime Immigration Interest Rates Poverty Homelessness Alcohol and Drug use Youth boredom Education Welfare Unskilled work force How can learning a new skill help someone to resolve personal issues? The chance to learn one new skill maybe all it takes to break a cycle. Its all about having the opportunity to use the new skills to address ongoing issues. Learning how to solve problems is a very useful tool in understanding and solving difficult situations. If we look at young children they have very limited problem-solving skills. Young children do not have the maturity to understand that solving problems is a social skill and that it is one of the most important life skills. As we develop we should develop this skill but some people are not shown techniques to achieve this in life. Solving problems is also about finding solutions to personal issues. If someone came to you with a problem that stemmed from beliefs different to your own, how would you help them? I would empathize with the other person, as it is a good way to show respect for others and their beliefs. If I am sensitive to his feelings I will develop an understanding of why they think and act as they do. It is important to think before you speak and be polite, as you do not wish to hurt the person with thoughtless words. I would not criticize the person for having beliefs different to my own. The fastest way to lose a relationship is to criticise what a person thinks is right or the beliefs they hold. Communication is all about building bridges instead of walls by genuinely appreciating the good that you see in others and showing respect to his ideas no matter how different his beliefs are from yours. I understand that everyone I meet is unique. Individuals from the same culture dont always share the same point of view and beliefs. The best way to approach this is by showing respect to what others think by respecting who they are and where they came from. I listen to what other people have to say, even if I dont agree. The best way to show respect to others belief is to listen to what they share with you. It can be surprising what new things youll learn from them. It will not only improve my listening skills, but I will also gain their trust and respect. Imagine you have set up a community group where each member speaks English apart from one. How would you enable this person to be an active member of the group? This person can participate in all facets of the group, especially if a buddy system is implemented to make their participation easier and by incorporating strategies to make the group socially inclusive. Good communication is the foundation of successful relationships, but people seem to rely mainly on communicating with words. Nonverbal communication, or body language can include our facial expressions, gestures, eye contact, posture, and even the tone of our voice. For this reason nonverbal communication is a vital form of communication. When we interact with others, we continuously give and receive countless wordless signals. The way you listen, look, move, and react tell the other person whether or not you care and how well youre listening. The nonverbal signals you send can produce a sense of interest, trust, and desire for connection. The human face is extremely expressive and able to express countless emotions without saying a word. And unlike some forms of nonverbal communication, facial expressions are universal. The facial expressions for happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, and disgust are the same across cultures. With the inclusion of visual aids to assist with body language

How Fitzgerald Controls readers reaction To Gatsby in The Great Gatsby

Fitzgerald delays the introduction of Gatsby until fairly late in the novel. This emphasizes the theatrical quality of Gatsby's approach to life, which is an important part of his personality. Gatsby has literally created his own character. As his relentless quest for Daisy demonstrates, Gatsby has an extraordinary ability to transform his hopes and dreams into reality, at the beginning of the novel, he appears to the reader just as he desires to appear to the world. We hear of Gatsby through Nick, and in a sense his reputation precedes him. Fitzgerald propels the novel forward through the early chapters by shrouding Gatsby's background and the source of his wealth in mystery. Fitzgerald uses Nick as a puppet and, because of this we first hear Nick?s feelings towards Gatsby in chapter one. Nick is looking back into the past at this point, and how he perceives him since he first met him. Nick says, ?Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have unaffected scorn? and at this point in the novel, Fitzgerald makes sure we don?t understand what Nick is talking about. He then drip feeds us more information throughout the book, but this gives a very mysterious impression of Gatsby. What shouldn?t we like about him? We haven?t even met him yet. Fitzgerald then controls Nick to say, ?If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the ?creative temperament? ? it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romanti... ...ross just as he would like to be perceived at the start of the novel. As his relentless quest for Daisy demonstrates, Gatsby has an extraordinary ability to transform his hopes and dreams into reality. This talent for self-invention is what gives Gatsby his quality of ?greatness?: indeed, the title ?The Great Gatsby? is reminiscent of names for such magicians as ?The Great Houdini? and ?The Great Blackstone,? suggesting that the persona of Jay Gatsby is a masterful illusion. As the novel progresses and Fitzgerald deconstructs Gatsby?s self-presentation, Gatsby reveals himself to be an innocent, hopeful young man who stakes everything on his dreams, not realizing that his dreams are unworthy of him. Gatsby invests Daisy with an idealistic perfection that she cannot possibly attain in reality and pursues her with a passionate zeal that blinds him to her limitations.

Communism Vs Democracy :: Essays Papers

Communism Vs Democracy â€Å"The Old Man and The Sea† Essay Ernest Hemingway, in The Old Man and The Sea, wrote a book about a man with little wealth and little friends, but this man has a very high goal, which he wants to accomplish even if it means he might die in the process. In this story Ernest Hemingway describes struggles between life and death. Those struggles still exist in life today, and people from all over the world try to face them day in and day out. Struggles and obstacles in life are different for everyone. Some overcome them, some fail, but most at least try and succeed in getting the one thing they really want, their goal in life. Santiago is the name of that man which Ernest Hemingway describes in the story. Santiago is an old fisherman, who has nothing left except his strength and a boat with a harpoon and fishing wire. The obstacles that Santiago faces are unlike any that most people in this world are facing now. His obstacles are so close to death that it is unimaginable to an ordinary person. Santiago faces them with no ease, but he faces them for no fame or glory. He faces them because of his pride. A person cannot have pride for accomplishing nothing in life. A person has pride when they achieve something so great in their life that you are proud of your own accomplishment, and that something is a persons’ goal. Santiago’s goal is to catch â€Å"The Fish† of his life. That fish is his life and he will do anything to accomplish it. A person has to achieve his goal in order to have pride in them selves. Pride means everything and nothing to people. To some it’s a way of life, t o some it’s something that matters so little that they would rather skip it and do something else. Those people that really do care about their goals, they are successive in life, because they planned and went ahead with their dreams. Those that through out every single opportunity that they got to even try to succeed on it, or just never bothered to try are probably in a shelter for the poor. Without goals there are no dreams, without dreams there is no hope, and with out hope there is no life. Ernest Hemingway used very clever ways to compare life and death between one thing.

Civil Liberties Essay -- Government Politics USA Essays

Civil Liberties After September 11, 2001, in the United States of America, many aspects of our daily lives have changed. One notable change has been the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Many bills are being drafted to ensure the safety of the United States. We, as Americans, are going to have to sacrifice many of our civil liberties due to this tragic event. There are many good reasons why these bills are being drafted, but there are also negative effects such as the loss of civil rights. One particular bill being drafted is the USA PATRIOT Act. The USA PATRIOT Act puts the CIA back in the business of spying on Americans. It permits a vast array of information gathering on U.S. citizens from financial transactions, school records, Internet activity, telephone conversations, information gleaned from grand jury proceedings and criminal investigations to be shared with the CIA (and other non-law enforcement officials) even if it pertains to Americans. Most importantly, the information w ould be shared without a court order. While there is a need to shut down the financial resources used to further acts of terrorism, this legislation goes beyond its stated goal of combating international terrorism and instead reaches into innocent customers’ personal financial transactions. If the USA PATRIOT Act becomes a law, financial institutions would monitor daily financial transactions even more closely and be required to share information with other federal agencies, including foreign intelligence agencies such as the CIA. Section 358 requires that, in addition to law enforcement, intelligence agencies would also receive suspicious activity reports. These reports are usually about wholly domestic transactions of people in the United States, and do not relate to foreign intelligence information. In addition, Section 358 would allow law enforcement and intelligence agencies to get easy access to individual credit reports in secret. There would be no judicial review and no notice to the person to whom the rec ords relate. Through these provisions, the CIA would be put back in the business of spying on Americans, and law enforcement and intelligence agencies would have a range of personal financial information without ever showing good cause as to why such information is relevant to a particular investigation. Since September 11, Federal, state, and... ... at odds. Law enforcement authorities already have great leeway under current law to investigate suspects in terrorist attacks – including broad authority to monitor telephone and Internet communications. In fact, under current law, judges have rejected only three federal or state criminal wiretap requests in the last decade.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"This is a country that understands that people have fundamental God-given rights and liberties and our government is constituted to protect those rights. We cannot – in our efforts to bring justice – diminish those liberties,† said Sen. George Allen, R-Va., in a statement responding to the terrorist attacks. â€Å"Clearly this is not a simple, normal criminal case. This is an act of war, and those rules of warfare may apply. But here at home and domestically, we need to make sure that we’re not tempted to abrogate any civil rights such as habeas corpus, protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, the freedom of expression and peaceable assembly, or freedom of religion.† Sources Cited: 1. www.aclu.org, The American Civil Liberties Union, 2001 2. www.corpwatch.org, CorpWatch, 2001 3. www.msnbc.com, MSNBC Terms and Conditions, 2001

Environment Pollution Essay

As you know, China is well known on its 5000 years history, and it’s also famous for producing poisonous food and the worst environment pollution. Living in a developing country, Chinese develop industry and handicraft industry, and making money as much as they can. Compare with environment pollution, Chinese business man more care about how much money they could make per day. There are millions of factories in China mainland. And thousands of factories are being built right now. Before factories were built, owner or designer usually choose the factory location which nearby the river or lake. Locals usually drink and take water from the river or lake. Some rivers even provide water to several cities. Usually, an industry factory could produce poisonous waste water 350 m? /h and exhaust gas or smog 14000m? /h. But each factory could treat poisonous waste water 30m? /h. that means over 300m? /h poisonous waste water cannot be treated and be discharged into river or lake. In each factory, the equipment for exhaust treatment is required, but the most factories discharge exhaust treatment into air without treatment. Industry community usually is the high incidence area of cancer and oaf. Animals which are living nearby or living in the rivers and lakes, are bigger or with strange appearance. Farmers who are local, usually take water from river or lack for irrigation and raising livestock. Locals get disease on drinking poisonous water, eating poisonous food, and breathing in seriously polluted area. In China, living healthier become people’s dream and hope. Everybody hopes long live and having a healthy life. Over 70% Chinese are not covered by health insurance, and medical bill is going higher and higher, over 85% locals cannot handle it. People usually stay at home and wait for death when they get disease. Living in polluted area make people more worry about their descendants. People start to move to foreign country for a better environment. Let descendants have a chance to live in a healthier living environment also become their goal.

Digital Cinema

Scott McQuire Millennial fantasies As anyone interested in film culture knows, the last decade has witnessed an explosion of pronouncements concerning the future of cinema. Many are fuelled by naked technological determinism, resulting in apocalyptic scenarios in which cinema either undergoes digital rebirth to emerge more powerful than ever in the new millennium, or is marginalised by a range of ‘new media’ which inevitably include some kind of broadband digital pipe capable of delivering full screen ‘cinema quality’ pictures on demand to home consumers.The fact that the doubleedged possibility of digital renaissance or death by bytes has coincided with celebrations of the ‘centenary of cinema’ has undoubtedly accentuated desire to reflect more broadly on the history of cinema as a social and cultural institution. It has also intersected with a significant transformation of film history, in which the centrality of ‘narrative’ as th e primary category for uniting accounts of the technological, the economic and the aesthetic in film theory, has become subject to new questions.Writing in 1986 Thomas Elsaesser joined the revisionist project concerning ‘early cinema’ to cinema’s potential demise: ‘A new interest in its beginnings is justified by the very fact that we might be witnessing the end: movies on the big screen could soon be the exception rather than the rule’. 1 Of course, Elsaesser’s speculation, which was largely driven by the deregulation of television broadcasting in Europe in conjunction with the emergence of new technologies such as video, cable and satellite in the 1980s, has been contradicted by the decade long cinema boom in the multiplexed 1990s. It has also been challenged from another direction, as the giant screen ‘experience’ of large format cinema has been rather unexpectedly transformed from a bit player into a prospective force. However , in the same article, Elsaesser raised another issue which has continued to resonate in subsequent debates: Scott McQuire, ‘Impact Aesthetics: Back to the Future in Digital Cinema? ‘, Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, vol. 6, no. 2, 2000, pp. 41-61.  © Scott McQuire. All rights reserved.Deposited to the University of Melbourne ePrints Repository with permission of Sage Publications . 2 Few histories fully address the question of why narrative became the driving force of cinema and whether this may itself be subject to change. Today the success, of SF as a genre, or of directors like Steven Spielberg whose narratives are simply anthology pieces from basic movie plots, suggest that narrative has to some extent been an excuse for the pyrotechnics of IL;M. 3 Concern for the demise, if not of cinema per se, then of narrative in cinema, is widespread in the present.In the recent special ‘digital technology’ issue of Screen, Sean Cubitt noted a ‘common intuition among reviewers, critics and scholars that something has changed in the nature of cinema — something to do with the decay of familiar narrative and performance values in favour of the qualities of the blockbuster’. 4 Lev Manovich has aligned the predominance of ‘blockbusters’ with ‘digital cinema’ by defining the latter almost entirely in terms of increased visual special effects: ‘A visible sign of this shift is the new role which computer generated special effects have come to play in the Hollywood industry in the last few years.Many recent blockbusters have been driven by special effects; feeding on their popularity’. 5 In his analysis of Hollywood’s often anxious depiction of cyberspace in films such as The Lawn Mower Man (1992), Paul Young argues that ‘cyberphobic films overstress the power of the visual in their reliance on digital technology to produce spectacle at the exp ense of narrative’, and adds this is ‘a consequence that [Scott] Bukatman has argued is latent in all special effects’. A more extreme (but nevertheless common) view is expressed by film maker Jean Douchet: ‘[Today] cinema has given up the purpose and the thinking behind individual shots [and narrative], in favour of images — rootless, textureless images — designed to violently impress by constantly inflating their spectacular qualities’. 7 ‘Spectacle’, it seems, is winning the war against ‘narrative’ all along the line.Even a brief statistical analysis reveals that ‘special effects’ driven films have enjoyed enormous recent success, garnering an average of over 60% of the global revenue taken by the top 10 films from 1995-1998, compared to an average of 30% over the previous four years. 8 Given that the proportion of box office revenue taken by the top 10 films has held steady or increased slightl y in the context of a rapidly expanding total market, this indicates that a handful of special-effects films are generating huge revenues each year.While such figures don’t offer a total picture of the film industry, let alone reveal which films which will exert lasting cultural influence, they do offer a snapshot of contemporary cultural taste refracted through studio marketing budgets. Coupled to the recent popularity of paracinematic forms, such as large format and special venue films, the renewed emphasis on ‘spectacle’ over ‘narrative’ suggests another possible end-game for 3 inema: not the frequently prophesied emptying of theatres made redundant by the explosion of home-based viewing (television, video, the internet), but a transformation from within which produces a cinema no longer resembling its (narrative) self, but something quite other. Complementing these debates over possible cinematic futures is the fact that any turn to spectacular f ilm ‘rides’ can also be conceived as a return — whether renaissance or regression is less clear — to an earlier paradigm of film-making famously dubbed the ‘cinema of attraction’ by Tom Gunning.Gunning long ago signalled this sense of return when he commented: ‘Clearly in some sense recent spectacle cinema has re-affirmed its roots in stimulus and carnival rides, in what might be called the Spielberg-Lucas-Coppola cinema of effects’. 9 For Paul Arthur, developments in the 1990s underline the point: The advent of Imax 3-D and its future prospects, in tandem with the broader strains of a New Sensationalism, provide an occasion to draw some connections with the early history of cinema and the recurrent dialectic between the primacy of the visual and, for lack of a better term, the sensory. 0 In what follows here, I want to further consider the loops and twists of these debates, not so much with the grand ambition of resolving them, b ut firstly of adding some different voices to the discussion — particularly the voices of those involved in film production. 11 My intention is not to elevate empiricism over theory, but to promote dialogue between different domains of film culture which meet all too rarely, and, in the process, to question the rather narrow terms in which ‘digital cinema’ has frequently entered recent theoretical debates.Secondly, I want to consider the relation between ‘narrative’ and ‘spectacle’ as it is manifested in these debates. My concern is that there seems to be a danger of confusing a number of different trajectories — such as cinema’s on-going efforts to demarcate its ‘experience’ from that of domestic entertainment technologies, and the turn to blockbuster exploitation strategies —and conflating them under the heading of ‘digital cinema’.While digital technology certainly intersects with, and si gnificantly overlaps these developments, it is by no means co-extensive with them. ‘Spectacular sounds’: cinema in the digital domain Putting aside the inevitable hype about the metamorphosis of Hollywood into ‘Cyberwood’, like many others I am convinced that digital technology constitutes a profound revolution in cinema, primarily because of its capacity to cut across all 4 sectors of the industry simultaneously, affecting film production, narrative conventions and audience experience.In this respect, the only adequate point of reference for the depth and extent of current changes are the transformations which took place with the introduction of synchronised sound in the 1920s. However, while the fundamental level at which change is occurring is widely recognised, it has been discussed primarily in terms of the impact of CGI (computer-generated imaging) on the film image. A more production-oriented approach would most likely begin elsewhere; with what Phil ip Brophy has argued is among ‘the most overlooked aspects of film theory and criticism (both modern and postmodern strands)’ — sound. 2 A brief flick through recent articles on digital cinema confirms this neglect: Manovich locates ‘digital cinema’ solely in a historical lineage of moving pictures; none of the articles in the recent Screen dossier mention sound, and even Eric Faden’s ‘Assimilating New Technologies: Early Cinema, Sound and Computer Imaging’ only uses the introduction of synchronised sound as an historical analogy for discussing the contemporary effect of CGI on the film image13. While not entirely unexpected, this silence is still somewhat urprising, given the fact that digital sound technology was adopted by the film industry far earlier and more comprehensively than was CGI. And, at least until the early 1990s with films like Terminator 2 (1991) and Jurassic Park (1993), the effect on audience experience was arg uably far greater than was digital imaging. Dominic Case [Group Services and Technology Manager at leading Australian film processor Atlab] argued in 1997: I am more and more convinced that the big story about film technology as far as audiences are concerned in the past few years has been sound.Because, although you can do fancy digital things, the image remains glued to that bit of screen in front of your eyes, and it’s not really any bigger†¦ But the sound has gone from one woolly sound coming from the back of the screen with virtually no frequency range or dynamic range whatsoever †¦ to something that fills the theatre in every direction with infinitely more dynamic range and frequency range. To me, that’s an explosion in experience compared to what you are seeing on the screen.However, the visual bias of most film theory is so pervasive that this transformation often passes unremarked. Part of the problem is that we lack the necessary conceptual armature : there are no linkages which pull terms such as 5 ‘aural’ or ‘listener’ into the sort of semantic chain joining spectacle and spectator to the adjective ‘spectacular’. Film sound-mixer Ian McLoughlin notes: Generally speaking, most people are visually trained from birth. †¦ Very few people are trained to have a aural language and, as a result there isn't much discussion about the philosophy of the sound track. .. There has been very, very little research done into the psycho-acoustic effects of sound and the way sound works sociologically on the audience. 14 Compounding this absence is the fact that the digital revolution in sound is, in many respects, the practical realisation of changes initiated with the introduction of Dolby Stereo in 1975. (On the other hand, the fact that CGI entered a special effects terrain already substantially altered by techniques of motion control, robotics and animatronics didn’t prevent critical atten tion to it. Four-track Dolby stereo led to a new era of sound experimentation beginning with films such as Star Wars (1977) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). As renowned sound mixer Roger Savage (whose credits include Return of the Jedi, 1983; Shine, 1996; and Romeo + Juliet, 1996) recalls: ‘Prior to that, film sound hadn’t changed for probably 30 years. It was Mono Academy †¦ Star Wars was one of the first films that I can remember where people started coming out of the theatre talking about the sound track’. 5 While narrative sound effects such as dialogue and music were still generally concentrated in the front speakers, the surround sound speakers became the vehicles for a new range of ‘spectacular’ sound effects. In particular, greater emphasis was given to boosting low frequency response, explicitly mirroring the amplified ambience of rock music. There was also greater attention given to the ‘spatialisation’ of di screte sound elements within the theatre.As Rich Altman has argued, these developments presented a significant challenge to one of the fundamental precepts of classical Hollywood narrative: the unity of sound and image and the subservience of sound effects to narrative logic: Whereas Thirties film practice fostered unconscious visual and psychological spectator identification with characters who appear as a perfect amalgam of image and sound, the Eighties ushered in a new kind of visceral identification, dependent on the sound system’s overt ability, through bone-rattling bass and unexpected surround effects, to cause spectators to vibrate — quite literally — with the entire narrative space.It is thus no longer the eyes, the ears and the brain that alone initiate identification and maintain contact with a sonic 6 source; instead, it is the whole body that establishes a relationship, marching to the beat of a different woofer. Where sound was once hidden behind t he image in order to allow more complete identification with the image, now the sound source is flaunted, fostering a separate sonic identification contesting the limited rational draw of the image and its characters. 16 Altman’s observation is significant in this context, inasmuch as it suggests that the dethroning of a certain model of narrative cinema had begun prior to the digital threshold, and well before the widespread use of CGI.It also indicates the frontline role that sound took in the film industry’s initial response to the incursions of video : in the 1980s the new sound of cinema was a primary point of differentiation from domestic image technologies. However, while Dolby certainly created a new potential for dramatic sound effects, in practice most film makers remained limited by a combination of logistical and economic constraints. In this respect, the transition to digital sound has been critical in creating greater latitude for experimentation within e xisting budget parameters and production time frames. In terms of sound production, Roger Savage argues: ‘The main advantages in digital are the quality control, the speed and the flexibility’. This is a theme which is repeated with regard to the computerisation of other areas of film making such as picture editing and CGI. ) Enhanced speed, flexibility and control stem from a reduction in the need for physical handling and a refinement of precision in locating and manipulating individual elements. In sound production, libraries of analogue tape reels each holding ten minutes of sound have given way to far more compact DAT tapes and hard drive storage. The entire production process can now often be realised on a single digital workstation. There is no need for a separate transfer bay, and, since digital processing involves the manipulation of electronic data, there is no risk of degrading or destroying original recordings by repeated processing.Once the sounds are catal ogued, digital workstations grant random access in a fraction of a second (eliminating tape winding time), and, unlike sprocket-based sound editing, all the tracks which have been laid can be heard immediately in playback. The creative pay-off is an enhanced ability to add complexity and texture to soundtracks. In terms of sound reproduction, the most marked change resulting from six track digital theatre systems is improved stereo separation and frequency response which assists better music reproduction in theatres — a change which goes hand in glove with the increased prominence that music and soundtracks have assumed in promoting and marketing films in recent years. 7The enhanced role of sound in cinema is even more marked for large format films which, because of their high level of visual detail, demand a correspondingly high level of audio detail. Ian McLoughlin (who, amongst many other things, shares sound mixing credits with Savage for the large-format films Africaâ₠¬â„¢s Elephant Kingdom, 1998 and The Story of a Sydney, 1999) comments: If you look at the two extremes of image technology, if you look at television, and then you look at something like Imax, the most interesting difference is the density of the sound track that is required with the size of the picture. When you’re doing a TV mix, you try to be simple, bold. You can’t get much in or otherwise it just becomes a mess.With 35mm feature films you're putting in 10, 20 times more density and depth into the sound track as compared to television, and †¦ when you go to Imax, you need even more. McLoughlin also makes a significant point concerning the use (or abuse) of digital sound: When digital first came out and people found that they could make a enormously loud sound tracks, everyone wanted enormously large sound tracks. †¦ Unfortunately some people who present films decided that the alignment techniques that companies like Dolby and THX have worked out arenâ₠¬â„¢t to their liking and they think audiences like a lot of sub-base and so they sometimes wind that up. †¦ [S]uddenly you’ve got audiences with chest cavities being punched due to the amount of bottom end. †¦Dolby and screen producers and screen distributors in America have actually been doing a lot of research into what they are calling the ‘annoyance factor’ of loud sound tracks. Because audiences are getting turned off by overly jarring, overly sharp, soundtracks. This comment is worth keeping in mind for two reasons. Firstly, it underlines the fact that the image is by no means the only vehicle for producing cinematic affect: in this sense, ‘impact aesthetics’ offers a more apt description of the trajectory of contemporary cinema than ‘spectacle’. Secondly, it warns against making hasty generalisations when assessing the long-term implications of CGI.While digital imaging undoubtedly represents a significant paradigm shif t in cinema, it is also feasible that the 1990s will eventually be seen more as a teething period of ‘gee whizz’ experimentation with the new digital toolbox, which was gradually turned towards other (even more ‘narrative’) ends. (The way we now look at early sound films is instructive: while contemporary audiences were fascinated by the mere 8 fact that pictures could ‘talk’, in retrospect we tend to give more weight to the way sound imposed new restrictions on camera movement, location shooting and acting style). Painting with light In contrast to the relative dearth of attention given to changes in areas such as sound and picture editing, digital manipulation of the film image has received massive publicity.While this is partly the result of deliberate studio promotion, it also reflects the profound changes in cinematic experience that computers have set in train. When we can see Sam Neil running from a herd of dinosaurs — in other wo rds, when we see cinematic images offering realistic depictions of things we know don’t exist — it is evident that the whole notion of photo-realism which has long been a central plank of cinematic credibility is changing. But how should this change be understood? Is it simply that ‘live action’ footage can now be ‘supplemented’ with CG elements which replace earlier illusionistic techniques such as optical printing, but leave cinema’s unique identity as an ‘art of recording’ intact? Or is a new paradigm emerging in which cinema becomes more like painting or animation?Lev Manovich has recently taken the latter position to an extreme, arguing that, ‘Digital cinema is a particular case of animation which uses live-action footage as one of its many elements’, and concluding: ‘In retrospect, we can see that twentieth century cinema’s regime of visual realism, the result of automatically recording visua l reality, was only an exception, an isolated accident in the history of visual representation†¦ ’. 17 While I suspect that Manovich significantly underestimates the peculiar attractions of ‘automatic recording’ (which produced what Walter Benjamin termed the photograph’s irreducible ‘spark of contingency’, what Barthes ontologised as the hotographic punctum), it is clear the referential bond linking camera image to physical object has come under potentially terminal pressure in the digital era. However, any consideration of ‘realism’ in cinema is immediately complicated by the primacy of fictional narrative as the dominant form of film production and consumption. Moreover, cinema swiftly moved from adherence to the ideal of direct correspondence between image and object which lay at the heart of classical claims to photographic referentiality. ‘Cheating’ with the order of events, or the times, locations and sett ings in which they occur, is second nature to film-makers. By the time cinema ‘came of age’ in the picture palace of the 1920s, a new logic of montage, shot matching and continuity had coalesced into the paradigm of 9 classical narrative’, and cinematic credibility belonged more to the movement of the text rather than the photographic moment — a shift Jean-Louis Commolli has neatly described in terms of a journey from purely optical to psychological realism. 18 Within this paradigm all imaginable tactics were permissible in order to imbue pro-filmic action with the stamp of cinematic authority — theatrical techniques such as performance, make-up, costumes, lighting and set design were augmented by specifically cinematic techniques such as stop motion photography and rear projection, as well as model-making and matte painting which entered the screen world via the optical printer.Given this long history of simulation, the digital threshold is perhaps best located in terms of its effect on what Stephen Prince has dubbed ‘perceptual realism’, rather than in relation to an abstract category of ‘realism’ in general. Prince argues: A perceptually realistic image is one which structurally corresponds to the viewer’s audio-visual experience of three-dimensional space †¦ Such images display a nested hierarchy of cues which organise the display of light, colour, texture, movement and sound in ways that correspond to the viewer’s own understanding of these phenomena in daily life. Perceptual realism, therefore, designates a relationship between the image on film and the spectator, and it can encompass both unreal images and those which are referentially realistic. Because of this, unreal images may be referentially fictional but perceptually realistic. 19I have emphasised Prince’s evocation of fidelity to ‘audio-visual experience’ because it underlines the extent to which t he aim of most computer artists working in contemporary cinema is not simply to create high resolution images, but to make these images look as if they might have been filmed. This includes adding various ‘defects’, such as film grain, lens flare, motion blur and edge halation. CG effects guru Scott Billups argues that film makers had to ‘educate’ computer programmers to achieve this end: For years we were saying: ‘Guys, you look out on the horizon and things get grayer and less crisp as they get farther away’. But those were the types of naturally occurring event structures that never got written into computer programs.They’d say ‘Why do you want to reduce the resolution? Why do you want to blur it? ’. 20 10 By the 1990s many software programs had addressed this issue. As Peter Webb (one of the developers of Flame) notes: Flame has a lot of tools that introduce the flaws that one is trained to see. Even though we donâ€℠¢t notice them, there is lens flare and motion blur, and the depth of field things, and, if you don’t see them, you begin to get suspicious about a shot. 21 In other words, because of the extent to which audiences have internalised the camera’s qualities as the hallmark of credibility, contemporary cinema no longer aims to mime ‘reality’, but ‘camera-reality’.Recognising this shift underlines the heightened ambivalence of realism in the digital domain. The film maker’s ability to take the image apart at ever more minute levels is counterpointed by the spectator’s desire to comprehend the resulting image as ‘realistic’ — or, at least, equivalent to other cine-images. In some respects, this can be compared to the dialectic underlying the development of montage earlier this century, as a more ‘abstract’ relation to individual shots became the basis for their reconstitution as an ‘organicâ€℠¢ text. But instead of the fragmentation and re-assemblage of the image track over time, which founded the development of lassical narrative cinema and its core ‘grammatical’ structures such as shot/reverse shot editing, digital technology introduces a new type of montage: montage within the frame whose prototype is the real time mutation of morphing. However, while ‘perceptual realism’ was achieved relatively painlessly in digital sound, the digital image proved far more laborious. Even limited attempts to marry live action with CGI, such as TRON (1982) and The Last Starfighter (1984) proved unable to sustain the first wave of enthusiasm for the computer. As one analyst observed: ‘The problem was that digital technology was both comparatively slow and prohibitively expensive. In fact, workstations capable of performing at film resolution were driven by Cray super-computers’. 2 It is these practical exigencies, coupled to the aesthetic disjunct ion separating software programmers from film makers I noted above, rather than a deeply felt desire to manufacture a specifically electronic aesthetic, which seems to underlie the ‘look’ of early CGI. 23 Exponential increases in computing speed, coupled to decreases in computing cost, not only launched the desktop PC revolution in the mid-1980s, but made CGI in film an entirely different matter. The second wave of CGI was signalled when Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) made morphing a household word. 24 Two 11 years later the runaway box-office success of Jurassic Park (1993) changed the question from whether computers could be effectively used in film making to how soon this would happen. The subsequent rash of CGI-driven blockbusters, topped by the billion dollar plus gross of Cameron’s Titanic (1997), has confirmed the trajectory.Cameron is one of many influential players who argue that cinema is currently undergoing a fundamental transformation: ‘Weà ¢â‚¬â„¢re on the threshold of a moment in cinematic history that is unparalleled. Anything you imagine can be done. If you can draw it, if you can describe it, we can do it. It’s just a matter of cost’. 25 While this claim is true at one level — many tricky tasks such as depicting skin, hair and water, or integrating CGI elements into live action images shot with a hand-held camera, have now been accomplished successfully — it is worth remembering that ‘realism’ is a notoriously slippery goal, whether achieved via crayon, camera or computer.Dennis Muren’s comments on his path-breaking effects for Jurassic Park (which in fact had only 5 to 6 minutes of CGI and relied heavily on models and miniatures, as did more recent ‘state of the art’ blockbusters such as The Fifth Element, 1997 and Dark City, 1998) bear repeating: ‘Maybe we’ll look back in 10 years and notice that we left things out that we didn’t kn ow needed to be there until we developed the next version of this technology’. Muren adds: In the Star Wars films you saw lots of X-wings fighters blow up, but these were always little models shot with high-speed cameras. You’ve never seen a real X-wing blow up, but by using CGI, you might just suddenly see what looks like a full-sized X-wing explode. It would be all fake of course, but you’d see the structure inside tearing apart, the physics of this piece blowing off that piece. Then you might look back at Star Wars and say, ‘That looks terrible’. 26Clearly, George Lucas shared this sentiment, acknowledging in 1997 that ‘I’m still bugged by things I couldn’t do or couldn’t get right, and now I can fix them’. 27 The massive returns generated by the ‘digitally enhanced’ Star Wars trilogy raises the prospect of a future in which blockbuster movies are not re-made with new casts, but perpetually updated w ith new generations of special effects. Stop the sun, I want to get off Putting aside the still looming question of digital projection, the bottom line in the contemporary use of digital technology in cinema is undoubtedly ‘control’: 12 particularly the increased control that film makers have over all the different components of image and sound tracks.Depending on a film’s budget, the story no longer has to work around scenes which might be hard to set up physically or reproduce photo-optically— they are all grist to the legions of screen jockeys working in digital post-production houses. George Lucas extols the new technology for enhancing the ability to realise directorial vision: I think cinematographers would love to have ultimate control over the lighting; they’d like to be able to say, ‘OK, I want the sun to stop there on the horizon and stay there for about six hours, and I want all of those clouds to go away. Everybody wants that kind of control over the image and the storytelling process. Digital technology is just the ultimate version of that. 28A direct result of digital imaging and compositing techniques has been an explosion of films which, instead of ‘fudging’ the impossible, revel in the capacity to depict it with gripping ‘realism’: Tom Cruise’s face can be ripped apart in real time (Interview with the Vampire, 1994), the Whitehouse can be incinerated by a fireball from above (Independence Day, 1996), New York can be drowned by a tidal wave, or smashed by a giant lizard(Deep Impact, Godzilla, 1998). But, despite Lucas’ enthusiasm, many are dubious about where the new primacy of special effects leaves narrative in cinema. The argument put forward by those such as Sean Cubitt and Scott Bukatman is that contemporary special effects tend to displace narrative insofar as they introduce a disjunctive temporality evocative of the sublime.Focusing on Doug Trumbull’s work, Bukatman emphasises the contemplative relationship established between spectator and screen in key effects scenes (a relationship frequently mirrored by on-screen characters displaying their awe at what they– and ‘we’ – are seeing. )29 Cubitt suggests that similar ‘fetishistic’ moments occur in songs such as Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend, where narrative progress gives way to visual fascination. His example is drawn from a strikingly similar terrain to that which inspired Laura Mulvey’s well-known thesis on the tension between voyeurism and scopophilia in classical narrative cinema: Mainstream film neatly combined spectacle and narrative. (Note, however, in the musical song-and-dance numbers break the flow of the diegesis).The presence of woman is an indispensable element of spectacle in normal narrative film, yet her visual presence tends to work against the development of a story line, to freeze the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation. 30 13 This connection was also made by Tom Gunning in his work on the early ‘cinema of attraction’: ‘As Laura Mulvey has shown in a very different context, the dialectic between spectacle and narrative has fueled much of the classical cinema’. 31 In this respect, a key point to draw from both Mulvey and Gunning is to recognise that they don’t conceive the relationship between spectacle and narrative in terms of opposition but dialectical tension. 32 This is something that other writers have sometimes forgotten.Presenting the issue in terms of an opposition (spectacle versus narrative) in fact recycles positions which have been consistently articulated (and regularly reversed) throughout the century. In the 1920s, avant-garde film makers railed against ‘narrative’ because it was associated primarily with literary and theatrical scenarios at the expense of cinematic qualities (Gunning begins his ‘Cine ma of Attraction’ essay with just such a quote from Fernand Leger). Similar concerns emerged with debates in France over auteur theory in the 1950s, where the literary qualities of script were opposed to the ‘properly cinematic’ qualities of mise-en-scene.In the 1970s, the ‘refusal of narrative’ which characterised much Screen theory of the period, took on radical political connotations. Perhaps as a reaction to the extremity of pronouncements by those such as Peter Gidal, there has been a widespread restoration of narrative qualities as a filmic ‘good object’ in the present. However, rather than attempting to resolve this split in favour of one side or the other, the more salient need is to examine their irreducible intertwining: what sort of stories are being told, and what sort of spectacles are being deployed in their telling? While it is easy to lament the quality of story-telling in contemporary blockbusters, few critics seriously maintain that such films are without narrative.A more productive framework is to analyse why explicitly ‘mythological’ films such as the Star Wars cycle have been able to grip popular imagination at this particular historical conjuncture, marrying the bare bones of fairy-tale narrative structures to the inculcation of a specific type of special effects driven viewing experience. (To some extent, ths is Bukatman’s approach in his analysis of special effects). In this context, it is also worth remembering that, despite the quite profound transformations set in train by the use of digital technology in film making, there has thus far been little discernible effect on narrative in terms of structure or genre. The flirtation with ‘non-linear’ and ‘interactive’ films was a shooting star which came and went with the CD-ROM, while most contemporary blockbusters conform smoothly to established cine-genres (sci-fi, horror, disaster and action- 14 dventure predominating), with a significant number being direct re-makes of older films done ‘better’ in the digital domain. One of the more interesting observations about possible trends in the industry is put forward by James Cameron, who has argued that digital technology has the potential to free film makers from the constraints of the ‘A’ and ‘B’ picture hierarchy: [I]n the ’40s you either had a movie star or you had a B-movie. Now you can create an A-level movie with some kind of visual spectacle, where you cast good actors, but you don’t need an Arnold or a Sly or a Bruce or a Kevin to make it a viable film. 33 However, Cameron himself throws doubt on the extent of this ‘liberation’ by underlining the industrial nature of digital film production. 4 In practice, any film with the budget to produce a large number of cutting edge special effects shots is inevitably sold around star participation, as well as specta cle (as were films such as The Robe, 1953 and Ben Hur, 1926). This point about the intertwining of narrative and spectacle is re-inforced if we look at developments in large-format film, an area frequently singled out for its over-dependence on screen spectacle to compensate for notoriously boring ‘educational’ narrative formats. Large-format (LF) cinema is currently in the throes of a significant transformation The number of screens worldwide has exploded in the last four years (between 1995 and January 1999, the global LF circuit grew from 165 to 263 theatres. By January 2001, another 101 theatres are due to open, taking the total to 364, an increase of 120% in 6 years).More significantly, the majority of new screens are being run by commercial operators rather than institutions such as science museums. These new exhibition opportunities, coupled to the box-office returns generated by films such as Everest (the 15th highest grossing film in the USA in 1998, despite ap pearing on only 32 screens) has created significant momentum in the sector for the production of LF films capable of attracting broader audiences. For some producers, this means attempting to transfer the narrative devices of dramatic feature films onto the giant screen, while others argue that the peculiarities of the medium means that LF needs to stick with its proven documentary subjects.However, most significantly in this context, none dispute the need for the sector to develop better narrative techniques if it is to grow and prosper, particularly by 15 attracting ‘repeat’ audiences. In many respects, the LF sector is currently in a similar position to cinema in the 1900s, with people going to see the apparatus rather than a specific film, and the ‘experience’ being advertised largely on this basis. While it would be simplistic to see current attempts to improve the narrative credentials of LF films as a faithful repetition of the path that 35mm cinema took earlier this century, since most production is likely to remain documentary-oriented, it would be equally as foolish to ignore the cultural and commercial imperatives which still converge around telling a ‘good story’. 5 Distraction and the politics of spectacle Despite the current rash of digitally-inspired predictions, narrative in film is unlikely to succumb to technological obsolescence. But nor will spectacle be vanquished by a miraculous resurgence of ‘quality’ stories. A corollary of a dialectical conception of the interrelationship between narrative and spectacle is that neither should be seen simply as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ objects in themselves. For Mulvey, spectacle (exemplified by close-ups which turn woman’s face and body into a fetish), as well as the more voyeuristic strategy of narrative, were both attuned to the anxious imagination of patriarchal culture in classical cinema.Both were techniques for negotiatin g the threat of castration raised by the image of woman, an image classical cinema simultaneously desired and sought to circumscribe or punish. Nevertheless, even within this heavily constrained context, ‘spectacle’ could also assume a radical function by ‘interrupting’ the smooth functioning of narrative, disturbing the rules of identification and the systematic organisation of the look within the text. (This is the gist of her comparison between the films of von Sternberg, which privilege a fetish image of Dietrich over narrative progress, and those of Hitchcock which more closely align the viewer with the male protagonist). Can spectacle still exert a ‘progressive’ function in contemporary cinema?While most critics answer this question negatively without even posing it, Paul Young is unusual in granting a measure of radical effect to the renewed primacy of spectacle. Young draws on Miriam Hansen’s account of the ‘productive ambi guity’ of early cinema, in which the lack of standardised modes of exhibition, coupled to reliance on individual attractions, gave audiences a relative freedom to interpret what they saw, and established cinema as (potentially) an alternative public sphere. He takes this as support for his argument that contemporary ‘spectacle’ cinema constitutes an emergent challenge to ‘Hollywood’s institutional identity’. 36 16 Young’s analysis contrasts markedly with Gunning’s earlier description of the ‘cinema of effects’ as ‘tamed attractions’. 7 Nevertheless both share some common ground: Young’s reference to the ‘productive ambiguity’ of early cinema, like Gunning’s rather oblique and undeveloped reference to the ‘primal power’ of attraction, draws nourishment from Siegfried Kracauer’s early writings on the concept of distraction. In the 1920s, Kracauer set up Ã¢â‚¬Ë œdistraction’ as a counterpoint to contemplation as a privileged mode of audience reception, seeing it as embodying a challenge to bourgeois taste for literary-theatrical narrative forms, and also as the most compelling mode of presentation to the cinema audience of their own disjointed and fragmented conditions of existence. 38 While distraction persisted as a category used by Walter Benjamin in his ‘Artwork’ essay of the mid1930s, by the 1940s Kracauer seemed to have revised his position.As Elsaesser has pointed out, this re-appraisal was at least partly a re-assessment of the ‘productive ambiguity’ which had characterised social spaces such as cinema; by the 1940s distraction and spectacle had been consolidated into socially dominant forms epitomised by Hollywood on the one hand and fascism on the other. 39 If Kracauer’s faith that the 1920s audience could symptomatically encounter ‘its own reality’ via the superficial glamour of movie stars rather than the putative substance of the era’s ‘high culture’ was already shaken by the 1940s, what would he make of the post-pop art, postmodern 1990s? The extent to which surface elements of popular culture have been esthetically ‘legitimated’ without any significant transformation of corresponding political and economic values suggests the enormous difficulties facing those trying to utilise spectacle as a ‘progressive’ element in contemporary culture. However, it is equally important to acknowledge that this problem cannot be resolved simply by appealing to ‘narrative’ as an antidote. While the terms remain so monolithic, the debate will not progress beyond generalities. In this respect, Kracauer’s work still offers some important lessons to consider in the present. Here, by way of conclusion, I want to sketch out a few possible lines of inquiry. On the one hand, his concept of the ‘mass orna ment’ indicates that any turn, or return, to spectacle in cinema needs to be situated in a wider social context. 0 Spectacle is not simply a matter of screen image, but constitutes a social relation indexed by the screen (something Guy Debord underlined in the 1960s). Developments in contemporary cinema need to be related to a number of other trajectories, including cinema’s on-going endeavours to distinguish its ‘experience’ 17 from that of home entertainment, as well as the proliferation of spectacle in social arenas as diverse as sport (the Olympic games), politics (the dominance of the cult of personality in all political systems) and war (the proto-typical ‘media-event’). On the other hand, the specific forms of spectacle mobilised in contemporary cinema need to be examined for the extent to which they might reveal (in Kracauer’s terms) the ‘underlying meaning of existing conditions’.Kracauer’s analysis of cinem a in the 1920s situated the popularity of a certain structure of viewing experience in relation to the rise of a new class (the white collar worker). In contemporary terms, I would argue that the relevant transformation is the process of ‘globalisation’. While this is a complex, heterogeneous and uneven phenomenon, a relevant aspect to consider here is Hollywood’s increasing reliance on overseas markets, both for revenue, and, more importantly, for growth. 41 In this context, the growing imperative for films to ‘translate’ easily to all corners and cultures of the world is answered by building films around spectacular action setpieces. Equally as ignificantly, the predominant themes of recent special effects cinema— the destruction of the city and the mutation or dismemberment of the human body — are symptomatic of the underlying tensions of globalisation, tensions exemplified by widespread ambivalence towards the socio-political effect s of speed and the new spatio-temporal matrices such as cyberspace. 42 The most important cinematic manifestations of these anxious fascinations are not realised at the level of narrative ‘content’ (although they occasionally make themselves felt there), but appear symptomatically in the structure of contemporary viewing experience. The repetition of awe and astonishment repeatedly evoked by ‘impossible’ images as the currency of today’s ‘cutting edge’ cinema undoubtedly functions to prepare us for the uncertain pleasures of living in a world we suspect we will soon no longer recognise: it is not simply ‘realism’ but ‘reality’ which is mutating in the era of digital economy and the Human Genome Project.If this turn to spectacle is, in some respects, comparable to the role played by early cinema in negotiating the new social spaces which emerged in the industrial city remade by factories and department stores, el ectrification and dynamic vehicles, it also underscores the fact that the ‘death’ of camera realism in the late twentieth century is a complex psycho-social process, not least because photo-realism was always less an aesthetic function than a deeply embedded social and political relation. 43 18 Finally, I would argue that it is important not to subsume all these filmic headings under the single rubric of ‘digital’. There is a need to acknowledge, firstly, that digital technology is used far more widely in the film industry than for the production of blockbusters and special effects (for example, it is the new industry standard in areas such as sound production and picture editing).Moreover, as Elsaesser has argued recently, technology is not the driving force: ‘In each case, digitisation is ‘somewhere’, but it is not what regulates the system, whose logic is commercial, entrepreneurial and capitalist-industrialist’44 What the digit al threshold has enabled is the realignment of cinema in conformity with new demands, such as ‘blockbuster’ marketing blitzes constructed around a few spectacular image sequences of the kind that propelled Independence Day to an US$800m gross. It has rejuvenated cinema’s capacity to set aesthetic agendas, and, at the same time, restored its status as a key player in contemporary political economy. In this context, one aspect of the digital threshold deserves further attention. In the 1990s, product merchandising has become an increasingly important part of financing the globalised film industry.While some would date this from Star Wars, Jurassic Park offers a more relevant point of reference: for the first time, audiences could see on screen, as an integral part of the filmic diegesis, the same commodities they could purchase in the cinema foyer. As Lucie Fjeldstad (then head of IBM’s multimedia division) remarked at the time (1993) : ‘Digital conten t is a return-on-assets goldmine, because once you create Terminator 3, the character, it can be used in movies, in theme-park rides, videogames, books, educational products’. 45 Digital convergence is enacted not simply in the journey from large screen to small screen: the same parameters used in designing CG characters for a film can easily be transmitted to off-shore factories manufacturing plastic toys.